Dear Friends in the worldwide family of YES,
It’s hard to put in words how it feels to wake up one day to hear that a person who I thought was a friend has brought not only an utterly fictitious, but also, a defamatory case against me.
While my initial reaction is to say nothing in the face of these blatant lies and this frivolous lawsuit, I feel I must address the personal slander that has been included within it as I have been so deeply hurt, as have my loved ones. I would also like to express a sincere thank you for the immense support I have received both online, and personally, since this hit the press.
When we were told about this slanderous and fictitous claim, I simply couldn’t believe it, how could a friend make something like this up, so I wrote to Riz and his lawyer in good faith, and tried to show them that they had no case – and that I had evidence to support a very different story. Even in light of this dishonest claim, for the sake of the long friendship, we urged Mr Caldwell to go back to his client and get the full and truthful picture of these 12 years, and then reassess the (lack of) evidence.
I also included some notes that we made about his musicologist’s report – a report that is seriously flawed and uses deceptive methods to force a similarity that is not there. I wrote to them in the sincere hope that I could save my friend from the actual facts becoming known, and I also knew that if they made public these lies it could potentially be defamatory, and I wanted to protect him from a countersuit. Our lawyer tells me that legal costs can be claimed in frivolous and vexatious claims and I genuinely wanted to spare my friend from something that could be life-changing should we win that claim.
His lawyer, and Riz, refused to address it, even when our manager, Martin, asked them to reply. Instead of a response we received threatening emails.
And then we awoke to read in Rolling Stone that the lawsuit had been issued. It seems that the publicity of the case was more important than having any evidence or facts, and as the slander within is now being republished, I have been compelled to reply, and do so with the blessing of my fellow bandmates.
For the record I did not write ‘Dare to Know’. As anyone who studies the YES albums will know meticulous care is taken on every song to correctly credit the songwriters. On ‘The Quest’, I have credits on 6 of 11 songs, hardly the “nearly every other song” that is incorrectly stated in their claim to try and support their fiction.
Nor did I ever hear the “musical composition” supposedly called ‘Reunion’, or see the indie film ‘A Winter Rose’. Riz sent me a 2min trailer for ‘A Winter Rose’, and out of politeness I congratulated him, but had no interest in seeing the film. Frankly I was turned off by Riz’s ‘filmmaking’ after his first release was borderline pornographic in nature. I’m not even sure if ‘A Winter Rose’ had a theatrical release after the premiere, which I most certainly did not attend.
It is also a complete fabrication to suggest that I discussed the music from the film with Riz. I never saw the film. The ‘composition’ isn’t even on the soundtrack album, so I couldn’t have even stumbled across it by accident.
I can also categorically confirm I have never heard this piece of music before the film was released – our time as ‘bandmates’ lasted only a few months when we were kids.
Contrary to the narrative that has been told by Riz, Taylor and I were not founding members of his band ‘Anyone’. Riz, Taylor and I met in 1992, when Taylor and I were 20 and 21, and Riz was 26, and formed a band that Riz called ‘Blash Meth’.
I left before the band became ‘Sylvia’ with a different line-up, and it was 2001 before ‘Anyone’, again with a different line-up, made an album. Soon after our lives began their very different directions – Taylor joined Sass Jordan in 1994, then Alanis Morrisette, and then Foo Fighters, and I moved to Seattle and joined ‘Sky Cries Mary’ in 1993, and then eventually joined, as Riz described it, “my favourite band since long before I met you”, YES.
Any suggestion that I might have heard this generic melody when we were younger, let alone thought it was worthy of YES, is utterly absurd.
The first time I heard it was when Riz’s lawyer sent it to us, although bizarrely he wasn’t able to send ‘Reunion’, and only sent a link to the 2019 Director’s Cut of his film on Amazon, with a timecode. We did ask the lawyer for a copy of the actual composition, but it was not provided. We note that Riz’s company has now put the 2019 film clip up on YouTube.
