Jon Anderson recalled how Chris Squire persuaded him to rejoin Yes in time for their hit 1983 album 90125.

The LP had been developed under the band name Cinema, featuring Squire, Alan White, Trevor Rabin and Tony Kaye, and formed after Yes split in 1981. At the time, Anderson had no intention to work with his former colleagues, as he told Uncle Joe Benson on the Ultimate Classic Rock Nights radio show.

“They’d being doing what became 90125;" Anderson said. "They’d actually being recording for a year, and I was in the south of France, working on two projects. I came home for a weekend and Chris rang me up and said, ‘Jon, would you like to hear our new album?’ I said, ‘Yeah, Christopher.’”

He remembered that the bassist drove round to his home in his Rolls-Royce “as one would do, rock ’n’ roll!” “I sat there and he played me the tracks," he continued. "And I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe them. They sounded really, really, good. He said, ‘Would you sing on it?’ I said, ‘Well … yes! And if I do, of course, it’ll be like the Yes band, right?’ He said, ‘Yeah, that’s what we wanna do. We want it to be Yes.’ So the rest is history.”

90125, Yes’s 11th album, was an unprecedented success, reaching No. 5 and spawning the hit single “Owner of a Lonely Heart.”

Be sure to listen to Ultimate Classic Rock Nights on more than 50 stations across the U.S. from 7PM until midnight, Monday through Friday. You can see the list of radio stations where it airs here.

More From Ultimate Classic Rock