...and the Yes...lie down...on Broadway!

- Were you forced to leave or parting company was friendly?

Unfortunately, I was forced to leave. And even though, at the time, the split "was not made to appear acrimonious", I suffered extremely and extensively. To be "asked to leave" so suddenly put me in a lot of turmoil and disturbance. The fact is, I was never compensated for anything. I never ever got paid for any of my tour participation in the extremely successful and extensive YES Tour of 1976, which comprised about 65 concerts, many of them in front of sold-out audiences of more than 100,000 people. After all, as a member of the band, I was entitled to a 20% cut from what the band was getting.

I don't like to dwell into negatives, however, I can tell you that I had absolutely no desire to want to leave YES, at the time, in November of 1976. We had just finished the biggest tour YES had ever done, the "Bicentennial Tour", a huge, extremely successful tour for YES. Somehow, it had been decided that we would go and record, in my own country, Switzerland, what became the album "Going for the One", which we had extensively composed, developed and rehearsed during the course of 1976 (and even before that). There was no reason in the world for me to want to leave the band! Also, I understood, much later, that Rick was already in town, with his own crew, when I was still in the group, and I was still part of YES.

In addition, it was an extremely complicated and difficult situation for me to be stranded, on the street, with my baby daughter who was only one-month old and her mother, without any transport or money, in the cold winter of Switzerland. Then the fight for survival to stay alive, it all became surreal.