Jon Anderson Issues A Wake Up Call To His Former Yes Bandmates

Former Yes vocalist Jon Anderson is getting even more direct and critical when asked about his former band. On the topic of a possible return to the group, the singer sarcastically says that he’ll be back “when they wake up.”

Anderson had revealed in a previous conversation with Rolling Stone that he wasn't told directly by the band when they fired him back in 2008, instead having to hear the news from a friend.

He takes a few shots at the current lineup and their first post-Anderson release ‘Fly From Here,' which we rather enjoyed, during an interview with the St. Petersburg Examiner. Anderson says he wasn’t “convinced” by the “dated” performance of replacement vocalist Benoit David and said that the production “wasn’t as good as I expected."

Although he’s clearly still stung by the events that forced him out of the group that had been his home for 35 years, Anderson is moving on, alluding to a new release that will be out sometime before Christmas. Of the prospective new album, he says he believes that his fans will react positively and say “Jon still has that energy to do that kind of music, I love it.”

Anderson has been quite prolific in the past couple of years, releasing both his own solo album 'Survival And Other Stories' and a collaboration with former Yes mate Rick Wakeman. The pair will continue to support that album with additional tour dates together in October and November.

Anderson admits he's lucky to still be around to make all this music, noting that the illness which forced his departure from Yes  almost killed him and that at one point, he was in a coma for three days. In our earlier conversation with Anderson, he summarized his difficult exit from the band saying that “you find out who your friends are when you get sick."