Where are they now? - Yes feat. Anderson Rabin Wakeman (original) (raw)

Where are they now? - Yes Featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman
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On this page�Touring - Live release - New material - Rabin & Wakeman

Overview of Yes featuring Anderson Rabin Wakeman
Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin and Rick Wakeman toured in 2016-8 with a band and a set of Yes material. Some new music was recorded, but not released. The band effectively ended in 2019, although the possibility of a return has been mooted by Wakeman, and he and Rabin have also talked about just the two of them collaborating. In Jan 2021, an online store was launched under the ARW name selling mugs etc. Both Wakeman and Rabin are expected to guest on Jon Anderson's 1000 Hands: Chapter Two, expected maybe in 2024: see under Anderson.

Rabin said to the Apr 2020 issue of Prog that the band is now over. Asked if they have any future, Rabin replied, "None at all[.] It is definitely over. We had a splendid time [...] The problem is that we all live in different places around the world, so logistically it's so hard to carry this on." He said that he had been "working on several ideas for the proposed [studio] album, and I know Rick had a few thoughts of his own for it. The problem was that every time we tried to get into the studio [...] we'd get another offer for a tour, and we enjoyed doing these so much that the album kept being put to the back of our minds". He also talked about the change in billing from ARW to Yes featuring ARW, saying that he regretted this: "I totally disagreed with that. We were not Yes [...] I don't believe we needed to use that name." Rabin said more in a May 2020 article, saying of the band, "I think that's over". He continued that they had been working on new music remotely, by sending files back and forth, but this approach was not ideal, and that, "We had a great time touring," but that returning to the ensemble again "without any new music to me seems like a bad idea." Asked about the possibility of further touring, he replied, "I would never say never" but that there are no plans for "the near future." In another Apr 2020 interview, Rabin said, "As far as YES/ARW, we're probably done. [...] I absolutely loved playing AND hanging with Rick on the ARW tours 2016-2018. We still communicate all the time." In an Apr 2021 interview, Anderson was asked if the collaboration was "dead in the water". He replied, "Maybe. It's a long story. Life happens; [y]ou expect to go for a long journey, then all of a sudden, it's not going to go on the long journey you expected because of life. People have the life they want to live and go through -- it's not a good explanation, but it just doesn't work at times. But it's OK. I've been through so many changes with Yes -- I mean, 20 versions of Yes I've been in, and every one�s been fantastic. But it was always chaos in there, for some reason. Like I said, it's a long story." In an interview published Oct 2021, Wakeman said there were plans for a tour in 2020, until COVID-19 happened. He continued, "Certainly, I would like to do some stuff, whether it's with [Rabin and Anderson] or who it's with, I don't know[.] But I love playing Yes music. It's a major part of my life." The article continues:

As for Yes, Wakeman hopes "that's not the end of it," noting that "none of us are getting any younger. [...] But on the other hand, when you go onstage, the years roll off, you know? So it�s not the end, let�s put it that way, but I can�t tell you what the next stage is � because I don�t know myself. But it can�t be the end."

Asked in a Jan 2022 interview if an ARW album is "still possible", Wakeman replied, "For me, an album would need to be done together in the same room. That's where the magic comes from. But for various reasons � geography, schedules, finance � maybe we've hit a brick wall." However, he reportedly said at his 1 Mar 2022 show that ARW will not be happening again. Anderson ruled out further ARW activity in a Jul 2022 interview. In a 24 Jan 2024 Patreon Q&A, Anderson said Brian Lane has asked him to re-start ARW and he had replied no. To Rolling Stone in May 2024, talking about the dissolution of ARW, Anderson said, "That band was fun[.] There's a story there, but I won't tell it now."

In an interview for Prog published Jan 2023 (issue #137), talking about ARW, Wakeman said:

Nothing has changed on that, though the three of us are still great friends[.] We all believed that ARW deserved a final send-off [with a studio album], but in the end, as is his right, Jon [Anderson] said: 'I want to do other things.' I've no problem with that, just as I'd hope that Jon and Trev would feel the same had I made such a decision.

In an Apr 2023 interview, asked about ARW ending, Anderson said, "I think there were difficult times for everybody. We didn't know what to do next. I was up for some more recording, new music. But everybody has a life. Sometimes you can't pull everybody together at the same time. That's basically it. It just wasn't right for everybody."

In issue #110 of Prog magazine, Wakeman said he had wanted "to write for a band again". They wanted to make an album, including epic pieces, but they were delayed by touring commitments and Jane Anderson's breast cancer diagnosis. However, in 2018, he "sent Jon and Trev a couple of ideas I'd written for The Red Planet. They really liked them and were going to add some bits. [...] It was quite simplistic with lots of room for additions". (The Red Planet was his new solo album, released mid-2020.) The parts concerned were the organ lines for "The North Plain" and the rhythm and main themes for "Valles Marineris", then under the working title of "The Bolero" (which Rabin mentioned as a piece from Wakeman under development by ARW as far back as Sep 2016). In an Aug 2020 interview, Wakeman said, "some of that I wrote in 2019 because Jon, Trevor and I were looking to do an album. Valles Marineris was a very simplistic thing at the time based on Ravel�s Bolero." The band then suffered further delays, including Wakeman's wife being diagnosed with cancer, Anderson's solo touring and, returning to the Prog article, "Trev was doing other stuff." The article continues:

while Wakeman is diplomatic, it appears that the challenges were exacerbated by an absence of writing contributions from Anderson and Rabin. "Jon had some vocal ideas and bits and pieces, but they never got any further."

Wakeman felt that they needed to be get together in person to make an album. He continued how in the 1970s "record companies [...] would tell us to spend a month in a studio to write. But that's just not viable these days. So then it became pretty clear that we were not going to get this album done. [...] I am extremely sad there was not an ARW album [...] But logistics and finance would always dictate that it was unlikely to happen to the standard that such an album deserved." He talked about possibly working with Rabin on a project. ARW bassist Lee Pomeroy said in a Jun 2020 interview that he didn't think any of the ARW material he heard had made it onto The Red Planet.

In an Aug 2020 interview with Sean Tonar for SOAL Night Live, Wakeman was asked if any of the tracks on The Red Planet were leftover from an ARW album. He replied, "Um... no. Everything was written [...] for The Red Planet. And then there was one... stage where we were looking at doing an ARW track and we're all sending different ideas to each other. And I sent "The Bolero" over to Trev and Jon, who loved it, but it was in a very basic form [...] But then, for various reasons, when the ARW album didn't happen, I very quickly sort of brought it back and said, 'Listen, guys, this is meant to be for a project I'm doing [...] I don't actually want it played around with. So I'm pulling it back in to keep it for that project.' [...] It was all meant for The Red Planet."

Wakeman also talked about the band in a Jul 2020 interview. Asked if ARW has ended, Wakeman replied, "D'you know what? I've learnt over the years never to say never." He continued to say that he remains in touch with both Anderson and Rabin. Here, Wakeman says the band came to an end due to "personal issues", i.e., Jane Anderson's cancer diagnosis and then, in 2018, his own wife's cancer diagnosis: "She was diagnosed the day before I was due to fly to start the tour [i.e., the Aug/Sep North American tour]." This led to the tour leg being cut short to those dates that had been advertised. His wife then had a year of treatment, so ARW activity "went by the board" and everyone switched to solo projects instead. (Wakeman's wife "got the all clear" in Xmas 2019.) These two diagnoses had:

pretty much hit nearly 2 years of ARW. And, so, er, it's getting the momentum and things going again. [...] I thought there was no chance of a farewell tour [...] I think that we all sort of felt that we'd left it too late. Having said that, I don't think we have and I don't think Jon and Trev think we have. And, so, I... it would not surprise me if, maybe at the end of next year [2021], um, there wasn't, er, a sort of a thank you tour, something like that [...] I'd love to see it happen. [...] Is it [ARW] dead? I don't know. I think there's still a little heart beat on the monitor

In an interview with Aymeric Leroy for the forthcoming issue #110 of the French magazine Big Bang, Wakeman talks more about ARW and again indicates that he thinks the collaboration has a future. In a Jul 2020 interview, Rabin implied there would have been another ARW tour if it "hadn't've been for the virus". In an Aug 2020 interview with SOAL Night Live, Anderson was asked if ARW might get back together. He replied, "I think it would happen if we made an album." He continued, "It will happen when it happens [...] You never know." In the subsequent SOAL Night Live interview that month with Wakeman, Tonar recounts Anderson's answer to Wakeman, who responded:

Yeah, I'd go with that. [...] It's just a matter of how we do it. That's the difficulty, because we all live so far apart [...] The thing how I would perceive the album being done is the way that Yes used to work in the early days, which to me was the finest way of working. We would spend 3 weeks or so, in a room [...] then we'd all have ideas that we'd throw in. [...] the pieces would build from those ideas over that 3 week period. And then we were probably about 70% ready and then we would go into the studio. And whilst we were putting down the tracks, Jon would be working on lyrical ideas and other bits and pieces. [...] I still think that's the only way that Jon, Trevor and I can do it. How we do it or where we do it, I don't know. [...] If we did it like that, then I think we could put together a superb album, but I don't think it would work sending stuff backwards and forwards to each other. [...] being in the same room, if Trev comes up with [...] an idea [...] I can go, 'That's really good. Have you thought about doing it in this key, or [...] changing it into that or changing the tempo.' It's instantaneous. Or Jon can say, 'I can do a line over the top of that' [...] But you have to be in the same room together.

In a Sep 2020 interview, Wakeman said of ARW: "No, it's not officially done [...] There were a few things that happened over the last two, two and a half years, that made things a little difficult. Jon�s wife, during two tours ago, was diagnosed with breast cancer and a major operation. Thankfully, Janie, bless her heart, is well again. Just before the last tour, the day I was to fly out to America for ARW, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. After one and a half years, she has the all-clear. [...] We were looking at this year, 2020, to see what we can do, then the dreaded pandemic hit. To me, it's made me a little more determined to do it."

In a Sep 2020 interview, asked whether the band is now over, Anderson said, "the problem was [...] if you have outside influences, things change [...] We'd sit together and talk about doing this and doing that, and outside influences would say whatever they say � managers sort of thing. And it got to a silly point where we were supposed to record - I think it was the beginning of 2018 / 2019 - we were supposed to go in the studio, and I was talking to my brother in Accrington, and he asked me what am I doing, and I said; "oh, we're going to record in L.A. next month", and he said; "well, Rick's touring here next month", and I said; "really?! He never told me!" [...] No matter how hard you force things together, outside influences change things." The interviewer then followed up by asking if they had material ready to record. Anderson relied: "it was frustrating for me because I'd written so many interesting songs with Trevor, and I was really gung ho; "let's go in the studio and blow people away!", because I would have said to Trevor; "use your film score energy with us", and it would have been amazing". In an Aug 2020 interview (released Oct 2020), Anderson said:

I wrote [...] a bunch of songs with Trevor and a couple with Rick, a big piece with Rick, which I love [...] we were on tour [...] You know, one thing that I've found over the years, a group of musicians is like that [interleaves fingers]. It's the people on the outside: the promoter, the manager. They're just trying to make money and you forget [that]. And it's just wrong of me to keep forgetting, because I trust people. [...] 'Yeah, we'll make the record. [...] Yeah, we're gonna do it next March, we'll do it in February/March, yeah' [...] then you find out, 'Wait a minute, I just found out Rick's on tour in March. What's happening? I thought we were...' 'Oh no, but Brian... Somebody said... Management...' [Anderson waves his hands dismissively] Because they have a very, er... Managers have a tough job. They've got to look after five crazy people. Six, or seven, y'know. And they always sort of zoom in on one that they can handle. I think that's what's happened in my career. Y'know, they zoom in on somebody they know they can... 'Jon's a bit over there, so let's take care of this guy' [...] It doesn't work in the end, it really doesn't work, because, er, the band suffers.

Rabin, in a Sep 2020 interview with SOAL Night Live, said that, "There's some songs that I started specifically for ARW and, actually [...] Jon came in and did some vocals on them, and we were getting ready for that [the ARW album], but it just never turned out". He said "No" when asked if any material intended for ARW would be on the solo album he's been working on in 2020. He blamed the failure to do an album on "our geographical problems [...] but more importantly, I think, the fact that the touring just became... constant. And had we not enjoyed it, we would've [...] not agreed to these shows [...] The idea at first was to do maybe a dozen shows, have some fun with it and then look at recording something". He continued, saying they "really enjoyed" playing together. Asked more about the ARW album, after talking about "Bolero" (which became "Valles Marineris" on Wakeman's The Red Planet), Rabin said, "Beyond that, there were two or three, pretty strong, kind of epic ideas, which we muddled around with, but the tour just took everything out of it." Tonar, the interviewer, asked about the possibility of resurrecting the material and releasing an album, mentioning Anderson's answer above. Rabin replied, "Well, no, that's kinda little different to the way I think. I don't think there'll be another ARW situation. I don't think the album even comes into it." Tonar then asked if it's "dead in the water" and Rabin replied, "I think so. [...] I'm just being honest. [...] If I thought something was going to happen; there's no reason why it shouldn't happen, but obviously with the epidemic the way it is, I don't see it happening, and I really want to get my album done". He continued, "I heard talk of... an interview somewhere where there was talk of maybe a [full Yes] reunion and that's something that will never happen, not with me." He also said that he and Wakeman opposed the use of the 'Yes' name and just wanted to be ARW, although he caveated that by saying, "Although it is [Yes]. The only music we play is Yes music."

The band took 2019 off. Wakeman had talked of a final tour in 2020-1, but subsequently indicated that plans were off. He said to Classic Rock: "There has been talk of us doing a farewell world tour in 2020 and I'm up for that, but it doesn't fit into Jon's schedule. I'm not sure that Trev could do it either." He also expressed frustration at remotely collaborating on new music, saying he had enough of "slinging stuff to one another via the internet".

