Will YES survive the eventual retirement of Alan White and Steve Howe?

[True]

There are many guitarists and many drummers who could do a great job of playing the parts of Howe and/or White. But that does not mean they can just be plugged in and the band will continue.
It seems to me that the lifecycle of Yes is not particularly unusual. They had their success, really in two different eras, and that success has allowed them to continue decades after their most successful recordings. Once Anderson and Wakeman were out, there was a bit of a decrease in the size of the audience at the shows. And then Squire was gone and perhaps the audience is just a little bit smaller. So an official Yes could certainly continue after the 70's members are out of the band - but they might not be able to play even the theaters which Yes are now playing.

I have not seen much info on album sales for The Quest. In the event The Quest sells well, then that bodes well for a continuation if the band. If The Quest has not sold well, then perhaps the audience continues to thin out.

[soundchaser09]

There are many guitarists and many drummers who could do a great job of playing the parts of Howe and/or White. But that does not mean they can just be plugged in and the band will continue.
It seems to me that the lifecycle of Yes is not particularly unusual. They had their success, really in two different eras, and that success has allowed them to continue decades after their most successful recordings. Once Anderson and Wakeman were out, there was a bit of a decrease in the size of the audience at the shows. And then Squire was gone and perhaps the audience is just a little bit smaller. So an official Yes could certainly continue after the 70's members are out of the band - but they might not be able to play even the theaters which Yes are now playing.

I have not seen much info on album sales for The Quest. In the event The Quest sells well, then that bodes well for a continuation if the band. If The Quest has not sold well, then perhaps the audience continues to thin out.

I'd love to know the actual figures for each album

[John Vehadija]

I hope it sold enough to do the next one faster then 7 years would be nice to have a few more yes albums with Steve

Looking at Asia would've been nice to have him on Gravitas

I don't know how 'The Quest' will remain in history but it might be the 'SH' version of Yes, just like OYE was Chris' and Billy's versions of Yes

Chances are the next yes album might be without Alan (I hope not)

I was thinking the other day, that a great line-up could be

Jon Davison, Roine Stolt, Billy Sherwood, Mike Portnoy, Oliver Wakeman

They could write a double album and do a 3 year tour

It would merge generations and different fans

I originally really believed that ARW would recruit Mike Portnoy

I also think probably Billy and Jay will want to stick together, but when the time comes, maybe they should give RS a call

Here is the Transatlantic version with Jon Anderson and they sound just like the old Yes from 2004 to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LymNJBYNk4&t=12s

[1yesfan]

I think he stays.

[profusion]

I was thinking the other day, that a great line-up could be

Jon Davison, Roine Stolt, Billy Sherwood, Mike Portnoy, Oliver Wakeman

They could write a double album and do a 3 year tour

It would merge generations and different fans

Roine Stolt has an amazing decades-spanning career of his own, and I doubt he'd drop everything to join "Yes: The Next Generation". I can see him participating a one-off album project or some such, but I don't think he'd do extended touring.

I'm sure the choice would be Jimi Haun. He's already worked with Billy and JD and can play all the Howe stuff perfectly.

[Homemade Parachute]

The word "survive" needs a bit of unpacking here, I suppose… There are a lot of ways this could go, also depending on "retirement": do Howe and White retire and choose successors, on a temporary or permanent basis? Squire picked Sherwood, and that certainly gives Sherwood some additional credibility in the current band (not that I think he particularly needed any — even if Squire had passed more suddenly with no notice or prep, or ability to get his wishes known, Sherwood was always the obvious and appropriate choice). I can certainly see White handing the sticks to Schellen, but Howe, hmm, there really isn't anyone waiting in the wings, so that's a harder one to read.

