Jon Anderson Shares His New Album Plans

Jon Anderson fans hoping that he’ll put out a new album with the Band Geeks soon are in luck. As he tells UCR in an exclusive interview, he’s hard at work on his next record with plans to release it in the second half of 2026.

The former Yes vocalist and songwriter, a cofounding member of the legendary progressive rock group, began touring with the Band Geeks in 2023. The outfit is appropriately named, featuring Blue Oyster Cult bassist Richie Castellano as the musical director. As Anderson quickly discovered, they were well-equipped and deeply educated in the music of Yes, giving him a platform to play anything from the group’s catalog, even the most complicated epics. Nothing was off the table.

2024’s True quickly followed and was a Yes fan’s dream. It seamlessly melded the best parts of what fans had heard from the group over the years. The music featured elements of classic Yes music, mixed with shades of what the band did on albums like 90125 and Big Generator, sometimes within the same song.

READ MORE: All 22 Yes Music Videos Ranked

It brought to mind what the singer told this author in 2018 about how he wanted to go to the “top of the mountain” one more time and make one last great Yes album. When I asked him what that looked like in his mind, he was quick to answer. “We’re always climbing mountains and I always felt that Close To The Edge was that first moment when I thought, ‘Oh my God, we’re doing something very, very unique and very different.’ It’s all based on performance,” he explained then. “Because Yes was always a performing band. It was never, ‘Let’s write a hit!’ Because that’s not what Yes was all about and still isn’t. You know, in my mind, the last thing that I think about is trying to get a hit. Even though I want to get my music played on the radio somehow.”

READ MORE: How Yes Reached a Prog Mountaintop with ‘Close to the Edge’

With True, it felt like Anderson had finally achieved his goal, even if it didn’t say Yes on the cover. And as it turns out, the frontman feels similarly. “You know, I was fortunate enough to meet the Band Geeks. A friend of mine sent me a video of them performing ‘Heart of the Sunrise,’ which is quite a piece of music from Yes, from way back,” he remembers now. “So I just thought, I’ll call them up. I called up Richie, and said, ‘What are you guys up to?’ He said, ‘Oh, we’re just doing our stuff.’ And I said, ‘Well, you sound very happy, you look very grateful and you play the hell out of the music. So let’s go on tour.'”

Listen to Jon Anderson and the Band Geeks Perform ‘Heart of the Sunrise’

How Jon Anderson’s Next Album Started Taking Shape

“That started the whole ball rolling. We went on tour and then at the end of the tour, I said, ‘Richie, we’ve got to make an album.’ So we made an album and it’s very simple, you know, you just do what you want to do,” he adds. “We finished that album and we loved that album so much. Performing it was quite a treat for us, as well as the fans, you know. And after we’d finished this last tour, I just looked at Richie, I said, ‘Have we got another album in the works? [Anderson chuckles] And he said, ‘Let’s see what happens. So we’ve been making steps towards a new album over the past four months.”

READ MORE: Listen to Jon Anderson’s ‘Shine On’

True added more great Anderson epics to the catalog, “Counties and Countries” and particularly, the expansive “Once Upon a Dream,” which clocks well past the 16-minute mark. “Gosh, I was in heaven, musical heaven. Especially ‘Once Upon a Dream,’ which was very, very interestingly put together as Yes, would do it 20 or 30 years ago. You start off with an idea, and you bring in another idea, then another idea, and then you start saying, ‘Wait a minute, we’ve got too many ideas here,” he explains. “But eventually, if you just relax and keep working on something, all of a sudden, it blossoms like like a flower, you know?”

“You just sit back and play it over and over. At the end, when you’re mixing it, you’re thinking, this is such a great song,” he continues. “And on tour, the reaction from the audience was the same. It was like it was a new expression of what I do and I’ve been doing for years now, with the help of a fine group of musicians who as you know, they’re very, very dedicated to making great music.”

Listen to Jon Anderson and the Band Geeks’ ‘Once Upon a Dream’

What Can Fans Expect From Jon Anderson’s New Album?

Anderson is now channeling the experience of the True album and the shows they’ve played into his next record. “It gives you so much more energy to travel around and perform when you know that you’re doing new music that’s just been born, in a way,” he tells UCR. “Here we are slogging away, [which is a] very English way of working, slogging away at a new album. [And it] is equally as exciting as True. I think it’s a natural event to work with musicians. You know, we get together every Tuesday, at two o’clock on Zoom. There we are, working on songs that we tried, maybe last year or the year before — or song ideas that I had 10 years ago. And we’re still building another skyscraper, of a piece of music.”

While Anderson and the Band Geeks work to complete construction of that musical skyscraper, fans can look forward to a fresh round of tour dates to kick off the new year. You can see below the first leg of shows that have been revealed so far and tickets are available now.

Jon Anderson and the Band Geeks, 2026 Tour DatesApril 17 – Ridgefield, CT @ Ridgefield PlayhouseApril 19 – Ridgefield, CT @ Ridgefield PlayhouseApril 21 – Patchogue, N.Y. @ Patchogue TheatreApril 23 – Red Bank, N.J. @ Count Basie TheatreApril 26 – Rochester, N.Y. @ Kodak Center TheaterApril 28 – Hershey, PA @ Hershey TheaterApril 30 – Landsdowne, PA @ Landsdowne TheaterMay 02 – Landsdowne, PA @ Landsdowne TheaterMay 05 – Troy, N.Y. @ Troy Savings Bank Music HallMay 07 – Royal Oak, MI @ Royal Oak Theatre