Music journalist and Yes expert Jon Kirkman posted a series of messages on Facebook in late Jan 2020 discussing the situation, beginning:

ARW don't exist anymore according to Jon and Rick [...] they no longer have a manager either

In later posts, he said, "ARW do not exist anymore"; then, "Rick told me and Brian Lane was sacked"; then, "Jon blamed him [Lane] for the lack of a record deal so he was sacked. [...] Even Rick said Fragile was not a great song nor did they have the material for an album". (It's unclear if the last was based on a direct communication or is paraphrasing the comments reported below.)

A source close to one of the had three said in mid-Aug that a 2020 tour is being considered, but a decision had not yet been taken. In a Sep 2019 interview, Wakeman said:

I�m hoping it [ARW] will return. We have been talking about doing one final farewell tour, to say thank you, and that would be next year [2020] and going into 2021. It�s still in discussion stage. Certainly, I would love to do it. And I think Jon and Trev do as well. I�m going to be seeing Trev in Los Angeles in a few weeks and hopefully Jon as well.

He said much the same in an Oct 2019 interview: "we're talking about going out in 2020 and 2021 as a sort of a 'farewell, goodbye�we've really enjoyed it and want to say thank you to all the people that have followed us[.]'" He went on that "there's a fair chance" that they will release new music to coincide with the tour: "Not a whole album's worth, but there'll be some music[. W]e always said that it had to be of such a high standard, had to be like classic standard, otherwise we wouldn't."

In another Sep interview, asked about 2020 plans, Wakeman said: "We're talking about it, Trevor, myself and Jon, and I think there is a very good, er... very, very, very strong possibility that we will do a sort of last hurrah in 2020 and 2021, where we will go out, y'know, possibly with one last great track, a new track that we'll put together, that we've been working on. [...] It looks very promising that it's gonna happen. I sincerely hope it happens because we will be doing 60, 70 odd shows throughout sort of the middle of next year [2020] through [...] into 2021". He also implied a set list containing old Yes songs that they haven't played before. In another interview published Oct 2019, he again talked of "some farewell shows next year [2020]", but he said they would be as 'ARW' rather than 'Yes featuring': "It may be "ARW Performing an Evening of Yes Music." That's fine. But not Yes in the name of the band." He also said that they haven't discussed a set list yet. The interview later asked why they would be doing a farewell tour; Wakeman replied:

a mixture of honesty and then you can read into it what you will. None of us are getting any younger health-wise [...] It�s not the playing, though that does get a bit difficult at times. There�s the traveling and everything that goes with it. Jon is 74 now and he hasn�t had the greatest of health [...]

I have been diagnosed with arthritis in both my hands. It�s controllable at the moment. I don�t take anything for it, pills or drugs, but I do exercises. I have creams and special gloves and things that keep me going. I know I have to practice really hard to keep my fingers supple. I always said that I never want to walk onstage and not play to the standard I want to. [...] there comes a time to stop.

[...] I might be wrong. I might have a few more days than I think. I do have some days where they seize up quite a lot, but at the moment I can still play. The dexterity is still there. When I do the right exercises I am fine.

I reckon I have until probably the beginning to the end of 2022 and then I think I won�t be able to do it anymore. I�ll still be able to play, but not [up to] the standard live that I do now. I�ll still be able to record and do music and the odd concert, but they will be different concerts. That�s my reason why I voted along with everyone, actually, that we�ll do a farewell/thank-you tour to the fans when you can still do the best you do

In Jul 2019, Wakeman said at a solo concert that the band will tour again in 2020. A Jul 2019 Billboard article said: "Wakeman, who says he opposed ARW going out as Yes, adds that the trio is planning one last tour for 2020 and may possibly record [...] new music". Wakeman is quoted: "We feel it's sort of come to the end of the road[.] None of us are spring chickens anymore [...] I think we'll thoroughly enjoy another [tour] and then I think we can [...] proudly close the lid on it, very happy in our belief that we've done it proud." Asked about new material, he said they "ha[ve] got a couple of things we've worked on that we think are good enough, but we always said that unless it was really of a high standard we felt really proud of we wouldn't just release stuff for the sake of releasing it. I think when we start on the farewell dates we'll analyze what we've done and go, 'OK, what can we make of this?' I would like to think we can leave one final burst of music that we can be proud of and, perhaps, we'd like to think that Yes fans have been waiting for." In his Aug 2019 GORR, Wakeman also wrote of doing a "farewell tour with [...] ARW." In Aug, he also said more to a fan he met, as 'highfell' recounted on Yesfans.com here. Wakeman again talked of a final tour in 2020 and spilling over into 2021. He talked of new music, which he described as potentially huge, but not ready yet, as the band hadn't had time together to work on it. They would only release it if they were happy with it, and if a release does come, it would be after the tour, as they might find time during the tour to record together.

In that Jul 2019 Billboard article, Anderson, commenting on the band's lack of activity, said, "Life happens when you least expect it. You expect something to go for a long journey, and then all of a sudden it's not...because of life. People have a life they want to live and go through. It's not a good explanation, but it just doesn't work at times. There's maybe 20 versions of Yes I've been in, and every one's been fantastic -- but it was always chaos in there for some reason." Another Jul 2019 interview with Anderson also had him vague about the future: "I think the idea is one day we'll get together again and do some more work together[.] But I'm not sure when, where or how." In comments to fans in Aug, Anderson also talked of tour plans for 2020, but said that nothing has been confirmed yet.

As recounted as Yesfans.com, a fan had previously emailed Wakeman's website asking about 2019, and received the reply that, "There aren't any solid plans for 2019 just yet". And asked after a show in Oct 2018, Wakeman said that ARW would play a final tour in 2020. In a Feb 2019 interview, Anderson was asked if he will be working with ARW again. He replied:

Yeah, yeah. We just went through a period together that we were very happening on stage, but everything that surrounded us wasn't as clear or as well defined as it should be. When you're on the road, you're expecting to be, sort of, well organised [...] and it just wasn't as clear, for us, the three of us, where we were heading. And I, personally, always wanted just to make some new music, but it was just hard to get everything in that sort of area, where we were connected, and that's just the way things are. And I just said I'll see you in 2020, maybe '21 or so, we'll get together. Because I'm a big, big fan of both the guys [...] we'll see what happens.

In another Feb 2019 interview, he said:

The only reason I wanted to work with the guys was to make a great new album. But, for some reason everybody had something else to do. So I tried my best to coerce them. 'Let's just do February, March and we'll just be together. If not, we can do it through Skype.' And then that didn't happen and this didn't happen. So I just went, 'Okay, I gotta get on my with life' sort of thing. We were damn good. We played some great shows.

The aforementioned Mar 2019 article also said the band "have no future plans to tour or record". Anderson was then quoted:

Onstage we were just in it, killing it every show. [...] But there was, dare I say it, mismanagement of the situation. I love the guys. We�re musical brothers. I just thought, �I need to breathe.� I couldn�t breathe towards the end. It felt like too much weight on me. Also, there was too much of, �Should we do an album?� We couldn�t agree on that. As soon as I said I didn�t want to tour this year [2019] and just make my own album, I could finally breathe again.

In another Mar 2019 interview, asked about working again with Rabin and Wakeman, Anderson responded, "Working with them was like rejuvenation. I'm 75 this year [2019] and I keep saying, 'Hey, you only live once in this lifetime.' Yeah, more than likely, maybe next year [2020], the year after [2021]. I've always said it would be nice to do a Yestival and get everybody together on stage, that's like a magic wand to make that happen, but you never know in this life." And, in yet another Mar 2019 interview, Anderson was asked whether there would be more ARW activity and if there was any new studio work. He replied, "It's a long story [...] whichever way you look at it, you want to do new music. I wrote some songs with Trevor, with Rick, we just couldn't get everyone together at the same place, because everyone's so busy in life. And we said maybe in 2020." The Apr 2019 article had more, quoting Anderson as saying he is "not sure" if they will together again, and then went on:

�It�s something that didn�t evolve the way I would like, and same with Trevor and Rick[.] We wanted to make some new music, but for some reason, the powers that be just didn�t give us the chance to get in a studio and make some new music, even though we wrote some music.�

He adds, �Whether that will evolve and become [something concrete] is out of my hands [...] But I loved what I did with Trevor and Rick very much.�

[...]

�The tour was fantastic [...] we were cooking. [...] But everything else around it was very sort of un-together, should I say.�

The Apr 2019 issue of Prog talked to Wakeman and they summarise the situation thus:

[Wakeman] suggests they won't go out under the Yes monicker, despite being given the blessing of Chris Squire's widow, Scotland.

"If I'm brutally honest, for me, Yes died the day that Chris died. I really felt the name should have been put to rest at that moment. [...] Bands should continue playing Yes music - great, that's really important, but let's put the name to rest."

In 2016, the band went under the name "Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman", but in early 2017, they began styling themselves as "Yes featuring Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman", against the wishes of the current Yes band headed by Steve Howe and Alan White. The other Yes stated that this was because Anderson co-owns the trademark and thus has rights to the name (more on that over here), but that they wished to minimise confusion between the two bands, their tone implying they remained unhappy about the situation. More on how this unfolded below.

A live release came in Sep 2018. As for new material, it is unclear if there will be a release or what form it will take. A new piece, "Fragile", was played on the radio in Jul 2018, but has not been officially released. New material has not been played live, but a recording of another original piece was used as intro music on their 2018 summer tour.

They were managed by Brian Lane (currently managing Wakeman, worked with Yes, ABWH, The Buggles, Vangelis, It Bites). Tour promotion was by Larry Magid (worked with Yes, Stevie Wonder, Bette Midler, Robin Williams, Live Aid/Live 8). In a Jun 2016 interview, Anderson said of the collaboration: "In the next few years we have to see what we want to do; go around the world and make some great music and obviously do some great new songs." In two Nov 2016 interviews, Anderson talked of a 3-year plan for the band. In a Dec 2016 interview, asked how long he is committed to ARW, Rabin said, "As far as how long the ARW thing goes, right now there hasn't been one minute where it hasn't been fun. As long as that continues, I'm totally up for it."

In Facebook comments on 8 Jul, Rabin said:

From the 1st rehearsal on the Union tour, I loved Rick as a person
and player, By about the 10th gig, we talked about working together beyond Union.
I'm not sure anything else would have got me away from writing for orchestra (film scoring).
I think really the bug hit me twice... I was very close to our friend Chris Squire, and his passing hit me hard, and somehow it has inspired me to go out and play live again.
The second reason was Rick.
Obviously for me, playing the music we'll be doing, it is something
I wouldn't even consider without the glorious voice, presence and talent of mr. Anderson. "THE VOICE"!!!

In a Jul 2016 interview, Wakeman said:

One of the things that we [Anderson and Wakeman] always talked about was putting the band together with Trevor. Trevor and I have never worked just together playing Yes music. We�ve always said that it could be really different, we could really play the music to another level, do other things, because we wouldn�t be limited to the arrangements that Yes music has always been done by. The crucial layer, of course, is Jon�s voice. I�m afraid that I�m old school. This is nothing against any other singers or whatever. But to me, there are certain bands in the world that if you take the singer away, you don�t have the band anymore. I can�t imagine Led Zeppelin without Robert Plant; I can�t imagine The Who without Roger Daltrey. At the end of the day, I can never hear Yes music without Jon�s voice singing.

[...]

We see a good three years, possibly more if we can all keep our health together, of building and creating something really quite special. [...] We�re looking at this as a relatively long-term plan, at least three if not four or five years.

In another Jul 2016 interview, Anderson said:

The three of us totally love to challenge each other as part of the Yes gene. Deep inside we feel a part of the Yes history, so why not get together and chase more musical dreams?

[...]

I see ARW as a 21st-Century Yes. There is plenty of room for many Yes bands. I think one day I will be able to explain what Yes music really means to me, but, for now, I just feel very committed to create and sing more and more.

In a Jun 2016 interview, Wakeman also said that it was Squire's passing that spurred them to move quicker with the group. He had more comments along those lines in his Jul 2016 interview: "I think it was brought about a bit quicker when we lost Chris Squire. Although none of us really like to talk about it, it brought home our own mortality, or Yes' mortality, I suppose you can say." Asked in an Apr 2016 radio interview if Squire's passing motivated the project, Anderson replied, hesitantly at first: "I think... probably. [...] He would have wanted to be involved [...] I think [...] he loved us all so much. I think he's overseeing a lot of thing. He's up there, being the puppeteer." Likewise, in his Jun 2016 interview, Rabin said:

Chris and I were friends throughout the years. Every couple of years, he would always ask me if I wanted to come back to the band[.] I was in touch with Chris every day until his death.

Chris' passing made me think that life is short and that if the three of us were ever going to work together, now was the time. We all agreed that we've got to do this.

In an article in the Jul 2017 issue of Prog, Anderson also cites Rabin's enthusiastic reaction to Anderson's album with Roine Stolt, Invention of Knowledge, as a key moment in deciding to tour.

The band was nominated in the UK Band/Artist category of the 2017 Progressive Music Awards, but lost to Marillion (again).

As for the future, in his Aug 2016 Newsweek interview, Anderson talked of "a great show that will extend over maybe five years." In a Sep 2016 interview, he said, "We said we'd give it two or three years and see where it goes." In his interview, Magid said, "Speaking to everyone, and to Brian [Lane], I asked what the commitment was. I asked if this was going to be a tour, make as much money as we can and disappear? The three guys have made a commitment to each other to see this thing through to whatever it will become." Later in that article, Rabin said: "I think the intention is to keep going. [...] who knows what the future will bring? There are so many things we want to explore. I think it's going to be longer than six months."

