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Some Future Day evaluates technology at the intersection of culture & law.
Join Marc Beckman and his esteemed guests for insider knowledge surrounding how you can use new technologies to positively impact your life, career, and family. Marc Beckman is Senior Fellow of Emerging Technologies and an Adjunct Professor at NYU, CEO of DMA United, and a member of the New York State Bar Association’s Task Force on Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets.
Marc Beckman: [00:01:00] [00:02:00] Steve Howe, it is truly an honor to meet you. Thank you so much for joining us on some future day. How are you today?
Steve Howe: I'm fine, thanks for inviting me up. Yeah, nice to meet you.
Marc Beckman: Where are you? Where in the world are you today?
Steve Howe: Well, I'm really resident in London, but I'm in the West Country, which is a beautiful part of England, called Devon. So up in the North Devon, it's, uh, it's more rural and, um You know, I'm hanging out here, I've got a recording studio and, uh, things to do,
Marc Beckman: Steve, is that, um, just curious, like, is the location in Devon, one of the first places that you recorded with Yes and then later went on to actually purchase the property? Is that the [00:03:00] same spot?
Steve Howe: We rehearsed in the house, yeah, and, you know, ten years later I, I did, uh, did buy it. So, it was really perfect for Jess and, and continues to be perfect for, for I, for myself. Being a Londoner, I was used to built up areas and, you know, and then I came here and suddenly there was the countryside. So, it's great fun.
Marc Beckman: It sounds like such an interesting place from what I read. It's, it's pretty old, huh?
Steve Howe: Yeah, it's about, well, nobody really knows, but I mean, it's at least two or three hundred years old, you know.
Marc Beckman: Interesting. And then you described it as having, I, I, I don't think you used these exact words, but certain nooks and crannies really caught my attention, um,
Marc Beckman: in the,
Steve Howe: of it's quite low. It makes you wonder, were people shorter before? I don't know. But there's a lot of, there's quite a lot of low beams, but also the roof is thatched. So that's a very traditional style in Norfolk and in Devon, and lots of areas of the UK we have thatched properties, and [00:04:00] they're quite, they're quite beautiful.
Marc Beckman: So it's nice. So as you, um, after you purchased this home, if I understand correctly, you would bring your family, out from London, and not only just use it to rehearse, but actually use it for vacations as well. Well, I guess semi get out of the city type of
Marc Beckman: vacations, yeah?
Steve Howe: you know, sometimes you start off with an idea, and it evolves into something else. Initially, yeah, we just thought, oh, this is a, you know, family retreat kind of place. But it didn't work out like that. It continued being partly that. But about four years later, it started to become what it is now which is you know guitars and recording equipment and things like that because it was a bit cramped in London doing that so when we had the space we realized that this was a and actually to you know it's a business concern uh you know although it's not public studio you know that a lot of recordings are made here and that's the way you know we've been working out um what's the viability or the [00:05:00] sustainability of having a property really mainly only if it's a studio in the context of business, you know, but so we've even got solar panels and, you know, we've started to think long term, or we always have really, sort of, fairly long term, but,
Marc Beckman: That's interesting that you have, um, the solar panels, um,
Steve Howe: Not on the, not on the, not on the thatch, but in the field, yeah, somewhere away, yeah.
Marc Beckman: Yeah, I was, I was actually in a home recently in California that had the, it sounds like a similar setup with, um, solar panels, like, for me, I don't understand why the world, um, has created a political football out of the issue of climate change, like, just going back to the 60s and, and your roots a little bit, where, um, the idea of, Preserving Mother Earth and just taking care of what we want was so important.
Marc Beckman: Doesn't it make sense to embrace renewable technology if [00:06:00] it's in front of us and, and to, you know, use solar panels?
Steve Howe: mean, apparently we need to use every blimmin thing we've got to, to, to, to, you know, get a grip on the situation, and maybe there should be more you know, uh, turbines in the sea, wind turbines, turbines in the sea, everything we can do. I mean, you know, there is that part when you drive in LA to Palm Springs, where they've got 30 miles of revolving turbines, you kind of wonder, But, you know, it could be out at sea more um, but it could be that we're going to make leaps forward soon, you know, with battery technology is going to get smaller, you know, the kind of thing that will help and maybe will help us. But actually, at the same time, we've got so much that isn't helping us and it's increasingly.