As I’m sure many have now heard, this generic melody is common and predictable with origins in traditional music dating as far back as the Renaissance era. Numerous examples have been made, it is almost identical to the opening guitar riff in Santana’s ‘Black Magic Woman’, or to traditional descending melodies such as Tommaso Giordani’s ‘Caro Mio Ben’ from 1782. The list is endless. Put simply, this is a basic sequence that can be found in hundreds of compositions, and contrary to their analysis by Dr Lustig, we believe confirms how the similarity has occurred by chance alone.
With regard to Dr Lustig, we also ran our own comparison on his website’s ‘copyright checker tool’ which gave us a significantly lower percentage rating, absolutely nowhere near his own ‘expert report’! Make of that what you will.
We are also concerned that he failed to address ‘prior art’ in his analysis. It is our belief that this has been purposefully omitted, as inclusion of it would rule out any infringement, as it would bring in the fact that this is simply a sequence that can be found in numerous pieces of music over centuries.
See Appendix 1 for more details.
As for the claim of ‘stealing’, any suggestion of this is slander, and I will defend my name on this both in terms of this claim, and any republication. I take great pride in the challenge of song-writing. The rewarding part of it for me is proving to myself that I can do it. I therefore could never live with myself or have any satisfaction from the process if I was to cheat my way through it.
With the honored responsibility I’ve been tasked with to be a prominent songwriter for the band, a band known for its rich complexity of music, why on earth would I ever jeopardize all that by stealing a simple melody so commonplace? Would I then be able to convince the great Steve Howe, who helped craft YES’ finest music, to steal this melody?
I did not steal this note sequence which is now called ‘Reunion’ (if it’s actually called that, it appears to be simply a section of film score), but based on Riz’s interactions with me, it is utterly inconceivable that he could have believed this for more than three years since the release of ‘Dare to Know’.
Riz has always followed my career with YES closely, and in Sept 2021 he contacted me about our new album, and in Oct 2021, he wrote telling me how much he loved ‘The Quest’, apparently, he felt it was ‘def your best work yet’. And since then, even until August this year, Riz has written to me some 50 times or so, to which I have always replied as a friend. He even, as a guest of YES, attended the Riverside show in Oct 2022 where the band performed ‘Dare To Know’. Afterward he spent a pleasant time with me and my wife backstage.
It’s also questionable, when you review the evidence, that his lawsuit has manipulated the date that he says he discovered this to January 2022 – it was October 2021, and as he said on a facebook post on Nov 15, 2024 (subsequently deleted, but we have a record), he “instantly” recognized it.
I’ll be honest, it has been really hard reading through the emails, revisiting how I tried to help his career over and over, but at the same time I can hear what I believe to be his frustration that his personal success does not match his own expectations. As Riz said in his email in January this year, ”pinch yourself Juano, you became the lead singer of the greatest band that ever existed”. This comment I previously thought friendly, but in the current light, it has taken on a much darker hue.
What has resonated with me in reading the evidence, and I would note that there is only so much I can share as certain evidence needs to be retained should this frivolous lawsuit continue, is just how many times over the years Riz has attempted to work with YES, be it as Producer, Remixer, Remasterer, or as a client of our manager, or getting signed to our record label. Each attempt has led to rejection.
During 2022, 2023, and even this year, Riz asked me on at least five occasions to put him in touch with our manager, Martin Darvill, which I did. He also asked me if I could do anything to help him get a record deal with Inside Out (both of which are noted in his lawsuit). On each occasion I did what I could to help my friend, but each time he was rejected. I have an email in July 2023 where he tells me that no one has been interested, and he has been “shut down” as he titled it, going on to say “you’re very fortunate to be in a legacy band”.
He also released two songs that I recorded vocals for in 2019 on two of his albums in 2021 and 2023, abundantly using my name, and that of YES, in his press releases. While his narrative was never quite true, I remained willing to help my friend wherever possible.
In April this year he contacted me to share his exciting news about “a big move he was making”, that involved two films he was going to make for Netflix about his band ‘Anyone’, and was, as he said “in the bag”. He continued “my attorney Larry assures me that this will be the thing that garners the major musical success that has thus far eluded me”. Riz asked me to appear in both the documentary and the concert film. Finally, as recent as August this year, he wrote to ask me again to help his career, by spreading the word about his talents, and mentioned that he was working on a new album.
