Jay Schellen officially joins Yes

[Susanne]

This is good to hear. I really enjoyed watching Jay last year - he seemed to be having a fantastic time while he was performing!

[Yesed]

Nice to hear this. From what I see Jay is a decent guy, good for the band. I like his playing and tone. Hopefully he can get the band to slow things down a bit on some of the material, especially Relayer, allowing them to play more soulful and tight. And accurate. Principle being that even if the tempo is reduced, as long as the timing is impeccable, will be less noticeable and not distractive.

[Frumious B]

With only one Yes RRHOFer in the band from six living inductees, I'd hesitate to brand it as a Yes album.,

Yes, they have one banana. They have one banana today.

[JMKUSA]

Are you drunk? 😁 Only Howe, out of the current line-up, was inducted.

Squire and White are dead, Bruford is retired and Kaye is doing his own thing,

Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman are regarded as the enemy,

The unreleased album reportedly has Alan on drums.

The next album will likely only have Steve, unless they have someone like Tony guest on the album.

[Mr. Holland]

Are you drunk? 😁 Only Howe, out of the current line-up, was inducted.

Squire and White are dead, Bruford is retired and Kaye is doing his own thing,

Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman are regarded as the enemy,

No I get what Rabin105 is saying. You said you hesitate to call the new album a Yes album, because only one RRHOF inductee is on it. But Alan is still the one drumming on the album, since his tracks were recorded before his passing. Hence, that while there is now only one RRHOF inductees in the current line up, there still will be two on the new album.

[downbyariver]

I was actually surprised by the news- because I thought it had already been made official months ago. He's been on all the advertising where they lost the band members at the bottom.

Anyhow, I have somewhat mixed feelings about this one (Though mostly positive feelings). On the plus side, I like a lot of the man's pre-Yes work in bands like World Trade, Circa:, Dukes of the Orient, and so on and so forth (He wasn't on every album for those bands, but he played on at least one for each). I also was privileged to hear his first live performance with Yes in 2016 and thought he was tremendous that night. His style is an obvious fit for a band that's had Alan White for so many years, and the fact that he's been handling the majority of the drumming so we'll for the last 7 years or so as a touring musician and been on so many live albums with the band would have made not keeping him awkward and also demonstrates further how good of a fit he is as a player. He also has great chemistry with the bass player, and relationships with several current and former band members that go back as much as like 20-30 years now (Billy Sherwood on various things, Geoff Downes in Silent Nation era Asia, Chris Squire in Conspiracy, Tony Kaye in Circa:, etc.).

The flip side of that coin is that they are making a 62 year old who's not particularly famous the "new guy" at a position in the band (drummer) where people that age are usually going downhill and retiring. It's not random chance that a lot of the big reunions bands have are everyone except the drummer. So, he's not a name like, I don't know, a Carl Palmer would be, where it might sell extra tickets, and at the same time you're not getting a youngster who's sure to be pounding the skins hard and setting as fast a tempo as the rest of the band is willing to put up with for years to come as a tradeoff for just taking the skilled musician over the name.

It's possible that he can still set as fast a tempo as anyone can keep up with- I shouldn't imply that he can't. I feel like he's slipped a tad live from 2016 to 2023 (Even from 2016 to 2018), but it's not clear that's his own doing. I mean, the drummer sets the tempo, but Steve Howe tells the drummer what the tempo is going to be, and Steve may have told him to slow down.

Even if it isn't his doing, though, let's say Steve Howe retires in five years and Yes gets a speedy young lead guitarist. Isn't the 67 year old (By 2028) drummer likely going to be the new limiting factor by that point if they were to go for faster harder new music and live performances of old music? Would it be in the best interests of the band to let that happen or would they, already having in this hypothetical lost their biggest remaining name in Howe and perhaps Geoff Downes from the lineup as well, risk then firing their by that point drummer of 12 years (first touring, then official member) and creating that much more turnover on a band that might be struggling to carry on from a ticket sales and album sales standpoint at that juncture (Hypothetically after losing the last guy who was in the band pre-1980 and maybe even the last two who were in the band ore-1990)?