After Yes's induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with Anderson, Wakeman and Rabin all inductees, Wakeman tweeted:

To answer as to whether or not the Hall of Fame Induction will mean a YES reunion in the future, I can say 100% it's never going to happen

In the Mar 2018 issue of Prog, Wakeman said in his column, "there are at least two versions of Yes out there. And before anyone asks, there's more chance of Donald Trump having sex with Kim Jong-un than there is of another full reunion." (The other) Yes also made clear their lack of interest via a press release. Asked about the possibility of a new Union in a Sep 2017 interview, Wakeman said, "It wouldn't happen. Not now. Both sides would tell you it couldn't work."

Touring
The band toured in 2018. They had been promoting what was described as a 100-date world tour starting 3 Jun 2018 in Europe, visiting North America later in 2018, "going on to South America, Central and Southern Europe, ending in Japan and the Far East in 2019." However, after a short European leg, all that followed was a US leg with 10 dates from 26 Aug-9 Sep. Billy Sherwood was in the audience for the 29 Aug show. A listing had leaked with 18 more US dates in Nov/Dec, but this wasn't confirmed and those dates did not happen. Instead, band promo said 20+ US shows will be announced for early 2019. However, in a Jun 2018 interview, Rabin said:

They wanted to do a hundred dates and I said, 'I'm old. The singer's 10 years older than me.' [�] I said, no, [�] you can always call me, we can look at things and if I'm not busy, we can do things. But once that [Aug/Sep] tour is finished, I'm actually going to start bookings [for film scoring].

In a May 2018 interview, Anderson said:

They wanted us to do a three-month tour in The States and we said that was crazy, we just can`t do that at our age and anyway, we want to get on with our new album, so we need time to work on that

In a Jul 2018 interview, Rabin said, "We all looked at the length of the tour and we said, 'We're too old!' [...] So we've cut it down to a reasonable amount." In an early Sep 2018 interview, Rabin said:

I have to be honest, one of the great things about this [ARW] is that we've tried to do it where we haven't imposed a tremendous amount of pressure on ourselves. We don't want to become this slogging the road, year after year, just another boring old tour. We really want to do it so that every night is enjoyable and we feel there's a reason for doing it.

No 2019 dates appeared. In response to the hullabaloo online after Rabin's Jun 2018 interview, his wife posted the following message to a fan Facebook group:

It has been suggested that YES(ARW) might be ending due to comments within this interview.
I want to make it very clear that it is not the case.
Rick Jon and I didn�t come into ARW in a vacuum.
We were all very busy. Other career interests don�t just disappear. We all fully intend to carry on doing what we were doing while putting full energy into YES.
All the best,
Trevor.

Wakeman shed more light on events in a Jul 2020 interview. He explains how his wife was diagnosed with cancer "the day before I was due to fly to start the tour." He explained how the tour leg had meant to be 8-9 weeks long, but was cut short to those dates that had been confirmed.Name controversy
From launching in 2016, ARW stressed their relationship to Yes and described themselves as Yes, at least in some sense, in interviews. The band's website proclaimed "that after a hiatus of 25 years, they are to reform the definitive Yes line-up as Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman (ARW)." The reference to 25 years is to when the three last worked together in the Union line-up. Wakeman there and on the press release is quoted as describing them as the "Holy Trinity of Yes". However, in an Oct 2016 interview, Wakeman denied saying those words: "I can't claim to have been the person who said that�I don't know actually where that came from." The band's Twitter account briefly used the Roger Dean Yes logo in 2016. The official Yes Twitter account tweeted news of the ARW tour when it was announced, saying "Sending warm wishes to our old friends, Jon Trevor & Rick for their upcoming tour".

In an Apr 2016 interview, replying to a question about his views on the current Yes, Anderson moved on to talk about Anderson Rabin Wakeman, saying: "[The current Yes i]s just business, and it's a group of people going out there and playing music that's very valid. I have a different perspective on what it is, and there are bands out there performing Yes music, called tribute bands[.] That's kind of the feeling of what's going on. That's why me and Trevor say, 'Well, listen if we're going to get together, we've got to reignite Yes[.]' You're not going to get together with me, Trevor, and Rick and not think about our heritage, musically." In a May 2016 interview, Anderson said, "People who love Yes have been waiting for this." Likewise, in an early Jun 2016 interview, Anderson said, talking about a set list to include 1970s and 1980s Yes material: "we're very concerned that we're doing the right thing [...] that we honour the history of our work with Yes [�] Yes music is within me, I can't just discard it and get on with something else, it's still there inside of me. And, er, to be working on the idea of the next understanding of Yes that I hear is going to be fantastic." In another interview later that month, he said: "I feel it's a rejuvenation of the idea of 'Yes music'..we are as much a part of the 'Yes' story as anyone". In a Jul 2016 interview, Anderson said, to explain the reference to Yes music in the tour promotion, "We're Yes as much as anybody else, y'know." In a Dec 2016 interview, he said, "We know we're Yes in our senses even though we're calling ourself ARW." In his Sep 2016 GORR, Wakeman said of the full touring quintet, "It's certainly the finest line up performing YES music that I've ever been a part of". In a Jan 2017 interview, Anderson said:

The most important thing is to continue the feeling that we are YES, no matter what, ARW equals YES, or YES is ARW. We come up with so many combinations so that people know because people still relate to the name YES very strongly, and we are ARW, but we are also YES. 21st Century thinking, man.

However, some interviews drew a distinction between ARW and Yes. In a Classic Rock interview around Aug 2016, Rabin said he did not consider ARW to be a rival Yes and that he still has friends in Yes. An Oct 2016 interview had this:

Rabin insists there's no rivalry between the two bands.

"To be honest, it doesn't even enter our minds," he said. "When Rick, Jon and I decided to get together we actively decided not to call it Yes, even though we have just as much right to do so.

"Steve Howe has been playing, in essence, with a tribute band, but there are no bad vibes," said Rabin

Tour promoter Larry Magid was asked, in an Aug 2016 interview, if there is any conflict between ARW and Yes as there was with ABWH and Yes: "Not at all. That's really the genesis of what this tour is. The Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, and Howe tour was every bit as successful as a Yes tour. When you're younger, you have legal ramifications, you want to argue or whatever. Certainly this isn't Yes. It's not meant to be even though it's going to be an evening of Yes music redefined and updated."

Then, on about 26 or 27 Jan 2017, the advertising campaign for the band's forthcoming European dates started using the Yes name. Adverts started using the Roger Dean logo: e.g., this newspaper advert. Online advertising (screenshot, 28 Jan) referred to the band as "Yes feat. Anderson, Rabin & Wakeman (ARW)". For ARW's appearance at the Night of the Prog Festival, they were likewise billed as "Yes featuring Jon Anderson Trevor Rabin Rick Wakeman" (screenshot, 28 Jan), with the festival organisers saying this was approved by ARW's management. The 'Yes' name had appeared to be under the control of the line-up headed by Howe and White, while the Dean logo is owned by Dean and Howe (see more discussion here on ownership); they did not give permission for this usage. By 28 Jan, some of the adverts were being altered to remove the Dean logo, e.g. the front page for the Night of the Prog Festival's website front page had switched to the previous ARW graphic. Likewise, within days, some online advertising had removed the Dean logo. Jon Kirkman said online that he believed Dean had "said no" to their use of the logo. But Night of the Prog, MyTicket etc. continued using the name "Yes feat. Anderson, Rabin & Wakeman (ARW)"; and, 2 Feb, a Planet Rock Tickets mailing and website still had the Dean logo and the "Yes feat. Anderson, Rabin & Wakeman". Tickets for UK dates on ARW's tour again use the "Yes feat..." name and that is how, for example, they were described on the Hammersmith Apollo venue before the show there. Lawyers for both sides were in contact; Jon Kirkman on Facebook reported that Yes had sent a cease and desist letter to ARW. The two bands were then talking in the context of the Hall of Fame induction.

Asked on the Cruise to the Edge (Feb 2017) about the matter, the band with Howe, White etc. stated they are Yes.

On later dates on their European tour, Anderson sometimes described the band as Yes from on stage. By the end of Mar 2017, the band were using "Yes feat. Anderson, Rabin & Wakeman" on adverts for forthcoming US dates. However, it was notable that the band's website was not using that name. Then, in his Apr GORR, Wakeman talked of "ARW, (now known as YES featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin and Rick Wakeman)". In an Apr 2017 interview, asked about why Howe etc. are continuing as Yes, Anderson said:

That�s a tough one to answer, but we think we�re Yes, anyway. ARW equals Yes. It�s mind-boggling in a way to think I started the band and there�s no reason why I shouldn�t be able to utilize the name, because it�s part of my life And me, Rick, and Trevor are p[er]forming an evening of Yes music because that�s who we are. We can�t deny who we are.

After the Hall of Fame induction, a press release then announced the new name of "Yes featuring ARW". This quoted Anderson as saying, "It's very simple[.] The Yes fans want it, we want it and it's our right to use the name. Yes music is in our DNA!" Howe and White's Yes then explained in a release:

While Jon Anderson has rights to use the name as one of the co-owners of the trademark, Yes' position is that every effort should be made by promoters, ticket agencies and all involved to respect Yes' magnificant and loyal fanbase and minimize confusion regarding the use of Yes Featuring Anderson, Rabin, Wakeman.

More on those rights over here. In a Jul 2017 interview, Howe referred to the situation as "basically [...] a discretionary agreement". He continued, "I think ARW have got great potential as ARW, but they're going to do what they're gonna do, and they're not going to change their mind because of what we think. Only time will tell if they did the right thing." In a May 2018 article, he said, "I try to say as little as possible [about ARW] because they used to say a lot about us and not a lot of it was nice. Our position is we don't talk about it".

In a May 2017 interview, White said of the situation, "it is a little bit confusing[.] As far as I'm concerned, I've always been in Yes � I've never been in anything else. And you know, we're just carrying on as Yes." The article then describes White as seeming "indifferent" when they pressed him on whether ARW "touring as Yes will bother him". White continued, "I really don't mind. It's two different shows, what we do and what they do. [...] We know it's a little bit confusing. [...] We keep on doing what we're doing. We don't have to say anything or prove anything different than what we do." White said in an Aug 2017 interview that, "They [ARW] can do whatever they wanna do, you know. It's their prerogative what they wanna do. Yeah, I've been in this band called Yes for 45 years, and I guess that's what I'm still doing. I didn't wander off and go into other bands and do different projects for quite a few years, and then come back. I've been in Yes the whole time along with Chris. We were the only two that kept the thing going, really." In the Jul 2017 issue of Prog, Downes said, "They're perfectly entitled to call themselves whatever they want to call themselves. [...] We wish them well. [...] We hope they succeed."

ARW's manager Brian Lane sent a statement to journalists (quoted in this May 2017 article from Ultimate Classic Rock) saying:

It would help prevent confusion among the fan base if the other Yes band would identify their key members as we have. If you just want to see the original Yes this summer, Yes featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman is the band for you.

[He] wants to make it clear, under no uncertain terms, that Jon Anderson is the co-founder and the original creative soul of of the band Yes and is not a member in the band that is touring under the name Yes for the Yestival Summer 2017 Tour.

The band talked about the name change in the Prog issue. Anderson said that when ARW started, there was "a lot of talk" about them using the Yes name, but that he had not wanted to confuse audiences. He explained his view then was: "We'll go out as ARW to find out who we are musically". However, Rabin then explains that they were "inundated" with people asking why they weren't working under the Yes name. All three talk about audiences getting confused between the two bands; Anderson then described an exchange with the other Yes (some time prior to the Hall of Fame induction):

You should not confuse the fans. You should say who you are. We'd said, "You should go out as Yes featuring Steve, Alan and whoever is in the band and we'll go out as Yes featuring us three," and they declined

Anderson went on to cast the other Yes as "fool[ing] the public" by not using such a name formulation.

Wakeman did not support the new name. He tweeted in May 2018, "It's the first full day of rehearsals with ARW , (as I still call the band)". In his Jul 2017 GORR, he wrote of the next tour leg, "with ARW (or YES featuring Anderson, Rabin & Wakeman) as it now seems to be billed." He then sticks with ARW for short. Yet by this Oct 2017 interview, he just talked about the band as "Yes". In this Sep 2017 interview, Wakeman said, "I was very happy being called AWR [_sic_]." He went on, "It's clear who we are. I know who we are. Now, I don't know quite how, honestly, but we became "Yes featuring blahblahblah." There wouldn't be any confusion if the other guys billed themselves as "Yes featuring Howe, White, Downes." I don't know and I don't have any real interest in what they do. I really don't mind. It does, though, cause some confusion." An interview conducted Mar 2017 in Czech has this from Wakeman:

My to tak i občas uv�d�me, �e jsme Yes featuring Anderson, Rabin & Wakeman. Mus�m přiznat, �e si nedok�u představit Led Zeppelin bez Roberta Planta, The Who bez Rogera Deltraye a Yes bez Jona Andersona. Tak�e pokud m�te Yes, ve kter�ch nezp�v� Jon Anderson, nemů�ete to naz�vat Yes.

Začali jsme hr�t hudbu Yes tak, jak si mysl�me, �e by měla b�t hr�na. A ano, fanou�ci n�m ř�kaj�, �e jsme ti prav� Yes, ale ve fin�le je to jedno, jak se na�e kapela bude jmenovat. A na to, �e jsme jenom p�r stař�ků, tak si to opravdu u�iv�me. (sm�ch)

Thanks to Vojta at Yesfans.com for this translation:

Sometimes we promote ourselves as Yes featuring Anderson, Rabin & Wakeman. I must say that I cannot imagine Led Zeppelin without Robert Plant, The Who without Roger Deltray, and Yes without Jon Anderson. So, if you have Yes without Jon Anderson singing, you cannot call it Yes.