Assuming they do, though, what does "survive" really mean — continue to tour and not lose money? Residencies, the oldies circuit, state fairs and casinos? Actually *expand* the base and acquire new audiences? I got to admit, when I walked out of the Rush farewell tour a few years ago, and saw all the fans limp and stagger their way home on the train, we're, uh, we're not looking so great as a cohort, you know? We're not getting any younger. And that's Rush, for crying out loud, who have even maintained some level of cultural cache the last decade and a half and have maybe even attracted some young people thanks to their appearances on such cutting-edge kids' shows as The Colbert Report. Yes, to be honest, feels like it has an ever-diminishing audience, not a growing or even sustainable one.

Survive, as in make new music accepted as Yes by some measure of the base? Most immediately, could an album without Howe and White be successful within the base? In some ways, sure: any Yes album is as "legitimate" as any other, representing the music the current band chooses to put into the world. An album of Davison, Downes, Sherwood, and X and Y would almost certainly toe a very fine yet almost impossible to define line between acknowledging Yes history, and pushing said history forward in some way, in a way Arc of Life doesn't, quite (and which it obviously doesn't have to and shouldn't). Stray too far, and "It doesn't sound like classic Yes!". Hew too close, and "It doesn't move forward enough, and sounds like warmed over Tormato!" Maybe Arc of Life *becomes* Yes, for commercial if no other reasons, as that would certainly boost album and ticket sales, and plays a range of classic old and new material in concert to establish their bonafides, all while opening up to the greatest range of Yes songs, really, including everything up to Drama, Drama itself, and 90125, plus FFY, H&E, and TQ for good measure.

Is that a tribute band? Does it matter, if enough people see them to keep them viable as a touring/recording entity? No idea, not having seen any tribute bands, or figuring out what people want from them. But even that audience is diminishing as we speak, I think…

What do *I* want? Well, a world with Yes in it is better than a world without, you know, including new music. So however they keep going, I'm happy to kick a few bucks their way one way or the other. What happens when I go, though, might be more the pressing point.

[Ash Armstrong]

The word "survive" needs a bit of unpacking here, I suppose… There are a lot of ways this could go, also depending on "retirement": do Howe and White retire and choose successors, on a temporary or permanent basis? Squire picked Sherwood, and that certainly gives Sherwood some additional credibility in the current band (not that I think he particularly needed any — even if Squire had passed more suddenly with no notice or prep, or ability to get his wishes known, Sherwood was always the obvious and appropriate choice). I can certainly see White handing the sticks to Schellen, but Howe, hmm, there really isn't anyone waiting in the wings, so that's a harder one to read.

Assuming they do, though, what does "survive" really mean — continue to tour and not lose money? Residencies, the oldies circuit, state fairs and casinos? Actually *expand* the base and acquire new audiences? I got to admit, when I walked out of the Rush farewell tour a few years ago, and saw all the fans limp and stagger their way home on the train, we're, uh, we're not looking so great as a cohort, you know? We're not getting any younger. And that's Rush, for crying out loud, who have even maintained some level of cultural cache the last decade and a half and have maybe even attracted some young people thanks to their appearances on such cutting-edge kids' shows as The Colbert Report. Yes, to be honest, feels like it has an ever-diminishing audience, not a growing or even sustainable one.

Survive, as in make new music accepted as Yes by some measure of the base? Most immediately, could an album without Howe and White be successful within the base? In some ways, sure: any Yes album is as "legitimate" as any other, representing the music the current band chooses to put into the world. An album of Davison, Downes, Sherwood, and X and Y would almost certainly toe a very fine yet almost impossible to define line between acknowledging Yes history, and pushing said history forward in some way, in a way Arc of Life doesn't, quite (and which it obviously doesn't have to and shouldn't). Stray too far, and "It doesn't sound like classic Yes!". Hew too close, and "It doesn't move forward enough, and sounds like warmed over Tormato!" Maybe Arc of Life *becomes* Yes, for commercial if no other reasons, as that would certainly boost album and ticket sales, and plays a range of classic old and new material in concert to establish their bonafides, all while opening up to the greatest range of Yes songs, really, including everything up to Drama, Drama itself, and 90125, plus FFY, H&E, and TQ for good measure.