Steve Howe: Not helping us, you know, is the, the, the dependency on actually, you know, make, you know, getting oil and, you know, getting crude oil, you know. There's so many things we're doing that if we [00:07:00] keep doing them the same, uh, the effects that other people are trying to implement, you know, with awareness, global awareness, uh, are going to fail.
Steve Howe: So it's unlikely, as you started out by saying, this, I think you were hinting at the fact that this really should be a world issue, you know, there should be no divide politically, you know, but how can we break down the walls that divide people, you know, and if we could, the first thing we'd go is, okay, let's sort out Sustaining the planet, you know, well, I've been vegetarian, I don't want to preach, but I've been vegetarian for over 50 years and I did my bit, you know, in that way, that was a choice I could make, and, but there again, I've not been part of the slaughter, or the fishing of fish, you know, or anything, not that one would ever expect there would be no dependency on that, but similar to oil, if you see what I mean, if you put the two together, Boats together, meat, meat, and you know, the generation, all the things [00:08:00] that we go in to generate more, more, more, more meat, you know, and then all the things we do.
Steve Howe: So there's a conflict that, that should, should Can only be aligned if countries really got together. So the barriers are very difficult and, you know, I'm not here to say I know the answer. It's interesting when I see interviews with people and the interviewer says, well, what's the answer? I feel like saying, listen, if we knew You wouldn't have to ask.
Marc Beckman: somebody that I'm very interested in is a, German polymath named Alexander von Humboldt, and, I actually pulled a quote that I thought you'd find interesting when it, [00:09:00] you know, he kind of talks about this interconnectivity that you're highlighting, and he says, Insight into universal nature provides an intellectual delight and sense of freedom that no blows of fate and no evil can destroy.
Marc Beckman: So even while we have like this global landscape where people are kicking around something that seems so obvious to you and me, I feel like over time, perhaps this interconnected connectivity of the ecosystem and of people will prevail.
Steve Howe: Well, let me just jump in on something you just said, first of all, but yes, of course, it should, but, but I mean, you know, Alexander Humboldt, I mean, I read his biography, and I was fascinated by this guy who said 200 years ago, you know, that we're destroying the planet, you know, when he went to South America and saw what they were doing 200 years ago.
Steve Howe: And I've mentioned that about About half the concerts Yes did on tour, you know, and I've tried to get that idea across that somebody, this [00:10:00] guy Humboldt, 200 years ago, so the fact that we, we've been told so often, you know, we've been reminding ourselves maybe for the last 20 years that, our planet's in.
Steve Howe: And actually, as that's happened, of course, we've got to that pivot point. We're actually turning back to, to making things better. It's getting harder as we, we struggle to do that. And yet, we're still generating the things that are a problem. And I doubt whether war can generate anything more than things we don't want, not only.
Steve Howe: in the sheer miserable physicality of the awful atrocity but also the damage to structures like 9 11. I mean 9 11 pollution after that was incredible of phones of buildings and you know asbestos and all the stuff so I mean you know we are always damn well erupting with stuff we like a little bit like the volcanoes you know so there's no end to it.
Marc Beckman: It's almost like [00:11:00] as if we don't look, we don't like to go too far into our history as humankind, but yet we just keep on repeating these lousy things over and over. I read in your book that Hieronymus Bosch, or, um, I think you pronounce it Bosch, is, um, You know, I saw that you, you highlighted the Garden of Earthly Delights, which was created, uh, I think at the end of the 1400s, 1490 to 1510, and, um, it exists for anybody that wants to know in one of my favorite museums at the Prado, But why, like, if you look at that painting, it seems like the, um, the middle panel of the triptych and then the third panel of the triptych kind of highlights, like, where we're going.
Marc Beckman: Like you just said, like, we're going back into war again. We're destroying the environment again. We're hurting ourselves and shredding relationships again. And that was something that he painted back in the 1400s. And here we are in, you know, right?
Steve Howe: That's, that's, that's incredible. Yeah, I mean, that's a great observation because, you know, [00:12:00] Humboldt's only 200 years ago, but, but this is, you know. it's an awful long time ago, to think that we've um, I don't know what it is. I mean, what you could say is that humans are really dumb, you know, we're really, really dumb, seriously dumb, to get so many things wrong and not get ducks lined up for security and safety.
