Trivia / Asia

• Better Export for You:
  • Supposedly, the only release of Anthology that ever included the original versions of the Wetton-era songs was in Japan.
  • Japan and South Korea were the only places to get the orchestral version of "Faithful", found on their deluxe editions of XXX.
  • When Gravitas had acoustic versions of a few songs ("The Closer I Get to You", "Joe DiMaggio's Glove", and "Russian Dolls") spread across multiple versions, Japan got the only release which contained all three.
• Creative Differences: In the late 90s, Downes and Payne were approached to make the soundtrack to a Playstation game based on Rodney Matthews' artwork. One of the game heads wanted Steve Howe to join in, but he was still busy with Yes at the time. Then when the group submitted what they had, the execs asked them for something "a bit more industrial sounding", at which point they dropped it and walked. The songs they did finish later appeared as tracks 17-22 on Rare.
• Creator Backlash: The song "Lay Down Your Arms" was used in the British animated film "Freddie as F.R.O.7.", a movie that nobody involved was particularly happy with. John Payne was especially embarrassed by it, since he considered the film... let's say "less than best picture material". He even turned down bothering with an edit to the song that the filmmakers requested for it.
  John Payne: Unfortunately it was crap. [...] It got to the stage where we mixed it in Dolby Surround Sound, and the film guy comes up to me and says 'I like it when it gets to the chorus. Can you add a little bit to the chorus - and Freddie says, Lay Down Your Arms?' They tried and tried to get me to do this, but I just refused. Bad enough having the music in a film about a little green frog!
• Creator's Oddball: "The Bridge" (not to be confused with "Face on the Bridge" from XXX) sounds little like the rest of the band's work, being a sprawling, electronic symphony that lasts for roughly 20 minutes. It goes from ambient and soothing to loud and busy numerous times, and according to Geoff Downes, it was entirely synthesized with computerized instruments.
• Development Hell: In 2016, Geoff Downes stated that the band was writing and recording a followup album to Gravitas. Some of the rumored details included a song being called "Tattoo on Your Soul", that the opening track would be seven and a half minutes long, and that it'd be played in 17/8. But because John Wetton died barely a year later, it's up in the air on when (or even if) these post-Gravitas recordings will see the light of day. Downes indicated on Twitter that the release is being worked on, but since then nothing has surfaced from it.
  • According to John Payne, Dukes of the Orient took about 10 years to record with numerous guest musicians coming and going, which in his eyes made the album sound less cohesive than their followup, Freakshow.
• Executive Meddling: "Heat of the Moment" arguably only exists because of this. At first, the band wanted "Only Time Will Tell" to be the debut album's lead single, but the label was hesitant and basically asked them "Do you have anything else?" In response, John Wetton and Geoff Downes came up with "Heat" in just a few hours the following morning, and the rest is history.
• Genre-Killer: The critical and commercial underperformance of Alpha is often attributed with putting the final nail in the coffin for the first wave of Progressive Rock. Neo-prog and post-prog had both already emerged by this point, and "classic" prog's heyday had long since passed, but the release of this album coincided with many of first-wave prog's other big acts either making a Genre Shift or outright disbanding.
• Invisible Advertising: Geffen Records gave Astra a woefully light amount of advertising compared to the previous two records. Geoff Downes blames this on distribution changes going on with the label at the time, which the album's promotion happened to get caught in the middle of.
  • Aria had a similar lack of promotion because its initial sales were down compared to Aqua before it, which quickly scared off many promoters. This led to a disastrous tour with decreasing audience turnouts. One date in Athens, Greece didn't even have any posters advertising the gig because in the promoter's own words, "word of mouth is best", leading to only a couple hundred in the audience that night. John Payne likened it to something out of Spinal Tap. The band fought tooth and nail to get the word out though, spending weeks playing live at radio stations and record stores to get any kind of airplay they could.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: For unknown reasons, most of the John Payne albums like Aria, Arena, Aura, etc. haven't been widely available on services like iTunes or Spotify.^note Aqua is curiously the only exception to this on Spotify. The only way to currently stream songs like "Military Man" or "Arena" is exclusively through live albums.