Is that a tribute band? Does it matter, if enough people see them to keep them viable as a touring/recording entity? No idea, not having seen any tribute bands, or figuring out what people want from them. But even that audience is diminishing as we speak, I think…

What do *I* want? Well, a world with Yes in it is better than a world without, you know, including new music. So however they keep going, I'm happy to kick a few bucks their way one way or the other. What happens when I go, though, might be more the pressing point.

Serious food for thought!

[downbyariver]

The word "survive" needs a bit of unpacking here, I suppose… There are a lot of ways this could go, also depending on "retirement": do Howe and White retire and choose successors, on a temporary or permanent basis? Squire picked Sherwood, and that certainly gives Sherwood some additional credibility in the current band (not that I think he particularly needed any — even if Squire had passed more suddenly with no notice or prep, or ability to get his wishes known, Sherwood was always the obvious and appropriate choice). I can certainly see White handing the sticks to Schellen, but Howe, hmm, there really isn't anyone waiting in the wings, so that's a harder one to read.

Assuming they do, though, what does "survive" really mean — continue to tour and not lose money? Residencies, the oldies circuit, state fairs and casinos? Actually *expand* the base and acquire new audiences? I got to admit, when I walked out of the Rush farewell tour a few years ago, and saw all the fans limp and stagger their way home on the train, we're, uh, we're not looking so great as a cohort, you know? We're not getting any younger. And that's Rush, for crying out loud, who have even maintained some level of cultural cache the last decade and a half and have maybe even attracted some young people thanks to their appearances on such cutting-edge kids' shows as The Colbert Report. Yes, to be honest, feels like it has an ever-diminishing audience, not a growing or even sustainable one.

For me, personally, the size of the audience doesn't matter as far as their legitimacy or lack thereof goes. Yes has always been a niche thing to some degree, a few years in the 80s aside. It's inevitable that a continuing band will keep getting more niche, and that's alright with me.

I would say the kind of four pillars that keep it Yes to me are:

1. The production of new studio albums of original Yes music on a regular basis that sound in the ballpark of the Yes music that's gone before. That doesn't mean they have to sound like 1971. They could sound like 1987. They could also sound like a hybrid of 1971 and 1987. And there is always room to introduce some original elements that play to the strengths of current musicians and new technology around the edges, as long as the core is there and it sounds like Yes music.

While I like every Yes album to various extents, I also think we've kind of established by accepting all the Yes albums to this point that a new Yes album doesn't have to match peak Yes quality wise to count as a Yes album.

2. Some sort of renditions of live (or similar to live) versions of Yes music from previous lineups from time to time. This doesn't necessarily mean that they need to constantly tour the world. Doing a few festivals and a show live from Billy Sherwood's basement each year and releasing live albums from those here and there would be fine. I'm not really a touring guy when it comes to what I value most, but even I would have to look skeptically at a band called Yes from 1972 or beyond that has never played "Roundabout". I mean, I guess a future band called Yes could meet this criteria without playing that one song if they had some aversion to it- I accept the current Yes as Yes, and they haven't played "Owner of a Lonely Heart" in five years (Though I'd prefer it if they'd start playing that again). However, if they're not playing *anything* from the 70s or 80s live or in the studio as part of an album of the current band playing the old songs (Pretending it's live by adding fake crowd noise optional) or something (Believe it or not, I know of at least a couple bands that had later lineups go into the studio and re-record old songs their band have previously put out- I guess not as hard to believe now that Taylor Swift is getting are a lot of press re-recording every album she ever made.), I think it would be fair for fans to ask themselves if that's really the same band. Also, albums of the old songs don't count as studio albums for the purposes of the first criteria.

3. I think some sort of continuity is important. For example, Fly From Here had three of the four band members from Magnification. Heaven & Earth had four of the five band members from Fly From Here. The Quest had four of the five people from Heaven and Earth. You can go all the way back to Yes in 1969 and get that chain of continuity album by album.