Steve Howe: But I mean, that is human nature. It's, it's a big problem. In fact, maybe at some point in the evolution, we'll actually come face to face with the fact that we're the problem, not everybody else, or not every other thing.
Marc Beckman: I, I often say this about um, artificial intelligence now, people are afraid of new technology and my comment is, we, you, you the person, you're the problem. If you have nuclear weapons or nuclear power and it's in the hands of a bad person, the nuclear weapon isn't going to cause the damage, it's the people that cause the damage.[00:13:00]
Marc Beckman: And I think, you know, to your point, we see this over and over again.
Steve Howe: yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know, maybe we've got to pick up the conversation that, that no matter how bad things look, uh, people, uh, not only musicians, but artists of other kinds, and generally everybody has got to keep positive, you know, one's got to have an idea that, yeah, it sounds really bad, but, you know, we can get through that, we can get through this, but, you know, unfortunately, unfortunately, unfortunately, We, we, we might not be tackling the big fish first, you know, and one of my sort of recent, you know, gripes was when I discovered that, uh, that pollution, 20 percent of it is only coming from crude oil in boats, you know, I mean, 20%.
Steve Howe: Now, okay, so you can't solve that problem, like, overnight. But the economics are saying, sell, sell, sell, keep making that oil, keep selling. So there's this drive to keep selling this stuff. [00:14:00] And it is actually the only way to keep the boats going at the moment. You know, we've got to have more vision. And Musk has shown, you know, Musk has shown a lot of vision.
Steve Howe: He's thought of ideas that everybody went, oh, that's silly. And then he's made it work. So we need lots of people who've got, you know, and there are, and the people are out there in the technical, technological field. I mean, you know, high tech, developing very lots of, lots of very hopeful, uh, ideas.
Marc Beckman: [00:15:00] think that, you know, the Elon Musk reference is really incredible because what a big vision for him to say, I'm going to create SpaceX to essentially preserve mankind, save mankind from itself, to get us onto Mars, because he's predicting essentially that we're going to destroy Earth, which is insane, right?
Steve Howe: There's so much in what you've just said, uh, just to cut halfway, I mean, the fact that he, he, he has that, um, overriding ambition, you know, that's, that's helped create this incredible, you know, system of Rockets and all that. I mean, bravo, you know, well done. But I mean, You know, I've always questioned the concept, well, how are we, if it's difficult living here, how difficult is it living there, and how do we get there, and how do we take stuff, and all that.
Steve Howe: So, let him have that dream, but let us at the same time, and him. make use of the, you know, what he's devised in the way of moving stuff around very rapidly, which is the other side of the coin, isn't it? I mean, if you [00:16:00] can keep moving stuff around really quickly, you know, in space, uh, that's pretty amazing.
Steve Howe: That's a, that's a new, you know, it's gone from like, you know, Uber to space, space, uh, well, space travel, as I say, uh, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I, I think I want to live here. I think this
Marc Beckman: You want to keep your feet on the ground?
Steve Howe: I think you're going to keep me. I'm going to stay here,
Marc Beckman: I think Bowie, didn't Bowie kind of, um, send that message out with, was it Space Oddity, where he sent that message out like, you know, get me back on planet Earth,
Steve Howe: yes, yes, Well, I mean, people sometimes just come back from a holiday and say, thank God I'm back here.
Marc Beckman: Yes,
Steve Howe: Or, that's a, that's a sort of deep but trivial comment as
Marc Beckman: but like you've been preaching this stuff, like you've been, um, you know, let's go back, like we spoke about von Humboldt, like one of his quotes inspired me to reach out to you. It [00:17:00] said, people often say that I'm curious about too many things at once, but can you really forbid a man from harboring a desire to know and embrace anything?
Marc Beckman: Everything that surrounds him, and I really, in looking at your life, I, I know that people see you, of course, as arguably the best guitarist in history, truly, but you've lived such a rich life, it's fascinating, really, um, at your, People really dig into your interests and your belief system. If we go back to like London in the sixties, for example, um, which I think you mentioned it's, it was the center of the universe in the sixties, but simple concept that we're just bouncing off around right now is the concept of peace.
