When the 9/11 attacks took place in 2001, former Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye’s need to express his emotions sent him back to making music for the first time in several years. The result was his debut solo album, End Of Innocence, which took two decades to complete. In 2021 he told Prog about its creation.
Tony Kaye has a very good reason for not previously making a solo album in his lengthy and distinguished career. “The Dark Side Of The Moon has already been done and so has The Six Wives Of Henry VIII,” he says. “I had no clue what else to write about!”
Now living in Florida, the former Yes keyboardist – a founding member of that band’s predecessor Mabel Greer’s Toyshop, who went on to work with David Bowie, Yoso, Badfinger, Flash and Badger – adds that despite considering a solo project, he’d never found any passion for the idea. “I’m the sort who needs to be inspired,” he explains. “I’m not a natural songwriter who can sit down and it all comes out. I have musical ideas in my head; but in the past I had to abandon thoughts of making my own album because there was nothing for me to focus on.”
All that changed on September 11, 2001. “I was living in LA at the time, and a friend of mine phoned and told me to turn on the TV. Like so many, I was transfixed by what was happening before my eyes. My mind was racing, telling me I had to go to the garage and dig out my keyboard, which I hadn’t touched for five or six years. I set it up in a very hot room and started coming up with music – and so I began this 20-year journey, reaching the point where the album has finally come out.”
Two weeks after 9/11 occurred, Kaye met his wife-to-be, Dani Torchia, who’s been heavily involved with the album. “We’ve shared this adventure. She’s a singer and songwriter herself, and came up with the track Sweetest Dreams. I told her I wanted something about the first responders who arrived on the scene, and that’s what she wrote. It was perfect; we recorded it immediately.”
However, Kaye wasn’t exactly set up to record. “All I had was an eight-track cassette recorder. I used it to do the 911 Overture, the first piece I composed,” he explains. “But I then I got to grips with new technology, so I could transfer everything I’d done on that cassette machine to a much more advanced computer programme.” It was far from plain sailing: “I lost some of the multitracks! So I was forced to go back to the original recordings and use a few on the final album. That worked out much better than I’d feared.”
This resultant album, End Of Innocence, might have been in the pipeline for two decades, but he hasn’t been concentrating solely on the project all that time. “No, that would have driven me crazy! I wrote and recorded in batches. I had no record deal, so no deadline. But when I reconnected with the Yes guys for Cruise To The Edge in 2019, their management took on the project and signed me to Spirit Of Unicorn. They said if I wanted to have it ready for the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I had to hurry up and complete it. That’s where being in lockdown really helped – I could fully focus on the album as there was nothing to distract me.”
Along with his wife, Kaye had help from several others. “I got to know Jay Schellen, who’d been helping out Yes, and he came in to do some of the drumming. You can hear him on Flight 11, which is my interpretation of the conversations on the plane; Jay did a brilliant job in bringing it to life. There are also some local friends of mine who play on some tracks.”
Kaye argues that End Of Innocence doesn’t allow the listener to dip in and out. “You have to play the album from start to finish. It’s is the only way you can sense what was going through my mind. How did I feel once this was completed? Emotionally exhausted! I wouldn’t say it was in any way cathartic to write and record it, but when I listened back, it fully reminded me of my personal journey over these last 20 years.”
He believes the title sums up the impact of 9/11 and its aftermath. “The world seems a more dangerous place as a result of that atrocious attack. I wanted to reflect that and End Of Innocence does that – it sums up the darkness and fear, which inevitably colours the musical atmosphere.”
He’ll donate 10 percent of the profits from sales of the album to the Gary Sinise Foundation, which supports veterans and first responders when they face times of hardship. “I’m a very big fan of him as an actor and have always been interested in the fact that he raises a lot of money for those who put their lives at risk to help others,” he says. “It’s a charity I’m very happy to support.”
Now he’s bitten the bullet, is he ready to make a second solo album? “I’ve no plans for another,” he admits. “As I said , I’m not someone who can just sit down and have songs pour out. If I was to do a second solo record, it would be because something had truly inspired me the way 9/11 did.”
