Steve Howe Addresses Wakeman and Anderson's Absence From Yes

09/27/2012
. (Classic Rock) Steve Howe says classic-era Yes members Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman couldn't be there now because they don't want to commit to what the band believes it must do. And he sees no contradiction in Asia having done nothing while vocalist John Wetton was too ill with addiction issues to take part, while Yes replaced frontman Anderson � and his replacement � when they suffered sickness.

He feels Anderson and Wakeman did not share Yes's commitment to playing material from all eras of their 44-year career. "For Yes to evolve we had to have people who were committed to it, to warrant a position in the band. If you come in and say, 'I play the drums but in Yes I'm going to play the bongos,' we would say 'But we want a drummer.'," Howe tells Classic Rock Revisited.

"You've got to be able to provide the full story. We don't just look at little pockets when certain people were in the group. We look at the group as a whole."

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Copyright Classic Rock Magazine- Excerpted here with permission.