Even when Yes folded after Drama, it came back with two of the guys from that album on 90125 (Plus a lead singer turned producer from that album and two more former Yes members from previous albums but not the most recent one, all of whom technically don't count using this definition, but who's presence certainly don't hurt. . Alan White and Chris Squire were the two that "counted" there.). That was the diciest handoff because of the band folding and trying to come back as a different band and whatnot, but I'm going to count it as a successful handoff anyway because it meets the core criteria.

In case anyone is wondering, for me the minimum number for me is having one named band member from the most recent studio album as a named band member on the next studio album (Bringing back session musicians or guys who used to be in the band before help, but don't actually count to meet the minimum). I totally realize that this is just my own personal criteria and not an immutable law of the universe.

For me, having five totally different musicians from one album to the next, assuming each album only had five band members named, wouldn't cut it. However, you could definitely gradually get to five different band members by transitioning over the course of several studio albums in a way that would be legit to me.

4. The band needs to be called "Yes". I feel like that one is pretty self-evident. You can't be Yes if you're legally required (or choose) not to call yourself that.

Where that gets a little tricky is if we have no band that can call itself "Yes" without qualifications, and two bands running around with names such as "Yes Featuring [Various Musician Names]". I kind of feel like those would be spinoff groups, but if they met all the other criteria, I wonder if I might have some bend because I want to believe there's still a Yes.

I actually do believe this one is really important, though- boiled down to the simplest most common sensical essence of the question of "Is that band Yes?" is what the band of the band is.

[bondegezou]

I have not seen much info on album sales for The Quest. In the event The Quest sells well, then that bodes well for a continuation if the band. If The Quest has not sold well, then perhaps the audience continues to thin out.

It's charted well (save for in the US, where it was stymied by different formats coming out on different dates). What that means in terms of sales is less clear.

[bondegezou]

Yes has always been a niche thing to some degree, a few years in the 80s aside.

Tales from Topographic Oceans and Going for the One were both #1 albums in the UK. The Yes Album to Drama all made the top ten (while 90125 only made #16).

In the US, Fragile to Tormato all made the top 10, with Close to the Edge peaking at #3 (which remains their best album chart performance in the country). Fragile to Relayer made the top 20 in Italy. Fragile to Going for the One made the top 40 in Japan.

The band had 3 top 40 singles in the UK in the '70s, 2 in the US, 1 in Australia, 1 in the Netherlands.

We tend to forget that Yes were a very successful band internationally through much of the 1970s.

They haven't done too badly after the '80s either, with 4 top 20 albums in the UK, 2 in Japan and 1 in the US.

[PeterCologne]

Tales from Topographic Oceans and Going for the One were both #1 albums in the UK. The Yes Album to Drama all made the top ten (while 90125 only made #16).

In the US, Fragile to Tormato all made the top 10, with Close to the Edge peaking at #3 (which remains their best album chart performance in the country). Fragile to Relayer made the top 20 in Italy. Fragile to Going for the One made the top 40 in Japan.

The band had 3 top 40 singles in the UK in the '70s, 2 in the US, 1 in Australia, 1 in the Netherlands.

We tend to forget that Yes were a very successful band internationally through much of the 1970s.

They haven't done too badly after the '80s either, with 4 top 20 albums in the UK, 2 in Japan and 1 in the US.

Don't forget Germany... 90125 was at 2 in the german charts and got a platinum disc, that was 500 000 copies then, Going For The One peaked at 6, Union was on 15, Tales, Relayer and BIg Generator were top 30, Fly From Here had the worldwide highest charts-appearance here on 16. And The Quest now was on 7.

[Ash Armstrong]

I think there's a tendency for folks in certain nations or territories to not look much beyond their own borders when it comes to their idea of the band and its history.