And all this was done while he supposedly thought I’d stolen a melody from him? If it wasn’t so heart-breaking it would be funny.
The truth, and the evidence we have to support it, show the real story, and I can only imagine what happened between August this year, and now, for him to go down such a road and invent his claim. I repeat, I did not steal this sequence, and there was no infringement.
This picture of Riz, hoping to work with YES, and, I’m sorry to say, failing, goes back to when I joined the band. While I did agree to put him forward as Producer for ‘Heaven and Earth’, I also made it clear to our manager that I didn’t feel he had the right vibe for YES. After he was then unanimously rejected, and following its release, he contacted me to say how much he loved my writing, but he wanted to express his frustration at the mix, and how he could do better. He asked me to get him the files so that he could do his own mix “free of charge just to demonstrate how much better I can make it sound”… And “as an old friend I’m eager to help”. This unsolicited offer was not welcomed by the band and went nowhere.
In 2015 he contacted me to tell me that he felt the critically acclaimed Steven Wilson remix of ‘Relayer’ was so poorly done, that he took upon himself to produce his own remix and asked me to submit it to YES for consideration. He described his version as “superior in every way”, and clearly involved many hours of work, and said he was sure if the band did a comparison that they would “take great pleasure in hearing ‘To Be Over’ how it was finally meant to be”. I eventually had to write and let him know that the band had not given any thought or enthusiasm to it.
Those of you who know me, will also know of my deep friendship with Taylor Hawkins, who I miss terribly, and so wish were here to give me some of his words of wisdom on this sorry situation. I was privy to some of the serious problems that took place over the years between Taylor and Riz, and the breakdown of their relationship, and I’m sorry to find out that Taylor was right.
Not only did Riz email me about working with YES, our manager and our record label, he also sent me congratulations on the catalogue sale to Warner Music Group, wondering if money would trickle to me, and saying “Steve must be stoked”.
I will be talking to our lawyer about the next steps, but Riz and his lawyer have made false and, I believe, defamatory statements about me, statements I know they have no evidence for, and which I can prove are untrue. There appears to be an almost reckless disregard for the truth, and we believe this has possibly been done with the intention of damaging my reputation, one that I have worked very hard to earn over so many years.
I have always shared my love of YES, and the immense privilege I feel to be part of this incredible band, and I am grateful to the fans who have come to accept me over the years, so you can imagine how it feels to have a ‘friend’ and his lawyer, put all that at risk.
Our lawyer described this as a ‘shakedown’, and I can see no better word for it. It is our belief, and perhaps a court will be the only place to demonstrate it, that this claim has arisen due to the last 12 years of rejection by, as Riz calls them, “his favourite band ever”. I wanted to help my friend, and so I did my very best for him, but every attempt that he has made has been met with polite refusal or disinterest.
Rather than me ‘stealing’ this generic piece of music, a piece of music that I have never heard before this lawsuit, it appears that they are trying to ‘steal’ a credit on our album.
In closing it is irrelevant to compare the situation with ‘The Ice Bridge’, that was an error that has been explained, and was resolved like gentlemen. If there had been any truth to this claim by Riz, then we would have done the same thing. There is not. That is why this has not been settled, and why I feel compelled to defend my honour and integrity here today – and in court if necessary.
For now, my hope remains that sense prevails.
Again, I say a deep thank you to all the loving support that surrounds me.
Jon Davison, 18 November 2024
Jon Davison did not write ‘Dare to Know’. I did, and it was based on a theme I’ve been developing since 1973. Early versions can easily be found in our demo and studio recordings from the time and on the internet – some were released on an expanded version of “Tales Of Topographic Oceans” in 2002.
Steve Howe, UK, 21 November 2024.
Appendix 1
Following are our comments on Dr Lustig’s report – we are not musicologists, but even we can see the problems in his methodology, and we have seen similar conclusions on line.
- Although he states that his methodology does not affect the underlying scale degrees in the melodies (footnote 3), his method does affect the actual notes in the melody, and when you correct for this, it shows there are less identical notes than Dr Lustig says.
