Steve Howe laughs when asked what it is that keeps playing in Yes fresh and interesting for him. The guitarist has been a member of Yes for most of the years since 1970; he’s the closest thing the British progressive group has to an original member. The band has embarked on dozens of tour, released a long string of highly acclaimed albums, and endured more than its share of personnel changes, break-ups, fractional reunions and reformations. One might suggest that Yes has endured a great deal of drama (its 1980 album even bore that title).

But Howe has an answer at the ready. “My enthusiasm, mainly,” he says. “My determination to keep immersing myself in this great music. It’s very popular and it’s got a lot of my bits that I wrote in it.” And in recent years, Yes has made a point of changing up its set lists, sometimes building entire concerts around straight readings of its classic albums. Recent tours have showcased The Yes Album and Fragile (both 1971), Close to the Edge (1972), Going for the One (1977), Drama, and half of the 1973 double-album Tales from Topographic Oceans.

“Our recent album series was great,” Howe says. “If there wasn’t purpose behind [each tour], if there wasn’t an idea, it might be rather flat. But for me, there’s always an idea in my head that we’re doing Yes in a certain way, to a certain level of perfection … maybe a new level of perfection. And all those things interest me.”

Howe readily admits that when he joined the group — replacing original guitarist Peter Banks — in 1970, he had no idea how long Yes would remain together, much less how long he would be in the band. “That could have been pure guesswork, anyway,” he says. “Nobody knows the future.” He admits that after the release of Drama, he felt that the group had run its course. “I felt it was kind of over,” Howe says. “I walked away from it, thinking, ‘That’s it.’” In fact, that album — the first Yes made without its original vocalist Jon Anderson — did, for a time, mark the end of Howe’s involvement. Yet the group continued.

“But things happen,” Howe says. “We couldn’t have predicted it, but the band kept evolving, and I re-joined in 1995.” He’s been on board ever since, and with the 2015 death of founding member and bassist Chris Squire, Howe has become the de facto leader of the group. The current lineup features longtime drummer Alan White (a member since 1974), plus longtime members Geoff Downes (keyboards) and bassist Billy Sherwood. Vocalist Jon Davison is in his seventh year with Yes.

As to where the group might go from here, Howe is characteristically circumspect. “We’ve already got plans,” he allows, “but we can’t really divulge those because they’re not solid enough.” He does promise that Yes views its set list as “not a static thing, but a very mobile, flexible and ever-changing course.” Howe provides further hints to the future by referencing the recent past. “After doing this summer tour on our own, we might think about special team-ups,” he says, mentioning 2017’s triple bill with Carl Palmer’s ELP Legacy and Todd Rundgren as an example of the kind of lineup the band might pursue.

Yes has already committed to a 2019 tour of Japan, as well as hosting its popular Cruise to the Edge “floating festival” next February. “We’re talking about being fairly busy, but not strenuously busy,” Howe says.

Asked what he views as the source of Yes’s enduring popularity for a half century, Steve Howe gets a bit philosophical. “I’ve always thought that the listeners have got a certain bent in their ear,” he says. “They’ve got a certain sort of approach to music where they’ve got a space big enough — or maybe small enough — for Yes.”

“All these words and all these ideas that we put together end up being ‘a sound,’” Howe explains. “And I think that’s the most enduring thing: People like the playing, the craftsmanship, the record sleeve. But fundamentally, they have to like the sound.”

Yes
Jun 20, 7:30pm.$65 – $85
City National Civic, San Jose

It sounds incongruous at first, to check out a prog-rock legend at 10 in the morning. That’s the hour of the day when, we’ve come to believe, that most rock stars are just crawling into bed for a few hours of half-sleep before soundcheck.

But for Billy Sherwood’s appearance in San Jose next week, that hour makes sense. Because this is less of a performance and more like school.

Sherwood—who plays bass in the legendary progressive rock band Yes, and is a respected audio engineer and producer—will come to Streetlight Records in San Jose on Wednesday morning June 20 to share a bit about what’s he learned from decades in the music business.

For Yes superfans, the appeal is obvious enough. But for any musician serious about getting better, Sherwood is ready to offer up his brain to be picked.

“The idea is that I’m going to discuss engineering, producing, the music business, what do you do with your songs when you have them finished, how to get things going in your career, all of that,” said Sherwood, 53, by phone from a bus on which he is touring with Yes. “I’ll have my basses and guitars there, and if there is anyone looking for tips or techniques, we’ll do that, too. I’ll just let it flow where it goes, depending on who’s there.

Sherwood first joined Yes back in 1997 after striking up a fruitful partnership with original Yes bass player Chris Squire. Back then, Sherwood played guitars and keyboards. He left the band in 2000 but was asked back in 2015 to replace Squire, who had fallen ill. Before he died later that year, Squire gave Sherwood his blessing to be his permanent replacement. Two years later, Sherwood took on a similar role with Asia, another prog-rock supergroup.

Outside of Yes, Sherwood has recorded a number of solo albums and has worked as a session player and producer for a countless list of projects with, among many others, Quiet Riot, Ratt, Toto, Air Supply and (you can look it up) Star Trek parody-of-himself William Shatner. Sherwood was producer of Shatner’s 2013 album Ponder the Mystery.

