Where are they now? - Geoff
Downes
This page last updated: 11 Oct 2026
On this page: Solo - DBA - Zorbonauts - Other projects
On other pages: Yes - Asia - With Trevor Horn
Geoff
Downes' official sites: Official
site; Official
online store; MySpace page;
Twitter; Official
Facebook; Official
Fan Page on Facebook
Asia
& Yes
Downes remains busy in Yes, including with their
new album Aurora (see main page
for their activity). He continues to lead Asia, touring and with a
new album, Indigo, due (details on the
Asia page). The Downes Braide Association (DBA) also have a
new album out, Trauma (see next section). In a Jun
2023 interview, Downes said, "I still keep in close touch
with Trevor Horn, with Carl Palmer, with YES and with Steve
[Howe]. Those three bands [The Buggles, Asia and Yes] have really
never got away far from my career. I'm still able to go out and
still involved with those three bands." In a Mar 2021
podcast, asked what was next for him, Downes talked about
Yes's The Quest (then unnamed) and finishing off the last
Asia tracks written with John Wetton, before saying, "I've still
got my solo career that I, er, fish out from time to time". In a May
2021 interview (conducted Apr), he talked about currently
working on The Quest, but also how, "I have been quite
occupied, doing other smaller projects here and there." As for the
future, he talked about the 2021 Yes tour, then added, "And if
there are any opportunities for the DBA, ASIA, or even The
Buggles, I would be up for it."
In an Oct 2026
interview on the Strange Brew podcast, Downes said of DBA,
"Chris [Braide] and I view it as a sort of sacred project. We
want to keep it removed from everything else. [...] what I would
say are the constraints if I'm writing for Yes or for Asia, but
those are very much there's a certain style of that you can't
really get away from. You can't suddenly do a rap with Yes.
[...] you couldn't change direction like that. So, there's very
much a tried and tested route that you work on with all those
projects. But I think with DBA, it's much more of a something
that is so personal to Chris and myself that we just want to
keep it what it is."
Downes Braide Association
The Downes Braide Association (DBA; Facebook,
Twitter)
is Downes and Chris
Braide (ex-Producers,
This Oceanic
Feeling, ex-Malmö, written for Trevor Horn, Sia, Paloma Faith, Lana Del Rey, David Guetta, Cheryl Tweedy, Clay
Aiken, Will Young, Kylie Minogue, S Club 7). Their sixth
studio album, Trauma (Spirit of Unicorn), was released 25
Sep 2026 on CD
(SOUMCD584) or 2LP
(SOUM2LP584). Artwork is by Roger Dean,
with assistance from Mike Inns. (Dean had
heard "Hello Hello" and "Trauma" and discussed the album with
Braide before doing the cover.) The album was produced
and mostly written by Downes and Braide. The band on the album are
Braide (vocals, piano, keys, guitar, programming), Downes (piano,
keys, programming), Ash Soan (ex-Trevor
Horn Band/Producers, Rick Wakeman,
worked with Dua Lipa, Adele, Seal; drums),
Andy Hodge (worked with Gary Husband; bass),
Dave Bainbridge (Iona; electric, acoustic
and 12-string guitars) and Tim Weller (additional drums), all
returning from the previous album. The band
recorded remotely. The late David Longdon
(Big Big Train) guests on flute, recorded in 2018 according to promo (Braide has described using
outtakes from both the sessions for Skyscraper Souls and
Halcyon Hymns) and used with the permission of his
partner. Narration is by Delilah Barrett. Dean Johnson (ex-Malmö) and Barney Ashton-Bullock (worked with Andy Bell, Giorgio Moroder, Dusty
Springfield) have written poems for the liner notes ("Trauma A", "Trauma B", "Ungrieved", "Trauma C"
by Ashton-Bullock and "Gone with You" by Johnson). There was also a string quartet on "Wherever You
are Now", with string arrangements by Braide. Tracks:
There is an accompanying commentary album, Trauma:
The Stories Behind the Songs. Braide has also promoted a
forthcoming "Waves of Elation Mix" for "I Wish I'd Known".
Trauma
made #18 on the UK independent album breakers chart (2 Oct),
which covers independently-released albums by an artist who
has never reached the Top 40.
"Wonderland (single version)" [Braide/Downes] (4:14) was the
debut, digital
single, released on 31 Jul, with a video. "Hello Hello" [Braide/Downes] (3:35) followed 1
Sep (video).
The latter was described by Braide in promo as "a deceptively
upbeat song about how our own psychology can sometimes work
against us. We can retreat into ourselves, build walls and
become isolated, and that isolation can have a devastating
effect. At its heart, the song is about having the
self-awareness and courage to reach out and say, 'I'm scared, I
need help, is there anyone there?' When we say 'love can open
doors', that begins with learning to love and accept yourself."