- The 4-note descending patterns that characterize both themes are sufficiently generic as to be found in a wide variety of music. Known as descending tetrachords, they have been used since the Renaissance era in lamentations and litanies. A clear example can be found in Tommaso Giordani’s ‘Caro Mio Ben’ from 1782 that sounds extremely similar to ‘Reunion’.
- Lustig’s methodology for determining pitch similarity percentage is flawed when one considers that accidentals change the actual pitch of a note. The conclusion of the report will be very different when this flawed methodology is corrected.
- Dr Lustig puts the melodies into ‘scale degrees’. However, a scale degree comparison is an inaccurate method to determine the similarity of two melodies when the modes differ since the two melodies will contain notes of different pitch (as is the case with ‘Reunion’ and ‘Dare To Know’).
- Dr Lustig confirms that ‘Reunion’ is in 3/4 meter, and ‘Dare to Know’ in 4/4, and he then ‘factors out’ meter in his comparison. One cannot simply ‘factor out’ meter in an analysis of rhythmic structure, since the rhythmic structure of a melody is itself informed by the number and distribution of strong and weak beats within the meter. Where the notes of the melody fall in relation to those beats determines the rhythmic character of the melody within the beat structure, and when you include meter, you can see that these two compositions are clearly different. Additionally, the melody of ‘Dare To Know’ has more syncopation as compared to the melody of ‘Reunion’, it has notes that fall on two off-beats, whereas ‘Reunion’ has notes that fall on one off beat.
- Dr Lustig suggests that the unique harmonic progression is similar, however this particular harmonic progression is not unusual at all. Examples that share this sequence include ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’ by Carole King, ‘Cinnamon Girl’ By Neil Young, and ‘Don’t Tell Me’ by Madonna.
- In fact, the use of this sequence in ‘Dare To Know’ is more unusual in that it begins on the 4th scale degree, in contrast to ‘Reunion’ and the previous songs listed, which begin on the tonic, or 1st scale degree. Additionally, the melody of ‘Dare To Know’ is harmonized in such a way as to accentuate the 7th scale degree of each chord, resulting in a harmonic progression of 4-note chords or ‘7th chords’ as they are known in music theory. In contrast, the melody of ‘Reunion’ is harmonized in such a way as to accentuate the 3rd scale degree of each chord, and no 7th chords are present in the harmony.
While the analysis put forth by Lustig may appear on paper to show close musical similarity between ‘Reunion’ and ‘Dare To Know’, his methodology is extremely flawed, and a closer inspection reveals that the two songs are actually significantly different in terms of harmony, rhythmic pattern and harmonics. The actual notes and rhythmic structure are sufficiently dissimilar as to make each melody distinguishable from the other. The harmonic sequences, while very common in popular music, are used in different ways such as to make each theme differentiable. The generic 4-note descending motif in each melody could have easily been independently composed, especially considering the other differences highlighted and the musical character of each song.
Therefore, there is no evidence that ‘Dare to Know’ is based directly on ‘Reunion’. Should this meritless action proceed then we will obtain a full musicologist report that we believe will include the above, and a deeper analysis of the flaws in the report by Dr Lustig, further confirming the irrefutable conclusion that ‘Dare to Know’ has nothing to do with ‘Reunion’.
Appendix 2
To those of you interested, check out this ‘Giants under the Sun’ rehearsal from 1973 (formally released as a bonus track in 2003) in particular at 4.59, and ask yourself where Steve more likely had the influence of those 4 note descending patterns.
Appendix 3
This comparison, uploaded by aux pheonix on Soundcloud, demonstrates how Steve Howe has a version of this exact same melody in a 1974 recording (The Ancient).
Here is proof of Steve exploring that very same idea in 1974 and it should be obvious that it’s much more likely the source of this melody.
The guitar part from The Ancient on top of Dare To Know. Dare To Know is panned to the left and The Ancient to the right.
The Ancient was pitched up by 3 semitones to make it match, and the relationship between any of the notes was not edited or adjusted.