I like this move in that I am a fan of Jay's work and he's earned it. I just wonder if a more forward thinking band would have been trying younger guys out for a tour here and there with Jay getting, say half of the tours, and then maybe when it comes to this point having more options. Yes music is hard to play and not every drummer, or even every very good drummer, is going to be up to doing it at any tempo, and not all of those who could are going to join a 50+ year old classic rock band. So, it's possible that Schellen was the best choice of guys who was willing and able to do it. You don't want a 20 or 30 something, or a famous guy Schellen's age, if none of them can do the music justice.

I mean, that is I think the biggest plus- Jay Schellen can do this music justice, and not just the music they play, but the parts of the back catalog they don't play (but could in the future) and really any Yes type music that the band could create. Drummers like that don't grow on trees. This isn't music you can just turn to someone and say "Lay me down a 4/4 time signature" before a song and have that get a drummer all the way through it, and half of the other songs in the catalog. Prog rock is tricky for drummers. Schellen's an expert at playing it. And some prog drummers are too jazzy to handle 80s rock well, but Jay has the chops for that as well.

He does a much better job of this than Dylan Howe, the only other guy they tried live 2016-2023, did IMO (With due respect to Dylan, who isn't a bad drummer). He also sounds a lot better than Lou Molino did in the pseduo-Yes ARW band (Again, with due respect to Lou, who isn't a bad drummer either). He's no question a great fit for this specific material and this type of material.

So, there's more good to this than bad, and I like having him in Yes.

It'd just be nice to get the feeling that they are thinking more than a couple years ahead with these moves, and exhausting all their options looking around and gauging what will help them build for the band's future, and it sometimes doesn't feel that way to me. Maybe they are and just aren't telling us. That could be why this announcement took so long. But my gut questions if they are.

Regardless, though, congrats to Jay, he's earned it and he's good.

[downbyariver]

But Alan is still the one drumming on the album, since his tracks were recorded before his passing.

It sounds like Alan will be on the album in some form, but I've gotten a little confused as to how much.

Well before his death, we were hearing reports that the album was basically finished. Since drum tracks are the first things you lay down when it comes time to actually record tape intended to make it to the final version, one would think that would mean he was the drummer on everything except *possibly* some select passages that late changes to songs forced rerecordings of and/or anything that they didn't think he was up to in his last years and might have had Jay do instead even while both were alive (Not saying anything in those two categories even exists- I have no idea. He could have done the whole thing.).

However, Henry's site quotes a February 2023 interview with Billy Sherwood (Conducted by another site) as follows:

Interviewer: Was Alan involved in any part of the process, or was it started after his passing?

Sherwood: It was right after production of the Quest record. Demos were plenty, pencil sketches of ideas etc...

That makes it sound like while Alan White probably recorded some demos, did some pencil sketches of ideas and other things that involves him enough to generate writing or other credits, that it might be Jay Schellen who actually laid down the final versions of the tracks on the album.

Of course, it doesn't actually say that.

We'll have to see what people say and how everyone is credited as we get closer to the album's release.

Right now it seems fair to say that Alan was definitely involved. Whether he's actually playing on some or all of the final product is not as clear to me at present.

I love the man's drumming over the course of his career (I'm definitely on Team White in the White versus Bruford debate, though both were clearly great at their peaks as drummers), but I did say prior to The Quest that Yes might benefit from using Jay Schellen or a session drummer or both for many of the songs (After the drumming seemed kind of off on Heaven and Earth, which itself was a couple of years before White underwent two back surgeries, sepsis, and more), while allowing Alan to play the slower precision drum passages, maybe do some piano, maybe do some writing, and so on and so forth- making sure to involve the Yes great in the ways they could without compromising the music, but not hesitating to sub someone else in where it might have helped the music (On say a piece that needs harder and faster drumming perhaps.). I can't say I'd be disappointed if it turned out that whether by plan or necessity, they actually turn out to have taken that approach with the forthcoming album.