Marc Beckman: Um, you were in the 60s, in the late 60s, at the forefront of this movement. You were a hippie. I don't think Yes fans really look at Steve Howe as being, you know, that, that prototypical hippie, but why, like, like, if you were, if I'm correct in saying this, like, if we were arguing for peace back then, why does it [00:18:00] seem so, um, out of our grasp?
Marc Beckman: Why can't we hold on to peace?
Steve Howe: Well, I mean, Sixty Seven was great and when I did go to audition for Yes, Bill, Bill Rufus, who I love dearly, whispered to the guys, I think he's a bit of a hippie. So, yeah, I have been a hippie. Yeah, but the ideals that we had were so rich and so you know, um, supported by, you know, the Beatles and everybody.
Steve Howe: It was a jet, it was a period of thought that meant that surely the answer to everything is peace, you know, and love. And it sure is, and it sure is, and I still believe that greatly. And much like when my wife and I got, Jan, got into Macrobiotics, there was another guy, Mishi Kushi, who was saying, world peace through world food.
Steve Howe: So, you know, and then there's Rudolf Steiner, and, you know, there's people along the way who've all touched an idea to say, you know, that there's something a lot better we can do than throw mud at each other. We could, you know, [00:19:00] engage and find what love is. And I think that the only, um, Well, one of the reasons I'm still, you know, interested, not only talking to you, but playing the guitar and doing all this stuff, is that I, there were points in my life where I made a few decisions for myself, which, you know, as I mentioned, Veggie, and then I, I got into this meditation idea, which I never thought, you know, would interest me, but suddenly I went, ding, and it did.
Steve Howe: And, um, the closer, the longer I've done these things, uh, the more I don't profess to be Zen, you know, to sound, to sound really cool, man, but actually what the Zen ideas are, are very close to, you know, the hippies and buddhism and so there was a great connection there was almost like a thread around the world of hippiness and of spirituality and you know there was um you know the maharisha and all that so [00:20:00] basically that there was an offering you know the world was offered A route called love and peace and joy and happiness and music and art and, you know, uh, great flavors.
Steve Howe: But, but, but, you know, I can tell you by 1968, you know, the year after, things got really gray. You know, they got really dark and, and I think the hippies, like, went underground and then we came out with prog, prog music, you know, which was, which was another way of expressing psychedelia because psychedelia was like wild and just go crazy, never thought of doing this, let's do it.
Steve Howe: But in, in the 70s, yes, and all the other prog bands, they, we all put the music together. There was much more intricate, much more varied, much more influenced by outside sources rather than, you know, Chuck Berry and, you know, the Beatles have moved everything on Colossally. And I hope that prog bands also continued that [00:21:00] moving forward, spreading.
Steve Howe: The same message that hippies were, you know, that underneath all yes music and our last album Mirror to the Sky is no exception, you know, musicians endorse love, you know, we endorse peace, we endorse, you know, uh, joyfulness and, uh, you know, you have to find it yourself, first of all, before you can expect the world To become this wonderful place, you've got to work on yourself, you've got to balance yourself, you've got to find out what, you know, what you can feed yourself, if you like, not only In food, but in the things that you entertain yourself with to make a better world for yourself and then share that with the ones you love.
Steve Howe: So, you asked me a big question, why did it fail? I don't think it exactly failed, I think it got derailed and it's still trying to come back. And it no doubt will be in the messages of artists, [00:22:00] you know, forevermore.
Marc Beckman: So I'm curious, Steve, like when you talk about, when you mentioned the, uh, I think in 68 you said it became a little gray. Is that because, do you feel like the drug culture, like I didn't realize that you, it seems from my, my readings that like, you really partaked in LSD and, uh, and, uh, and Um, like, do you feel that drug culture enhanced the peace movement and creativity or do you feel like it actually moved towards, like, this darkness?
Marc Beckman: Because I know, like, you came out on the other side in 1972 with being a vegan, um, no animal products, but you also haven't done any Uh, pharmaceutical. I understand from what I'm reading, no pharmaceuticals too. So, I wonder like, in your mind, do you think that the drug culture from the late 60s, um, moved us into a grayer period and then you came out of it in the 70s?
Steve Howe: I can't say clear cut, but, but what I picked up from what you asked me about was that, that really, uh, there was a changeover of drug culture to [00:23:00] pharmaceuticals, and when I said I use pharmaceuticals as little as humanly possible, you know, and that's very little compared to, you know, half of America being on painkillers, you know, so, so I, I'm thriving in, in the fact that I've let my body, you know, go naturally, much like I've gone, let my hair go naturally, just everything's got to go natural,
Marc Beckman: You look beautiful,
Steve Howe: in fighting it,
Marc Beckman: You look beautiful.
