If anyone has earned the right to take their time, it’s Jon Anderson. The Yes co-founder—he of the sky-high voice, cosmic lyrics, and stubborn optimism—spent 30 years finishing his solo album 1000 Hands. “It started in Big Bear, California, with my friend Brian Chatton,” Anderson says. “We did some songs, and then life happened. He ran away with a girl, and I put the tapes in my garage. They sat there for 28 years.”
Enter Orlando producer Michael Franklin, who called Anderson out of the blue and asked the fateful question: “Do you still have the tapes?” The answer was yes—though they needed to be baked first. “You have to put them in an oven,” Anderson laughs. “After so long, they get sticky. You bake them so they’ll play once, and then you transfer them to computer.”
From there, the album became a prog-rock relay race. Franklin recruited an impressive guest list—Billy Cobham, Chick Corea, Jean-Luc Ponty, the Tower of Power horns, and yes, another Anderson: Ian of Jethro Tull. “When I heard Ian was playing on it, I was mesmerized,” Jon says. “I told Michael, ‘Get more of your friends!’”
The result is a sprawling, technicolor record that feels both ancient and futuristic—exactly what you’d expect from a man who still refers to “the ladies in the sky” as the source of his inspiration. “Music comes from the seven sisters up there in the cosmos,” he says matter-of-factly. “It’s timeless. If you make music with heart and love and compassion, it all fits together, no matter when you started it.”
Anderson’s devotion to melody has always set him apart from prog’s more cerebral contingent. He traces it back to his own name. “My parents called me John Roy Anderson,” he explains. “John Roy was a famous music hall performer in England—he played ukulele and would ask people to shout out ideas, then make up songs on the spot. He was called ‘John Roy the Melody Boy.’ So I lived up to my name!”
That sense of melody threads through 1000 Hands like sunlight. Even the song “Makes Me Happy” feels unburdened by time, its optimism glowing through jazz horns and rhythmic sparkle. Then there’s the album’s philosophical centerpiece, “Where Does Music Come From,” which poses a question most songwriters only imply. Anderson doesn’t pretend to have an answer—he just sings into the mystery. “It’s something I ask myself every day,” he says. “Music is the language of creation. It’s all vibration.”
At one point in our talk, he offers an impromptu demonstration, pulling out a small recorder. “This is something I do every day—vocalizations,” he says before launching into an otherworldly chant that hovers somewhere between mantra and melody. “I can’t stop doing it. I should drive myself crazy.”
Even after all this time, Anderson remains restless. While 1000 Hands: Chapter One only recently found its official release, he’s already halfway through Chapter Two and hopes to have it ready by spring. “We’re finishing up a John Lennon song—‘Nobody Told Me,’” he reveals. “And I’m writing a long piece right now to send to Michael. It’s fun. I just keep going.”
For someone who sings about cosmic planes and eternal consciousness, Anderson’s fixation on “the now” might sound surprising. But as he explains it, the theme anchors the album’s journey. “You can’t live in the past—it’s gone. You can’t live in the future—it hasn’t happened,” he says. “So the only thing that matters is now.” He even split the song “Now” into three sections to underscore the point: “The first verse at the start, the second in the middle, and the last at the end. When people hear it, they’ll be there, in that moment. That’s all that matters.”
Anderson still speaks with the warmth and wonder of a man chasing his first song. He remembers seeing Ian Anderson perform decades ago—“a nymph on stage, jumping around with his flute, entertaining ten thousand people”—and learning what it meant to connect. “He taught me a big lesson,” Jon says. “It’s not just about playing music. It’s about giving energy.”
That, in essence, is 1000 Hands: a 30-year conversation between past and present, grounded in melody and lifted by belief. “When you make music with heart,” Anderson says, “it’s always alive. It just waits for you to come back to it.”
And after three decades in a garage, Jon Anderson finally did.
Listen to the full interview above and then check out the track below.
