Rick Wakeman: The Not So Grumpy Rock Star

Rick Wakeman is bringing his Grumpy Old Rock Star Tour to the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood on Thursday, Oct. 10, but don’t let the name fool you. Wakeman, the premier prog-rock keyboardist and so much more, is by no means cantankerous. To the contrary, he’s wonderfully funny, amiable and insightful. (Wakeman has appeared in the British comedy TV series “Grumpy Old Men” and wrote two books with the title "Grumpy Old Man," hence the moniker).

Wakeman is touring the U.S. for the first time as a solo artist in 13 years and the Englishman will have plenty of humorous tales imbued with bawdy British humor to tell in-between songs spanning his 50-year career.

The man is best known as the keyboardist for all-time great prog-rockers Yes and a prolific solo artist whose epic masterpieces include “Journey to the Centre of the Earth” and “The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.” He’s recently toured with fellow former Yes members Jon Anderson and Trevor Rabin in ARW.

Wakeman is also a prolific session musician who has appeared on recordings by David Bowie, Elton John, Lou Reed, Al Stewart and hundreds more artists. In 2016, Wakeman performed a piano version of his good friend Bowie’s “Life On Mars” shortly after his passing – Wakeman also performed on the original version. The rendition became a hit and led Wakeman to record two albums of piano interpretations of works by Bowie, the Beatles, Queen and more: “Piano Portraits” (2017) and “Piano Odyssey” (2018) both hit the Top in the UK. On Nov. 29 he’ll release “Christmas Portraits.”

We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Rick Wakeman, the not-so-grumpy rock star.

While you’ve toured America as part of ARW over the past few years, this is your first solo, one-man show tour of the States in 13 years. Why the wait?

It was actually agents and people in the U.S. who saw me in the UK doing similar shows and said you really need to bring it to America. They especially liked the storytelling aspect. I’ve actually been doing that for 50-odd years. It started in my days with (folk-rock band) The Strawbs in the late 60s. In folk clubs there were always stories told in-between the pieces. For some unknown reason folk singers, especially those who played the guitar, had a different tuning for every piece they played. So it took them five minutes to tune and they started telling stories while they were tuning up.

So when I started doing my own shows I thought rather than saying, ‘this next piece is called whatever,’ I thought it’d be nice to engage and tell how the music came about and I’ve been involved with comedy for a long time so that started to fit more and more into the shows, especially the piano shows.

What kind of setlist will you be playing?

I do a mixture of music, some of which is mine. I do some Yes stuff, Bowie, Cat Stevens, Beatles. In between I tell ludicrous stories about ridiculous things that have happened to me during my life. Ideally you want people to go away having a good night and go through as many emotions as you can fit into one show.

You’ve played huge shows with orchestra and choirs. Now you’re performing in intimate venues. What are the challenges with each?

The big orchestral shows are difficult because so many people are involved. I recently did two big orchestral shows in London and just the sheer amount of people involved working together is a challenge all its own. With the intimate shows the problem is that from the moment you walk onstage you are the focal point. In a band people always have moments where you can relax a little bit, while there’s a guitar solo or featured vocals or even during the dreaded drum solo.

When you're on your own there’s no relaxation or recharging the batteries while someone else is doing something. You really have to have your wits about you. But the great advantage is you can always change things. I’ll always have a plan of what I’m going to play but for whatever reason I might chop and change pieces or chop and change stories from one night to the next.

Between bands, session work and solo releases you’ve played on some 90 albums that have sold more than 50 million copies. What do you think about when you reflect on that?

I just think, ‘My God I'm old!’ I’ve never counted as I went along but I suppose it adds up the more years you do it. I've been very fortunate playing with so many different artists over the years and working with so many different people being involved in everything from books and radio and television and onstage. I’m 70. I needed all those years to cram it all in. I think I still have another 40 years’ worth of stuff left that I want to do but I’m not totally convinced I’m going to make it to 110.

Tell us about your recent albums, “Piano Portraits” and “Piano Odyssey,” which feature your interpretations of songs by many of the people you’ve worked with and admire including David Bowie and the Beatles.

It started with “Life On Mars.” When David first played it to me he played it on acoustic guitar and he said to me think of it as a piano piece. I’ve always played it as if it was a piano piece which is exactly what he wanted. On the day after he passed away I went down to the BBC to do a eulogy and at the end of the program they asked me to play “Life On Mars.” They did a webcam of it and over the next three days it had two million hits.

They said you’ve got to record this. We put it out for a cancer charity in the UK and it did very well. People said why don’t you do more piano stuff, variations on pieces that you’ve been involved in or really like. That led to “Piano Portraits” and then the follow-up “Piano Odyssey,” which was slightly different. It had a few choir bits and a few orchestra bits. To complete the trilogy we just finished “Christmas Portraits” which comes out Nov. 29. That’s variations on 22 very well known Christmas pieces.

What comes into play when choosing a song to record as a piano rendition?

First of all whatever the piece it has to have a great melody. It’s nothing new. Composers have been doing it for centuries, taking the music of their peers and other people and doing their own variations of it. If you have a strong melody you can do that. Then I sit down at the piano and start playing around with the themes and make musical notes, write things down about how to play them and eventually the piece builds up. I try to do so it doesn't take away from what the original piece was but adds a new twist, as if I’m taking a painting and painting it with different colors.

How have your ambitions and goals changed over the decades?

Right from the early days I never had goals or ambitions. I simply wanted to be the best I could. I practiced really hard and worked really hard. Ambition is something that happens. I’ve never said I want to be this or that. One of the things that really annoys me these days is on programs like “The X Factor or “America’s Got Talent” is when people say, ‘I want to be famous.’ I’d like to strangle them. I think it's a sentence that should be removed from the English language. The fact of life is you’re good at something and work hard then fame might be a byproduct of what comes with it. If you set out only to be famous then you really shouldn’t be in the business.

Following your current tour what lies ahead for Rick Wakeman?

Next year we're going to do some ARW shows which may be sort of a swansong, farewell tour which will probably spread into 2021 as a big thank you to the fans who supported ARW. There’s a few other things in the pipeline but ARW will take precedent and it will absolutely come to the US.