The song is a reworking (putting the verses into a minor chord,
among other changes) from Braide's 2010 solo album, Something
Always Happens, where it was called "Open Doors", but
Braide said in the
Aug 2026
interview for DPRP, "I felt
like it was never officially released properly." He also
described being "involved in a band with Steve Lipson and
various people at the beginning of 2007 or 2008, and I played
the song to them at the time." That was presumably Producers
with Trevor Horn.
In promo, Braide said: "These songs emerged from the cracks.
'Trauma' is about the ghosts we inherit, the wounds we hide, and
the light that still finds its way through. In the end, it is not
an album about suffering, but survival." Downes said, "we have dug
deep into our respective layers and reservoirs of emotion, a theme
of darkness followed by light — something we both could relate to.
And in particular on this album, we have explored numerous diverse
influences characterizing the contrast of these polarized
emotions." On X, Downes said of the album, "We thought it was time
to take a step away from the 2 word album titles [...] This one's
raw, progressive but deep in emotion." In
the Oct
2026 interview on the Strange Brew podcast, Braide and
Downes discussed how the album come about:
Braide: the idea of Trauma came about because the decade that we are in seemed particularly traumatic, and the album got made over several years, actually, and several studios, and several houses, and several countries. [...] The last [...] five, six years have been quite mad, going right back to COVID and then through to the unrest and the perpetual wars that we seem to be in, and then family bereavement, lost my mother and all these sort of major things happened and then the album got birthed as a result.
Downes: And it's still traumatic, isn't it? I mean, the world is pretty traumatic at the moment, that's for sure.
[...]
Downes: I always like to think there's a light at the end of the tunnel. There is an upbeat element to the album as well. [...] we tried to get across a mixture of emotions and certainly the very final thing is one of positivity.
Braide: Yeah. In the face of adversity, you know, you sort of come through, I think.
The band did record Ashton-Bullock
narrating his own poems, but then decided to not use them within
the recording. In
the podcast, Braide said:
we decided that the songs were so strong, we felt, and the message was so succinct that we didn't really need to add narration to it as well. It was almost like over-egging the pudding, so to speak. So, we put them in the booklet and I think that's a nice way of doing it this time. [...] it also keeps sort of Skyscraper Souls, Halcyon Hymns and Celestial Songs as a trilogy in that style. And this one is its own thing.
[...]
I asked Andy [Partridge] to write a few lines for the final song, and I asked him to narrate it, and he was going to do it and then he called me the next day. He said, "I can't narrate it. I don't like the sound of my voice." So we got Delilah to do it, who was brilliant. [...] there's a poignancy to a young sort of kid saying those lines.
The pair also discussed how the album was
made with the label, with Downes saying:
the beauty of it all [...] is the fact that our stuff, we can do exactly what we want. There's no A&R guy breathing down your neck telling you what to record: you got to write a song like this or you got to write a song like that. We have an absolutely clear palette when we come to put these albums together. We just, ‘Hey, what have you got? I've got this. Have you got? Yeah.’ Put it together. Here we go. And we don't have to answer to anybody
And later, Braide added:
I think the independence comes from we actually make it and then we provide the finished thing. So, Cherry Red are fantastic and it's beautifully manufactured and distributed, but essentially the product is made by us, and then we present it. So, we're doing all the heavy lifting in terms of creating the thing from zero. And I think that really works. It's not about being controlling or anything like that. It's just actually knowing what we want and then having a great team around us that help make it happen.
In an Oct
2025 interview with Joe Cass, Downes had described his 2025
as "a year of making albums", in reference to multiple projects,
including DBA. Later in the interview, he said, "I've been working
on another album with Chris Braide. [...] that's going to come out
in the year [2026] [...] it's been a very, very busy time of me
focusing on new music". In early May 2024, Doug Curran had reported
that they have been recording their sixth studio album. In mid-Dec
2024, he described
a 15-minute long piece and said, "As of now the album has 11
tracks". He continued, "Hopefully out next summer [2025]". In late
Dec 2024, Bainbridge said he had "finished
most of the guitar parts" for the album. In an Aug 2023 YMP
interview, Downes also said, "We've already started looking at the
6th album", while in a Sep 2023
interview, Braide said, "DBA 6 is actually written". Braide
described the album, "there's definitely more progressive". He
talked about one song, "Lake of Memories", saying, "that's really
a big, long, like a "Skyscraper Souls" type [...] whole side [...]
So far, but who knows? It could change." In the Yes
Music Podcast interview, Braide said the album took
4 years to make. He also said that a lot of the album
started during the Celestial Songs period, but the
ideas then did not fit or were not finished.