As well as fewer 'continuity members' in the band, there are fewer 'continuity fans' as time passes, inevitably. I'm 62 and healthy and a fan since 1973, but I can't avoid that I'm in the evening of my life. Even those who were in their teens in the 80s who came on board with 90125, mostly in North America, will be in their 50s. While I'm sure there'll be members of the audience who have, and who will continue to, board the starship because of parents, aunts and uncles, etc., the fact is that their audience is declining overall simply due to time passing and aging. Without a growing audience, and the notion of a stable, constant audience is wishful thinking, an audience declines over time to the point where a band cannot sustain itself.
One hopes, I suppose, that future musicians will wish to write music that bears comparison to what we've found in Yesmusic, and indeed many groups of musicians and individual artists and composers have been doing so for some time, and God knows we've argued the toss of whether this or that outfit carries the 'spirit' of Yes forward, but I can't really see, in future times after I've shuffled off into the sunset, that a viable band can call itself Yes and sustain itself artistically or financially.
None of which means that the music that we have will not be played and listened to, of course it will, but the idea that a group can continue to call itself Yes, and continue to release album after album of new material into an undetermined future I find risible.

[Ceasar’s Palace]

Seems to me Yes is making a seamless transition from band into tribute band. If Howe is out, then they will have reached the end phase.

There is a question of how high you rate loyalty.
When it comes to playing, I think Howe and White are the weakest links now. I prefer Haun and Schellen.
Or even better Roine Stolt and Lou Molino.
When it comes to writing I still have some hope for Howe.

But loyalty dictates that Howe and White should be in Yes.
I really hate to say it, but I’m not rating loyalty that high...

[yamishogun]

If there is a new Yes album with Howe, it will almost certainly sound much like The Quest apart from one or two songs as with "The Ice Bridge", which almost sounds like someone out of the band wrote it...

If there is a Yes album without Howe then out of all Yes albums, the only ones I hope are avoided sounding like are Heaven & Earth, The Quest, most of OYE and half of Keys and half of Magnification - you know, the not up to par songs we can all agree on.

[downbyariver]

We tend to forget that Yes were a very successful band internationally through much of the 1970s.

That is certainly worth noting. I suppose my point when I said that Yes was always niche except for a few years in the 80s was not so much about album sales or even radio airplay as about something less measurable. If one could distill the average 70s rock fan, especially in the United States, into a single person, he'd probably be more into blues oriented rock and have a Led Zeppelin t-shirt on. Oh, he might like "Roundabout" and have Fragile, but Yes wouldn't be one of his top five bands.

A quick look at an Internet dictionary entry for "niche" includes a definition of (among others): "the situation in which a business's products or services can succeed by being sold to a particular kind or group of people". I guess in some ways, that does not apply to the 70s because the band sold to too broad a group of people. *However*, clearly, there was a particular kind of group or person who was a Yes fan (That isn't a code for anything, I just mean someone who likes a certain kind of music) more than a fan of a lot of other bands, and those people were not just flip a coin 1 to 1 matches with other people who loved Zeppelin type stuff more, even if each may have had an album or two from the other's collection in their own collection.

There was a commentary, I think it was on one of the the remastered versions of Genesis albums that came with commentary at the end (But it really could have been one of any number of things I watched on YouTube or the like), where a band member describes the band's change from the music of the Gabriel era and the first two or three Phil Collins albums where they had 4-5 members, into the style that made the 3 person lineup successful in their own right. He talks about all this technical and casually observable stuff about the music and the the things surrounding the music and then without breaking stride says something like "And women started showing up at our concerts for the first time ever. That was nice, too.".

Now, we've seen plenty of women post here (and on it's predecessor site) who love early Genesis and the proggiest incarnations of Yes, but I think that comment gets at something we kind of know to be true when speaking only in broad stereotypes- which is, album and ticket sales aside, Yes music has mostly been a niche in the sense that the real enthusiasts tend not to be a mainstream bunch. Just ask Rolling Stone magazine. That's part of why it took Yes forever to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It's also why there has at times seemed to be some gatekeeping around whether we're allowed to like the mainstream popular (in the western hemisphere) Rabin-era 80s music or not and still be a "real fan" (I think that type of gatekeeping is fading away. I've always loved the 80s stuff, and people seem to mostly accept me at this point. We have several other regular posters who are also big fans of the 80s material. We all are also big fans of the 70s material, though- at least, I am.).

