At another Holiday Inn where rock musician culture must spend at least a third of its time, Colin Carter, the long, tall, wire-haired lead singer of Flash proclaims, "musicians have huge egos that they need to prop up on stage and they carry it around with them all the time." Colin is perfectly correct as one rarely meets professional performers who are without ego. It would seem you don't make it in the record business without one. Egos are what make rock stars and break up successful groups. It's ironic, but painfully true. The Beatles, The Byrds, Springfields and the list goes on. Every time a group breaks up or changes personnel, at least one or two splinter bands arise. Flash is one such act. Peter Banks is the odd man out. He was a founding member (as they say in the New Musical Express) of Yes. Yes in those days lived in the shadow of Led Zeppelin, then the golden haired boys of the English branch of the Atlantic label. Hence Yes was left with a poorly promoted first album and a tour of second rate English pubs and clubs at the inset. As Peter explains the consistent grind of the road begins to get to people. Musicians get so "they can't stand living with certain members of the band." But they stay on the road. The frustrations of playing the same "bloody" numbers night after night found Bill Bruford leaving Yes, and Banks joking about punching time clocks when they went on stage. Night after night they played the same songs over and over and over again. Roy Flynn, the manager of the band, became the "bad guy." Some members of Yes ignored him as best they could at times, "sending him off to coventry" as the English say — meaning they didn't talk to him. Peter shared the bands unhappiness but apparently did not like the "coventry" bit. The expulsion of the manager did not solve the group's problems. The nightly club appearances did not go away and English audiences, according to Peter, "have seen so much and heard so much that the whole babble of aesthetic performance and musical intensity has just been pushed off." They just don't respond like American audiences. They've seen it all. "Wait till Peter gets to the Whisky," I think, "and encounters the friendly Los Angeles rock press and the legendary John Ned Mendelsohn." With the manager gone, the record company became — with some justification — the villain. "We were conned," Peter says with some feeling. "I can honestly say that. I don't think Atlantic did enough for the band." Another cop out? Every band in the world blames THE record company for the sins of the world. Some of the time they're right. Peter charges that Atlantic did not promote Yes until after Fragile, especially in the lucrative American market. As a conscientious PRM writer I push on, but Peter stops saying the case is in the English courts. Obviously, Yes is still with Atlantic, so why isn't he? Peter, who answers most of the questions, blames Tony Colton, lead singer of Heads, Hands and Feet, who produced Yes' second album, Time And A Word: "When I heard the final mix of the album, I was very upset. I felt like crying; the guitar was gone. The guitar virtually disappeared." Shortly afterward Peter departed Yes. Peter was the first to leave. Another "founder member," Tony Kaye, who would appear in Flash on at least the first album, also left Yes again over musical direction. Tony told Melody Maker, "I'd not been happy with the band for a year. I Wasn't getting into the music they were playing and the direction they were going. I found myself left out...." Since the departure of Banks and Kaye, Yes has added Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman and gone on to some international acclaim. It is at this point that things become very muddy and confusing. Peter and Tony left Yes because they just weren't getting their share of the spotlight. They were two of the five "founding members." So who is the rightful heir to the true Yes identity? This is not simply an academic question because it defines Flash's identity. But this is no question to pose to any rock act, as I painfully have discovered from thousands of blues bands who "ain't never heard of" Paul Butterfield or Muddy Waters, but sound exactly like them.
Several hours prior to the dreary comforts of the Toledo Holiday Inn, Flash had played the Agora Club. The Agora is the last link in a chain of over-eighteen nightclubs which run bands from Cleveland to Cincinnati through Columbus to the "glass capital of the world." Not much for a glamorous American tour, but Flash is still dues paying.
From the minute Flash comes on stage there is little question that Peter Banks is the star. He stands alone on the far corner of the stage picking Hendrix runs. Each song features a long — very long — solo. Dreams of Heaven is a showcase for the lead guitar. The lightning bolts and other electronic effects only highlight Peter. He raises his arms as a Teutonic demigod while washed with flicking strobe lighting. The audience goes crazy. The bolts and other electronic effects now focus on Peter Banks as they never did with Yes. He seems above it all. Even Colin's double strides around the stage seem supportive. "They're just like Yes," someone says. "Yep, they are," I respond, resisting the obvious pun. Peter is the leader and founder of Flash.
