Michael Smith, Journalist

"We fight like cats and dog when we’re working together like a fucking married couple, but I like the way he records and he knows how to record me and it’s a pretty effortless situation."

"I sort of felt like I’d reached a stage in my career where my voice has become the most defining aspect of how people have recognised me."

"I mean this guy [pointing at Haman] loves Bruce Springsteen as well, and I guess the main thing that stands out about them is they have music that withstands the test of time."

"It wasn’t till much later on, after I’d sort of demoed most of the album that I realised I was writing about a fictitious couple, influenced by the people around me.”

"When we were more spontaneous and just wrote what we thought was good, that always worked better for us."

"The weird thing about songs is also that when you write one thing, it means something at that particular time, but then, a few years later, it means something totally different, you know?"

"I actually lost both my parents to cancer about six months ago, so a lot of the lyrics came out of that."

Anderson showed us the bare bones of the songs Yes fans have been entranced by for 40 years and it was obvious it was all in the airy melodies of that voice.

"When I started music, when I was a kid, you know, you have all these dreams of being number one and all this crazy shit, and over the course of time you just kind of let go of a lot of that stuff because you realise that, actually, I play kind of melancholic folk music that’s probably not going to get to number one, you know."

“The tours had become a similar thing where it wasn’t as crazy as it probably should be. I mean the shows were always great, and the people were always great, and it was our lifeline financially, but it wasn’t together… It kind of didn’t feel right, maybe.”

"Shit, we’re living in this period of time, probably the most interesting, exciting and dangerous periods of human history, ever, you know? And, like, no one fucking sings about it."