It was Jon Davison’s childhood friend Taylor Hawkins who helped him get the gig as vocalist with Yes in 2012. The late Foo Fighters drummer had the ear of the band’s bassist and founder member Chris Squire.
“Taylor had been talking me up for years,” says Davison. “He was so magnanimous. He kept telling Chris: ‘If you ever need a new vocalist, I know the guy.’ I think Chris acquiesced just to shut him up. Then of course we all met and played together, and Chris realised it was the right thing.”
Californian Davison had been fronting midtier proggers Glass Hammer, and with his good looks and high, clear tones highly reminiscent of Yes’s original vocalist Jon Anderson (who left in 2008) he was a shoo-in when previous incumbent, Benoît David, left after one album.
The 11 years since Davison joined Yes have been a turbulent time for the prog veterans. They’ve endured the losses of Squire in 2015 and longtime drummer Alan White last year. In 2016, former members Anderson, Rick Wakeman and Trevor Rabin launched a rival band, A.R.W., then later changed their name to Yes Featuring Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman And Trevor Rabin. Even Yes’s induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2017 was marked by low-level bickering and behind-the-scenes tension between the various factions.
This story is from the Summer 2023 edition of Classic Rock.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the Summer 2023 edition of Classic Rock.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Joan Armatrading
The singer-songwriter on her new album, inspirations, being a 'band', what her key was about, meeting Nelson Mandela...
Meat Loaf: I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)
It was the power ballad to end all power ballads, and 30 years later people still ponder what the it’ is that the singer wouldn't do.
Kris Kristofferson: June 22, 1936 - September 28, 2024
Kris Kristofferson, the iconic, Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and actor who played a key role in advancing a strand of country music into a more raw and confessional direction now recognised as outlaw country, has died peacefully at his home in Maui, surrounded by family. He was 88 years old.
"I have come a very long way in the last two-and-a-bit years"
Back from the brink: the Thunder vocalist who survived major medical trauma returns.
EVER MEET LEMMY?
He's heard Lemmy's unreleased solo album, had dinner with Chris Holmes, told Paul McCartney to get a round in, been told gangster Reggie Kray wanted to have a word with him... He is Dogs D'Amour frontman Tyla 7 Pallas, and these are some of his stories.
"LET'S NOT FORGET ABOUT HAVING FUN"
With their ninth studio album In Murmuration, Finnish rockers Von Hertzen Brothers have replaced their erstwhile prog epics for a more honest approach to songwriting reflecting their personal lives.
IN THE BEGINNING
With previously unseen photographs from their early days as featured in the new Queen | Collector's Edition, Sir Brian May talks us through sights of the band in the early seventies.
BASS-IC INSTINCT
Plucked from obscurity in 1975 to be in David Bowie's band, then unceremoniously out of the picture five years later, bassist George Murray looks back on his time with the Thin White Duke.
High Rollers
When Ronnie Wood, the Stones and some A-list mates holed up at his house to help with his solo album, it sparked a days-long party, a Rolling Stones hit and the last album by arguably their finest line-up.
THE NAME OF THE GAM
When ABBA-mad Opeth leader Mikael Akerfeldt met one of their singers, he lost it”. She didn’t sing on their new concept album, but some other, perhaps unlikely, big names did.
