Interview with Chris Squire by Brian Draper - part 1

 
I caught up with Chris Squire by telephone from England on October 15 2005 and he kindly agreed to this interview for the YesFANZ newsletter. Chris has been in England working on The Syn project and so I started off by asking him about what was happening with the Syn in coming months.
 
Chris: Well, yes I mean, The Syn finished the album (Syndestructible) and that is about to be released. I don't know what the Australian release is of that but it is going to be released here, in the US and in Europe around the end of this month and beginning of November and it is an album that I am very happy with actually musically because I play with some great musicians on it and also we are going to promote that to a certain extent and depending on the time available before Yes start to go back on the road. But that at the moment is still not a definite thing. We are still working on those plans.
Brian: The Yes plans do you mean or The Syn plans?
Chris: The Yes plans. I mean that I am going to be working on promoting this Syn album which is something that I got the good fortune in a way to meet up with a good guitar player, bass player - oh I'm the bass player that's right (laughs), guitar player, organist and drummer and we have made this very good album that I think even Scotty likes. So we are doing that.
Brian: I understand that with the Syn project that you are having a performance at the new Marquee Club?
Chris: That's correct, yeah, in Leicester Square in London on November 15th and may be we'll add the 14th to do two nights.
Brian : Is that with the same line-up that is on the album?
Chris: I was very definite about wanting to do that. We were going to do that North American tour with The Syn but it would have had Francis and Gary playing drums but that didn't transpire for various reasons so now the Marquee Club will be with the actual performers that played on the album which I am happy about.
Brian: I understand from the Syn press release that then you start a tour in January of the east coast of the States.
Chris: Oh yes, well nothing is confirmed as yet for that tour. It is all projected but that is the theory of it. [The tour has been subsequently confirmed]
 
 
Brian: Beyond the Syn work, have you got any other solo work that you are doing at the moment?
Chris: Well no, not really, as you know we have just really finished the mix on that album and I am in the business now of promoting this Syn album which I have to say I think that everyone will really appreciate. It's come together in a very mysterious way but at the end of the day it's definitely an album that I am superbly proud of and you know I think that people will really like it. Its got some simple songs on it but then juxtaposed with very progressive rock, sort of like, feel to it. Borrowed from the 70s but done in this time, prog modernist we call it, we are prog modernists, that is our term, and I think everyone will be surprised by the quality of the music.
Brian : I saw the term 'prog modernist' (in the Syn press release) and I wondered what you exactly meant by the term?
Chris : Well the thing is it is like a rebirth in a way of the prog movement and of course the producer of the Syn album, Paul Stacey is a huge fan of the early Yes era, mainly focusing on Close to the Edge and him being a few years younger than me, not that many I hope, but a few, he had a whole passion to try to reproduce some of that style but keeping it all so current. Paul has actually been involved in producing Oasis and other young rock bands around England as well as being a prog rock progressive guitarist sort of person. So it was a meeting of the minds and the album that we have come up with is quite extraordinary and I think will be well received.
Brian : So it is being released on your own label, Umbrello Records, is that right?
Chris : That's correct.
Brian : Do you know who will be distributing it in Australia?
Chris: I am not absolutely sure about that. We have distributors in the US and Europe and in Japan. Australia I am not absolutely sure about, I'll make enquiries. We have business people involved in the company and I'm not quite sure - would that be mainly affiliated with Japan or the US normally?
  
 
 
 
Go to part 2