Atlantic City Weekly

Share this Story:

NEXT YEAR WILL MARK ALAN White’s fourth full decade as the drummer for revered British progressive-rock band Yes, and perhaps performing before fans younger than he was when he started is what’s keeping him youthful into his 60s.

“We’re almost playing to three generations nowadays,” White tells Atlantic City Weekly by phone. “It’s pretty incredible to see how many young people turn up for our shows, and I’m sure that’s why we’re booked in places like where we are tonight [the Durham, N.C., Performing Arts Center, adjacent to Duke University]. I personally think it’s children of people who’s parents were totally into the band, played their music all the time, and got brainwashed in early childhood. We’re now starting to see not only the parents and the children, but also the children’s children. We’re seeing plenty of teenagers coming to our shows.

“We’ve also got a lot of stalwart fans who I’m sure include people who have seen Yes shows 50 or 60 times,” he adds. “I had a guy come up to me at the start of this tour and tell me ‘This is my 80th show.’ I thought, oh my God, you’ve got to get a life, guy.”

Yes returns to the Tropicana Showroom this Saturday night, April 2, on the tail end of its month-long Rite of Spring North American Tour, which ends April 4 in Washington, D.C. In July and August the band has tour dates set with Styx, a longstanding American group that helped perpetuate the prog-rock genre Yes was hugely involved in creating — one that blends classic and symphonic sounds and abstract lyrics with more traditional-sounding, roots rock. In November, Yes embarks on a month-long tour of Europe.

Click here to see video from the last time Yes was at the Tropicana, including interview!

“We’re just having fun playing the songs we’ve played quite a few times before,” says White. “The band is pretty well locked into a really good stage show right now. Obviously it takes a few times to get warmed up but now we’re on a roll. We’ve got material from a few different walks, all the way back to Yes [the band’s eponymous debut album in 1969, and the first of its 20 studio albums that have sold in the tens of millions] including songs from Fragile, Close to the Edge, Drama — we have a lot of material to pick from, and the crowds always have favorites that they like to see us play. In fact so many times we’ve tried to do a show without playing “Roundabout” [a blockbuster hit from 1971’s Fragile] and we’d get complaints. We didn’t play it for about two weeks on a tour about four or five years ago, and we heard so many complaints we had to stick it back in.”

Yes has undergone several personnel changes since its start in London in 1968, and is currently comprised of White (who replaced drummer Bill Bruford in 1972), keyboardist Oliver Wakeman (the son of longtime Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman), longstanding guitarist Steve Howe, bassist and sole-surviving original member Chris Squire, and lead singer Benoit David.

“[Oliver]’s very similar to his father, actually,” says White. “He doesn’t like to be compared too much, though, because he always says he’s his own self, but his mannerisms are very similar to how his father is — or was at that age — and also his playing is of a similar style, because he grew up amongst all that sort of music.”

Of the nearly 20 members Yes has had in its almost 43-year history, it is probably David’s joining that was the hardest sell to hard-core fans of the band. The Montreal native was formerly the frontman for a Yes tribute band called Close to the Edge (named after the 1972 album), filling in for founding member Jon Anderson when Anderson took ill just before what was to be the band’s 40th anniversary tour in 2008. David has been Yes’ lead singer ever since.

“[David]’s getting a lot of comments at shows because we usually do a meet-and-greet afterwards, and quite a few people have commented on what a great job he’s doing,” says White. “It’s amazing how much he sounds like Jon Anderson. I wouldn’t say it’s exactly the same but it’s very, very close. If you closed your eyes you really couldn’t tell.”

While White was only 23 when he joined Yes, he could still lay claim to a music pedigree up to that point. He was a skilled pianist before switching primarily to drums, going on to perform with fellow music luminaries Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood, John Lennon, George Harrison, Joe Cocker, Eric Clapton and others. He’s composed, via chord sequences on piano, many of the songs Yes incorporated into its repertoire.

“I’ve played a lot of diverse music with a lot of different bands,” says White. “Yes has always been a very, very challenging band to play with and I think that’s what excited me about joining the band in the first place. I was young, maybe about 20 years old or so, but really it was not until later in life that I realize I’ve been part of some kind of musical history.”

While the music Yes will be playing on this tour is all from its vast cache of classics, the band will soon release its first studio album since 2001’s Magnification. Entitled Fly From Here, the album is being produced by former Yes member Trevor Horn.

“We’ve actually just finished a new album — well, it still has to be mixed and all that, but we’ve done the groundwork and all the backing tracks are done,” says White. “Trevor Horn’s got all the information now and is working on it in England. When we finish this tour we’ll double check on what stage it’s at.”

Despite its monumental success, and as the result of what’s been perceived over the years as a voters’ bias toward progressive-rock bands, Yes has yet to be inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame.

“I actually know a couple of the people who are on the [Hall of Fame selection committee] board, and every time it comes around we hear ‘you’re definitely going to get nominated,’ but that’s been happening for about three years now,” says White. “The one thing is, some members of the board have not quite been into progressive rock, and for a while it seems that whole genre of music was bypassed. Only last year, I think it was, [fellow prog-rock pioneer] Genesis got in, so I think they’re livening up to the fact that they missed out on something there. Hopefully within the next year or two … I mean we certainly have put the work in and the years.”

White and his wife of nearly 30 years, Gigi, have two grown children and reside in the Seattle, Washington, vicinity.

“It’s in the Bellevue area of Washington and the actual city I live in is called Newcastle, which is also the largest city near where I was born in England,” says White. “It’s funny, when I bought the house I’m living in now the town was called something else, but about three months after I bought it they changed the name of whole area to Newcastle. I always tell people I just called the mayor up and he changed the name of the city for me.”

Yes

When: Saturday, April 2, doors 8pm, show 9pm

Where: Tropicana Showroom, A.C.

How Much: $35-$100