We started to play the Yes music the way we think it should be played. And yes, the fans tell us that we are the true Yes. But it doesn't mater what our band is called in the end. And given that we are just a bunch of old farts, we really have lot of fun. [_laughs_]

Wakeman went further in a Mar 2018 interview (published in Spanish), saying:

Lo que est� pasando con Yes es rid�culamente confuso. Nunca quise usar el nombre. Cuando a Jon Anderson, Trevor y a m� nos hicieron problema por usar el nombre dije �listo, ya est�, porque sab�a que iba a pasar esto. Nosotros ten�amos una identidad como ARW, y lo ven�amos haciendo realmente bien, tocando incluso canciones de Yes. En el momento que pasamos a ser Yes Featuring Anderson, Rabin y Wakeman se volvi� todo confuso. La banda de Steve Howe, el Yes de Steve Howe, est� haciendo conciertos en Inglaterra y literalmente todos los d�as nos preguntan si somos nosotros. No, es una banda diferente. Nunca debimos hacer eso. La gente sab�a que se encontrar�a cuando nos llam�bamos ARW.

Which roughly translates as:

What is happening with Yes is ridiculously confusing. I never wanted to use the name. When Jon Anderson, Trevor and I got into trouble for using the name, I said "OK, that's it", because I knew this was going to happen. We had an identity as ARW, and we had been doing it really well, even playing Yes songs. The moment we became Yes Featuring Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman, it became all confusing. Steve Howe's band, Yes by Steve Howe, is doing concerts in England and literally every day they ask us if it's us. No, it's a different band. We should never do that. People knew what he would find when we called ourselves ARW.

Asked about his relationship with the "other Yes", he continued: "No hay relaci�n con ellos, para ser honesto. No es tristeza ni enojo lo que tengo, la verdad ni me importan. Porque pueden hacer lo que quieran. S� contact� a Steve cuando muri� su hijo menor en septiembre pasado, tristemente. Le escrib�, y luego habl� de eso con Dylan, su otro hijo. Ellos que hagan lo que quieran, siempre va a haber discusiones sobre el material, ellos dir�n que lo nuestro no es Yes, nosotros diremos que no pod�s tener a Yes sin Jon Anderson cantando, y as�. Entonces lo que hagan est� bien, no me afecta." That is, he says he has no relationship with them (although he did reach out to Steve and Dylan Howe after Virgil Howe's death). He finishes: "they will say that our [band] is not Yes, we will say that you cannot have Yes without Jon Anderson singing, and so on. So what you do is fine, it does not affect me."

Compare an interview conducted Jun 2017 in which Anderson said, "Now we're calling ourselves Yes because, y'know, we did the whole thing and we realised, wait a minute, we're going to be standing up there as Yes, so why not call ourselves Yes, because millions of people will see that show, and it will be crazy if we don't call ourselves Yes, which we wanted to do anyway, but we thought we might as well do it now."

Rabin is also on record as being less bothered by using the 'Yes' name. In an Oct 2017 interview, conducted around Aug, he said:

Jon started this band with Chris Squire [...] there have been a number of significant lineups. The main thing is Jon is very passionate about the fact that, as far as the name, he should be part of it.

I really don�t care about the name. I was happy calling it ARW.

[...]

As far as the name goes, to be quite honest�I had the simple thought in my mind to get onstage and just get back playing. I never contemplated all these stupid problems with names. Every time the problem comes up I just cast my mind to Spinal Tap. It�s so ridiculous.

He continued:

One of the points of view from Rick, Jon and I is that no one else deserves the name anymore than we do. I�m happy to talk to you about it. I just don�t think it should be an issue unless someone else wants to talk about it. But, I could care less.

And in another interview published Oct 2017 and conducted more recently than the above, Rabin said:

Frankly, I didn�t care what it was called�I was quite happy with leaving it as ARW but a lot of fans were saying, �Why aren�t you calling yourselves Yes? You�re playing Yes stuff and you�re three guys from significant times with the band!� and its management and promotion and everyone felt it would be a better thing to do. Fans would be happier doing it that way [...]

But the funny thing is that it might look like it was a business decision but, in my view, we were doing fine as ARW as far as, you know, we�re not doing big arenas anymore�you know, things level off and you carry on as you are [...] But just from the social media, there seemed to be an interest in wanting us to call ourselves Yes. I was a proponent of not caring one way or the other.

[...]

I think Jon feels quite strongly about the name. You know his view is we�re playing better than ever and why are we going under another name when we�ve got 16, or whatever it is, albums that basically we�re involved in, in some way

In a Jul 2018 interview, Rabin said, "we can call ourselves Yes if we want. We have the legal right to do so. We were called Anderson Rabin Wakeman, which we... we liked, I actually prefer, but a lot of fans wrote in and said, 'Why don't you call yourselves Yes['] [...] along with that and management and people involved, we were kind of talked into, let's call it [...] Yes featuring Anderson Rabin Wakeman." In a Sep 2018 interview, Rabin said:

I kind of feel no one should be called Yes anymore[.] I�ll get rapped on the knuckles for saying this, but it�s just my opinion. I liked the way Led Zeppelin did it. When John Bonham died, that was it.

On their Aug 2017 North American tour, ARW have been selling a T-shirt using the classic Dean Yes logo. Reportedly, they were told to remove it.

In a Sep 2017 article, Wakeman said, "There was never competing Yes tours[.] There was just two tours going on." While Howe, asked about the situation with two bands, said:

I�m not prepared to discuss it. Make your own deductions, say what you like, but anything that�s said won�t be properly digested so I�d rather say nothing at all. You get on with your life.

Asked in another Sep 2017 interview about his impressions of the other Yes, Anderson said, "It's a different kind of band. They are still playing Yes music, songs I wrote... hey, I don't mind. A lot of bands play Yes music � like tribute bands all over the world." Asked about the name change, he said, "I always owned part of the name. When we got in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and people saw us [...] all over the world, I thought we should be really calling ourselves Yes between me, Rick and Trevor. It just seemed logical." And in another, he explained the situation with two bands thus:

A lot of people hearing Yes music feels good[.] There are a lot of Yes tribute bands out there, so there are a lot of people hearing Yes music, anyway. We just get along with Steve�s band doing what they�re doing, and we love what we do.

You know, in the �60s and �70s, there were about five bands called the Drifters around, in England. It�s just music. I don�t worry about it too much. I don�t get involved in who�s better or who�s worse. We know we�re good at what we doing.

In a mid-Jan 2018 Facebook, Anderson just referred to Yes featuring Anderson Rabin Wakeman as "YES". A May 2018 article quotes him thus:

�We�re a Yes, they�re a Yes. There are so many Yesses out there,� he says, referring to the numerous tribute bands who also play their songs. �The music has survived. That�s the main thing.�

In an Oct 2019 interview, Wakeman was asked about not wanting to call ARW Yes:

No. I didn�t. [...] I have quite moralistic views. When Chris died, he was the only founding member still left in the band. He�s the only guy that had been in every incarnation of Yes [...] I felt with so many different band members in and out that when Chris passed away, the decent thing to do would be to say, �OK, we�re putting the name Yes on the shelf. That�s it.�

We can still play Yes music. Steve, if you want to have a band, play Yes music. Jon, you can too. Anyone that has been in the band is fully entitled to play Yes music, but do it under a different name. There�s nothing wrong with it, but it degraded the name and the word and the music by what happened after Chris died. We did end up going out because promoters wanted it as Yes Featuring ARW, but it just confused people. They had no idea who they were going to see and what was going on.

It was wrong and I was very against it [...] But we�re going to do some farewell shows next year [2020] and they are going to be ARW. It may be �ARW Performing an Evening of Yes Music.� That�s fine. But not Yes in the name of the band.

Later in that same interview, he said: "If you want my real honest answer, the whole Yes thing is a mess since Chris died. It's a total and utter mess for the fans and the people because nobody knows what the hell is going on. Nobody knows who is in what, who is doing what. It's just one hilarious mess. It would make a great cartoon series."

In Jan 2021, an online store was launched under the ARW name rather than "Yes featuring ARW".

Rest of the band The touring band was normally a quintet with bassist Lee Pomeroy (Headspace, This Oceanic Feeling, It Bites, works with Take That, ELO, worked with Downes Braide Association, Steve Hackett), who works regularly with Wakeman and was rumoured to have been approached back in 2010, and drummer Lou Molino III, who works regularly with Rabin. With Pomeroy busy with other commitments, Japanese dates in 2017 (when Pomeroy was touring with Take That) and Jun 2018 European dates (when Pomeroy was touring with Gary Barlow) were with Iain Hornal (ELO, worked with Grahman Gouldman, 10cc) on bass.

New material
The band talked about new material, but nothing was officially released. It appears little progress towards a studio album was ever made. In an Apr 2023 interview, asked if ARW made any new music, Anderson replied, "We did some recordings at Trevor [Rabin]'s place. It just didn't work out. Things are like that sometimes."

While Anderson was keen on new material at times, it appears there were disagreements of some sort, as both Anderson and Wakeman have indicated. An Oct 2019 interview put the following to Wakeman: "I spoke to Jon and he said there were disagreements about recording new music with ARW. Where did you stand on that?" Wakeman replied:

I always supported new music if it was really special. We started sending music backwards and forwards to each other and there were some pieces that started to come together that had big possibilities. I felt very much that it was time, not just to do songs, but we needed a couple of real epic things, like 21st-century �Awaken.� And Jon liked that idea, so did Trev. We started putting a couple of things together that were really coming together well.

But there was two problems. One, which is finance. There are no major record companies these days who would pay the money that would be needed to do a project like this properly. The only way we could do that is if we�re all together in the same room working like we used to. We have to work together and put things together like a jigsaw. We would need two months, minimum, in a room somewhere. You�ve got the difficulty that Jon lives up in San Luis Obispo and Trev lives [...] in Los Angeles and I�m in [...] the East Coast of England. [...] Lee Pomeroy, is in Southern England [...] Lou Molino, is also in England. [...]

It needed to be properly financed for all us to get together. Also, we needed to choose somewhere where we could all work together, whether it be on the West Coast or in England or whether it be somewhere neutral. We never got around to agreeing on where that could be. There is certainly the basics of music that could possibly well be a very good album, but I personally, and I don�t think Trevor and Jon did, don�t want to put out an album just because we could. There was a sort of single put out [_sic_], �Fragile Touch,� which, not for me � it was a nice song. But people forget I�m a Yes fan too. [...] I�m entitled to say �I like this� or �I�d like to hear this.�

�Fragile Touch� was a nice enough song, but it wasn�t what I wanted to hear from Yes. I wanted to hear some great playing and what I call some surprises. You go back to �Close to the Edge� and it�s full of surprises. You�ve got no idea where it�s going to go once it starts. That, to me, is what Yes music is.

In another interview that month, he said "there's a fair chance" that they will release some new music to coincide with a 2020-1 tour: "Not a whole album's worth, but there'll be some music[. W]e always said that it had to be of such a high standard, had to be like classic standard, otherwise we wouldn't."

In a Feb 2019 interview, Anderson said:

I [...] always wanted just to make some new music, but it was just hard to get everything in that sort of area, where we were connected, and that's just the way things are

In another Feb 2019 interview, he said:

The only reason I wanted to work with the guys was to make a great new album. But, for some reason everybody had something else to do. So I tried my best to coerce them. 'Let's just do February, March and we'll just be together. If not, we can do it through Skype.' And then that didn't happen and this didn't happen. So I just went, 'Okay, I gotta get on my with life' sort of thing.

The aforementioned Mar 2019 article also quoted Anderson as saying, "there was too much of, 'Should we do an album?' We couldn't agree on that." In one of the Jul 2019 interviews, Anderson spoke of having written songs with the other two, but went on: "we'd never gotten into the studio to do them. That's the way life goes sometimes." In another Mar 2019 interview, Anderson was asked whether there would be more ARW activity and if there was any new studio work. He replied, "It's a long story [...] whichever way you look at it, you want to do new music. I wrote some songs with Trevor, with Rick, we just couldn't get everyone together at the same place, because everyone's so busy in life."

A piece of original music was debuted on their 2018 summer tour: it is a recording of an instrumental piece, around 2 minutes long, which was played as the introduction music as the band walked on for the show. It is not played live. There is an audience recording of it on YouTube. It was unknown where this piece came from. However, we now find out that the piece seems to be a version of a song "Push" on Rabin's Oct 2023 solo album Rio. It is unclear, but this may imply that only Rabin was involved in the creation of the intro music.

A new piece, "Fragile/Touch" or "Fragile", was then premiered on a radio interview. In the Jul 2018 interview, Rabin said that the band are using a song of his called "Fragile", first used on the end credits of an episode of the TV series Agent X in Dec 2015 (audio here). Rabin continued, "the band really liked it, and so we thought, 'Yeah, let's do it.' So, we did it." A brief fragment of the piece can be heard in the interview archive on YouTube; more was played on the radio and is doing the rounds online (e.g.,Prog link to it here). The interviewer described it as produced by Rabin. The full song is about 5:22 long, with Rabin taking lead vocals and Anderson providing harmony and some counterpoint vocals. The band's set list for their 26 Aug show (see this picture) included the piece, listed as "Fragile/Touch", but it wasn't then played. In a Jul 2020 interview for the Rabin-esque blog, Rabin said the piece was by him and Anderson, with Anderson having added new lyrics to the bridge. Wakeman recorded his piano parts in England, while Anderson recorded vocals at Rabin's studio, with Rabin performing vocals and all the other parts. He also said he wasn't certain the band should have done the song, but that he thought it would at least have been a starting point for recording an album. He said he did not want to release it and did not think it has any relevance now the band is over. In the Sep 2020 interview, Rabin said of "Fragile":

that was really quite an unfortunate thing. We were kind of browbeaten into... The promoters and everyone saying, 'You've been talking about releasing a record.' And I said, 'Well, let's be very honest, we just haven't had the time.' 'Well, can't you just do a single?' And I'd written this song "Fragile", and so we all listened to it and thought, well, it's a really nice song, so why don't we do that? [...] "Fragile" was something that, y'know, I had basically recorded and re-established all the tracks, and then Rick played some beautiful piano on it, and then Jon came in and sang... most of it. The choruses, we kinda left, and Jon joined in on them [...] there was really no fanfare. It wasn't released. And, er, it was as if it was never done. We rehearsed it and it sounded really great, but I can't remember why, but we decided not to use it. Because, y'know, there's so much music to choose from that doing that song means leaving out something else

A bonus track on some versions of Rabin's Rio is entitled "Fragile (Demo)", which seems to be Rabin's original version of the song. In a Sep 2023 interview, asked whether there's any ARW music and if if might be released, Rabin replied:

No, there's really nothing that we did. There were a couple of things we were coming up with because, initially it was just going to be the tour and then that was going to be it, but then we... things started going really well and the band was, I think, really good [...] So there was mumblings from outside the band, oh you've got to record, you've got to do an album. And, y'know, we started sending little bits and pieces to each other. And then before the last tour, [...] management said, y'know, you've got to do something, even if it's just a single, you've got to do something. Because otherwise what are you touring for. And the honest answer is we're touring because we're just loving it, you know? And so, I pulled out a song which I had done some time before, not released, it was in some TV show. But it was a song I was really proud of called "Fragile". Actually, my original demo's on the album [Rio], but I took that, and Rick played some beautiful stuff on it, and Jon came in and sang with me on it. And that was, I think, played on a radio station, before we played in LA [the song was never played live, but ARW seems to have rehearsed it for a show], and I think that was pretty much it. We never took it any further, didn't release the song, and we were really focused on touring and just being on the road.

