Conspiracy (band)

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Conspiracy
General information
Genre (s) Rock , progressive rock
Website conspiracymusic.net
Current occupation
Billy Sherwood
Bass , vocals, guitar
 Chris Squire

Conspiracy was a British-American rock and progressive rock band that emerged in the 1990s from the collaboration of Yes bassist Chris Squire and singer / songwriter / musician Billy Sherwood , whose latest project is under the name Psy-Op .

history

Prehistory, early collaboration, foundation

The history of the band Conspiracy is unusual in that the two main participants, Chris Squire and Billy Sherwood, had already worked together for over ten years before they officially launched their project.

When Yes (Chris Squire, Trevor Rabin , Alan White and Tony Kaye ) got together again in 1989 to record the follow-up album to Big Generator , they were faced with the problem of having to find a singer for their new project: Jon Anderson had frustrated the band because Rabin had more and more taken over the leadership of the group. They worked for a while with Roger Hodgson (formerly Supertramp ) until Squire became aware of the singer and multi-instrumentalist Billy Sherwood from the band World Trade. The two wrote their first songs together, including The more we live - Let go , which should land on the next Yes album Union (1991). But when the merger of Yes with the rival band Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe became apparent, it was no longer necessary to find a replacement for the singer, but Squire and Sherwood stayed in contact.

After the end of the Union tour, in August 1992, Squire gave some concerts in California with his new band " The Chris Squire Experiment ". Members included Yes drummer Alan White and Billy Sherwood. The "Experiment" played Union songs and some new pieces that Squire had collaborated with Sherwood. The set list for the August 25, 1992 concert in San Jose, California read: "Open Your Eyes" (later on the Yes album of the same name , 1997), "The Lonesome Trail", "You're the Reason" , "One World Going Round", "Days of Wonder", "Follow Our Dreams". Sometimes the Yes classic "Long Distance Runaround" (from the album " Fragile ") was played.

The collaboration between the musicians was very pleasant, and Squire hired Sherwood as a guest musician for the Yes' Talk tour (June 18, 1994 - October 11, 1994 (76 shows)). In 1996 and 1997 Sherwood produced the studio tracks for the two Yes albums Keys to Ascension and Keys to Ascension 2 , before becoming a permanent member of the band from 1997 to 2000.

In the nineties a first album by the two musicians under the title Chemistry was announced, but it was never released. At this point Yes wanted to go on tour, but their record company insisted that the band supply new material first. However, since there was hardly anything available, it was decided, similar to 90125 , to convert the Squire / Sherwood album Chemistry , which was just emerging at the time, into a Yes album. Squire, Sherwood and White then began to work on a presentable album as quickly as possible, singer Anderson and guitarist Steve Howe only joined the project towards the end of the work. It was released in 1997 as a Yes album under the title Open Your Eyes .

In 2000, the two musicians released their first album under the title Conspiracy .

Conspiracy

Conspiracy is actually a project that Squire and Sherwood have been running rather loosely since 2000. The first album is a compilation, it included pieces written for Yes in 1989, pieces played by the "Chris Squire Experiment" and songs written in advance of Open Your Eyes . Only after the release of the debut did a stable line-up around Squire, Sherwood, Jay Schellen (drums) and Sherwood's brother Michael (keyboard, vocals) come together, which was sometimes expanded by guest musicians.

In 2003, The Unknown was the new band's first "real" album. In addition to Squire, the Sherwood brothers and bells, Jimmy Haun from the "Chris Squire Experiment" and the then Yes manager Jordan Berliant were involved. The Unknown is a loose concept album , many of the tracks revolve around the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, DC

In 2004 Squire, the Sherwood brothers and Schellen formed a live band with keyboardist Scott Walten, but a planned tour had to be canceled at short notice. Instead, a live DVD called Conspiracy Live (2006) was released. In addition to Conspiracy songs, the set list also included material from Open Your Eyes and Squire's solo album Fish Out of Water (1975).

Work on a third studio album slowed down when Squire moved from the US to London in 2005 and later left the band entirely. Billy Sherwood, who has also been involved in the Circa: project with other Yes musicians since 2006 , is continuing Conspiracy on his own. For a new album, which will probably also contain two pieces not used by Sherwood's band World Trade , guest appearances by the former Yes- Musicians Tony Kaye and Peter Banks and guitarist Gary Green (formerly Gentle Giant ) announced. This new project is now under the working title Psy-Op . Billy Sherwood announced in an interview at the end of 2007 that there would be no further Conspiracy albums. The distance between England (Squire) and the USA (Sherwood) is too great to maintain long-term cooperation.

style

The Conspiracy style ranges between progressive rock and American-oriented melodic rock . The band's pieces are between three and twelve minutes long, regardless of the duration, but the AOR elements predominate, so that even longer pieces cannot be clearly assigned to progressive rock (although so-called "epics" are typical of this genre). Instead, the progressive rock elements are used selectively and sparingly. The powerfully produced polyphonic vocal arrangements are also characteristic.

