Trevor Rabin

“I love being in a band. I love that collaborative spirit, although some would suggest that I don't get involved in the collaborative spirit, but it's not true.”

“I hate how things must be classified. How this is applied to musicians implies that they somehow contrive their products and have studied the demographics of the audience.”

“We were a very politically active family. My father was one of the first lawyers in South Africa to have a black partner, so I grew up very aware of the struggle going on. Coming from that background, it really gave me chills to have my music be a part of the election of the first black American president.”

“When you do a record like 'Talk,' and you're happy with it, and it reaches your ambitions and then doesn't sell as well as you wanted, it kind of takes the wind out of your sails a little.”

“You can't judge an album by a single song; it's like judging a book by only reading a single chapter.”

“I just loved classical music, but I also loved playing rock guitar, and I loved playing piano, so it was a natural thing that those things would merge at some point.”

“The process of composing the film score for each movie is completely different. They all have their own personality and their own completely different life, but there's never been a formula. Each time, it's a new thing.”

“Yes was a band where we could explore some of those ideas, but I knew that if I wanted to get into orchestral music and make a living at it, movies seemed to be a perfect spot.”

“You know, usually with movies there are periods, dark areas, where I might not be getting what I wanted out of a theme. I'll have to go over and over it again.”

“I was in Hiroshima with my assistant, and I said to him, 'You know, I've done close to a thousand shows with Yes. I think I'm done. I don't think I can do another one.' I went back to L.A. and left the band and got into film.”

“All of the directors I've worked with I've gotten along with very well.”

“It's an important thing to have a relationship with the director, and have it be a positive one.”

“I grew up in such a musical family, and my dad was the first chair in the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra, and my mom was a piano teacher and a painter, so it was kind of a creative environment, and it was kind of in my DNA.”

“I never actually had a guitar lesson. I taught myself the guitar from piano exercise books, which led me to have a pretty good technique on the guitar and allowed me to find different ways to do things.”

“I've done that quite often, but I've got to be quite honest... as much as you would want to only do one at a time, sometimes projects overlap and there's nothing you can do. Sometimes you to have begin writing a new project just as you're finishing off another.”

“One of the things I try to be very careful of is not taking a movie when I know I have no inspiration left.”

“I belong in America more than South Africa. I can't remember the feeling of living there anymore. It's like it was in another life. That's sad in a way. It is my country. It's where I grew up. You don't know what it's like to have these negative feelings about your homeland. There are roots you can't escape.”

“I really love writing themes and melody.”

“When you listen to a Yes album, you should listen to the whole thing through headphones with the lights off.”

“Several record companies had rejected my song 'Owner of A Lonely Heart' on the grounds it was 'too left field.' I never create to make a hit just to satisfy some record company executive's quarterly profit statement.”