In an interview conducted late Jul 2018, Anderson said that he is "planning something for 2020", possibly referring to ARW, although that is unclear. The interview continues, saying that Anderson talked about how "he keeps dreaming about "that perfect Yes album,"" before later saying, "It's something that's just percolating in my mind[.] I have no idea what it sounds or looks like, but I just know that the music that we're [ARW are] doing, to me, is pretty fantastic. When it will get recorded properly, who knows? Because we have great demos already, but the music, it's a question of timing. You realize when you get older, everybody has a life! One minute, we're going to do it in this period of time and you know, somebody can't do it at that period of time. Everybody's got work to do and stuff, and their own dreams, I suppose. So we do have some great music and it's a question of finding the right time. [The Aug/Sep 2018 US tour leg is] a short tour, and maybe after that, it will get done. I thought it was going to get done earlier this year [2018], but it never did. Because, you know, everybody has a life!" In an early Sep 2018 interview, asked about the ARW album, Anderson said, "We're about halfway through what I think will be the Yes album that everybody's been waiting for." Asked to describe it, Anderson said, "Trevor thinks commercial, I think esoteric, and Rick thinks whatever he wants to think." In an interview conducted late Aug 2018, asked about new material, Anderson said, "It's been my mantra for the last five years that "It'll happen when it happens.""

In an interview published Oct 2021, Wakeman said of "Fragile/Touch":

Yeah, we put it out. I mean, I think if we�d had more time, we could have done better[.] The difficulty is you�ve got Jon living up in San Luis Obispo, you�ve got Trevor living in Hollywood and there�s me living on the east coast of England. We can�t exactly pop around to each other�s houses for a morning coffee. It�s really difficult.

You really need to be sitting in the same room[.] Two years ago, we were looking at how we could actually achieve that, all being in the same place � because to be honest, that�s the best way when music is written. The best Yes stuff was always written when we were all in the same room.

Asked after a show in Oct 2018, Wakeman said that the band have agreed only to release new music if it is good enough, but that they don't, as yet, have enough for a release.

In an Aug 2018 band interview, they were asked about new songs. They mostly talked about newness in other senses, in their live performance, but pushed on the question of whether there is new material, there was this exchange:

Wakeman: Well, there's a bit.

Rabin: There's new music and there's a new intro... to the whole show.

Anderson: And I'm going to do a little new thing at the beginning of, er, a song called "Fragile". Not "Fragile", er... "Wonderous Stories".

However, neither "Fragile" nor "Wonderous Stories" have been played live yet. In a Sep 2018 interview, Rabin said, "We've done a song, and there's a lot in the pipeline. I wrote a song called 'Fragile' for a TV series starring Sharon Stone. Rick had fantastic ideas for it. Jon got into it and sang beautifully.[...] We might do that one on this tour, because it sounds really nice live." In an Aug 2018 interview, Rabin said, "there is a lot of music that's been written and stuff that's been passed backwards and forwards", but on the subject of releasing that material, he continued:

I have no idea whether that's in the cards or not, but it's certainly not something I'm against and it's not something Jon or Rick is against[.] We've been offered a number of record deals but we don't want to commit to that, so we've turned them down. Doing a record contract is not something we want to do, and if we record then we'll record first and then decide what to do with it. There won't be some announcement that Yes signs to whatever. That's not something we're even interested in.

An early Sep 2018 interview with Rabin was asked about "Fragile":

I have to be honest, one of the great things about this is that we've tried to do it where we haven't imposed a tremendous amount of pressure on ourselves. We don't want to become this slogging the road, year after year, and just another boring old tour. We really want to do it so that every night is enjoyable and we feel there's a reason for doing it. Er, "Fragile" was something... it was actually a song I had written for a thing I was doing with Sharon Stone [_i.e. Agent X_] [...] I just thought, y'know, it's a really relaxed song, which is in contrast to the show, which is a bit kind of balls to the wall [...] it was just a song where Jon heard it and said, "Oh, that's got some magic to it [...] I'd love to sing on that." And, er, and so we did it. It wasn't a tremendous amount of pressure. We grabbed it, and Rick worked... worked pretty tirelessly putting, erm, what he thought would be the right thing, went through a number of connotations so that he could add what would be appropriate and, erm... It's kind of surprising, I guess, to some people, because, y'know, it's not particularly, erm, y'know, acrobatics or anything. It's just a really kind of, er, heartfelt song, so we enjoyed doing it.

The interviewer then asked if there would be more new music: "Well, we hope so. I mean, the great thing about this [...] we've tried not to worry about putting pressure and obviously, from management, and promotion, they want to try to put things in stone and organise schedules. And we're all of the same mind, let's just play and let it take us where it takes us. So that's how we've approached it. We're not looking too far into the future, and we've said that from day one and we're still sitting here two years later doing it, so... I think it's a good plan."

Promo in mid-Apr 2018 said:

the band are currently hard at work, creating some stellar new recordings for their 50th Anniversary. This will be the first new music in 28 years featuring Jon Anderson/Trevor Rabin/Rick Wakeman together [_sic_]. It is planned these will also be available for release by the end of 2018 or early 2019.

There has been talk of releasing material piecemeal before or instead of an album. In a Jun 2017 interview, Anderson said, "I've working with Rick and Trevor. We've written a lot of music and we're just finding the time to record, er, next month [Jul 2017]. And then maybe in, er, trying to figure it out to go into the studio again in November and then again in January [2018]", with the plan being to release the album in the 50th anniversary year of Yes, 2018. However, when Nov 2017 came, Wakeman was otherwise engaged, while in his Jan 2018 GORR, he talked of being busy in his own studio in Jan/Feb 2018 on a solo project. The delay may be related to Anderson's wife Jane being diagnosed with breast cancer around early Aug 2017, but she is now cancer free (as he described on Facebook in Jan 2018). He was busy with his forthcoming solo album, 1000 Hands: Chapter One. In his Feb 2018 GORR, Wakeman then said:

On the 7th, Erik Jordan and I will be recording bits and pieces to send over to Trevor and Jon as part and parcel of the new music we have been putting together and sending each other. It�s a good way of working when you all live so far apart!

In his Mar 2018 GORR, he described plans for the second half of Mar and appeared to refer to work on an ARW album:

I then start work in earnest on a couple of pieces that Jon, Trevor and myself have been working on as well as making preparations for a new solo album [...]
On the 24th I fly to Napoli for a piano concert that night. [...]

Then it�s more work in the studio which will spill over into April.

Asked about recording plans, the 1 Mar 2018 interview (published in Spanish) had Wakeman saying:

Pensamos mucho esa idea, algo con dos o tres temas muy buenos y tres o cuatro que est�n bien. Entonces nos dimos cuenta que en estos d�as no ten�s que s� o s� hacer un �lbum, as� que estamos trabajando en esos dos o tres temas muy buenos, los que realmente creemos que son los mejores y saldr�n editados como un EP. Priorizamos esas canciones en lugar de hacer un disco por el simple hecho de registrar m�s m�sica.

Roughly translated, that is:

We thought a lot about that idea [of recording an album], something with two or three very good songs and three or four that are good. Then we realized that these days you do not have to make an album, yes we are working on those two or three very good songs, which we really believe are the best and will be released as an EP. We prioritise those songs instead of making an album for the simple fact of recording more music.

Asked about the recording in a May 2018 interview, Anderson said his mantra is "It will happen when it happens". The full quote, as was translated into Portuguese, goes:

Est� demorando o tempo necess�rio para gravarmos m�sicas novas. �s vezes, a m�sica � o mestre e o meu mantra �: �acontecer� quando acontecer�.

In an interview later that month, he was more positive and talked of an album, saying:

We have about an hours� worth of new music written and we want to make a new album and just do something radically different. Trevor said he`d like to use a full orchestra and choir for it, like a film score. That would be the dream. We`ve actually done some recording that we`ll use for the beginning of the [live] show [on the 2018 European leg of touring]. There`s no song titles as yet but you will find out in time.

He was then asked when the album will come out, at which point he referred also to a special project, more on which below: "It's all down to timing. We had a plan to do this big thing down in London earlier this year [2018] but it didn't quite come off but we are looking to do something big, crazy and wonderful next spring so maybe the record will come out sometime after that."

In an Oct 2017 interview, conducted around Aug, Rabin was asked how far along is the recording of a new album. He replied:

It�s not even close to completed. What we have are a number of songs which are really, really close. As far as an album, I think what we�ll do is do it bit by bit and release it the minute it�s ready because these days the art form of making a record has kind of died with the emergence of downloading [...] we�ll probably just do it and release a track the minute it�s ready and then, once we have enough to do an album, then we�ll put the collection together.

In an Aug 2017 interview with Wakeman and Rabin, Wakeman talked about plans for a special project connected with the new material. The exchange began with the interviewer asking about plans for new material:

Wakeman: It will be coming soon. Middle of next year [2018]. [...] We're working on a big project, which we can't really tell you anything about at the moment, but we've been putting it together and it's big, it really is big, and that will include, er, the new music. And that we should be able to announce early in the year [2018].

Rabin: Yeah. Absolutely.

Wakeman: So that's very exciting for us, because we wanted the new music to mean something, be special, not just 'here's a new song'. [...]

Rabin: [...] in these days [...] if you play one of the new songs [...] you want to feel and see if it works. We've got loads of new material, but you play it once, and the next day it's on YouTube, so it's impossible to do. You've got to wait, be patient.

[...]

Wakeman: Because the trouble is, if you do that, it ends up on YouTube, I think, it's not as you want it to be for the recorded version. [...]

The interviewer then asked whether they think the public are less attentive:

Wakeman: [...] I think they're losing out. Because of people who [mimes holding up smartphone] stand with their iPhone and do that, they're losing out because, when the new music appears [...] it's no longer as special as it should be, because of that [repeats mime] [...] which is a real shame. That's why we're doing the new music this way round. We're going to launch it, with a very, very special project. That will be the first time it's done. The album and everything will be around at the same time. So there'll be no need for people to go [repeats mime with an exaggerated gormless expression] like that with their iPhone. I hate them.

Rabin: Yeah

The pair, however, didn't expand on the nature of this project. However, in an earlier Aug 2017 interview, Anderson described plans for a "visual installation", starting in London: "The idea is that we're going to be performing with the installation, and then we're going to make holograms of ourselves". The installation would then tour major cities. This may or may not be the same plan. In a Sep 2017 interview, he said:

Deep inside I would love the make a hologram of everyone who ever played in the band and tour forever��surrounded by visuals from AVATAR�.performing everything we have ever dreamed of�

A Nov 2017 edit on Wikipedia described Guy Protheroe (worked with Rick Wakeman, Jon Anderson, Vangelis) as "due to be appearing as chorus master for the 50th Anniversary Concert of Yes, with his long-term colleagues Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman." Could this be in reference to some special event too?

In another Sep 2017 interview, Anderson said of the new album, "We've got incredible music ready, and it's all in demo form[.] It's the 50th anniversary of the band next year [2018] and we want to be bring something out that's unique and refreshing and very powerful, which is what I do when I'm in Yes. I don't want to create just an album. What for? I want to create something very spectacular." In yet another, he said, "Everything is a bit different now[.] You don't put albums out so much. You put projects out. So we're working on a big project for next summer." In an Aug 2017 interview, Anderson described the new music thus: "It's classic Yes � it's very very different". In a third Sep 2017 interview, Anderson said of the new music that "we are going to get it recorded this winter".

In an Oct 2017 interview, Wakeman said:

We're looking at new music, but we're very well aware for the last heaven knows how many years, there have been various Yes albums out since '90125' that have just been, for want of a better word, there has been some good stuff on some of them and not so good on some of the others and the albums have just disappeared.

We've been talking about Yes going to do new music, but it's got to be special and part of a project Yes fans can relate to, not just, 'Here's another album.'

And in another that month:

An area that concerns all of us, and me in particular, is making new music that actually means something. There are bands in a similar situation that produce albums that the hardcore fans buy and then it disappears without a trace. Some of the reason why is because, even though we have a great fan base, that the industry has changed so much [...]

For me, to make an album just to make an album of songs is not worth it. If there is a project like �Close to the Edge,� something that has a plan with it, that is what I would like to see. It�s not that easy, but it is a discussion we are having.

In a Sep 2017 interview, asked about their new music, Rabin said:

I�m always having to apologize for that, because it�s just taking a long time. Not because it�s not going well. [...] There�s so many ideas, which we�ve kind of cataloged, �Oh, we�ve got to utilize that� and then we�re excited, so we didn�t finish through on something and we went to the next thing. So we have a ton of categorized pieces which we have together, and it�s just taking a long time to put it all together. But I think it�s going to result in something pretty special if we have the patience to get through it!

