The late Chris Squire

Chris Squire was the legendary bass player/vocalist for the equally legendary progressive rock band Yes. There have been many incarnations of Yes over the years, which in recent years has included different versions of the band that have been active at the same time.

Until Squire’s untimely death on 27 June 2015, he was the only permanent band member who had never left or been replaced. He had appeared on every album released from the first one in 1969 to the last one they released before his death, in 2014.

The title of this piece implies that we are talking about someone no longer with us, but “the late Chris Squire” was actually a long-standing nickname of his (along with the much more common “The Fish”) decades before his passing. The nickname is a play on the established meaning, as Squire was simply notorious for showing up late! Hours would pass as they waited for him to show up in the studio, at airports, at a concert venue, or anywhere else.

This did not seem to be a habit he picked up over the course of his career. Even in his younger days this was a thing. Prior to Yes he played in a 1960s psychedelic rock band called The Syn. Peter Banks, who played guitar and would end up putting Yes together along with Chris later, usually had the job of driving over to Chris’s house to pick him up. He would rarely be ready in time, and his girlfriend Sheila would always make excuses for him. They were used to sitting around with her while they waited for him to finish a bath, having his breakfast, or whatever else he had going on.

One time they had a gig in Stoke-on-Trent which was about one hundred miles away. Peter Banks remembers: “This one time, we had been waiting outside because we weren’t invited in. Something snapped and someone just says, “Let’s go without him.” And we did. We went to this place in the Midlands and we did the gig without a bass player to teach him a lesson. It didn’t work, it didn’t make any difference whatsoever. I think he was a little hurt by it. He said, “Why did you go on without me?” He wasn’t angry, but he said, “I was nearly ready.” That was always his line.”

Alan White (drummer) recalls another incident where Chris was left behind. In a 1994 interview, he said: “We’ve left Chris a couple of times because he’s so late. We were all on a private plane in Vienna or somewhere like that. We got up and were all waiting for Chris at the hotel and we were waiting in the limos and heard that Chris was still in the bathtub. So we left and waited on the plane for another half hour again. We sat there and finally made the decision to just leave him.”

The story is not yet over. The band flew to Rotterdam, but Chris was evidently only ten minutes behind them when they took off. White: “Chris then had to take a flight with some of the higher-up roadies – lighting guys and stuff like that. They had to make the same journey and they were on a small Cessna plane. It was the worst flight of the whole tour. Chris had to spend an hour and a half to two hours with all of these roadies bounding up and down all over the sky. He got to the other end and he was just furious. But he was never late on that tour again. He was there before anyone else.”

Bill Bruford (drums) has cited Chris’s tardiness as one of the reasons he left the band mid-tour in 1972. While complimentary of his musicianship, he always seemed particularly frustrated with time being wasted. Years later, he said: “It always took him a very long time, but he always thought out a nice bass movement.”

Bruford got back together with former Yes members to form the splinter group ABWH in 1989. Memories of the continual “Will Squire be there?” question from the 1970s album sessions still seemed to linger, and Bruford said at the time: “I was thrilled that he [Squire] wasn’t part of that. It was really important that Tony Levin did that, not Chris Squire.”

Squire’s tardiness may have been a particular source of frustration for Bruford, but also for guitarist Trevor Rabin, who replaced Howe in 1982.

“It drove Trevor crazy,” Jon Anderson told Classic Rock. “Everything was always, ‘Where’s Chris?’ But he was a very funny guy; he had a very dry sense of humor. He’d joke and say, ‘Yeah, you can always put on my tombstone ‘the late Chris Squire.’ And that sums him up, you know?”

Drummer Alan White offers his own take: “Chris would always say that he knew everyone was telling him to come early, so he just came when he thought he should come. And then he’d say, ‘I don’t like to wait for people,’ so that was his answer.”

Squire’s love of a good laugh was contagious. Wakeman recounts once turning the table on his mate: “During the Union tour, there was a moment in the show when through a trap door in the revolving stage, one of Chris’ bass guitars would be handed up to him. It appeared to be coming out of the floor, and it was a moment Chris loved, although he wasn’t that amused when I replaced the guitar with a giant inflatable fish on the last show. The audience loved it. And so did Chris when photos appeared everywhere!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gapqxwa0d6k

Geoff Downes remembers a story from the 1980-81 tour: “I remember Chris coming to play once in just his underpants. One of the roadies had packed his clothes and had put his trousers in as well. So when Chris finally turned up at the sound check he had his big long jacket on, with his spindly hairy legs sticking out of the bottom.”

That was the tour for the Drama album, and the tour had no problem living up to its name. Downes continues: “We were an hour late going on stage a little later [on that tour], because Chris was asleep in his room and he’d locked the door and left the phone off the hook. So they had to get the fire department to go in and break the door down with one of the hotel managers. They got him out and on stage in about another hour. And then he just started playing as if nothing happened, you know?”

Trevor Rabin has many memories from his time in the band. In a 1995 interview, he shared the following story: “We were at a gig, and Chris wasn’t there and we were supposed to go on in twenty minutes. No one knew where he was. Finally our tour manager called over to the hotel and he was in his room. We were playing Madison Square Garden and the hotel is a considerable distance away from it. Our tour manager told him, “Chris, you’re going on in a few minutes! Get down here!” Chris’s response was, “Well, I’ve just ordered dinner.””

Perhaps some of the delays can be put down to his attention to detail. Chris spent a lot of time trying to get things right. This would be reflected in his approach to music. Trevor Rabin: “In the studio Trevor Horn used to say, “Get the slippers out, we’re doing bass tonight!” Chris would listen to an overdub and say, “On the third note there seems to be a funny noise.” We’d listen back and tell him, “No there’s not! No one’s going to hear that.” He picks up on everything and it takes ages.”

The final word should go to the man of the hour. When asked in 1993 about his reputation for being late, Chris Squire said “In reality I may get somewhere at the last minute, but I’m actually not late. Although I have been a couple of times. It’s a joke that I hate waiting for people. It’s kind of selfish of me, really, but I don’t do it to be difficult. Of course, a lot of people react to that and tell me to be there half an hour before the time they mean. Then when I get there and wait for half an hour, I’m thinking, “Where is everybody?””