Howe is best known for his nearly 40-year association with perennial prog-rockers Yes, but his career has taken numerous twists and turns in the interim, including releasing 16 thematically diverse solo albums, joining forces with ex-Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett to form the short-lived but highly successful GTR in 1986, and co-founding the prog-pop juggernaut Asia, which ruled the airwaves and filled stadiums in the early ’80s.

Howe left Asia after the band’s second album, but the group has persisted in various forms, with a slew of session and stage guitarists that has included Guthrie Govan, Pat Thrall, Elliot Randall, and Steve Lukather. “They weren’t aiming low, were they? And that’s quite nice,” says Howe, who rejoined original members—bassist/vocalist John Wetton, drummer Carl Palmer, and keyboardist Geoff Downes—in 2006 to try and recapture some of the old magic. The reformed Asia is currently touring behind its new studio album, Phoenix [EMI].

In addition to his latest work with Asia, Howe has just put the finishing touches on a new solo guitar album titled Motif Volume 1 [Howe Sound], and an as-yet untitled Steve Howe Trio album. He will be performing solo, with his trio, and with the current lineup of Yes in the coming months.

Phoenix has many of the same qualities as the first Asia album. How does it feel to be making similar music so many years later?
It’s quite pleasant to build on that history. We are trying to reestablish what the Asia thing was, not to reinvent it. We wanted to have some new songs—and it’s great that I got to have some songs on the album, too—but there are similarities with the first Asia album in the sense of the collaborations between us. And the group requires a certain kind of guitar style that I suppose I invented, so I tried to go in there with that in mind.

What do you feel are the guitar highlights on Phoenix?
I like the guitar breaks at the end of “Never Again,” where I got a little hot on my feet. And I also like the way that we switch around, like having the steel guitar on “Heroine” followed by the sitar guitar on “Sleeping Giants” followed by the Portuguese guitar on “Alibis.” And I think that there’s also a rich blend of sounds and styles on “Parallel Worlds/Vortex.”

Did you play the same late-’70s Gibson ES Artist on the new record that you used with the original band?
Yes. Loads of tracks on the first album were recorded with that guitar, and then I used it onstage, and on the second album, and I’ve really grown to love it. It’s like a Stradivarius. It plays like a dream. Of course, I also played a lot of other guitars, from a Fender Telecaster to my ’64 Gibson ES-175D and several ES-175 Steve Howe Signature models. I played a Gretsch on “No Way Back.”

How about amps?
There were several, including a 50-watt Marshall head that was probably built in the ’70s, an old 50-watt Vox head that’s a lot like the amp I had in the ’60s, and a vintage Gibson Explorer 1x10 combo, which, by the way, is the amp that I used on “Heat of the Moment.” I also played through a Line 6 POD XT Live floor unit on a few things, and my Line 6 Vetta II, which I also use to get all my sounds live. I enjoy moving between different amps when recording, to get a different feel on each track. I also got some sounds with an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff.

Do you use the Vetta II live mostly for convenience?
That’s a big part of it, but the Vetta II also gives me all the sounds that I need, and it is incredibly dependable. I program every amp and effects sound that I’m going to use for a particular song into a custom set. Then, when I press a switch, the song title comes up on the display, along with the first selection of four presets, which is enough to get most songs across. I love that, and it’s a lot more fun than pressing the delay switch, changing the fuzz, etc., which would be unthinkable at this point. I’ll also be using the Vetta II when I tour with Yes.

What’s currently happening with Yes?
We’re going to tour for six weeks and hopefully revitalize a band that’s been laying dormant since 2004, when we did an extensive tour with the Roger Dean-designed stage and all that business. We’re hoping to have a great show, and play some of our favorite selections from our repertoire. There’s also been some talk of recording, and there may be one song floating around that we can agree on and sort out between now and the tour, but it would be premature to talk about that just as we are getting rolling.

You also have a new solo guitar recording.
That’s right. Motif Volume 1 features 20 tracks of solo guitar performed on nine different instruments, some electric and some acoustic. There’s even a Dobro solo, believe it or not. I wrote 19 of the songs, which are mostly reinterpretations of solo guitar compositions from my back catalog, though four pieces are entirely new. Composing for solo guitar has run parallel with composing for a band throughout my career, and it’s a very big part of what I find enjoyable about being a guitarist—perhaps even the main joy.

Do you do much fingerpicking on the solo pieces?
I use a pick for most of the bass parts, and if there are sustained notes for a moment I might go to the pick for a few seconds, but otherwise I use my fingers. The trickiest thing is maintaining the balance. Merle Travis always made it sound very easy, but just having the right amount of damping on the bass is difficult to do.

Do you have a favorite pick?
I use pear-shaped, medium-sized Fender Mediums. For many years I used plectrums called Specials that were made by someone who worked in the back of a music store in London in the ’60s. They were thick as hell and the most incredible things that I’d ever heard. All of the early Yes records were recorded with them. When they all wore out I tried other specialty picks, but in each case they would eventually become unavailable. The Fenders are good for both electric and acoustic, and that’s what I was looking for.

From the beginning you have drawn on a number of styles rather focusing on being, say, a “blues” guitarist. Was that a conscious decision on your part, or did things just work out that way?
It was fairly conscious, though not at first. When I was young I liked rock guitarists such as Hank Marvin and Duane Eddy, but my brother and sister liked jazz and classical music, and they would nag me about how much better it was than what I was listening to. So, although I saw the guitar as primarily a rock instrument, Barney Kessel, Joe Pass, Charlie Christian, Django, and Les Paul were also big influences. But I was also really into blues in about 1964 and 1965, and I got into Chet Atkins shortly after that. Then, when I saw Albert Lee back around 1966, he was so exceptional that I tried to be like him. I almost stopped there once I’d absorbed some of his style, but, of course, I kept going and developed my own thing.

How do you practice?
I’m very undisciplined in that I don’t really have a program when it comes to practicing. I’ve always kind of avoided the idea of practicing, though I do like to sit and doodle around and just see what happens. If I haven’t played for several days I might think about doing a little practicing, or if I’m writing some music I may need to practice it a lot just to be able to play it—but I don’t have a studious approach.

Are you saying that you learned to play in all those styles early on just by noodling?
I learned a few things by copying them from records, though I was never very good at that. I’d learn some tricky things and then forget them because I didn’t use them. Quite early on I got the idea that I could invent a guitar part for anything—that was my job. The Beatles kind of endorsed the idea that you had to have parts, and the “group member” concept really helped me when I joined Yes, because I was itching to collaborate and interact with everyone. I don’t think musically in names or words very much, and I may look at things far too simplistically, but I seem to get away with it [laughs].

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