Interview: Jumping In The Deep End With Yes Drummer Alan White

Alan White has plenty to be smiling about these days. The ace musician who’s sat behind the drumkit for monumental prog rock band Yes for over forty years still has a lot to look forward to. Although some of the band’s core musicians have split off into their own direction to create variations of the longtime British orchestral rock ensemble, White — who’s been a constant fixture throughout many of the band’s most recognizable and most successful albums — is happy to be seated on his drum stool as the band continues to sail on. And sailing is exactly what they’ll be doing in the near future through our local waters.

DO THIS: YES AT MAHAFFEY THEATER 02.11.17

Preparation for the band’s annual “Cruise To The Edge” rock boat excursion is gearing up and, as a bonus, the band will make a stop at St. Petersburg’s Mahaffey Theater to treat fans to a dose of their intricate, elaborate blend of music after returning to port. Speaking to me recently on a break in between tour dates from his west coast home, the veteran drum master sounded relaxed and jovial as he filled me in on the band’s upcoming stint of shows, the cruise, his brush with John Lennon and his being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

This interview is part of our 2017 Spring Arts preview. See more springtime concert previews here.

CL: Are you currently out on the road? Or are you rehearsing or on a break right now?

AW: No, we’re currently resting up. We did a Japanese tour in November and we’re resting right now. And then in February we’re doing one of the Yes cruises from Tampa.

It’s the fourth annual Cruise To The Edge. How did that name come about?

One of the most famous albums that Yes ever did is called Close To The Edge back in the 70’s so they’ve been calling these Cruise To The Edge! (laughs). I don’t know who thought of that name but anyhow is sticks with the cruise type of theme.

I like it. It’s very catchy and it makes it very identifiable to the fact that Yes is involved.

Yes, we’ll cruise to the edge and hopefully we won’t drop off when we get there.

So what are these cruises like? For those who don’t know much about them, I see there’s a bunch of other artists, bands and musicians involved.

Yeah, on the last cruise, I think there was something like twenty bands playing on the ship. There are bands that play in the different clubs on the boat. We play two shows. The cruise is five days and we do two shows in that period.

Do you ever play with some of the other musicians or bands on board? Or is it strictly a Yes show you do?

Some people get up and jam with other bands from time to time and it kind of happens all over the boat and sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time.

Are these boat trips more of a vacation for you? Or is this another gig?

We get to relax a little bit…but at the same time, it’s a working cruise for us.

Going back to the tour you’re doing around the cruise that will bring you to St. Pete soon, this is part of what you’re calling the album series where you perform whole albums in their entirety and then play a set of hit songs. You’ve done some of these types of shows in the past and I see on this current one, you’ll be performing the whole of 1980’s Drama album and sides one and four from 1973’s 2LP set, Tales From Topographic Oceans. Can you tell me a little bit about how the decision-making process comes into play when trying to determine which albums to spotlight on these tours?

The band’s actually been playing this set for most of the summer tour we did last year as well as in Japan. When we do this next run of shows and the cruise, it’ll be the end of that cycle. But we’ll also be doing a summer tour that’ll be called the Yestival where we’ll be playing a different set and we’ll be with two or three other bands so that’ll be a whole evening of entertainment. But that will be more of a hits-based show that will feature hits from all the eras of Yes and our life span.

In terms of the album series, is there an album that you’ve yet to perform or include or one that you’d like to perform at some point?

There’s no reason to say that we shouldn’t be doing it in the future but one of the albums that a lot of people would like us to perform is (1974’s) Relayer which is a really great album. You know, we’ve built quite a repertoire of music we can choose and pick between a lot of different things. We’ve done Fragile in its entirety and we did Close to the Edge in its entirety so we’ve done a few tours of doing the concept album type thing.

So it this still fun for you? Is it still enjoyable for you to be playing these songs?

Yeah! Oh yeah…I still have the energy to be up there. I’ve actually been in the band for 44 years now which is quite an incredible time…it’ll actually be 45 years next July that I’ll be playing with the same band. I think that’s some type of record! I’ve been with my wife thirty-five years and in the music business, that’s probably a record too.

With the sad passing of (original Yes bassist and founding member) Chris Squire, part of the dynamic of the band is gone. There have to be plenty of times when you miss him onstage and what he added to the sound of the band.

Sure, of course. Billy Sherwood is playing bass with the band now and Chris was his mentor so he pretty much knows everything he ever did…all the harmonies and things like that. Billy and Chris and myself made a couple of albums under another name as solo project for us all. But he’s been with the band for a short while here…ever since Chris’s passing (in 2015) basically and he’s doing a great job. Still, at the same time, it’s not the same as Chris.

I played pretty much every gig with Chris for forty-three years so that’s a long time to play with the same guy. You get to know how they play so well and you don’t have to say much and explain things. It was that kind of relationship.