Steve Howe: but yeah, but I, I, I've not, it's, it's, The interesting point you raised, I don't quite know how to tackle it because I think that the grayness I mentioned was a return to the realities of a less supported, less mainstream version of what hippies were doing, you know, if that had gone into a sort of mainstream version, we didn't have to You know, where stars on your forehead, but, you know, it was greatly adopted.
Steve Howe: Well, you know, it might've clung on wider. So, like I said, it went underground and I think the people who wanted to continue making artistic [00:24:00] music, you know, had to find their own way. God, you know, I'm very, I'd like to be able to find something more to say about that, because it is a very like pinpointing something that, um, most probably there isn't really an answer to.
Marc Beckman: yeah, because you know, it seems like today, like our leaders, um, whether it's cultural or political, like, they're not, like, it doesn't seem like peace. Like they care about peace as much as maybe you did and your peers in the sixties. Um, you know, I, I think your music obviously like. Pushes that concept through this, this interconnectivity, this harmony of the world, um, where we're just a part of it, but going back into like the late sixties, like before you even got to Yes, um, just to touch on, on your band Tomorrow, I think that was like really an important moment in, in, in time.
Marc Beckman: People like tend to psychedelic, posturing, but I wonder from your perspective, like, do you think Tomorrow was even a [00:25:00] psychedelic band?
Steve Howe: What? Okay. You might not know, but Only last year I released a new version of the Tomorrow album, which is a reimagined version, although we didn't add anything really, but we, we, we balanced it, we sorted out and we threw out some tracks that weren't psychedelic. And I, my goal was to make the record, like the record, it should have been back in 1967, which was in tune.
Steve Howe: In Time, and basically, uh, Psychedelic, and I think I've done it, you know, and the album's called Permanent Dream, and it's, it's a reimagined version, a bit like what Giles Martin did with Revolver, he didn't really, you know, they didn't stick a new keyboard on it, but, but basically I did my own version of that with, and that was using technology which had really only come out in the last few years, where you can take a monotape, And then change the balance, assuming you're [00:26:00] not trying to change guitar and keyboard balance, but you can change drum, you can change all the balance, you could, but we tried not to do that, we just treated it and improved areas, and in particular the song Revolution, so basically I think that now, tomorrow is, I can say it is, but if you judge it on the first recording, it was a wishy washy affair and it didn't have the focus or the power of, you know, records by the doors or the birds or, you know, the beetle.
Steve Howe: It was, White Bicycle was commanding and, um, now this perpetual, uh, permanent dream. is available. I, I, I, I think, I can say, yeah, it is a psychedelic record. We were a psychedelic band, but I'd like to straighten out what you said about how, I mean, I was a very light drug user, and I always was, and, uh, so basically, when people took anything, I usually took half of it, I'm just going to try half of that, but [00:27:00] basically, I didn't get caught in it, you know, like a lot of people did, so I took it occasionally.
Steve Howe: Went quite mad and crazy and had hysterical moments and a few, like, scary ones. But basically, I didn't get an addiction to it. It wasn't like, whoa, don't touch that too often. So that's how it left me, you know. I had a fantasy I might, when I'm, you know, ancient, kind of, you know, do that again. But I would never, because basically, I like where I am very much.
Steve Howe: I'm happy with where I am and who I am.
Marc Beckman: I, I understand. I really do. Um, when, when you mention, um, Tomorrow's, um, song, Revolution, um, was the original recording in Abbey Road?
Steve Howe: Yeah, the album was recorded in Amarillo, yeah, yeah, with Geoff Emerick as well, you know, engineering, so,
Marc Beckman: that's pretty amazing. So were they, were you, were the Beatles recording, uh, Sgt. Pepper at the same time that you were recording?
Steve Howe: yeah, we were quite used to seeing The Beatles, um, you know, they were very sweet. [00:28:00] I mean, the people who were like, like, really just approached you like, just like normal people was Paul and Ringo, you know, they were like to see you somewhere, they just say hi, or they even poke their head in the door, you know, and say hello once or twice, which was a buzz, but at the time, the perspective of the Beatles was, wow, this is a top band, but you know, I mean, over the course of the next few years, of course, after Sgt Pepper, which was the, Signature 1967 record, you know, I mean, everything on that thing was, was, uh, was amazing.