In another Sep 2017 interview, asked if he knew when the album would be out, Pomeroy said, "not yet," and comment on both Wakeman and Rabin being busy with other projects. He continued, "there is a lot of music recorded now, and I've heard a lot of it. It's fantastic. [...] I'm, y'know, still due to play on it, pretty soon".In Rabin's interview published in Oct 2017, the interviewer suggests that the first part of "Market Street" on Rabin's solo album Jacaranda sounds like it could be the basis of a future Yes song:

When Jon first got the album, he sent it back to me with his vocals on top of the stuff. It was very flattering but �It�s a fucking instrumental record, Jon.� [Laughs] But, you�re so right. That�s exactly where Jon wanted to go. Take stuff from Jacaranda and use it. There�s no reason why we couldn�t. So, at some point we might rehearse a song or two and see what we can do with it beyond instrumentals.

(I'm unclear whether that latter comment refers to live performance or studio recording.) Rabin goes on to talk about being immersed in orchestral work for many years of doing film scores:

That�s something that I�m integrating into stuff. The good news is Jon started coming to a number of my orchestra sessions on a number of songs a couple of years back, and he was really happy being there [...] he�s one of the allies in doing that. �Look. It�s part of what you do. That�s part of who you are. [...] You should use it.� That�s seems to be the biggest change that would come to any new material.

In a mid-Jul 2017 interview, Anderson talked of doing "some recording next year", i.e. 2018, and he went on to say "that'll probably be, be the last of my understanding of Yes music, because I still do other different kinds of music. So inside my heart, I always feel I'm doing Yes music". (Does that mean there will only be one ARW studio album?) In the Jul 2017 issue of Prog, Wakeman talked of a release by summer 2018. He described how "we've been throwing ideas backwards and forwards [...] We have got a lot of stuff that we want to look at [...] There's a couple of wonderful basic songs that need ARW-ifying, or Yes-ifying, however you want to put it. But [...] the best way to get the music actually sorted [...] is if you're all sitting in a room together." To that end, he talked of the trio coming together in the studio for around 3 weeks in late Jan/early Feb 2018 and then the three principals returning to their own studios for further work, but, as he puts it, but with "a template of what to work for". Anderson was quoted as saying: "We haven't finished any of the songs [...] but we've easily got over an hour's worth of musical ideas." And this from Rabin:

We had quite a bit of stuff which we were close to being ready to release. I listened to it [...] and thought, 'Ah, there's a couple of things that are missing on it.' So it's taken a bit of a back seat. I don't want it to sound too clean and contrived [...] I want it to be a little edgy [...] we'll go back and get it right. We don't want to rush it.

[...]

There's absolutely no desire to repeat what we've done in the past

In the interview conducted Jun 2017, Anderson said:

[We've] got quite a lot of music [...] it's 50 years next year [2018], so it might be the best time [for a new album] and we're planning on doing some recording in the winter. And we just want to do something different, y'know. Not different than what we perform. We love doing what we call�what I call�Yes music, a stylised idea. We're still going to stick with that. We're not just going to go all rock and roll, or jazz, or whatever. So we'll just do a mixture of everything.

The Mar 2017 Czech interview has this from Wakeman:

Zat�m jsme s nov�mi věcmi velmi spokojeni a vypad� to, �e do konce roku bychom mohli m�t hotovo nějak�ch třicet minut materi�lu.

[...]

Chceme dělat hudbu Yes a chceme napsat i novou hudbu Yes, kter� by odr�ela současnost. Deska vyjde někdy v roce 2018 a nechceme ji uspěchat. N�pady si pos�l�me u� rok. A hl�d�me si, aby to bylo dobr�, co� mi připom�n� styl pr�ce v sedmdes�t�ch letech. I kdy� teď bydl�me daleko od sebe, tak mů�eme jednodu�e komunikovat.

[...]

Je to takov� mix. Pro n�s jsou důle�it� melodie, a to velmi siln� melodie, kter� si lid� mohou snadno spojit s emocemi. Určitě chceme udělat nějakou epickou skladbu, proto�e r�di podnik�me s hudbou cestu, kde objevujeme dal�� a dal�� z�kout�, něco jako Close to the Edge. Teď m�me jednu takovou rozpracovanou s pracovn�m n�zvem Bolero. Ta skladba je jako kameny polo�en� přes řeku, spousta různorod�ch zast�vek a kroků.

Thanks to Vojta at Yesfans.com for translating:

We are very satisfied with the new songs so far and it looks like we could have about thirty minutes of material by the end of the year [2017].

[...]

We want to play Yes music and we also want to write new Yes music that would reflect the present. The album will come out sometime in 2018 and we don't want to rush it. We have been exchanging ideas for a year. And we keep an eye on it being good, which is reminiscent of the style of work in the seventies. Even though we live far apart, we can communicate easily.

[...]

It is a mix of everything. Melodies are very important to us, very strong melodies that people can connect with their emotions. We also want to do an epic song because we like to go on a musical journey where we discover more and more corners, something like Close to the Edge. We are working on such song with the working title Bolero. This song is like stones laid across a river, a lot of different stops and steps.

An early Apr 2017 press release said "the trio will be recording new material throughout the summer for a projected album release of early 2018." A Mar 2017 interview with Anderson and Rabin reported "four long-form pieces ready with plans to return to the studio after the current tour" (which is 7 Mar-24 Apr 2017). It quotes Rabin: "I think by June, July we'll pretty much have half an album finished[.] It's very different from anything we've done before, which we're pretty happy about, hopefully breaking new ground, soundwise." Anderson added, "We don't know the best way to release them yet". This echoes earlier comments by Anderson about releasing new pieces online in stages rather than a traditional album format. In an interview at the Hall of Fame induction in early Apr, Wakeman said: "We've got three pieces that are well down the line that we're really pleased with and which we're working on. Hopefully by summer we should have them there. But we're not going to rush � we want them to be as good as we possibly can make them."

In another Mar 2017 interview, Anderson said, "[We] are creating songs now and will continue � and hope to record them later this summer. What we're developing is in the YES style but very much 21st Century sounding." By the time of an Apr 2017 interview, Rabin said:

We�re about a fifth of the way there. I can�t really describe the music, but hopefully it�s fresh and innovative. And what we are going to do, rather than do an album and then present it, is we�ll do a song or two and put it out and keep putting out songs as we finish them. So there�s not going to be some large picture as far as a concept album or anything. Once all the material is done, then we�ll encompass it and sequence it into an album, but in the meantime we�re going to be releasing all of it into individual songs.

In another Apr 2017 interview, Rabin said:

Jon was at my studio [recently] putting final touches on a couple of tracks we�ve been working on and we�re just gonna do it song by song and bit by bit, and as we go along we�ll formulate what the whole concept is. But these days doing an album is very different to what doing an album was many years ago. It�s almost freeing, although I really miss the idea of an album and the album cover and the sequencing of the songs and the whole story that the album might develop into, but it�s also quite freeing having this kind of thing where you just put a song out.

[...]

I�m a bit of a stickler for polishing things up and getting them to where I think they�re perfect, and I know there�s two kinds of artists, there�s those that do that and then there are the others that are very prolific. Like Prince was very prolific, and I remember hearing that George Michael said to Prince or to his manager, one of Prince�s problems is he doesn�t edit himself. And I thought about it and I said that�s a good point, but at the same time, it�s another way of doing it. But I guess I�m on the other side of the equation with that.

Work on new material was expected in Jan/Feb 2017, but it is unclear how much progress there was. Rabin posted on 21 Jan 2017 to Facebook:

Jon was at my studio this week and we're enjoying the new music.
Can't wait to get it done so you can have a listen.

But Wakeman appears to have been in the UK through the period. In aJan 2017 interview, Wakeman said:

We're sending lots of music to each other and working on different tracks...We're not setting ourselves any time limits...Any tracks that we do, we want them to be really special and good, and if they're not then they won't see the light of day...We're not going to be rushed -- 'Oh, you have to do an album. You have to do this.' It'll be ready when it's ready

In the Feb 2017 issue of Prog, Anderson described the new music as "powerful[.] It's wild, crazy, surreal, classic, what-the-hell-is-this Yes." He goes on:

We'd like to make a record that people get a chance to hear and see, because these days music is such a visual experience. It always has been [...] but while we've made some good videos, we've never made a great video. We want to create a great musical event and project it out into the world. We have the music, but for it to reach more people, they have to be able to see it as well as hear it. I said when we started that I didn't see any point in doing an album, and that we might do two or three songs every six months, but somehow visualise them.

In another Jan 2017 interview, Wakeman said, "We're putting new music together but we're determined not to rush anything. [...] We've been offered all sorts of contracts, even before we started the tour. We said no, we want to do this properly." And in another Jan 2017 interview, Rabin said, "We're writing all the time. A number of record companies want an album. I have no interest in signing to a record company or doing an album. We are recording and will put out music when we're ready, on our terms. The idea of signing to a record company and doing an album is old and depressing." Asked about recordings on the Yes Music Podcast in Jan 2017, Pomeroy said, "it's happening and I'm gonna be a part of that. I've heard some of the stuff as well [...] back in August [...] there's some really fantastic music just waiting to be recorded". He went on to say that he would like to play some Chapman Stick (with Anderson and Wakeman both welcoming that suggestion) and fretless bass on the material. He concluded, "That will be happening at some point in the very near future, I think [...] I hope so, anyway."

They have been talking to a number of prospective labels. In an Oct 2016 interview, asked what happens after the US tour, Wakeman said, "We're obviously going to start recording. We will start putting some stuff together next year [2017]." However, the band, as per this Nov 2016 interview with Rabin, have "a couple of months off" after the US tour. In his Nov GORR, Wakeman said, "We have plans to complete new recordings early in the New Year [2017]". In a Nov 2016 interview, Anderson said, "We have some very interesting songs already to record. Like most musicians we are constantly in a creative mode, so most likely we will record in the New Year [2017] after this tour." In a Dec 2016 interview, Wakeman said, "After the European dates next year [2017] we will be ready to make a really hot, really tremendous album. We are looking at a release date of autumn 2017." In a Dec 2016 comment on Facebook, Rabin said, "We're getting new music together at the moment, slowly as it may be." In a Dec 2016 interview, Rabin said, "We're actually about a third of a way through writing new stuff [...] Jon has come up quite often to my house, my home studio, and we've done work here. We're sharing files, and the same goes for Rick for quite a while. I'd say we're closing in on half an hour of what we feel is pretty good stuff." In the Jan 2017 interview, Anderson said: "We've written a new album already, but we don't want to release an album so much. We just want to release music over a period of time like they are called EPs, two songs here, two songs there, and then you bring them into the show and see how it goes, and hope they enjoy the new music, and then get it onto the internet for people to hear it."

The album will be recorded with the live band, Pomeroy on bass and Molino on drums. Anderson explained in a Nov 2016 interview: "it seems more logical to see [new material] through in the studio together." He then says of the material that it is "not going to be long-form music, but then again it might be". He also moots the possibility of releasing the material in some other format, as the band have suggested previously: "We have enough music for an album. But these days, we're not quite sure. Do we make an album? Or do we just make an EP and take that on the road � put in one or two [new] songs for the next [touring] leg � and make another one [later]? So that over the course of a couple of years you've actually put together four or five EPs." In the Nov 2016 interview, Rabin said they will "maybe sort of even put some songs out [before the next tour leg]. [...] kind of like a jigsaw puzzle, we'll put it out as it goes and then eventually put together the whole album." In another Nov 2016 interview, Anderson said:

We�ve written about an hour[�]s worth of music already. Unfortunately, this last summer Trevor got pneumonia when he went to South Africa for his son�s wedding. He was pretty sick for a while. Rick was finishing some projects as well. We couldn�t get into the recording studio. We recorded some demos before we started rehearsing� this was about September and they sounded really great. We didn�t want to take them on the road until we finished them properly. We will do that in January and February.

[...]

Trevor is a very powerful writer of music. I come in with some interesting lyrics and melodies. You bring Rick in on top and you�ve got a totally new sounding idea and a new sounding band. It is very exciting. [...] We will probably do two or three songs every three or four months. We will work it that way rather than do a complete album. I think the idea is to continue to celebrate the Yes music that we love and really develop this part of it slowly.

In another interview published that month, but possibly conducted before the tour started, Anderson said, "I've got the lyrics for five or six songs in front of me". Rabin and Wakeman were asked about new music in a joint Sep 2016 interview with Planet Rock. Rabin explained how they had been talking about doing ARW for years: "we were all very busy, but in between all this, there were pieces of music and little, embryonic stage stuff that we would pass on to each other [...] One example, Rick wrote something that is [...] called "Bolero"[, a working title] [...] I got this thing and I thought, 'Oh my God, this is... this is amazing,' and I just kind of thought of what this could be once we've all done it, Rick's on it and Jon's on it. And I sent Rick stuff, and Jon stuff." Wakeman then interrupted to praise Rabin and the quality of material Rabin and Anderson had sent, continuing, "we're all quite different, so when you put all those different things together, it makes a [...] wonderful jigsaw." Rabin then continued, "It is a very different picture; one that you might not expect almost. [...] we have got quite a collection of things, but we just didn't want to do it quickly, and rush it out [...] Brian Lane [...] was kind of getting [the tour] [...] moving, and I think we were moving a little [...] more slowly. And next thing, this tour was up [...] and then [...] we decided, 'You know what? This will be a great tour for us to have some fun and, hopefully, the fans have some fun, and get us so tight that when we finishthe tour, that's when we'll go into that [...] we're really thinking of it as [a] much more long-term thing". Wakeman again: "[I]t was actually Trev's idea, he said to us all [...] everybody really expects us�because we had loads of record company offers�everybody expects us: do an album, go out and tour the album, which does look like a bank raid thing [...] which is not what this is. This is a longevity thing [...] He can earn far much more doing his films, and, without being unkind, I can earn more doing solo stuff because divided by five, it's [?unclear] [...] Trev said, '[...] Why do we have to follow [...] 'oh yeah, do an album [...]'? No, no, let's play. This is a long-term thing. This doesn't all have to be done by next week.' [...] I'd like to think that people, including us, have waited this far for new music. To wait another year for something that's really special is hopefully worthwhile."