I mean, I'd like to see them do whatever is best for the music. I'm not prejudging whether one approach or another is better. Depends on what's on tape, I suppose.

One thing that also come into play is there perhaps being less of a clear line between demos and final recordings in the present than there used to be. With these sort of hybrid Internet collaboration/studio projects or all Internet collaboration projects, it's possible that lines get blurred, or at least I could see how that might be possible.

If he's not drumming on the final versions of the main studio tracks, maybe they could stick an Alan White instrumental drum solo on there after the last proper studio track if they have an unpublished one in the archives that they have the rights to, whether studio or live.

[Soundwaveseeker]

I would think that instead of the line-up credits after the main lineup reading "and Jay Schellen: drums/percussion" well below the line-up credit (like an also with/guest member thing), they should do the King Crimson thing and consider this a six-man incarnation, with line-up credits reading:

Jon Davison: vocals
Steve Howe: guitars/vocals
Billy Sherwood: bass/vocals
Geoff Downes: keyboards
Alan White: drums/percussion
Jay Schellen: drums/percussion

This would be a short-lived lineup since Alan is gone, but the credits would look better with 6 names in a row like that.

[Mr. Holland]

Bizarrely, there's no confirmation on Yesworld so I'd regard any comments as premature.

Well, you can rest assured.

https://www.yesworld.com/2023/02/jay-schellen-joins-yes-as-a-permanent-member/

[bondegezou]

I would guess this also confirms that the drumming on the new album is still all Alan, with some Jay percussion at most.

(btw this is my post #666…)

I don't believe we know who drums on the new album. I don't know that we can interpret this announcement as telling us. But if it does, wouldn't it suggest Schellen is drumming on the new album? You want to say he's a full member before you announce he's on the album, no? It would be odd to say this is our new member, but, oh, here's an album with someone else on it.

[Mr. Holland]

We have a direct quote from Steve Howe. What more do you need?

Personally I would like Steve to phone me and tell me in person.

[bondegezou]

The unreleased album reportedly has Alan on drums.

There have been reports that Alan is on the new album. I've heard that. Those reports are from a while back. I don't know that those reports are correct and up to date.

Best I can tell, they started work on the new album pretty soon after The Quest, so while White was still alive, but they continued working on the new album through much of 2022, after White had passed. That and the fact that Schellen was also on The Quest would suggest that Schellen is very probably on the new album. The question is then whether it's mostly White and some Schellen, or mostly Schellen and some White, or all Schellen. Make your bets.

What I am certain about is that there are recordings from recent years (2008+) with White on them that haven't been released yet, like the new version of "Go Through This". I hope these are released in due course. Before Danny gets too excited, I am absolutely not expecting "Go Through This" on the new album, but it would be nice if it had some avenue to release some time.

[Ash Armstrong]

Personally I would like Steve to phone me and tell me in person.

I really don't think you'd like to receive a phone call from him... not now he's gone all Boris Karloff.

[bondegezou]

No I get what Rabin105 is saying. You said you hesitate to call the new album a Yes album, because only one RRHOF inductee is on it. But Alan is still the one drumming on the album, since his tracks were recorded before his passing. Hence, that while there is now only one RRHOF inductees in the current line up, there still will be two on the new album.

His tracks may have been recorded before his passing...

[bondegezou]

and relationships with several current and former band members that go back as much as like 20-30 years now (Billy Sherwood on various things, Geoff Downes in Silent Nation era Asia, Chris Squire in Conspiracy, Tony Kaye in Circa:, etc.).

And Tony Kaye in Badfinger, and with Pete Banks.

Schellen had more experience of playing with other Yes members than any prior new Yes member.