‘I wouldn’t jump the gun’: Alan White says new Yes album likely isn’t happening any time soon

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Last July, stalwart Yes man Chris Squire told us “the next thing” the band will do is record a new album. Not so fast, counters long-time drummer Alan White.

Apparently, as White relates to Classic Rock Revisited, momentum has slowed for a project that would find the prog-rockers heading into the studio for the first time with new frontman Jon Davison.

“It will happen,” the drummer now tells Jeb Wright, “when it happens.”

After going a decade without a new recording, Yes released the critically lauded Fly From Here in 2011, and then a concert effort called In the Present: Live from Lyon. But then breathing problems sidelined former frontman Benoit David (in much the same way they had co-founder Jon Anderson before him) and Davison took over.

[SOMETHING ELSE! INTERVIEW: Drummer Alan White discusses classic moments alongside John Lennon, Tony Levin and David Torn – and (who else?) Yes.]

Last summer, Squire enthused about the way Davison now “owns that role” of frontman, but the challenge for Davison — who has continued as tandem singer for the American prog-rock outfit Glass Hammer, which just released its own new original album — will only be greater in 2013.

Coming off a rigorous touring schedule last year, Yes announcing last month that it would play three complete classic recordings — The Yes Album, Close to the Edge and Going for the One — on its next jaunt.

Preparations for that show have already begun, White tells Wright of Classic Rock Revisited. In the meantime, plans have been shelved for a follow up to Fly From Here, which was largely based on a leftover composition from the sessions and tour for 1980’s Drama.

“We are thinking about it, let’s put it that way,” White says of a new Yes album. “I wouldn’t jump the gun too much. It is a possibility. We are all thinking about it and we have some ideas to make a new album. I’ve got ideas about what is should be, as does everyone. It will happen when it happens.”

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