Flash, as in "he's a flash," exists due to the generosity of English film financiers who feel that collecting rock groups as an investment is nearly as good as stocks and bonds. Peter talked Bolting Brothers of British Lion Ltd. — and all that — into band-rolling him as he was the lead "the greatest rock and roll band in the world." With $15,000, he was ready to go.
With British pounds in the hand and the management firm of Two Worlds Artists and the aid of Ben Nisbett and Derek Lawrence of Wishbone Ash, Peter assembled his group. Colin Carter, who came from a band called Mushroom — "with a sound not far removed from the things Peter and Yes were doing" — convinced Banks to include him after reading an article in Melody Maker. Drummer Mike Hough was recruited through an ad in the same paper. Mike says he "just came along for the blow," a statement best left to liner notes. Ray Bennett, a Banks' acquaintance from the Yes days, joined as bassist. Coincidentally, Ray had played in a band with Yes drummer Bill Bruford at one time. Incestuous, I say to myself. Banks wanted a keyboard man, but couldn't find one. Having assembled the group they immediately went into the studio. Ex Yes-man Tony Kay [sic] was invited to "come along" which he did. Flash is the result of that eight-day session. Remember, it gets confusing.
Flash, as patrons of the Agora remarked, does sound like Yes. Flash refuses to accept this. After several Cokes mixed with Scotch, a combination few Americans can say, yet alone drink, Colin Carter explained the mix up: "Peter was on the first two Yes albums and the rest of the band was obviously influenced by the way he played, so when they got a replacement they still thought on the same lines. He (Steve Howe) was obviously a replacement." Peter quickly adds, "Steve Howe sounds like me." Strange, that's like Wings claiming the Beatles sounded like them. Colin returns saying, "We're not the sort of people who would jump on a particular bandwagon to make money. It's just not that way... We're four individual people playing our music. This is Flash music, and nothing to do with Yes." As usual this question has hit the right chord. Mike Hough, quiet for most of the interview, jumps in, "Like you have to put my influences, then Pete's influences and then Ray's and..." Seeing my poorly hidden disbelief and recalling Colin's remark about musician's egos, "When they get compared to someone else whom they don't imagine themselves to be they take offense," Peter says softly, "People have said after hearing the album, which I can understand...but nobody's ever said it after hearing (seeing) us." At the show they played their album. I really didn't have the heart or the courage to repeat the comparisons made at the Agora during the show.
Flash does have many elements of the Yes of yore. Both on stage and in a studio many gimmicks associated with the "other" band are found in Flash. How much of this is unconscious and coincidental or roots is really a matter of speculation. About the album, now on the charts, there is little question. Peter admitted to the New Musical Express that the band had little time to practice. "It would have been better to record after we'd been on the road for a few weeks. You never know a number well until you have played it at least half a dozen times." Considering the backgrounds of the musicians, strains of Yes could not help but come out of the album. Peter will not appreciate this, but it's true. Nothing played or said this warm night will change the comparison made between Yes and Flash.
Leaving the Holiday Inn it is apparent that Flash is Peter Banks. He put it together and directs it on and off stage. It is his trip. Capitol Records bills the group "Peter Banks and..." by the request of the band I'm told. Peter's head is still part of the nostalgia of Yes. Perhaps he hasn't forgotten being edited out of their second album. Whatever ghost haunts him, Peter will have to either acknowledge it or live with being compared to Yes. As I said, it's all very confusing.
Why can't a band sound like another one when they have the same roots. Is Usual Place by the J. Geils band lousy because it sounds very much like Time Is On My Side? Not at all! America certainly gets accepted despite Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Ray Bennett proves to be my favorite psychologist of the evening saying, "Musicians have a giant ego coupled with some inferiority complexes at the same time, and it's sort of one's batting against the other all the time." In that sentence the bassist defined the nitty gritty of Flash, and many other groups. Every time a performer leaves and established group and starts another it must involve a lot of ego just to battle the comparisons which will be made. Eric Clapton has Cream, Peter Banks is stuck with Yes.
