Chris Squire Quotes

It depends on various things like if the promoters want to have a break so they can sell more T-shirts and booze, then they ask if we can do an interval. I personally prefer not to do that. Once you get onstage, I like to stay there.

We did do the whole of the live suite from ‘Fly From Here,’ and that was very enjoyable to do. In fact, that is actually our longest piece of music, I think, that we’d ever done.

In many ways, I think about the possibility that there could still be a Yes in 100 or 200 years from now, just like a live symphony orchestra.

I would work with Trevor Horn any day of the week. I have a great relationship with him.

The Seventies were just an interesting time for us because we were building the brand of the name but also varying the style of the music on each of the albums we did. Very creative time of us.

Everyone enjoys downtime at home, I’m sure, for various reasons, but I find the whole system of being out there and doing shows for people – the more of it you do, in fact the more energizing it is, for me individually.

‘Close to the Edge‘ is the album where we first attempted to do the extra-long-form piece of music, having one song taking up the whole side of a piece of vinyl.

I know I always worked hard on making sure we came out with the best possible product and of course we were working with four other people, you have to balance that as well.

After awhile, you start realizing that change is good for you. It’s healthy.

Persistence is a pretty important part of making it in this business, which, in retrospect, is the easy part. Maintaining a profile is the difficult part of the job. Somehow or another, I muddled through that system and somehow am around to still enjoy playing for people.

Steve Howe met Paul Simon and said that Paul was very approving of our version of ‘America.’

Touring is a tough business.

I think what the story of Yes has been is we’ve wandered in and out of different styles over the years.

In many ways I think ‘Fly From Here’ is a return to classic Yes; people seem to have been really enjoying it, integrated into the set along with the old material.

Because of all the various people who‘ve come in and out and brought along ideas, I’ve been on a learning curve throughout all these years. Of course, everyone that’s been involved has influenced me as well. And I’m grateful for that.

‘90125’ was our biggest-selling album worldwide.

All movies, when they’re about the music business, tend to have a bit of a wide latitude in terms of how things really were.

There’s been talk of YES possibly doing something on Broadway in New York. People have approached me with that idea, and there are discussions about that.

‘Onward‘ was a song I wrote in Montreux, in Switzerland, when we were there camping out for the whole winter. In the summer, Montreux is a really, really big summertime-touristy, full-of-life kind of place. In the winter, it closes down.

There’s always the joy of the performance and fine-tuning new interpretations. Over the years, we’ve all grown as musicians, so obviously there is a lot of subtlety that wasn’t there in the first place.

We’ve done very different Yes albums – 11 bars, 13. I think we had something that had 17/4 in it. It’s just like anything – the more you do it, the more you have to do it.

I hope, after I’m gone, there will still be a Yes.

With how huge Yes was, especially in the ’70s and ’80s, as a touring band and actually playing at the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia to 130,000 people, which is the biggest-paying show ever in rock history, you would think we’d done enough for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I guess I’ve become very accustomed to playing in the 7/4, which is something we’ve done quite a lot.

The band will be going along, and somebody or another will say, ‘I want to go off and do a solo career.’… They come back, and other people come in.

A nightmare is two bassists on stage.

I really believe that the aliens are us from the future. It seems to me a very plausible reason that explains a lot of phenomena as opposed to green men with one eye from outer space.

I think the first three Rickenbacker basses were imported around 1964. Pete Quaife, the bassist for The Kinks, bought one. Then John Entwistle from The Who bought one. As for the third one, I asked the manager of the store if I could get an employee discount. He said I could, and so I picked up that one.

I think I’ll not attempt to do a ‘Fish Out Of Water 2.’

Philly has always been one of our favorite towns to play in, and the fans have been very loyal and very supportive over the years.

You’re only as big as your last hit.

I couldn’t get session work because most musicians hated my style.

I wouldn’t object to working with any former member of Yes, really.

Of course, Paul McCartney‘s sound is different from mine, but it’s the way you hear things, really.

I think partly the problem with Yes – and I’ve had this discussion with people from the Hall of Fame in the past – is that it’s going to be difficult to decide how many of the members of Yes you’re gonna put in it and how many you’re not because of the extensive membership of the band through the years.

The fact I’ve been in every lineup of Yes has been more by default than design.

Jon Anderson and I, we really liked a lot of classical music, and we wanted to get some orchestral arrangements going on ‘Time And A Word.’

I guess the idea of doing albums in their entirety, in sequence, appeals to people. I guess it’s the memory of being able to hear the music in the way it was originally presented.

I think it was ‘Tales of Topographic Oceans‘ on 8-track that was the funniest thing because it would fade out in the middle of a song and fade back in again, and when the tracks change, it was quite amusing.

It’s not beyond the possibility that there still could be a YES in 200 years’ time… of course with different members, unless the medical profession comes up with something extraordinary.

Over the years, Yes actually made 20 albums of original studio material.

The way Yes works is when we have a new member come in, as in Jon Davison, it’s appropriate that we see what differences we can get out of a new contributing member in order to keep Yes interesting.

Being called a ‘music legend‘ is a very funny thing. It’s nice to know that my work has been appreciated and that people have given me that status. On a personal level, however, I can’t think about it too much. It means a lot… but then it doesn’t.

Back in the day, the album was king in many ways. And, of course, we were very tied in with the birth of FM/college radio in the States, and what we were doing suited the format of those young radio stations.