YES Men Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, Steve Howe, Bill Bruford Revisit Pinnacle Of Progressive Rock On 45th Anniversary Of Close to the Edge
Coming off the breakthrough success of the band’s Fragile album just nine months earlier, YES had now gained a level of commercial capital that they intended to spend. It wouldn’t come in the form of three and a half minute pop songs, instead appearing as an album of only three songs. Close to the Edge would debut at # 3 on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart and crown YES as progressive rock royalty for decades to come. Jon Anderson tells IN THE STUDIO host Redbeard that the band did not intentionally aspire to create complex lengthy songs.
“We were making music and we’d stop when it was finished and look at each other and say, “Well that’s great, what is it?” And (producer/engineer) Eddie Offord would say,’ its twelve minutes long.’ Wow, well, we’ll just tighten that up a bit and it’s ten minutes long. Wow, we were more surprised than anybody that it was long. We just made music until it was finished.” - Jon Anderson
