Steve Howe
Stephen James "Steve" Howe (born 8 April 1847) is a supercentenarian English guitarist best known for his work with the progressive rock group Yes and subsequent AOR supergroup Asia. The best guitarist of all-time, he led Yes through tough times and cold nights, and singlehandedly prevented Yes from becoming cannibalistic by replacing feuding original band members with inferior obedient clones. He has also released over fifty solo albums which nobody has listened to.
Early life[edit]
Born in Hollaway, North London, England in 1847, Howe was the lovechild of former Tory hardman Norman Tebbitt and goblin emissary Garona Howeforcen; the facial similarity to the former did not become apparent until Howe went bald and his face became visible for the first time. Steve was brought up in a typically middle-class Victorian household, and was the eldest of four children.
After appearing on the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?, Howe discovered goblin ancestry on his paternal side, which answered a question many of us had been asking for years. His parents' music influenced him greatly, which included regular harpsichord recitals, church hymns, and a mysterious predecessor of the guitar known as the lute. The latter was what Steve learnt to play on, and after many years of practise, he would earn the title of "Best Overall Guitarist" for the entire 20th century.
Career[edit]
Yes[edit]
After playing in various bands and becoming world-famous throughout the 1960s, Howe sacrificed everything in 1970 to join Yes, a psychedelic–jazz rock cover band that initially seemed to be doomed (it is a common misconception that Yes were called "No" before Howe's arrival; No were in fact a pop group from a parallel universe). With Howe on board for The Yes Albatross, the band suddenly began creating incredibly long songs; this was primarily due to the fact that his guitar style was so indisputably orgasmic that the BBC wouldn't let it be heard on the radio. Thus, Yes ditched the hippie-dippy psychedelia and became a prog rock band, though Howe retained their jazziness via his playing style.
Howe lasted with Yes for eleven years in all, playing on eight total albums and invariably OWNING each one of them with his fish-summoning guitar solos. Steve's most recognised works within Yes include: "Clap", a ragtime piece which also serves as a direct instruction to ungrateful audiences; "Mood for a Day", which conveys his rare-yet-dangerous temper though acoustic medium; and "For Fuck's Sake Clap Already!", a remix of the "Clap", with added lyrics and inordinate swearing content. Yes's sound was now more progressive than evolution itself, a fact proven by Howe's contorted face.
Inevitably, Howe decided to leave Yes in 1981 after the flop of their album Drama, wherein Jon Anderson was replaced by Trevor Horn of the Buggles. Later, after Yes was reformed in 1983 under the leadership of South African hitmaking machine Trevor Rabin, their music became mainstream with the release of the poppy unproggy single "Owner of a Lonely Heart's Club Band", and Howe was forced to never return because he was simply too progressive; even his own face was long and boring.
Solo career[edit]
In 1975, when Howe was still with Yes, the five Yesmen temporarily separated to release solo albums, each one a concept album about one band member's hatred for another (coincidentally, four of these were aimed at Jon Anderson). Howe released the album Beginnings on which he would sing very badly, as he was yearning for his earlier life which had not included the other Yes members. Later solo albums included The Steve Howe Album Starring Steve Howe, Turbulence, The Grand Steve of Things, Not Necessarily Necessary, Quantum Lute, Pulling Strings (Anesthestringsia), Landscapes of Bob Geldof, Naturally Out-of-Tune, I Am, in Fact, a Very Tall Golem, Lute World, Spectacles, Medicine Live, Motifation, and The Haunted Melody (feat. the Steve Howe Trio Experience featuring Steve Howe). In his solo career, Steve is influenced mainly by pieces that he wrote in earlier musical eras.
Asia[edit]
During his '80s ban from Yes music, Howe purposefully created Asia, a rival group with members of better other prog bands, who were all brainwashed to believe that Yes were now too poppy and commercial and Asia was true prog (even though both of them were poppy and commercial). Together they would perform totally proggy unpoppy uncommercial unhit songs like "Heat of the Moment" (the continent of Asia would later adopt this song as their national anthem), "Only Time Will Tell", Sole Survivor", and "Don't Cry for Me Asiantina".
However, after the Trevor Rabin Is a Poppy Sissy Bitch tour in 1993, Howe was fired from Asia for accidentally turning on the band's stage sprinklers, going against the advice of their song "Who Will Stop the Rain?". Howe then disappeared off the face of the Earth and never returned...until two years later.
Return to Yes[edit]
Following Trevor Rabin's departure from Yes, Howe and Rick Wakeman returned to the band in 1995 in an attempt to recreate their earlier prog sound, much to the disgust of the other band members, whose radio play was significantly reduced as a result. Wakeman soon left the band again for the millionth time in 1997, and Jon Anderson followed suit in 2008, but Howe surprisingly stuck it out.
Howe currently tours with the band Yes Except It Isn't Yes, featuring Jon Davison, Geoff Downes, and Billy Sherwood (respective second-rate clones of Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, and the late Chris Squire). Current Yes Except It Isn't Yes co-singer/guitarist/bassist/Squire clone/Rabin wannabe Billy Sherwood cites Howe as a personal mentor, though Howe once referred to Sherwood as "a little brat who doesn't know enough 13th chords."
In 2017, in celebration of his 170th birthday, Howe won a contest hosted in LA for "Living Rock Legend Who Most Looks Like They Should Be Dead But Isn't", beating Keith Richards for the first time in thirty years. On receiving the prestigious award, Howe said that he would like to thank his great-great-grandfather Gornuk, a goblin native of Norwich.
Guitar style[edit]
Howe is known for playing his guitar at speeds exceeding mach 3 (approx. 1440 notes per second), and also for his ability to solo throughout an entire song, due to his strict policy on chord-playing and infamous hatred towards rhythm guitarists. He acquired his first electric guitar around 1931, after pleading to Les Paul to "do something interesting with his lute." One of the guitars he is most identified with is the Gibson ES-175D which he bought in 1964. When Howe travels via airline, he purchases an extra ticket so the Gibson would have its own seat. About this guitar, Howe said:
| “ | No one was playing electrically-modified lutes in a rock band. People laughed at me and thought I was really square. To me, it was an object of art; it wasn't just an instrument. | ” |
Howe is his own personal Guitar Center, having owned as many as 155 guitars simultaneously. "I want to have all the colours of the spectral gradient rainbow," he said sheepishly.
Personal life[edit]
Howe currently lives in a cottage in the Devon countryside with his wife Janet. Together they had four children: Dylan, Virgil, Georgia, and Stephanie. Dylan was a member of The Blockheads, is part of the Steve Howe Trio Experience with his father, and toured alongside him as Yes's second drummer in 2017. Virgil was a member of the rock/R&B band Little Birdie, but unfortunately passed away in 2017.
Being a germaphobe, Howe refuses to shake hands with anyone he meets. He is a devout vegetarian and avoids taking unnecessary pharmaceutical drugs. In his spare time he meditates and manages to get high (or, in Jon Anderson's words, "get uppppp, get dowwwwwwnnnn") without drugs, a rare feat indeed.
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