• Promoted Fanboy: David Gallant started as the creator of the band's first fan website in 1995, with an email based newsletter that he dubbed the "Asia Armada". He managed to get in contact with the band members themselves, who in turn hired him to create their official website at the time, and then gave him enough information to publish two official Asia biographies.^note The first was "Asia: The Heat Goes On - A Complete and Authorized Asia Biography" in 2001, which got an updated edition three years later. The second was titled simply "Asia - Heat of the Moment" in 2007. Geoff Downes summed it up perfectly in his forward to the first one:
  Geoff Downes: I began to realize that Dave actually knew more about the band and me than I did myself. It was scary. He had conversations from years gone by - absolutely off verbatum, old napkins with cord sequences scribbled on them, rare discographies, things I couldn't even remember, and God knows what else. I figured, smartly enough, that I had better co-operate with this guy, or he might have some compromising information on me that I would not like to see in print!
  • The band also appeared to adopt David's "Armada" title with a series of three fan club exclusive CDs, issued from 2002-2003, under that same name.
• Release Date Change: Aura was supposed to get an August 2000 release, but scheduling conflicts with the record label pushed it back to January of 2001.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: 1997's Anthology was meant to be Asia's first compilation album with both Wetton and Payne era songs on it together. But because of a lawsuit filed by John Wetton himself, the band was forced to re-record five of his songs from scratch with John Payne on vocals. This may be the reason why no official Asia compilation has contained material from both eras since.
• Troubled Production: The making of Alpha was where the band's first cracks were starting to show. After an exhausting tour for the first album, they opted to stay at a more isolated, small town studio in Montreal, Canada to record the follow-up. But cabin fever set in, and Geoff Downes would fall ill many times. Then Geffen Records was pushing for all the songs on Alpha to be written by Wetton and Downes, since they were behind the most successful hits on the debut. This left Howe without much to do in terms of songwriting this time, with his only song ("Lying to Yourself") being relegated to a B-side. He claimed not to mind being left out like that, but from Downes' point of view, it took a toll on Howe that made him feel isolated from the band. In either case, tensions rose between Wetton and Howe, with the two starting to argue over who was more responsible for the band’s success. When it came to mixing the album, all the pressure was put on producer Mike Stone, who ran into major technical glitches that delayed the album’s release. The band didn’t approve of Alpha's final mix, with Howe describing it as a “wall of sound” with certain parts he liked (such as an intro to "Never in a Million Years") being cut out.
  • The events leading up to Astra were also filled with drama. As early as 1983, things were becoming unstable with the firing of John Wetton for drinking problems and "not being a team player" in his own words. (Steve Howe claims differently, saying he left on his own due to the strain between them.) A brief period of Greg Lake replacing him later, and Wetton agreed to return shortly after. But old tensions between him and Steve Howe resurfaced, leading to Howe being let go from the group. Mandy Meyer of Krokus fame replaced him for the making of the album. Mike Stone also returned to produce at first, but there was no clear direction for the album. Frustrated with the band members all disagreeing on how to adapt with the modern sound of the time, Stone left the project, and Geoff Downes decided to take over production duties himself. According to him, it was a demoralizing time for them with the chemistry dwindling, and with the way Astra underperformed afterword, Asia's story could've very easily ended right then and there. Although the original lineup buried the hatchet and recovered since then, Wetton said it best at the time:
  John Wetton: I got a phone call from Geoff saying, "Let's go out and have lunch together and be old pals again." Which of course we can never be, not after something like that's happened. I can never classify anyone in the group – apart from Mandy, who's had nothing to do with it – as a friend again."
