Billy Sherwood

It's an album that is a little bit different and probably isn't easy to get out. It's not likely that a major label would have picked it up and said that they had a smash hit record.

Everyone is really getting along with each other and we enjoy each others company and love playing live.

I think that the climate within the band has changed, it's now in a more functional situation.

I love all Yes music and love to play it live, but I'm most interested in making new music with Yes.

So in one sense you don't have the classic keyboard player in Yes.

I have always enjoyed different kinds of music.

So I was always around music and my dad was in his own way a progressive jazzer, a big band jazzer guy.

I grew up in a very musical family, my father was a musician and a big band leader and made records.

I love the feeling of creating pictures in someone's mind just by spelling out the right lyrical combination.

I also write poems, so that is something that I really enjoy.

So one can say that I write all the time, that goes for the lyrics as well.

Sometimes I hear a drum groove in my head and I rush down to my studio.

I write on all instruments.

So whenever I had some in-between producing time down in my studio I popped a tape in and started working on it. Working a little bit at a time, it actually took almost four years.

I wasn't really writing with anything commercial in mind I just wanted to create some new music.

You know, I am just a musician and I have no idea these days what good and bad is in terms of labels.

I'm very proud of it as a Yes record amongst many of the other Yes records.

We came off the road of the last tour very inspired to just keep playing, so we went to Canada.

And as you said, everyone contributed; certain areas of material came from certain individuals.

I've had the luxury of owning my own studio, 24 analogue, 48 digital, endless effects, endless hardcore gear, that I don't have to rent, I don't get stuck with the bills, it's all mine.

I know that if I went to other studios, like in Vancouver, that those are set up to be as professional and as true, so it's just a different flavour, it's a different sound, but I think both have their place.

So for my studio purposes, I know that I'm in my studio with technicians who've done amazing things to my board and to my power amps and I know what I can deliver out of my studio.

So that studio served its purpose, and still is working very well for other people right now.

And I found that when I built my own place and just shut the door, the creativity was endless.

I mean, Beatles songs were two and a half minutes long, and they're fantastic.