Sharing his experience in a clinic setting is a new venture for Sherwood. “I was offered to do a clinic in Italy,” he said, “but I was touring with Yes at the time. But then I thought, maybe I could do it in the States, at the cities that are on the tour. We started asking various venues like record stores and music stores if they’d host. We have nine of them booked so far.” Yes is slated to perform the evening of June 20 at the City National Civic in San Jose.

“It’s not something we had thought about before,” said Streetlight’s store manager Paige Brodsky, who has hosted live musical performances at Streetlight in both San Jose and Santa Cruz. “But this opportunity fell into our laps and it sounded so interesting, we wanted to find a way to make it work. So we’ll call it an experiment.” The Billy Sherwood clinic is Streetlight’s first ticketed event. The fee for the two-hour session is $100. “If it’s successful, we could certainly see doing it again,” said Brodsky.

“Part of the thing about my career,” said Sherwood, “is that I’ve always taken bold steps into new areas that I’ve never been involved in before. This clinic itself is a metaphor for that. You just have to go for it.”

Sherwood was just a toddler when Yes first came together in Britain in 1968. “I was way into Yes from when I was about 12 years old,” he remembered. He first met Squire in the late 1980s and began writing music with him. “The relationship evolved with all the Yes guys after that. Yes has been a centerpiece for all the other things I’ve done in my career.”

Sherwood grew up in a family of entertainers. His father, Bobby Sherwood, was a well-known bandleader and actor; he actually has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His mother was also a singer.

“I don’t want to talk too much about it,” he said, “but I want to explain a bit about my heritage and what I’ve learned from my own experience and my parents’: You have to follow your road, but you can’t just haphazardly go for it. You have to have a target, have a plan.”

Billy Sherwood of Yes
Jun 20, 10am, $100
Streetlight Records, San Jose

When Yes co-founder and bassist extraordinaire, Chris Squire, passed away earlier this year, many fans wondered what would happen to the legendary prog-rock ensemble.

The answer to that question came fairly quickly from his surviving band mates—who had learned Squire was ill in May, a short time before his death on June 27 from Acute Erythroid Leukemia at the age of 67.

“He asked me personally to carry everything on,” Yes drummer Alan White says, recalling his band mate’s request. “He said, ‘You’ve got to keep this thing going.’”

Speaking by phone shortly before a recent performance in Biloxi, Miss., White says Squire will be dearly missed. “Obviously it’s not going to be the same without Chris playing.” he says. “He was a great part of this band, but he wanted us to carry on, regardless of what happened to him.”

An influential and ground-breaking group, Yes have sold nearly 40 million records since forming in 1968, and have produced many memorable songs including “Roundabout,” “Starship Trooper,” “Heart of the Sunrise” and “Owner of a Lonely Heart.” The band had already booked their summer tour with Toto—which which comes to the Mountain Winery on Sept. 8—when Squire discovered he was sick.

The plan at the time was for Billy Sherwood, a protégé and friend of Squire’s, to fill in for him while he received treatment—a contingency that has remained in place since his passing. Considering Squire’s reputation as one of the most gifted bassists in rock, whose virtuosity on the instrument was one of the trademarks the Yes sound, some might question whether those very big shoes could be adequately and appropriately filled.

White, who joined Yes back in 1972, assures fans that they should be at ease with Sherwood taking Squire’s place on stage.

“We pulled ourselves together and we’ve got Billy Sherwood,” White says. “He was a good friend, and Chris was his mentor, so he grew up playing Chris’s material. He pretty much knows everything.”

Live performances have always been a strong point in the band’s legacy. They’ve released many live albums over the years, including their latest, Like It Is, in July. White emphasizes that these gigs are also acting as a loving celebration of the group’s history. Each Yes show on the current North American tour begins with a tribute to Squire—all of which, White says, have been moving.

“We think it’s only apt on this tour,” he says, “and it’s a great help to us to see the fans appreciating the fact that we’re still moving on. We’ve had really pretty great reactions at every show.”

Once the tour comes to an end on Sept. 12, Yes will be taking part in “Cruise to the Edge” in November—a five day cruise from Florida to the Bahamas and back, featuring concerts, parties, shore excursions and more. In April the band will head to Europe to perform two of their classic albums—Fragile and Drama—in their entirety, live.

When that string of gigs is over, White says that he and the other members of Yes—which includes fellow long-time member Steve Howe on guitar—will sit down and try to figure out where they want to go from there.

“We’re going to get through this next year and then analyze where we’re at, and see what we can do,” he says.

In addition to Yes, the 66-year-old drummer has performed with a variety of other bands and individual musicians over the years. White has played with Joe Cocker, Ginger Baker and George Harrison. He was also behind the drums for the recording of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” After nearly 50 years in the music world, and with all of his experiences and journeys, White sees this time period as a potential new stage in both his career and that of Yes.

“I played with Chris for 43 years, we had a Zen kind of relationship—and now I have to move on with the music.”

Yes are playing The Mountain Winery on Sept. 8 at 7pm. More info. Toto opens the show, so watch their video for “Africa” below.