True Messenger

Hot on the heels of a series of successful live shows, Jon Anderson has released his 16th solo album, True. Along with The Band Geeks, the former Yes frontman has created a work that celebrates the spirit of his best-known band, but also fits perfectly with his own solo catalogue. Prog catches up with the singer to find out more, and to discover which of his long-awaited side-projects is finally tipped for release in 2025.

- Stephen Lambe

The phrase “late-career renaissance” is an overused one, but it’s hard to think of anything better to describe the recent upswing in the fortunes of Jon Anderson. Following a well-publicised brush with severe illness in 2008, which resulted in him parting ways with the band that had dominated his life for 40 years, and the subsequent rebuilding of both his life and his career, he then had to deal with the pandemic and the inevitable consequences that brought to a man in fragile health. However, at the age of 79, Anderson has very much found his mojo in the last few years, thanks to an unlikely source of inspiration.

“During Covid, I couldn’t go out much because, after my illness, I’d be first to go if I caught it,” he explains to Prog, from his instrument-strewn studio in California. “So I thought I’d just upgrade my studio a little bit and try and learn all these instruments that I’ve got because I’ve got them everywhere. At the same time, somebody sent me a video of this guy, who is a phenomenon in the music world, from north London called Jacob Collier. I just thought, ‘Oh, my God, this is the guy.’ I’ve been waiting for somebody to come along and wake me up, and here he was. I’m just fascinated by how brilliant he is. And he’s already done quite an extraordinary amount of work. He’s on tour all the time, and audiences adore him, and I just felt that, well, if he can do it, I can do it.”

This new surge in revitalised creativity inspired progress in all kinds of directions. Anderson remains hugely excited about many of his projects, but despite his recent live work with them, a record with The Band Geeks seems to have come out of the blue. Yet here we are: an album with that group of crack musicians is complete and was released worldwide on the Frontiers label in August. Even better,