In the DPRP interview,
Braide described the making of the album:
I think space and time and lack of constraints from labels or management have really helped. We just make it when we want to make it, and we spend as much time as it needs. So with this album, it's been around the world literally. It was started in Sussex, it ended up in Richmond, in London, then it went to Los Angeles and then it came back and it's been in four different houses with different studios.
[...]
I've been through a lot in the last five years, but [...] I'm a very upbeat person. [...] I think you have to treat whatever is thrown at you with the right attitude. Hopefully that comes across with the album. [...] it's the way that you deal with it. I do think it is an upbeat album. It's not a depressing album. [...] I don't feel like it's too dark, but there are definitely elements that hint at that.
He was asked about specific tracks and had
this to say about "Lake of Memories": "it was a piece that we
had around the time of the last album that we didn't do anything
with. I can't remember what it was called. It had a working
title, but it was like a two-minute instrumental, and I kept
coming back to it because I really liked it [...] it's almost
like you just capture the muse and it leads you there. So, with
Skyscraper Souls and Lake of Memories, they're not long for the
sake of it. I'm not just bolting bits on to make it longer.
[...] It takes you on a journey. I want to be taken on a journey
as a listener and as a fan of long-form pieces. So, yeah, it
just kind of evolved really. And lyrically, I think it's
probably from reading a lot of Greek mythology stuff around that
time". In the Yes Music Podcast interview, Braide said the piece
began as a 1-minute instrumental piece by Downes done around the
time of Celestial Songs. He also described the end of
the song as "Jon Anderson-esque". The duo discussed the song in
the Strange Brew podcast:
Downes: when you put together a piece like that, you start to just keep adding things on, y'know, rather than conceiving it as a piece.
[...]
Braide: it actually started life during the writing for Celestial Songs and it was a little kind of instrumental that Geoff gave me and it didn't get used for that. [...] it got put on the shelf on the hard drive, and then when I listened to it again it was the right time to write to it. And it was called "Mono Lake", the [...] working title. And then that sparked the thing because my wife's really into Greek mythology [...] and she said lake of memory, which is a whole thing in Greek mythology and I said, "I'm nicking that!"
Also on the Strange Brew podcast, Braide
said of "Juliet": "I originally did it [...] as just me singing
it and [...] there was just something missing. My voice is quite
sweet sounding sometimes and Marc [Almond] has this other thing
going on. [...] when the two come together, it's kind of like
this yin and yang thing."
On "Wherever You are Now", in the DPRP
interview, Braide said:
when I wrote that, I imagined my children having relationships that meant a great deal to them, and then those relationships ending for some reason, with them looking back at that when they're older. [...] but when my mum passed away, it took on a deeper direction. Then I was imagining my dad being left on this planet without my mum after 60 years of marriage [...]
But again, I don't think it's a negative or depressing song. I think it's a kind of requiem for love, really. I mean, tha[t] is the price of love, isn't it? You're going to pay for it someday.
And from the Strange Brew podcast:
Downes: I think it's very moving. I think that when I sent the original idea to Chris, we thought about maybe building it up into something bigger, but I think that the starkness of it and the fact that it's not a huge production, it's more just a sort of voice and piano type approach, and I just think it's very different from some of the other stuff on the album, which is much more intense, much more arranged, much more orchestrated. [...]
Braide: I think Geoff's piano part on that is just [...] sublime, y'know, and it could only have been a song full of pathos. [...] when I wrote the lyric and the melody over the top of the piano, [...] I was imagining young people looking back at their early relationships and reminiscing and walking down the sort of riverside and remembering their sort of lost loves. And then my mother died and I came back to that song about a year later and suddenly it's like, oh no, it's much bigger than that. It's about multigenerational loss.
The forthcoming Asia album Indigo includes "On a Winter's Night", co-written by Downes and Braide, and "Change of Heart", co-written by Downes, Braide and Johnson. Weller, Hodge and Bainbridge all appear on Braide's Producer solo album.
Their fifth studio album, Celestial Songs was released in
2023 on Cherry Red, with art by Dean. Downes is credited with
piano, keys and programming, while Braide is credited with vocals,
piano, keys and programming. The album was produced by Braide and
Downes, and mixed by Braide. Tracks (67:40 total duration), all
tracks by Braide/Downes except where indicated otherwise (spoken
word segments by Ashton-Bullock):
"Goodbye to You (Sister Shame)" was originally written by Braide
and Partridge in 2014. The original song was released on Bandcamp
as "Sister
Shame (I Don't Feel Down)" on Bandcamp on 1 Mar 2026, both
their demo and a finished version.
The album made #7 in the UK rock & metal albums chart, #10 in the indie breakers album chart (albums by artists who have not yet made the top 40), #27 in the indie album chart, #63 in the album sales chart, and #60 in the physical albums chart.
