Yes co-founder Jon Anderson on the band’s history and influences

Since its founding nearly 50 years ago, Yes has been one of the defining players of progressive rock. From 1971’s classically tinged Fragile to 1983’s pop success 90125 and beyond, the band has changed its sound and its lineups, but the emphasis on forward-thinking composition has remained strong.

In recent years, two versions of Yes have toured the world. The first, under the Yes moniker, features Steve Howe and Alan White, who were in the band’s earlier years (1972-81), with Jon Davison of Sky Cries Mary on vocals. The second version is billed as “Yes featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin and Rick Wakeman,” which adds up to dream lineup for many Yes fans.

Yes was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year, and the two versions of the band performed together for the first time in years. But it was also probably a last stand.

I spoke with Yes co-founder Anderson by phone, ahead of his iteration’s KC gig next week.

The Pitch: On this tour, you’re playing a lot of classic Yes material. How did you three reunite?

Jon Anderson: Well, you know, I’ve kept in touch with Rick [Wakeman] and Trevor [Rubin] on and off for the last — gosh, 10 years. Actually toured with Rick and we did an album. I’d go down to Trevor quite a lot, because he’s doing this incredible film scores and things, and just watching him evolve as a musician was always a pleasure for me.

The thing is, you get to meeting and you talk together about how one day we should get together and make some music: “Yes, of course!” A couple of years ago, Trevor called me up and said he was going to free himself up, and asked if Rick would be available, so I got hold of him, and he said sure. In 2015, we got together in L.A. and rehearsed, and before you know it, we had a show.

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How does one begin the process of re-learning these songs?

I actually did a couple shows with an orchestra from Iceland, doing “Awaken,” which was really good. That refreshed me about three years ago, but I also do them in my solo show, which I’ve been doing for the last 10 years. It’s just one of those things, like riding a bicycle: You remember it, then you write the lyrics down a bit, then you just do it.

The Kauffman Center here in Kansas City is the home of the Kansas City Symphony, which I find appropriate, given your history with interweaving bits of classical music into Yes albums. What’s your history with classical music?

Like most musicians, I started listening to [Gustav Holst’s] “The Planets,” then I got into Stravinsky, right when Yes started. We actually used a piece of his music to introduce the band before we came onstage: the opening of “The Firebird Suite.” From then on, starting in about 1971, I discovered this guy [Jean] Sibelius, who’s just an incredible guy — a musical god. I listen to him every day, when I’m driving in the car.

Sibelius is such incredible structure and orchestration. It’s amazing. It’s stuff that I’m listening to that’s 100 years old but still brilliant, and that’s what inspired me to create long-form pieces. I’d write these things down with Steve Howe — like, on the Fragile album, we had a couple of long-form pieces there — and then I really wanted to go toward a 20-minute work, and that’s how we ended up doing Close to the Edge. And more and more came, of course.

The concept, as I understand it, is that Yes the band performs to an audience. That’s why you create a band — not to become pop stars, not to become hit-record makers. That’s not why you become a band. The idea is that you become a band is to perform music that people can get into and then, the following year, you bring some new music, and the next year you have more new music, and it’s like watching this idea and adventure grow and grow.

That’s what we did in the ’70s, and we were very fortunate to have fans that really loved our music. It’s interesting that, 30 years later, we’ve performed with orchestras around the world doing the same music of the ’70s, and it really works. You realize that the symphonic music of an orchestra, performed with a band — if done correctly — you can mix an orchestra and a band together, and it’s heaven.

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In addition to these long-form pieces, though, you can write a damn fine pop song. “Owner of a Lonely Heart” ably demonstrates your ability straddle two musical worlds, which is a rare thing. Who would you consider your pop influences?

I go way back to the Beatles. I saw the Beatles just north of Liverpool in 1963, when I had just started my first band, called the Warriors. We wanted to be Beatles. That’s all we ever wanted to be in the ’60s. Then you start listening to Frank Zappa and the Beach Boys, and the incredible amount of music in the ’70s that came through.

It’s interesting to me that music is forever. You hear music all the time on the radio, but that’s sort of one small part of what’s going on. You go on YouTube, and there’s a lot of young people growing and evolving music. There’s progressive music, and there’s always symphonic music, and jazz, and fusion, world music — there’s always music that’s growing, and Yes was right in the middle of all that.

We always had musicians in Yes that could play all of these different styles of music: folk music and jazz and classical, with Rick Wakeman. So, you had all of people starting a sort of musicology within the band, and that’s how we survived, I think.

Yes featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin and Rick Wakeman

Tuesday, September 5, at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts; details here.