• What Could Have Been: On Armada 3, Geoff Downes reveals that Asia was originally meant to be a 5-piece band under then name "MI5", with a different singer and John Wetton just being the bass player. Trevor Rabin of future Yes fame was the first pick, who left after a few rehearsals with the group in its infancy. The book "A Complete and Authorized Asia Biography" expands on this a bit, saying that some other vocalists they tried include Robert Fleischmann (Journey) and Roy Wood (The Move and Electric Light Orchestra)
  • Simon Phillips was also considered to be the drummer, but he was busy with Jeff Beck at the time, which left Carl Palmer to take the role.
  • Music videos for "Sole Survivor" and "Wildest Dreams" were submitted at one point, but Geffen Records rejected them from airing on MTV. The latter was shot down because of the "overwhelmingly violent nature of the video", as "A Complete and Authorized Asia Biography" puts it.
  • When John Wetton first exited the group in 1983, Brad Delp of Boston fame was considered to be the replacement vocalist before Greg Lake was settled on. Rumor has it that Trevor Horn of The Buggles was also a candidate.
  • Then after Steve Howe either left or got fired (depending on who you ask), possible session replacements included Jeff Beck and David Gilmour.
  • There were plans in place to shoot a music video for every song on Astra. Each of them would've followed the story of Aza (the name of the cyborg woman featured on the cover), a concept arguably ahead of its time. Unfortunately, due to the album's disappointing sales figures, only the lead single "Go" ever got this music video treatment.
  • There was an attempt to get the first Asia reunion going in 1987, with Scott Gorham on guitar and Michael Sturgis on drums. But a record label couldn't be secured for it, so the idea was put off for another few years.
  • A music video for "Who Will Stop the Rain?" was planned and scripted, with the theme involving a tribute to old spaghetti western movies. But the record label ran out of money for the shoot so it was never made. John Payne lamented about how if it were finished and aired in America, Asia could've regained some of its former attention there.
  • There was talk of having Asia tour alongside Jethro Tull in 1996, and according to John Payne, the deal was almost secured. But another band beat them to the punch at the last minute. The kicker? It was none other than Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
  • Tracks 17-22 on Rare were supposed to be used in a PS1 video game, but according to the album's liner notes, it "never saw the light of day due to creative differences with the producers".
  • In 1999, plans were starting to form for a reunion with John Wetton again. Steve Howe would be busy with Yes once more, but Wetton and Carl Palmer were on board with the idea. However, there was a catch: The reunion wouldn't include John Payne. By then, Geoff Downes was too invested with Payne to just abandon him like that, so he tried compromising. He proposed both singers being on stage together to merge the old and new eras of Asia, similar to what Yes did eight years earlier. Legal drama over the rights to the Asia name ensued, and it turned out Payne owned a 2/3 share to the Asia name, meaning the fate of a Wetton reunion was ironically in his hands. A combination of Payne believing it would cause the band to collapse and Downes perceiving a lack of interest in the US regrettably shot the idea down.
  • Steve Lukather from Toto and Brian May of Queen fame were both planned to appear as guest guitarists on Aura. Each of their schedules were already filled though, which prevented them from putting anything to tape on it.
  • Early track listings for Silent Nation included a song called "Long and Lonely Ride", but reportedly it wasn't finished in time for the album's deadline, so it was cut.
  • Rodney Matthews' website reveals that he was commissioned to make another album cover for the band in 2004. The Armada title suggests that it was meant to be for a fourth installment of the fan club CD series of the same name, but it was ultimately cancelled with the original lineup's reunion on the horizon.
  • A John Payne-fronted followup to Silent Nation was in the works in 2005, under the title The Architects of Time. With the original lineup reunion happening just a year later, it never saw the light of day. ^note  Although some of its material was reworked into Payne's next band, called GPS
• Working Title: Asia's third album was originally titled Arcadia during production. Then members of Duran Duran started a side project of that same name, so the title was changed to Astra to avoid confusion.
  • Their thirteenth album was first announced as Valkyrie, but the final release had it changed to Gravitas.