Steve Howe: You know, the whole contrast, but look at the wonderful contrast on it too, you know, with George's sitars and, you know, the songs and the, the imagination again, uh, to bring joy and, and happiness. It's, it's really still a great album. And I think Beatles most probably could never be surpassed as the most inventive and You know, important band of that, that whole era, you know.
Marc Beckman: That's really interesting that you say that. I have, I have a lot of love [00:29:00] for the Beatles. In fact, my son's name is Jude Sargent. Jude Sargent Beckman for a lot of different reasons. There are double meanings in there too. So I thought you'd appreciate that. But pretty cool. I heard that, um, the Beatles were inspired.
Marc Beckman: Um, when you talk about revolution, the Beatles were actually inspired by you and your music and, um, you know, from, from that, from that session.
Steve Howe: it was, it's been said that, I think there might even be some evidence, I can't quite piece it together, but yeah, um, yeah, um, what can I say, I'd be flattered to think that, but I think everybody was influenced by everybody else, you know, um, you couldn't avoid it, you know, the influences were strong and powerful, you know, when Cosby, Stills and Nash came out.
Steve Howe: Everybody went, vocals, vocals, vocals can be like this, you know, again, and of course we had the Beach Boys and the Byrds, who were another fantastic, so America had some great bands, but I mean, I think the Beatles stole the show.
Marc Beckman: Yeah.
Steve Howe: But there were other
Marc Beckman: did [00:30:00] Ronnie, I mean, the Stones were pretty cool also. Didn't Ronnie Wood contribute to, um, your album to, to Tomorrow as well? Did I read that?
Steve Howe: There's some tracks with Keith West that Ronnie played on. He played the bass on some tracks that are on, uh, they might, one of, I don't think they're on Keith West's album more than they're on either, I don't think they're on Mothball's, but Keith and I did a few, a few, uh, I did guitar for Keith on a few songs and they basically, uh, had Ainsley Dunbar on drums and, uh, one of them had a string bass but, but I, I can't remember quite.
Steve Howe: I think, to be honest, Keith went off and did some tracks where Ronnie Wood played, but I did run into Ronnie, and then I played guitar on them, so.
Marc Beckman: [00:31:00] What was, um, the UFO club? Like, I'm kind of stuck in, like, London hippie era. Like, was the UFO club, like, the center of the, the London hippie scene
Steve Howe: It was, It was, really, it was the kind of, one of the earliest and most probably the longest running. You know, there were competitors that were totally different, you know, like the Savile Theatre on, Savile Theatre on a Sunday evening, that was, that was another centre. And there was the place called Middle Earth, and then there was Chalk Farm.
Steve Howe: which I think they called that Middle Earth once as well, but there was a place in Covent Garden where I remember playing a few times. But no, if you played the UFO, you, you knew you were in the centre, you know, it was very much the, the London [00:32:00] centre and it was really, really seriously crazy. And when you walked in there, you didn't know what was going to happen, you know, and, uh, you know, because there'd never really been a place where, you know, The projection was used in that way, and the music was all this wild free running stuff, improvisation, and I used to roam off for 10 minutes at a
Marc Beckman: So like, Jimi Hendrix jumped on stage with you once when you guys were playing there?
Steve Howe: Well, that is true. Yeah, what used to happen in these prolonged breaks, they were initially bass, drums and guitar, and then gradually things would fall away, like Junior would put down his bass and start dancing, and so, um, which, when I say that, I think, are you seriously? Yes, and basically, And that's when Jimi Hendrix picked up the bass.
Steve Howe: So he, he plowed into it and we just roared away, you know, I have no idea if anybody ever recorded it, but it's [00:33:00] unlikely, but it was a great moment. Yeah. And we saw him in Blazes. In fact, we'd met him before that. at
Marc Beckman: when you were living there?
Steve Howe: We were the resident band on a Thursday and he came in on a Thursday and played for the first time I think in London.
