Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Yes' Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman and Trevor Rabin To Work Together?

I was answering a question on Quora about famous rock musicians who also wrote film scores and the first guy to come to mind was Trevor Rabin from the 80s (and most commercially successful) version of the band Yes.

After the release of very under rated Talk album and subsequent tour, Rabin pretty much packed it in as a touring rock and roller and turned to film scores. He has penned the soundtrack to 40 films since the mid 90s, including Armageddon, Snakes on a Plane and The National Treasure movies. Full list on Wikipedia here.

My impression from some interviews is that Rabin is happy doing film scores and had no intention of returning to rock and roll. However, the Wikipedia entry had these little tidbits:

According to an interview with Rick Wakeman on the 6 February 2010 edition of Wakeman's Planet Rock radio show there is a possibility of Wakeman, Rabin and Jon Anderson getting together to recording a new album. Rabin has already written some new material with Anderson, but the project hasn't yet been confirmed, as they are busy with other commitments.

On 9 July 2010 Rabin accompanied Yes at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles and played the encore, Owner Of A Lonely Heart.

In an October 2010 interview, Rabin confirmed that he has finished recording his greatly anticipated instrumental solo album. He plans to release it in a few months time. He also states that Rick Wakeman, Jon Anderson and himself are 'Itching' to start recording an album.


OK so WHAT? I think the ultimate fuck you to Steve Howe would be for Jon Anderson to work with Rabin. As you may recall, Anderson had a very serious illness that kept him off the road for a long time, and instead of waiting for him to get better, the other guys did an end run and hired a tribute band singer to replace Anderson.

Reviews have been pretty good but mostly because the band is doing songs Anderson never wanted to play like Machine Messiah from the Drama album - the one Anderson didn't sing on.

There is also no love lost between Rabin and Howe. I think Howe has a major stick up his ass that Rabin took his place in Yes and drove the band to great commercial success.

So yeah, a band with Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman - Yes' best keyboardist (well besides Patrick Moraz) - would be a great big 'eat it' to the other guys and would be an interesting recall of the 80s when there were two Yes' - The Rabin Yes, and the Anderson Bruford Wakeman and Howe version.

The other thing that made my head spin was this note that Rabin joined the tribute band-singer version of Yes on Owner of a Lonely Heart! Again, WHAT? Along side Steve Howe. Lo and behold I found the fucker on YouTube and even from afar I can feel the tension between those two guitarists.

I will watch with great interest to see if this actually pans out or not.

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