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The Latest Breaking News from John Wetton

“Some people were cynical – ‘The Yeggles have spoilt it all!’ We were doing a gig in Brighton and someone shouted, ‘Rick Wakeman!’ It was demoralising”: Geoff Downes’ life and times in and out of Yes

His big break came with the Wombles, then he impressed Trevor Horn with synths he’d only borrowed. He forged a partnership with John Wetton and made it big with Asia – and his easygoing nature means he’s avoided most of Yes’ infamous dramas

Louder

“It is impossible for me to adapt to that role”: Classic rock supergroup parts ways with their new guitarist – after just one gig

Both parties realized that it wasn’t the match they thought it looked to be on paper

Guitar World

John Payne unveils new Asia featuring John Payne line-up featuring Francis Dunnery and Ryo Okumoto

The new-look Asia featuring John Payne are currently working on a new studio album and will tour the US, Japan and UK later this year

Louder

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“I don’t worry about labels and I’ve ended up in the premier prog band of all time. If I’d listened to haters I’d have stopped after my first record”: Billy Sherwood’s journey to Yes started with the wayward World Trade

By the time he reunited his 80s group for third album Unify, he’d replaced Chris Squire and started fronting Asia. None of it would have happened without Toto and Gentle Giant

Louder

”Three highly gifted men with the capacity to behave like spoilt brats in each others’ company”: Emerson, Lake & Palmer often didn’t work. But then, neither did projects that featured just two of the trio

Massive musical ability crossed with pomposity and excess made it difficult for the supergroup to meet expectations – but even with one of the giant personalities missing, the other pair could struggled to deliver

Louder

“With deference to everybody in Beat, my function is to amuse myself and hopefully you. I can’t do music from 45 years ago”: Why Bill Bruford demoted himself from the King Crimson, Yes and Genesis league

Bill Bruford retired in 2009 and later sold most of his equipment to Tool’s Danny Carey. Then he found he wasn’t finished on stage – and he’s come back re-energised

Louder

"The haters won’t stop us from doing what we do": Geoff Downes on Asia's new lineup and the band's future plans

The Geoff Downes-led new lineup of Asia play the band’s first three albums, one per night, in April

Louder

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“I don’t think he ever got over being fired from King Crimson… but he went on to bigger, more financially successful things”: Peter Sinfield, the prog poet who gave voices to ELP, Roxy Music and many others

Lyricist, art director, producer and all-round creative who aimed to enlighten, provoke or stir died in November 2024 without being fully aware of what he’d achieved

Louder

Asia to perform first three albums over three nights at Trading Boundaries in April

Geoff Downes' new-look Asia line-up will perform Asia, Alpha and Astra on consecutive nights at Trading Boundaries in April

Louder

"It's unlikely that I'll ever listen to any other Asia albums but only time will tell": Asia upset the prog purists and delight their bank managers on freakishly successful debut album

Featuring members of Yes, ELP and King Crimson, Asia were billed as a prog rock supergroup but kept it concise, to enormous success

Louder

“I know it sounds like a joke musical but one of my ancestors was a pirate in the Caribbean. He looked a bit like I did when I was 21 in Roxy Music”: The amazing things Phil Manzanera discovered when he looked into his past

After writing a memoir, the guitarist has done the musical equivalent with an 11-disc box set exploring his five-decade career. He explains how he landed his dream gig, how Robert Fripp beat him to a tonal ambition, and why, in a way, Roxy is still active

Louder

“We should have toured Europe and taken advantage of the impact our single had. We were lazy and stuck to playing in Britain. It was a huge mistake”: The all-too-short story of promising early proggers Rare Bird

A US tour without enough dates, a move away from the sound that got them signed, frequent line-up changes and never any money – just some of the things that went wrong for the band who once stood alongside The Nice and Van der Graaf Generator

Louder

“Whether as a solo performer or part of a band, his remarkable playing and strident yet emotive voice remains a remarkable legacy”: John Wetton’s Concentus live box set, volume one

Expansive 10-disc collection is the first of three charting decades of his onstage work

Louder

Robert Fripp and Carl Palmer lead tributes to Pete Sinfield who has died, aged 80

King Crimson and ELP producer and lyricist Pete Sinfield sadly died on Thursday, aged 80

Louder

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“It was extremely hard to deal with. But if you impose incredibly hard obstacles to making something, and people stay in the room, you might just get there”: The radical neutrality that gave birth to King Crimson’s Red

Robert Fripp, Bill Bruford, John Wetton and guests struggled to deliver the 1974 album that, for many years, remained severely underrated

Guitar World

“I would call our approach organized chaos, but it drove Allan Holdsworth up the wall”: John Wetton has been the bass force behind a peak-period King Crimson lineup and two prog rock supergroups

A veteran of one of King Crimson’s classic lineups, John Wetton’s amazing career took him through a host of British prog bands

Louder

New 10-disc John Wetton live box set on the way

Concentus: The John Wetton Live Collection, Volume I will be released in November

Louder

“Even with tensions rife, this music showcases the breathtaking musical telepathy they’d developed”: The best King Crimson songs of the 1970s

They were only around for half of the decade before splitting – but left an indelible mark with six albums of bold, visionary work

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Louder

“He got all these twists and turns that I thought only John Wetton was capable of”: How Geoff Downes assembled his new Asia line-up

US tour with Focus, Martin Turner and Curved Air presents possibility of completing songs left unfinished after original singer’s death

Louder

New John Wetton auction to raise money for cancer charity takes place in July

Signed guitar and Asia and Wetton memorabilia galore in new charity John Wetton auction

Louder

Things are hotting up in the Worcestershire kitchen of Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp

Robert Fripp and Toyah's Sunday Lunch returns with a blast through the Stooges' Search And Destroy

Louder

"John Wetton would have endorsed this tour as he wanted the music to live on." Wetton's widow "thrilled" with new Asia line-up

The new-look Asia line-up take their Heat of The Moment tour to North America in July

Louder

“I’m 16 and they were my heroes… They started to laugh because I was also playing the echo parts. I didn’t know they were a special effect”: Obsessive attention to detail was always Eddie Jobson’s superpower

From a backstage performance for Curved Air to being dragged onstage by Frank Zappa and out-complicating King Crimson, the UK violinist has managed to ignore distractions from making music

Louder

New-look Asia announce Heat of The Moment US tour

Geoff Downes joined by John Mitchell, Virgil Donati and Harry Whitley in new Asia line-up

Louder

“We didn’t go ‘That’s your job’ – we’d say ‘Why don’t you have a go?’ I can remember playing solos on Stylophone… In some places it was like 'the Martians have landed!‘” How Family made Bandstand, and where it took them

With a pre-King Crimson John Wetton on bass and a clutch of idiosyncratic songs with busy arrangements, the 1972 release cemented Roger Chapman and co’s position as one of the most influential bands of the era

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