To hear Chris Squire tell it, the guys in Yes were practically homebodies — until the Eagles showed up with all of the coke. “We were strictly a pot and hash band at the beginning,” Squire says, in a talk with Prog, at least once he swore off acid after a scary incident involving a homemade batch that led to a hospital stay.
Then, Yes toured the U.S. in 1973 with the Eagles as their opening act. He says one of the members of the group, led by Don Henley and Glenn Frey, took him aside and said, “Try this.” Squire had discovered something new: “Cocaine,” he says, smiling.
“I got involved in cocaine,” he admits now. “Blame the Eagles. But that was it. As far as I know, no one in Yes ever did heroin.” Well, other than that one time at a party hosted by the late Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy fame. “Phil was a naughty boy,” Squire adds. “He said: ‘Do you want a line of coke?’ And there was smack in it.”
Jon Anderson reportedly claims to have initially left Yes in the late 1970s, in part, because of the other Yes members’ drug use. Chris Squire counters, however, that after 1978’s Tormato, “we were all sick of each other and needed a break.”
When Yes reconvened for the comeback project that would become 1980’s Drama, both Anderson and Rick Wakeman had been replaced by Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes, then coming off a huge hit with the Buggles.
The excitement surrounding this rebirth was such that deadline pressure built quickly, and Squire says they returned to the Eagles’ marching powder. “We’d sold out four Madison Square Garden shows in advance,” he says, “so we had five weeks in which to get the album done before then. That’s where the cocaine was useful. Because it was night after night of 16-hour sessions.”
These days, the now-66-year-old Chris Squire indulges a more down-to-earth passion for wine — one that started decades back when he installed a port cellar in his English mansion. Meanwhile, the closest the Eagles ever got to such finery was adding a legendary malaprop about spirits in 1977’s “Hotel California.”
- Angell & Crane, “Himalayan Dial-Up” from ‘Angell & Crane’ (2024): Video Premiere - November 22, 2024
- Michael Attias, “Avrils” from ‘Quartet Music Vol. II- Kardamon Fall’ (2024): Streaming premiere - October 11, 2024
- Bryn Roberts, “Aloft” from ‘Aloft’ (2024): Video Premiere - September 20, 2024
It’s all a choice dummy.
Yeah… the choice to feel AMAZING.
Not a smart thing to say.
RIP, Chris Squire