So, I suppose what I was saying is kind of the equivalent of "Rolling Stone didn't like the band in 1973, what's the difference if the new equivalents of Rolling Stone don't like the band in 2031?" (Rolling Stone may have once published a positive review of a Yes album in the 70s- lets not get distracted with facts here. ). We're niche in the sense of not appealing to everyone and in the sense of nevertheless having hard core fans.

If the band keeps having high quality musicians produce new studio albums of original fresh Yes music that sounds like Yes music, and occasionally does a live album type thing where they play some classics, I can easily buy digital downloads of the new albums at a reasonable price, and there are enough people on this forum (or elsewhere, I suppose, though I'd like to think this forum will be around a very long time.) to talk about them with, why do I care if they have been reduced to a Glass Hammer or Circa: business model except insofar as it perhaps makes their continued existence a little precarious? Setting aside that potential precariousness, I'd care not at all. I get to buy their albums easily at a good price and enjoy them, and have people to talk about them with online. Works for me. I don't need them to be booking arenas or even theatres and selling them out constantly to enjoy the music as long as they don't mind continuing to make it for a smaller audience (Which is a proven model that works for a lot of lesser known band members- the problem is a Genesis-type scenario where Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks couldn't sell out arenas in the states anymore in the 90s and packed things up over Ray Wilson's objections and signs that the touring business was still viable in Europe and could be rebuilt and rebooked in smaller US venues, and new albums could be made.).

Apart from some members being able to potentially just stop the band when they want, when they retire, or when they pass away (In the latter case, it might be the heirs), the other concern I have would be that there may be extra expenses built into Yes that prevent that sort of Glass Hammer/Circa:/whatever model. For example, if unbeknownst to us, they have a contractual obligation to pay Jon Anderson (and/or other former Yes musicians, or future former Yes musicians) a percentage every time they release a new album or something, that could be a problem to adjusting to a leaner model revenue wise. One got the feeling that Steve Howe was involved in Asia's financial picture somehow beyond his second tenure with the band but before John Wetton passed away (And beyond)- there's nothing definitive I can point to, it's the way Steve sometimes has talked about it sometimes hints at something being left unsaid.

I don't think Yes would drop to the level of sales of other bands overnight if Howe and White retired, though. I think it's honestly more a function of how many older fans want to, can afford to, and are wiling to keep going to concerts. It's when the demographics change enough that the band, whomever is in it (Assuming a long-term existence for the band that is of course highly speculative) and it's mostly or entirely people who weren't alive or were just children in the 70s or 80s left to buy tickets and albums that one could see interest plummet. However, that doesn't mean there wouldn't be an audience there, especially with the Internet providing the ability to get one audience for albums from all over the world (So you need a world market of x people to buy direct downloads from you and not x people in each city to buy a record or CD at a retail shop), and if there is an eventually transition to people who have day jobs (ala a bunch of the younger prog bands today) or a whole bunch of bands that together make him or her a living (ala Sherwood). The music speaks to people of every generation exposed to it- it's just going to be a dramatic falling off from when the baby boomers die to the next generation that would have to be adjusted to, but does not seem impossible.

There are (or were) actually iterations of the Glen Miller Orchestra and Guy Lombardo's Royal Canadians (Pre-rock and roll "big bands") playing high school gyms and such last I checked. I don't think they make any original music, but I'm not sure if they ever really did beyond a few songs. I don't think that was necessarily an expectation for those type of bands the way it is with rock and roll bands. I think those type of big bands always played mostly covers and standards, maybe with a little of their own stuff (It's not a genre I'm into, though for historical reasons I would show up at at a free concert at a high school gym near me if I found out about one- after the pandemic ends, if it ever does- just to say I'd seen them. I sense their importance even if their music is not really my thing.). There the bands are, though- and I can't imagine their original fans are alive, with a few exceptions. There must be younger people (Relatively speaking, they could be senior citizens by now) who developed an interest in them even though the music and style reflected the tastes of previous generations.