Steve Howe: And um, so we were the, or maybe he came on a Wednesday and we were there. We'd hanged out in Blasey, it was the place to be. And uh, you know, he just joined the table and said, I hear you're the resident band. You know, we kind of went, yeah. So,
Marc Beckman: really interesting people, Steve. Like, everybody obviously puts, um, puts you, rightfully so, as, like, the face of Yes and these other amazing bands like Asia and GTR, etc. But, um, you know, like, what was Jimi Hendrix like? Was he, was he a, uh, did he come across as a kind person? Was he inspirational somehow?
Steve Howe: In our fleeting meetings, I didn't, couldn't have drawn any of those conclusions, but he was always relaxed, he was smiling, he was a fun [00:34:00] guy, you know, there was no heaviness that I could spot, in fact a lot of other musicians came across pretty heavy, but Jimi didn't, he was light and breezy, you know, pretty, pretty happy, happy go lucky.
Marc Beckman: Yeah. What about Sid Barrett? Like, you know, the, the, um, the, the world, the universe has painted this image of Sid Barrett being like this genius that went crazy. Um, and I know that you knew Sid Barrett, at least I've read that you knew him as well, but what was he like?
Steve Howe: didn't know Sid. I knew Sid less than I knew, um, um, another guitarist who did, did become a victim of LSD. But I mean, it wasn't, it's not for me to judge what these people are like. All I know is, you know, I know what Pink Floyd have said about him. And of course they love him dearly. And yeah, they wish he hadn't gone, you know, off the edge a bit because there was a talent and you can see it all over the first album, you know, fantastic, you know.
Steve Howe: But, um, it didn't get reined [00:35:00] in by himself, you know, Sid didn't rein himself back. So, um, you know, as I mentioned in my book, you know, there was a night when I thought I was going to play with Pink Floyd and I was rather excited. But when I got there, Pink, Sid had showed up at the very last minute. I mean, I was about to go on stage with them.
Steve Howe: So, um, obviously that was, you know, in a way a good thing, but in a way I would have liked that opportunity to have done that. But I didn't know anything I was going to play, but it didn't matter. Then I would have just been in tune with whatever they played, but it was a wild idea. Just bringing me out of tomorrow and standing in, but that was because there was a beautiful guy called Steve O'Rourke who managed both of the bands, Floyd and Tomorrow, and he was one of the partners of Tony Howard and Steve O'Rourke, and they were great.
Steve Howe: I'm sure they put me forward, said, Steve will do
Marc Beckman: Brian Morrison agency? Is
Steve Howe: they were the people who did the day to day work, you know, the real work. Brian was, was like an entrepreneur. Yeah, I mean, he was like the [00:36:00] entrepreneur. He poured the champagne
Marc Beckman: There you go. He
Marc Beckman: played the champagne, but, but he got you going. I mean, at one point, though, it became difficult for you, right? Like, like, um, before you got into Yes, right? Before you joined the band Yes, there was like a, a, a rough part
Marc Beckman: there in your career. Steve,
Steve Howe: and I didn't really know what to do. He was going to go solo, I helped him a bit, and I did some recordings. And on a Saturday is one of them, and that's a lovely, lovely song, I love that. So, um, basically, after that, yeah, then I met this band called Bodas, who became Bodas.
Steve Howe: I mean, that was a kind of living nightmare for about a year and a half, just because it was so difficult. The music was really quite strong, uh, you know, and we had a lovely singer called Clive. Curtis, uh, Clive Skinner, um, Maldoon, and Dave Curtis was, was the bass player, the other singer. So it, it, it had something, but we, you know, I don't, I, you know, you just can't say, uh, like it was a [00:37:00] follow up, you know, the, um, for the Dark Days, you know, after Psychedelia. I was happy, you know, I, I, I was living in North London, you know, I had my favorite guitar, my 175. You know, and, uh, and then before the 70s ended, I had my first son with my first wife, Pat, called Dylan. So, you know, um, in a way, I was quite happy, but, uh, and you do find contentment at odd times, you know, and, uh,
Marc Beckman: did you name your son Dylan after Bob Dylan?
Steve Howe: yeah, and also, like, Dylan Thomas, you know, because that was a Christian name where Dylan had been used, and, uh,
Marc Beckman: And then if I read correctly, Dylan was born on the same day as your song Clap.