In the early Oct 2016 interview, Wakeman confirmed plans for recording at some later point, "We are writing new material. We are putting stuff together. [...] There's no rush." In his Oct 2016 GORR, Wakeman said, "As for a new album with new music. That's definitely going to happen next year [2017] and we are already discussing how we are going to do it. We already have some music well on the way that we have been exchanging." Rabin said in an Oct 2016 interview: "Once we started talking about it [ARW], we started recording [...] We're about an eighth of a way through an album". In a Nov 2016 interview, Wakeman said: "I will say that we have been writing some really interesting stuff, and some really exciting stuff. Trevor writes completely different from me. I write completely different from Jon who writes completely different from Trevor. So throw all those ingredients together and you have the way Yes music used to be made. It was a big jigsaw puzzle with everyone bringing in bits and fusing it together to make interesting music. And I sense that happening again. Our plan is to sit down in January and February [2017] with two pieces in particular and see how far we can get with them and see what happens." Rabin had more in another Sep 2016 interview: "So far I've been writing much of the new material. Rick and Jon are definitely involved but we're going on tour and the new album is not done so we won't be playing any new songs off of it just yet. We'd love to test the waters but the problem is that it would wind up on You Tube and we're still not done revising some things and we just didn't want that. We don't want the wrong versions getting out there that's all but eventually, well, hopefully we will be debuting them shortly after the tour starts." And an Oct 2016 interview has:

Rabin says that in the years leading up to this current reunion, members spent a lot of time talking about �ideas and concepts,� something which he says has been �invaluable to what this is.�

�[It wasn�t about] getting together and smoking a little joint and going and jamming. It wasn�t that at all. It was really thinking about what we were going to do and also thinking about not letting thinking get in the way of the natural flow of the music [...] We�ve been thinking about it for a long time. In between films for years, I�ve been writing and Jon�s been hearing the stuff and has been really, really motivated to get moving on collaborating on that and Rick too. Rick recently sent me a piece of music that�s probably 20 minutes long, and it�s just breathtaking. I really do want to get this stuff going. It�s just not ready yet.�

Asked about new material in a Sep 2016 interview, Anderson replied:

We've written a lot of new music. Time wouldn't allow us to properly record this year [2016], so we're going to probably record in January or February. We're not quite sure how or what we're going to record, but we have a lot of good music already we've worked on over the past few months. The most important thing is to establish ourselves. We're still an unknown quantity to the business. We're going to get out there and prove we're still good and still inventive and we still love what we do.

Earlier reports had that an album or at least some sort of release would probably accompany the tour, with Anderson repeating this position into Jun interviews. However, around the same time, Wakeman laid out a delayed timetable. This is from an early Jun 2016 interview with Wakeman:

Trevor, quite rightly, said �Hey guys, we�re not going to rush into all of this. This is nuts. It�s going to take us enough hard work to put a great show together.� [...] we can send music backwards and forwards and start working on bits and pieces, and maybe if we�ve got a couple of tracks ready to perform onstage or to do whatever, yeah, that would be great. If not, it�s not the end of the world, because we�ve got all of these months of working together and living in each other�s pockets. If we�re going to produce a full album, it�s got to be absolutely a cracking album. It�s got to be fantastic. So [we decided] not to rush into it, but just to make sure that when we do it, it�s really, really the right thing.

In another Jun 2016 interview, Wakeman said: "The plan is, we had a lot of offers. We looked at doing a... shall we do a whole album, whatever. And we thought, no, hold on a minute. That's just really rushing things. It's wrong [...] OK, we'll start putting some music together, looking at it, thinking about it, and maybe, y'know, premiere one or two bits on the tour. But then after we've done the tour, we've really got to know each other again playing wise and what we can do. That's the time to really do an album [...] Otherwise, it's a bit rushed and it's a bit, um, y'know, I think we would all regret it if we rushed into something." And in his Jul 2016 interview, Wakeman said:

As soon as it leaked out what we were doing, it was nuts. We had lots of offers from various record labels. �Oh, come and make an album.� It�s very tempting to say, �Yeah, great, let�s make an album,� but we sat down and said, �This is doing it for the wrong reasons.� Yes, we�ve all got music, we�ve been throwing music back and forth towards each other with ideas of things we want to do and there is some great stuff. But we decided what�s best is to go out and play together and really get to know each other again. We�ll continue the writing during the tour, and after the tour, we can do some more recording, put some more tracks together. We may do it as a CD EP, we may do it as a single track, we may do it as an album, but we�ll be doing it for the right reasons when the music is ready.

I�m coming over to see Trev in the beginning of August to put some keys down on a couple of tracks that we�ve been working on. If they�re ready in time, we may well do one in time, we may release it as a single piece, I don�t know. But what we�re not doing is we�re not going down the old road of, �Oh, you�ve got to make an album before you tour.� No, we don�t have to do that at all. We can go out, play music, maybe include some new stuff, certainly throw in some new surprises and certainly some new arrangements of some of the classic Yes material.

Similarly, Rabin confirmed in a mid-Jun 2015 interview that song ideas have been worked on by trio file sharing, but that the timetable for new music has been delayed: "I don't want to rush these songs[.] We've had offers from different record companies, but we've said no. We want control over the vision for our songs. Once you start listening to record company executives, then you lose sight of what you wanted to do in the first place." In an Aug 2016 interview, Rabin said, "[The project] actually started purely just to do new music. We started working on that. Then the touring aspect came up. That seems to have taken over and we'll end up releasing new music." In an early Sep 2016 interview, Anderson said:

We have some songs based on music from all of us really � very intense to very ethereal. It's really typical Yes energy.

We'll probably release EPs, but we will wait until the new year [2017] to record them.

In the Jul 2016 interview, Anderson said, "It was supposed to be both [a recording and touring project], but we've run out of time." He went on to say that they are "rehearsing [new pieces] now. I have about about three pieces. And then there's a long piece that Rick wrote early this year [2016] that I'm juggling with. I think it can work. It might work out that we'll tour and then record some more and then tour and then record some more. That kind of thing over the next year [2017] or so." In an 8 Jul Facebook post, Rabin said, "We're still working hard on the new material." Anderson talked about the new material in the Aug 2016 issue of Prog:

I heard it... Trevor's done some power-rock tracks for some of the record; it's really bananas. Then I put some ideas on them... so it became furious, cinematic. There's long-form material too [...] it goes from one extreme to another!

In an Aug 2016 interview, seemingly conducted in Jul or earlier, Anderson said, "We're just working on writing. We've just done some writing these last couple of months. [...] So now we're going to get together in July, August, rehearse in September". Asked about when they might record a new album, he said, "I think we're just going to record three or four songs, not so much an album. I don't think albums are really relative [_sic_] at the moment, from my standpoint. I'd rather do, er, projects, we call them, so if we do three or four songs and then, as for touring, write a couple of more things, and then... in between touring, finish off them, so next spring, a couple more songs for the European tour... I like that idea. [...] I'd rather just do, sort of, ideas now and again. I think it's just a different way of thinking. We can release music all the time." In his Newsweek interview, published the same month, Anderson said, "We've written some music and song ideas, not necessarily to put an album out but to sort of implant them into the show here and there." Later, asked about recording new material, he replied:

Oh yeah, that�s for sure. We�ve actually written a lot of ideas. It�s a question of finding the right time. [...] It was just a question of �well, let�s get the tour going, let�s go on tour and do a couple of new songs for fun, let�s go on tour and feel who we are.� So, by the time we actually record, we know who we are and the recording will be a lot simpler than going in and trying to stick it together with superglue.

In a Jul 2016 interview, Molino said that a couple of new tracks are "close" to being completed. In a 15 Aug 2015 Facebook update discussing the ARW rehearsals, Anderson shared an audio sample of him entitled "To be Alive" (but without apparent connection to the Yes song of that name). The piece consists of multitracked vocals with simple keyboard accompaniment. He did not explain the context for this piece, but it may be connected to some new music from the band.This was Anderson's reply in the interview published 8 Jun 2016 with The Prog Report when asked whether they have been recording:

we've been recording some ideas over the last couple of months. We're going to get into it next week. Trevor is going to start work on it later this week, and, er, Rick's going to be involved transatlantic through the Internet. We've got a design, musically designed, to aim for. And I think we might have it all, sort of, tied up by August, and then we'll start rehearsing for a tour

However, Anderson subsequently echoed Wakeman's and Rabin's comments. A late Jun 2016 interview with Anderson had this reply when he was asked about releasing an album: "I'm not sure an album is the right move, new songs yes, we are con[c]entrating on a concert, making a statement of music is the whole point of the adventure, music is the driving force." And asked if they had "started working on new music" in a Jul 2016 interview, Anderson replied: "Yes, we want to do something creatively new. [...] We won't have a new album per se, but we will have new pieces of music and we will figure how to release it once it's done." Later in that interview, Anderson also mentioned using "new music with Trevor" in some videos he is doing with daughter Deborah around the Anderson/Stolt release, Invention of Knowledge: see here for more. It is unclear whether this "new music with Trevor" is part of the new Anderson, Rabin & Wakeman repertoire or something else.

Previous reports had also suggested the band were quite advanced in writing an album, with work going back several years. It had been suggested that an album or at least some material would be released to coincide with the tour. In an Apr 2016 interview, Anderson said the album will be out "probably in October". To the Mar 2016 issue of Prog, Wakeman said, "Some of the songs will be out by September". He subsequently reportedly said that an album is planned for CD, digital and vinyl, probably with bonus video material, but if it is not out by Oct, they will release ~2 of the songs digitally then. In the Eclipsed interview, he said there would be an EP of 4 longer songs before the end of 2016. In an interview for Inside MusiCast published in May 2016, Anderson had more:

We [Anderson and Rabin] got together last week, and, er, we actually put together the format for the album, because we've been working on music for the last three months, sending MP3s to each other, same with... Rick, so we have the format for the concert idea and the album idea. We might release it in three parts because there's long music in there, long-form music [...] the last time I worked with Trevor [...] [on] Talk [...] I actually stayed at his house for about three weeks and we put it together in the studio, and we're going through the same sort of process now

In another Jun 2016 interview, Roine Stolt, who has been working with Anderson on a collaboration, said:

Jon and Rick and Trevor, they�re getting together to write music. As we know, it�s a long process. It�s going to take a long time for them to come up with something. Trevor is writing music. When we met in Los Angeles [which I think was May or Jun 2016], Jon tried to describe the music Trevor was coming up with. He said it wasn�t like traditional Yes music. He told me it was a little different. So they�ve been working on that for a long time

Wakeman continued in the Prog article that the three of them have "been exchanging music and ideas for the last five years and we're at the stage where we've got some material that we're all over the moon with. The interesting thing is that although we all write quite differently, when you put those three elements together, it produces something quite remarkable. Does it sound like Yes? I would be bloody surprised if it didn't!" Wakeman adds: "I wouldn't say it's the last hurrah[.] We just really want to do something special." To a later edition of Prog (Aug 2016), Wakeman said the new material will be "75 per cent classic Yes... The most distinguishing feature of true Yes is Jon's voice so that will be there for a start. [...] I'm really pleased that we've not been rushed into it because we really want it to be special." In his Apr 2016 GORR, Wakeman said:

Anderson / Rabin & Wakeman continues to gain pace and all is looking tremendous. Performance dates are coming in thick and fast and the new music is just everything I believed it could be. [...] as I write this GORR I know that Jon is actually spending a few days with Trevor before Trev scoots off to South Africa for his son�s wedding.

The band's website, which appeared mid-May 2016, also described the trio as "working on new songs, which are currently being recorded."

In a Mar 2016 interview, Anderson said, "I'm working with Trevor and Rick already on some musical concepts, so we start, er, next week a few things�I'm going down to see Trevor. And then we'll get together in June, in July and finish the concept and then hopefully we will tour later this year [2016] in the USA and then, next year [2017], go to Europe and around the world if we can [...] My understanding of Yes music is still very, very strong. I never let go of Yes music; it's part of my DNA." In a 25 May 2016 interview, Anderson said he would be working with Wakeman and Rabin "next week". In the Apr interview, Anderson also describes working on a song with Wakeman "about the idea that we are now ready to move on, consciously, into traveling space and time. There is new technology that's going to push us in that direction. We have to get rid of the limitations, and realize that we are limitless beings." It is not explicit whether this is for the ARW project or something else. In the Apr 2016 radio interview, Anderson said: "I was working on a couple of songs yesterday that me and Trevor have sort of designed. And then this other piece of music that I'm working with Rick. [...] Then in June, July [...] me, Rick and Trevor will get together [...] and put together this album, because we feel it's our time to do it [...] our destiny to do a really good and very, very powerful album." He later added, "I went down 10 days ago for a couple of days with him [Rabin], three days, and, er, we worked out all the music we're going to do and more." The interview published 16 Jun 2016 had Anderson saying he was going to see Rabin "next week".

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Relationships with the current Yes line-up
The possibility of a reunion between the two bands was long raised by fans and the media. I discuss more on the main page. Asked in an Oct 2019 interview about ARW re-uniting with Howe and White, Wakeman said, "it wouldn't work". He then expanded on this:

I would give the first rehearsal half an hour before somebody walked out. It would happen before we even decided what to play or how to play. [...] we did the Union tour and it worked [...] A reunion, another one? Would that work? I don�t think so. [...] What would you play? There�s no new, great material since that time. There is nothing that has been recorded from any of the Yes camps where you can go, �Great! We can introduce that now.� It will be the same classic stuff [...] If you were going to to write something, how on earth would you do it with so many people? It would be really, really difficult.