In regard to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, I know a lot of musicians have mixed emotions or mixed views about what it means to be inducted. I don’t know where you stand on it but I’m curious to know your feelings.

Well….you know…my feeling is that a lot of people have animosity against the whole thing because they wait for long periods of time. Sometimes the band members can’t even play anymore before they get in there. And for quite a few bands, one of the members has actually died and people start saying ‘Does somebody have to die in the band before you actually get in there nowadays?’. But, at the same time, I’ll sort of be there to represent the band and accept the award on behalf of Chris and it is an honor bestowed upon me and being recognized by the music business and your peers. It’s almost like for the time spent serving the public as it were as a musician. But, basically, I will definitely go there and I’ll be enjoying myself and will accept the award thankfully. The only thing I get now is I get introduced as a “Hall of Famer” and it makes me feel really old! (laughs)

Is that uncomfortable for you?

Well, I mean, I’m not retired yet! I’m still going! So it’s kinda weird like that. But I kind of enjoy it.

Going a step further into that, what are your feelings about the fact that, just recently, some of the progressive or orchestral rock bands are starting to get recognized in that realm? Do you think that’s long overdue?

You know what? I think that good music, which a lot of that stuff was..and is…it’ll keep coming around because it takes an awful long time to do that progressive-type rock music that has vision and lots of looking into the future and within that, I think it’ll just keep re-occurring to tell you the truth. I know of teenagers who come to our shows who love Close to the Edge and Fragile and I really just think they’re being brainwashed by their parents! (laughs heartily)

From a personal standpoint, is there anyone you personally feel should be inducted into the Hall that hasn’t been recognized yet?

There’s a lot of bands..a lot of very, very good bands..like some of these fusion bands from the 1970s. Like Weather Report, for instance, who was this fantastic band with Jaco Pastorius in it who had numerous different genres and they were all fantastic and they’ve never been recognized at all. But some of those type bands where the players were absolutely phenomenal…like Chick Corea and stuff like that. So I would go for that area where those people haven’t been recognized in any shape or form for that question.

Looking back in your career, before you joined Yes, I know you played with John Lennon. I’ve read that he called you to ask you to play with him but you thought it was a prank call? Is that true?

Yeah, I thought it was a friend of mine playing a prank on me so I put the phone down. But he called back ten minutes later and said ‘No, no…this is really John Lennon…I saw you play in a club last night and you’re just what I’m looking for’ and that was a huge change in my career at that time. I jumped on a plane with no rehearsal and played in front of 25,000 people with John Lennon and like he says on that live Peace in Toronto album, ‘we’ve never played together before’ which is very true. Nobody had ever played with each other before. We just got up there and I sat on a drum stool and they just built a drum kit around me while I sat there and then all of a sudden it was ‘one-two-three-four’ and that was it.

So it was a baptism by fire?!

In music. it’s called jumping in the deep end and surviving.

So you’d played with Lennon, George Harrison and Terry Reid at different times. What was it about Yes that made you want to stick around for so long?

I actually played with Joe Cocker right before I played with Yes. I was just finishing a Joe Cocker tour of Europe and I get a call to join Yes and I flew back to London the next morning and three days later, they gave me three days to learn the repertoire, and then I was in Dallas, Texas with them and again, it was again like jumping in the deep end.

You’re a fast learner, obviously.

Well, when you gotta learn songs like “Close to the Edge” and “Heart of the Sunrise”, and those kinds of songs in three days, it’s a lotta work so it was a constant listening to music and working things out and how to play it.

Back to the show you’ll be bringing to the Tampa Bay area soon, what can fans expect as far as the sound, the look and the feel of the show they’ll be seeing?

Well we’ve paid a lot of attention to production and this is why it’s an amazing sounding show. And with all the lights and all the things that happen onstage, it’s all structured to the piece of music and I think people will really enjoy that fact about this show. I’ve seen footage from out in the audience and, because usually you’re on stage, so we don’t see that much of it. And it’s absolutely stunning. Some of the light work and there’s a back screen onstage that has lots of things that are relative to us on going on stage musically.

The sound in the theater is excellent so I’m sure it’s going to sound great.

Well, we’ve got really very high standards and sound engineers.

I know many fans are looking forward to hearing the Drama album live so there are many fans in the area who are anxious to hear it performed.

Drama is very, very tricky to play. It’s got some intense sections and musical passages with some of the keyboards and all around really. It’s going to be quite spectacular.

The Yes: The Album Series tour stops at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg (400 First Street, St. Petersburg, FL 33701.) on Saturday, February 11. The show starts at 8:00 p.m. Tickets range from $49 to $350 VIP packages in advance and can be purchased by phone (727-893-7832) or online here.

This article appears in Jan 19-26, 2017.