'Onward' was a song I wrote in Montreux, in Switzerland, when we were there camping out for the whole winter. In the summer, Montreux is a really, really big summertime-touristy, full-of-life kind of place. In the winter, it closes down.
The flukey part of it is, back in the early days, I had that guitar decorated with all kinds of crap wallpaper, 'Flower Power' - then that got all shaved off. And during the course of cleaning the bass up again, some of the wood got shaved down, and it probably became a lighter body than the stock factory model.
Persistence is a pretty important part of making it in this business, which, in retrospect, is the easy part. Maintaining a profile is the difficult part of the job. Somehow or another, I muddled through that system and somehow am around to still enjoy playing for people.
Most popular records are action-packed to the last semi-quaver.
On our studio album 'Fly From Here' in 2011, we spent a year and a half promoting that around the world.
I do have a vague recollection of reviving the cover of The Beatles' 'Every Little Thing,' but I don't know if that was just our riffing on it in rehearsal. I don't think we ever did it actually in the show.
Of course, Paul McCartney's sound is different from mine, but it's the way you hear things, really.
Back in the day, the album was king in many ways. And, of course, we were very tied in with the birth of FM/college radio in the States, and what we were doing suited the format of those young radio stations.
Look how far the human race has come in terms of air and space travel in the last hundred years. So in the next couple of thousand years, you've got to believe that we're going to be able to do all kinds of amazing things.
Steve Howe met Paul Simon and said that Paul was very approving of our version of 'America.'
I learned to do a few tricks that other people hadn't done before. I developed that trebly bass thing a little further.
I like the Foo Fighters a lot - apart from them being friends of mine as well. They're definitely a fantastic live act to see: so much energy and possibly even bigger in Europe than they are in the U.S., and that's great.
I guess I've become very accustomed to playing in the 7/4, which is something we've done quite a lot.
'Fragile,' of course, was a very successful album for us, especially here in the States. It had a lot of solo pieces on it, though.
I couldn't get session work because most musicians hated my style.
The fact I've been in every lineup of Yes has been more by default than design.
I really believe that the aliens are us from the future. It seems to me a very plausible reason that explains a lot of phenomena as opposed to green men with one eye from outer space.
You're only as big as your last hit.
I know I always worked hard on making sure we came out with the best possible product and of course we were working with four other people, you have to balance that as well.
A nightmare is two bassists on stage.