Steve Howe: that's right, Clap. I wrote Clap that night, uh. You know, as, as, around the time he was being born, yeah, and, uh, it's a hard thing to follow, but I love writing tunes. I've written another 20, 30 other guitar [00:38:00] solos, but, but Clap really did start it off. I mean, in a way, you need something. It's like a snooker game.
Steve Howe: You've got to go to A game, you've got to get a frame on the board, so CLAP came out from my lover, Chet Atkins, but also the excitement of having a son, so,
Marc Beckman: So it's, again, it's kind of interesting because it's the fabric of the universe that came together with the life of your son, the life of your music. Maybe there were difficult times with that band, but you know, in your core, I imagine Your soul is a, you're an artist and that will always be with you. So even when you hit tough times, were you just always confident that your music would just continue forward?
Steve Howe: well, I mean, I've always gone, yeah, but always hopeful, yeah, um, yeah, I thought I could, you know, I'd done some of my grounding, you know, in the first ten years, and therefore, you know, give me a shot, you know, and I always I look, I [00:39:00] could look back at guitarists, even when I got a shot with Yes, who'd missed the shot that they'd been given, you know, I'd seen guitarists who floundered when they were successful, you know, and that was a habit in the 60s, uh, of, uh, well, if it wasn't the guitarist, it was somebody else, but, you know, I would notice guitarists who'd, uh, like David Liss, you know, he had the Nice, and they were a great band, you know, But, you know, like Sid, you know, and a few others, they got over into, uh, outside of themselves instead of focusing on themselves.
[00:40:00]
Marc Beckman: one last question that I would have for you is this, um, I, I think, like, when you mentioned Clap, um, it's such a pure song, and then we see technology drive through so much of Yes's music, um, from Tormato to Relayer. Relayer is, like, really my favorite, um, Close to the Edge. I'm curious, in your From your perspective, as we go through this time period where we're going to have AI generated music and, and more and more of, um, computers creating music, do you feel that we're going to lose something as, um, let's say, uh, machine generated music replaces individuals?
Steve Howe: There's no doubt we will, of course we will, but if you look back over the stepping stones of technology in music recording, each step, I mean, I couldn't get, like the fax machine in technology, you couldn't [00:41:00] wait to get rid of that damn machine, you know, and get something else. And I think that those kind of leaps happen, but when you look back, you suddenly realize that Some of them had great benefits, and this is the dilemma with CDs, you know.
Steve Howe: Oh, where's the bass end? Doesn't quite feel the same. And, you know, records, you know, you do feel it in the way that the bass end is transported through your speakers. It's just different. It's analog. So there will always be a slight price to pay. I mean, I like to think that we're moving two steps ahead and one back all the time.
Steve Howe: So they would make these jumps. And who would have known, you know, the difference the internet would make to our lives and how. It's changed so many, many things, like us talking, you know, and
Marc Beckman: for sure.
Steve Howe: with a quality of sound that isn't like a phone, you know, like it used to be, you know, even if it was going through a satellite, we are good.
Marc Beckman: It's incredible. Well, Steve, look, can I ask you one more quick question? Yes or no question?
Steve Howe: Mm hmm.
Marc Beckman: do you think that, um, Gates of Delirium [00:42:00] is a sad song?
Steve Howe: What? I think it's a song about war, you know, about fighting, it's about battling, you know, uh, but I think the sort of redemption of it is soon. So I think if you look at the oval curve, yeah, you've got this like ferocious stuff and some of it's this and that, and then suddenly you're in soon land. So I think soon is a soothing.
Steve Howe: uh, resolution and gives one tremendous hope. It's a very emotional and touching, touching song as opposed to the other stuff's kind of shouting. It's more shouty.
Marc Beckman: you've given us a ton of time. All of my guests, it's a tradition on the show, the show is called Some Future Day. It was inspired by James Joyce. It's a reference to James Joyce. And what I do is I start, the sentence and then my guest finishes it. Would you mind if I did this with you, please?
Steve Howe: Well, try me.
Marc Beckman: Okay, so let's keep it on theme.
Marc Beckman: Some future day, the world will [00:43:00] find peace, if.
Steve Howe: We carry on believing but also get active.
Marc Beckman: Beautiful. Steve Howe, I cannot thank you enough. It is literally an honor meeting you today. Thanks for joining me today. It really means the world.
Steve Howe: It's been my pleasure too. Nice, Mark. Thanks a lot. [00:44:00]