Yesobit: Chris Squire

Chris Squire, bassist with Yes, has died.

The band released an official statement:

It’s with the heaviest of hearts and unbearable sadness that we must inform you of the passing of our dear friend and Yes co-founder, Chris Squire.

Chris peacefully passed away last night (27 June 2015) in Phoenix, Arizona.

We will have more information for you soon.

Thankyou for all your heartfelt tributes on Facebook and Twitter.

Talking to For Bass Players Only in 2013, Squire explained that his interest in music was actually divine intervention:

[My musical upbringing] was mainly in the Church of England, at my local church, where I was in the choir. I got very good musical training there because we had a very good choirmaster. He was very enthusiastic about music and he was young, so he made it really interesting for me and the other guys in the choir. By the time I became 15 and the Beatles broke, that shifted my reality from that kind of music to another kind of music! That’s when my rock & roll education started.

Equally, he credited some of his success to dodgy wiring:

Yeah, the headphone output I had was very tinny sounding. It didn’t have much low end on it. So the engineer at the time was surprised when the producer was saying, “I need to hear more bass, I need more bass,” because he wasn’t getting much bass on his headphones. He had decided to mix the album on headphones and that a lot to do with my general success, I think, because of that weak headphone socket. [Laughs]

Squire was generous and humorous in ascribing a lot of his (and the band's) success to luck and chance. Talking to Ultimate Classic Rock, he suggested that luck was an element even in the artistic freedom the band enjoyed:

I think we were just lucky that we were in a time when record company executives were more open to the artist’s approach and it wasn’t so reliant upon a producer, at least not in our case anyway. So we just were lucky to be in a niche I think and especially of course, Ahmet Ertegun had signed us personally to Atlantic Records, so he liked our vision and our experimentation that we were up to. There was nobody really on our case at the record company saying that we should be doing something like this or something like that. With the Roger Dean artwork and everything playing into the image of Yes [including] the triple live album Yessongs with the huge gatefold cover, we [also] had Ahmet’s support on all of that. It was pretty hassle-free as far as being told by the record company anything.

Luck? Or trust that came from being a band that knew what it was doing?

Chris Squire was 67. He died Saturday.

Jon Anderson: You deserve more than a maybe

Poor Jon Anderson. There he is, battling illness, knowing his mates in Yes are right behind him all the way - only to discover that in between popping round with grapes and copies of the People's Friend, they've been gently easing him out and hired a bloke to stand in for him on their forthcoming tour. And, actually, that bit about the grapes? They've not even done that. He feels disappointed:

Disappointed, and very Disrespected

Disappointed that, with the exception of one phone call from Alan, none of the guys have been in touch since my illness, just to find out how I am doing, and how we will foresee the future for YES. And disappointed that they were not willing to wait till 2009 when I’m fully recovered.

And I feel very disrespected, having spent most of this year creating songs and constant ideas for the band, spending time with Roger Dean creating a stage design, also working with VH1 and Sirius and XM Radio to help promote the welfare of YES.

Getting sick was not "on my radar”, and I thank my own angel Janeee and my family for helping me through this difficult time, and the many well wishers, friends and fans alike, for understanding that ''things happen''.

Of course I wish the guys all the best in their 'solo' work, but I just wish this could have been done in a more gentlemanly fashion. After all YES is a precious musical band.

This is not YES on tour...

To be fair, perhaps the boys were worried that if they held off until 2009, that Roger Dean stage set might start to look a little dated.

Yes. Well, no, not quite Yes.

Jon Anderson forced the cancellation of the Yes 40th anniversary tour and is still ill. So the band is hitting the road with Benoit David on vocals.

Who he? He's a singer in Yes tribute acts - although presumably they're not actually tribute acts any more if they feature an actual member of the actual band?

Anderson might be a little nervous about this development, as Yes seem to be enjoying having a singer who's a little more easy to work with:

[Chris] Squire hopes to work songs from [the Anderson-less Drama] album into the set for the upcoming tour, plus a few songs he said were not Anderson's favorites to perform live but the rest of the band likes.

Also, we hear David brings donuts to rehearsals.

No Yes

The big Yes anniversary tour of America is off, as doctors have told Jon Anderson he needs to rest for six months following an asthma attack.

It was a huge asthma attack, to be fair; hence the big rest. Anderson issued a statement:

"I'd like everyone know how deeply disappointed I am by this turn of events," Anderson said. "I was looking forward to celebrating our music with the amazing family of Yes fans once again; but as we all know, health must come before anything else."

We do like that semi-reluctant sounding "as we all know..." No word on if the dates will be reorganised for the early part of next year.

Yes, again, now

In case you've forgotten that punk lost: Yes are about to celebrate their 40th anniversary with a tour.