[...] I�ve had a wonderful time with Yes. I still enjoy it with Trevor and Jon. [...] The Hall of Fame was great and it was wonderful to see Alan and Steve, but what would be achieved by everyone getting together and trying to do a reunion? We wouldn�t achieve anything. [...]

Ninety percent of everything I did with Yes, live and in the studio, I loved [...] it was a joy. Do I want to tempt fate and do something that could end up a nightmare? [...] back then there were big record companies like Warner, Arista, and Atlantic that wanted to back the band. Those companies don�t exist anymore. There isn�t a major company out there that would back a project like that.

Asked by a fan at an Oct 2018 show whether he could ever see himself playing live with Steve Howe again, Wakeman said no. Asked in a May 2018 interview (in Portuguese) whether the two bands will join up, Anderson answered:

Neste momento eu acredito que n�o seja poss�vel. Por�m, gostaria que acontecesse um dia. J� aconteceu antes, ent�o, nunca saberemos...

Google Translate offers: "At this moment I believe it is not possible. But I would like it to happen one day. It's happened before, so we'll never know..."

From the other side, asked about the possibility of a reunion in a Jun 2018 interview, Howe said, "No, it's completely off the table."

In another Jun 2018 article, Anderson commented:

I remember in the 1960s, in England, there were always two to three versions of The Drifters performing at the same time. So this has happened before. Somebody asked what do you think about [the other Yes]? And I said: �Well, it�s not my cup of tea!� But they are all nice people and everybody has to do what they have to do.

In the same article, Kaye said:

I think it has created some confusion with the fans[.] I hadn�t really thought too much about it until I came back into the Yes fold this year. I�m sure there�s probably some animosity going down. But I think it�s generally accepted that Jon and Rick wanted to do their thing with Trevor. This band, with Steve and Alan, obviously existed before Jon and Rick�s. And it is, by a lot of people�s standards, the Yes band. But, of course, there�s debate because the singer, Jon, is not in the band.

In a joint Apr 2017 interview with Rabin, Anderson said of the idea of a reunion with Yes: "I don't really have any interest in doing that[.] It would be kind of a miracle if it happened. But you know, it's one of those things where you never say never." Asked whether he and Steve Howe had ever bonded over music, Rabin replied, "We're cordial. We didn't develop any kind of creative camaraderie on Union. We played together and I think everything's fine with us on a professional level. But there's no kind of desire to do an album together or anything." In another Apr 2017 interview (conducted Mar), again asked about a new Union, Rabin said:

I think that would be fine if that�s what happens. But I think from ARW�s point of view, we�ve always looked upon ARW as being the best� we look upon ARW as being our version of a reunion

In the Jul 2017 issue of Prog, Rabin said he has "personally no interest" in a reunion, while Wakeman said, "There's too much water under the bridge. There's a lot of issues that will never be made public because there's no point. Do I ever see a rapprochement? Absolutely not." Anderson, however, is somewhat more open about the possibility of working together: "Your guess is as good as mine."

In a Mar 2017 interview, discussing the other Yes, Wakeman said, "I don't think they like us. But I've absolutely no interest in them". Asked about the possibility of a new union, he laughed, saying, "Well there's another pig flying by." In a band interview that month, the interviewer asked whether we could we expect an emotional, historic picture of all the members of the band through the years:

Anderson: No, no.

Wakeman: No.

Interviewer: You're not going to talk to them?

Wakeman: No.

Anderson: We don't like them.

The interviewer went on to ask whether meeting the others feel a bit like a wedding where two grandmothers who don't talk to each other are forced to share the same table. Rabin described this as "a great analogy". Wakeman said: "You've just summed it up entirely. [...] I've been married four times and I did not invite my previous three wives to my last one." The interviewer continued to probe on the relationship with the official Yes; Wakeman replied, "They're nothing to do with us. We have no interest in what they do. And they probably got no interest in what we do. We just play Yes music as we want to play it." Anderson and Wakeman both dismissed any possibility of a reunion. In another Mar 2017 interview, however, Anderson was more friendly about his successors as Yes lead singer: "I actually haven't ever met them [Davison or David], but I'm very happy they enjoy singing the songs I wrote[.] And they do a very good job as far as I see. I've watched a little bit and I'm very impressed with how they sound and how they make it work. It's a very hard gig getting up there and singing Yes music for weeks on end. I can testify to that, because I did it for 35 years." And in another, asked if he the Hall of Fame induction would lead to further performances with Howe and White, he said:

Not really. I doubt it. I can�t imagine going on the road with them at this point, given the different agendas that their band and ours have currently. I have my understanding of YES and they have theirs. We were brothers in it once, but� But you never know. If everyone were to get emotionally in the right place, you never know what might happen.

In a May 2016 interview (presumably conducted in Apr), Anderson was asked, "Do you see yourself reuniting with any other members of Yes in the near future?" He replied, "No, just Trevor and Rick. That's enough." In another interview that month, with Inside MusiCast, the interviewer asked whether Anderson would like to be back with "them", i.e. Yes. Anderson replied:

It depends who 'them' are. Because I know that I'm working[?] with Trevor and Rick now. In this process of life, you go through so many changes and I just go with it and see what's going to come, at the end. An obvious time could become when Steve and Alan could join us on stage, or something like that or... It's hard to say because Steve and Alan are the only people that I worked with.

(Anderson apparently forgetting Billy Sherwood there.) A similar question in one of the Jun 2016 interviews saw Anderson cagey about any reunion. Asked what the chances are, he replied:

Anderson: Very hard to say. Life is a strange sort of event. Sometimes you expect things to happen, and they don�t. Sometimes, things that you don�t expect, do happen.

Interviewer: I was always under the impression that it was Chris who didn�t want you back in the band. I imagine Alan White would certainly be amicable to you returning to the band�

Anderson: Right.

Interviewer: � And probably same with Steve Howe. It doesn�t feel like either of those two guys would object to having you back in Yes. [_I think the interviewer is probably inaccurate in his summary._] Have you spoken to them recently?

Anderson: No. [T]he whole procession of events that happened before I got sick was: something really bad happened, it wasn�t the guys in the band, it was management at that time, they did a terrible thing, it sort of poisoned the band. I got sick. I don�t know what happened, maybe it was psychological. I got really badly ill for a whole year, and they decided to carry on without me. But at that time, I just wanted to survive my illness and become well, which did take quite a long time [...] I came out of that, and the only thing I wanted to do was get back in the studio and compose [...] I didn�t have the strength to go on tour, and the band had already gone on tour anyway. That�s what they wanted to do, that wasn�t my idea of Yes, the kind of music they recorded. Definitely not my idea of what I would be doing with Yes.

The future is more exciting, and it always has been for me. I�ve always been grateful for having had those years with Chris; me and Chris were sort of the main guys in the band. And there was a time when we didn�t connect. That�s called �life.� Thank God I was able to connect with him before he passed away

A similar question in the Jul 2016 interview elicited this answer from Anderson: "Well, it's hard, y'know, Chris passed away a year ago [...] Steve and Alan are doing their thing. It's very hard to know when we'll get together. It's got to be a musical idea. And somehow I think that, er, the way things are going... I'm a very sort of adventurous musician and the only way we'll get together probably is if we get into the Hall of Fame in a couple of years or something like that. And I think that will bring us together. And... But generally speaking, I'm a more adventurous musician and I'm very interested in working with Roine Stolt again and working with Jean-Luc Ponty." In a Sep 2016 interview, Anderson was asked if it is weird for him that "there's a band on the road called Yes that doesn't have you in it?" He replied: "Well, it's ongoing", before mentioning four Yes tribute bands and concluding, "So many bands are out there playing Yes music, and Steve's band is one of them. He has the name. That's life. It's a challenge to me to get on with my world and stand up and say, "OK, we are ARW." I've got a T-shirt that says, "A.K.A. Yes."" When the interviewer suggested that ARW is the "more authentic" band, Anderson said, "Probably. But you could say, "Well, the guy [Davison] has been in the band for 10 years [_sic_], so he's as much a part of Yes as anybody else."" Asked then about the last time he spoke with Howe, Anderson replied:

A long time ago. We've exchanged pleasantries. I was in touch with Alan [White], who has been very ill [more on White's health here]. [...] Over the years I've had ups and downs with Steve, but he's still my musical brother and one day he'll come through and probably be very happy about life. That's what it's all about.

[...]

when he opens up his heart and becomes, I suppose, more open, shall we call it, and relaxes about everything, he'll probably come around.

The interviewer then asked whether Anderson sees the current Yes as competition:

No. They're just playing music. They're just playing the Yes music. It's OK. I've seen a bit here and there on YouTube. To me, it's not inspired. [...] We're going onstage and we're going to perform it inspired to take it a little bit further along the line.

In a Nov 2016 interview, Anderson said:

Yes music is still surviving on many levels. There are some great Yes tribute bands around the world. [...] You can come to a Yes show or you can come to one of my solo shows as well. The band that calls themselves Yes now only has Steve Howe from the old band now [referring to the US summer tour 2016 that White missed due to back problems]. They are kind of good and they are continuing the music but Rick, Trevor and myself� we are the real Yes. We feel that, and the audience feels it, too.

(Responding to the interview on Yesfans.com soon after, Downes said, "Oops, Alzheimers kicking in... Alan White?? HELLO??" He later described Anderson's words as "an intentional disingenuous comment (amongst others) made towards fellow professional musicians".) Anderson's interview continued with him being asked about the possibility of a reunion. He replied: "You never know. There is the Hall of Fame� we could get in by next year [2017] or the year after [2018], which is our 50th year. Who knows what's going to happen."

In a different Nov 2016 interview, asked about a reunion with Yes if the band get inducted in the Hall of Fame, Wakeman said: "I think there's no chance of us ever reuniting[.] There's not a hope in hell of that happening."

In another Oct 2016 interview, Rabin was asked, "What are the relationships like between all the past and present Yes members? Are the guys in Yes upset that you and Rick are going on tour?" He replied:

I really don't know. It's not something I concern myself with, so I don't know and I don't care. It�s not something I spend a lot of time thinking about. The only guy I speak to quite often is Alan White, who has always remained a very close friend. Alan and I don�t have any issues at all.

Asked about ARW said in an Aug 2016 interview, Downes said:

I think we�re just, you know, we let them get on with it really�I don�t think there�s any��we just wish them luck. Anything that�s going out promoting the music of YES is good for everybody. It�s not a kind of us versus them scenario.

And asked about the possibility of a new Union: "Ummm, I'm not seeing that at the moment but you never know what might happen. YES is a very strange band (laughs�..) weird things happen with YES." While another Aug 2016 interview, this time with Howe, has him saying:

I would say good luck to them [...] Anybody can play Yes music, and hopefully the bar is set very high. [...]

We�re just going to carry on, irrespective. [...] we�re delighted, really, that there�s more Yes music being out there, getting played.

Similarly, asked in a Mar 2016 interview what he thought about the project, Howe replied:

Maybe there�s three things I can say about it. First, anybody can go out and play Yes music because our music can be explored in so many different ways. The second thing is obviously you�ve got to go out there like Yes have for the last eight years � we�ve proved that we can do things like the full albums show. The third thing is that getting back with people you�ve worked with before is really good, especially if they�re a musician � some of the people we�ve worked with in other fields have certainly derided the band at times and sometimes been quite greedy. That�s the only thing I�ll say.

Billy Sherwood was asked the same question in an earlier Mar 2016 interview and said:

That's happened down through the ages [...] There was Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe back in the day [...] so I don't have a problem with it at all. Y'know, I know all those guys. They're lovely people [...] so I wish them well and I think, y'know, they're amazing musicians so it's going to be great, whatever they do. That said, there's plenty of room on the playing field for multiple teams [...] I'm happy about what I'm doing [in Yes] and I'm happy for anybody else who's making Yes music in 2016_._

Anderson/Wakeman
Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman had a duo collaboration before ARW. Asked if they have plans in an Apr 2014 interview, Anderson said, "Not at the moment. He's very committed to doing [...] "Journey to the Center of the Earth," [...] So we decided that we'd get on with our work for the next couple of years, and maybe next year [2015] we'll bump into each other again and find time to write some new music, because we enjoy writing, we enjoy touring together." However, it appears nothing happened in 2015 or since in terms of this collaboration. Asked whether they might reunite in an Apr 2023 interview, Anderson replied, "You never know in life. You never really know."

Jon Anderson & Trevor Rabin
Anderson and Trevor Rabin were sporadically collaborating over several years before ARW took off. They were reportedly writing together in 2006. Anderson has mooted both the possibility of joining Rabin on some film work and of touring the YesWest catalogue. In a May 2008 article, he talked of him and Rabin "maybe touring some of that '80s-period music, because it was very special. [...] I wouldn't do it, like, Yes. I'd do it like me and Trevor aspiring to be the two of us making music and see what we come up with." The article describes Anderson as being "amenable to some sort of reunion of the Yes[West] lineup", although it is unclear whether Anderson indicated the involvement of any of Squire, White or Kaye. However, it appears this co-writing activity has since been directed to the project with Wakeman.

A Mar 2014 interview with Anderson said he had received an e-mail from Rabin on 11 Mar "because they were connecting with ideas and working on film scores."

Trevor Rabin & Rick Wakeman Wakeman's interview in Prog #110 stated: "Wakeman reveals that there's a reasonable prospect of him teaming up with Rabin to make an album [...] the idea was apparently discussed even before the formation of ARW." In a Jul 2020 interview with Andy Burns, Rabin said, "We're talking about doing an album together and... just the two of us. [...] We'll see what happens. [...] There are so many things to do and little time to do it." In a Sep 2020 interview, Rabin said, "Rick and I are actually still talking about doing an album together. Just piano, guitar." In another interview for Prog, #137 published Jan 2023, Wakeman said, "Trev is so busy with his soundtracks, thought the two of us have decided that we'd like to do something together in the future."

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