Chris Squire
“Isaw Yes many times, the first time being at the Marquee back in 1968. I was struck by how good they were, and particularly Chris. I met him for the first time in LA when I was in GTR with Steve Howe [circa ’86]. He was very positive about our show and Genesis, I told him how much I liked Yes, so we became friends and, over time, started to work together.
“We shared a love of groups with orchestras, and he liked things on the grand scale. I told him I liked the organ on Hold Out Your Hand on [Squire’s
1975 solo album] Fish Out Of Water.
He said, ‘Yeah, that’s the organ at St Paul’s Cathedral. We did a bit of a nifty at three in the morning, broke in and recorded it!’ That was typical Chris. He was always flying by the seat of his pants, robbing Peter to pay Paul, but getting things done. The fact his band was named Yes was no accident – he was a great optimist, and saw no enemy coming: ‘This’ll work out, we’ll be able to afford this, we’ll do that, that’ll happen, we’ll get it done, everything will fall into place.’ And he wasn’t wrong.
“He was a remarkable writer, so enthusiastic when anyone did anything remotely good, and he wasn’t the kind of character who got threatened if someone else wrote a good idea. In [their collaboration] Squackett, if anyone had a variation to employ on a melody, then we’d just extend the song to accommodate that variation. That’s very different to the way Genesis worked, which was more competitive. Chris and I didn’t edit, we’d expand to accommodate all the ideas, and headed towards the symphonic through adding rather than subtracting.
“Whenever we worked together, whatever we were doing he’d put everything into it, heart and soul.
It was amazing to me – this famous bass player trying very hard to please me. The last thing he ever recorded was Love Song To A Vampire on my album Wolflight. He happened to be in town but didn’t have his bass, so he used my old Fender Precision, which
“He was a visionary – a stellar songwriter, a great organiser, an extraordinary force.”
hadn’t been out of its case for 20 years. It sounded just like his Rickenbacker, had that ring to it. It’s the old adage: it’s the man, not the machine. It was his fingers, the way he played it.
“As a bass player he didn’t just play the root notes, but would seek and find a lead line that would complement whatever the lead melodies were.
When you’re listening to him there’s this feeling that you’re motoring along in a vehicle by land or by sea, then sometimes you’re right out there in space, it’s like rocket propulsion.
“Chris loved to perform live. He’d beam with that same joy as when he was playing small clubs back in the day. We only ever played together live once, on a Cruise To The Edge, with another great pal of mine, John Wetton.
“I dream about them all the time, and still talk to them all the time. Chris and I both believe in the spirit world. The other day I was in the car with my wife and I was talking about Chris, and I got this huge waft of marijuana under my nose and we couldn’t work out where it had come from. I told Chris’ wife Scotty and she said: ‘Yes, he communicates that way to me too, even now.’
“He was a lover of the odd toke, the odd sniff and the odd quaff of a major amount of alcohol. But no matter what he went through in the course of being fuelled up to record, he just seemed to get more and more focused, whereas most people would’ve just fallen over.
“He was a man of his passions. Scotty told me you always knew when he liked a piece of music, because he cried when he heard it. He could go off on a rant, and at other times he was an absolute pussycat. This large guy was very child-like at times.
“In Yes he worked with gifted people who were players on his team, actors in his play. He had a nose for talent, for finding great people, and when there was a problem, people came and went. You do have to be quite steely at times when you’re leading a band. He had a tough side and a soft side, he was a multi-faceted character.
“He was a visionary – a stellar songwriter, a great organiser, an extraordinary force. It makes me proud to be in this industry knowing there were guys like Chris who strutted and fretted their way across music’s stage. I loved him then and I love him now. We won’t see his like again.”