This style is typical of the work Billy Sherwood, he finds himself in a similar way to his solo albums and albums of his bands such as the World Trade and Circa: . Accordingly, Sherwood is largely responsible for the compositions and the sound design of the Conspiracy albums. The main difference to the other projects lies in the melodic bass work that is characteristic of Squire.

The first album seems less uniform than The Unknown , which is due to its quality as a compilation of songs that have been written over a period of 10 years. In addition, the elements brought in by Squire are even more in the foreground: His singing can be heard more often alone here than on the follow-up album and his bass playing is also more clearly mixed in the foreground in many pieces. The second album, which was created in continuous collaboration of all musicians involved, is accordingly more uniform, but Squire's part takes a back seat compared to the debut.

Conspiracy's style is similar to that of the Yes albums and songs created with Sherwood's participation, especially Open Your Eyes , which began as a Conspiracy album , including the songs Man on the Moon and Open Your Eyes , the song Finally by The Ladder (1999) and the songs The More We Live - Let go and Love Conquers All from the album Union .

Discography with reference to Yes and involved musicians

The first album brought together pieces that had been created over the years in collaboration with different musicians. There could be no question of a permanent band at that time.

Squire / Sherwood: Conspiracy

  1. Days of Wonder (4:59)
  2. Light in My Life (4:01)
  3. Violet Purple Rose (4:58)
  4. No Rhyme (4:54)
  5. Lonesome Trail (6:36)
  6. The More We Live (4:46)
  7. Love Conquers All (4:51)
  8. You're the Reason (5:08)
  9. Watching the World (5:20)
  10. Red Light Ahead (6:46)
  11. Wish I Knew (4:57)
  12. Man on the Moon (3:32)
  13. Say goodbye (6:07)

Musician:

Chris Squire: vocals (1, 2, 4, 5, 9, 10), background vocals (3, 6-8), bass (1-10), acoustic guitar (10)

Billy Sherwood: vocals (3, 6-8), background vocals (1, 2, 4, 5, 9), guitar (1, 2, 4-10), keyboards (1-10), drums (4, 6 , 10), percussion (1-10)

With

Jay Schellen: Drums (1, 8, 9), Tom Toms (4)

Mark T. Williams: drums (2)

Steve Stevens: Guitar (3)

Michael Bland: drums (3)

Alan White: drums (5, 7), keyboards (5)

Jimi Haun: Guitar (7)

Remarks

  • Days of Wonder , Lonesome Trail and You're the Reason are from the days of the "Chris Squire Experiment"
  • Light in My Life comes from the Chemistry sessions
  • The More We Live can be found in a different version on the Yes album Union .
  • Love Conquers All is a track that was intended for the Yes album Union , but was not used. It later appeared on the YesYears compilation .
  • Also Say Goodbye was for Union provided it was but then of Sherwood's band World Trade their second album Euphoria used.
  • Wish I Knew and Man on the Moon were used on the Yes album Open Your Eyes (the former under the title Open Your Eyes )

Conspiracy: The Unknown

  1. Conspiracy (B. Sherwood / Squire) (5:05)
  2. Confess (B. Sherwood / Squire) (4:37)
  3. New World (B. Sherwood / Squire) (7:22)
  4. 1/2 a World Away (B. Sherwood / Squire) (5:48)
  5. There is No End (B. Sherwood / Squire) (5:15)
  6. The Wheel (B. Sherwood / Squire) (5:27)
  7. Premonitions (B. Sherwood / Squire) (4:10)
  8. The Unknown (B. Sherwood / Squire / Haun / M. Sherwood) (11:21)
  9. I Could (B. Sherwood / Squire) (4:22)

Musician:

Chris Squire: bass, vocals

Billy Sherwood: guitar, keyboards, vocals

Jay Schellen: drums, percussion

Jimi Haun: Guitar (8)

Jordan Berliant: Guitar (4)

Michael Sherwood: Keyboards (3, 8)

Remarks

  • "I Could" is an alternative version of the track "Finally" from the Yes album The Ladder (1999).
  • The cover comes from Bob Cesca, who also for the design of Yes album Magnification was responsible

Conspiracy: Conspiracy Live

Musician

Chris Squire: bass, vocals

Billy Sherwood: guitar, keyboards, vocals

Jay Schellen: drums

Michael Sherwood: Keyboard, vocals

Scott Walton: Keyboards

swell

  • Watkinson, David: Perpetual change - 30 years of Yes . London 2001. ISBN 0-85965-297-1
  • Welch, Chris: Close to the Edge. The story of Yes . London / NY / Sydney 1999. ISBN 0-7119-6930-2

Web links