The band on the album were Downes, Braide, Soan (drums on all
tracks with drums, except 1), Hodge (fretted and fretless bass)
and Bainbridge (electric & acoustic guitars, madonlin,
bouzouki, keyboard solo on 3). Tim Weller also played drums on
"Look What You Do" and additional drums on "Goodbye to You" and
"On the Run". Marc Almond (Soft Cell, worked with
Chris Braide, Trevor Horn) guested singing on "Darker
Side of Fame". Also returning was Ashton-Bullock. Francis Dunnery (It Bites, ex-The Syn, worked with ABWH)
guested with additional vocals and guitar on "Keep on Moving". In
an interview with Prog magazine, Braide explained that
Dunnery had come in to work on another project of Braide's, but
his guitar contributions didn't fit. However, Braide said, "I
thought they were great. So Geoff and I wrote the song around that
lick, and it really makes the song." There are also songwriting
credits for Andy Partridge (ex-XTC), who
guested with DBA previously. Partridge helped finish the lyrics
for "Goodbye to You (Sister Shame)". In an Aug
2023 interview with Yes Music Podcast, Downes said Celestial
Songs is not a concept album, but that there is "a
continuity" to the lyrics. Downes described "Darker Side of Fame":
"It tells a story, a theme that a lot of people, and a lot of
musicians, can relate to – certainly musicians that have had any
kind of success. The lyric is very poignant, whilst you have all
the glory, the accolades and the adulation, it can go away and
you're left with nothing. It reflects life in general, I think, as
people go through all kinds of ups and downs throughout their
careers and throughout their lives." About the album generally, he
said, "There's a lot of variety on the album [...] We were aiming
to get quite a bit more dynamics into this album because there
were some very quiet pastoral moments." Braide described the
album: "As we were writing the songs for the album, they started
to become thematic in emotion and feeling[.] More classic rock
than the predecessor Halcyon Hymns. The songs were about
life and death, time, love, nostalgia, spirituality." He said
about "Beyond the Stars" that it "was a tune that began in 2015
and really shaped the way the artwork was to develop. Something
bigger than us, something astral and heavenly, it grew from a
3-minute ditty to an 11-minute epic." He also said they came up
with the album title in 2020.
On Facebook,
Braide said he had the verse melody for "Clear Light" and nearly
all of the lyric in 2015, but no chorus. Downes then came up with
a chord progression in a "weird" time signature. The lyric is
about "ego and how it can blind you to the beauty of things".
"Beyond the Stars" is another song begun in 2015. In a later Facebook
post, Braide talked about "Will to Power", saying the verses
and more were written during the writing of Skyscraper Souls,
but they felt the song didn't fit on Skyscraper Souls or Halcyon
Hymns. He also said the middle section of "Heart Shaped
Hole" was by Downes, while the rest of the song, he said in another
interview, he wrote some years ago. "Dear Petra" is based on
a piano melody from Downes; Braide's lyrics were originally about
child abuse, but were then re-written to be about the war in
Ukraine.
The band finished making the album in Apr 2022. Downes said in a
May
2022 interview with Yes Music Podcast that the release would
be around Sep/Oct 2022. He also said there would be less spoken
word than on Halcyon Hymns. In a late
Jun 2022 tweet, he said they were looking at Oct 2022 for a
release, with no live dates yet planned. Bainbridge said in a 2022
new year's update that he is "continuing to record guitar parts on
a whole host of great new tracks with Chris Braide and Geoff
Downes, which will become the fifth Downes Braide Association
studio album." He said to Doug Curran in Jul 2022 that the release
would be Oct/Nov and that 2 music videos are planned. He explained
vinyl manufacturing backlogs were causing a delay. Curran later
reported that the release has been delayed to Mar 2023, because of
vinyl manufacturing delays.
The band's Twitter account wrote on 31 Jan 2022 that, "Chris and
Geoff are back in the studio adding the finishing touches to some
amazing DBA tracks. Roger Dean is being kept busy too." Hodge said
on Facebook on 12 Apr 2022:
The latest DBA album is nearly ready! The title and release dates will be announced soon so please watch this space.
I’m overjoyed to be playing bass on yet another fabulous collection of songs [...] this time deploying even more basses including: Fender Precision, Warwick Thumb V, Musicman Stingray 4-string fretted and 5-string fretless, and Squier Jazz fretless all make appearances; Rotosound strings, EBS MicroBass 3, various Boss pedals, and a smattering of Avid plug-ins all engineered by my good self in the comfort of my home studio.
Dean did live sessions painting the cover on
Facebook, from 1 Feb 2022; he finished the cover on 15 Mar
2022. His design is on his 2023 calendar.
Asked in an Aug 2023 band
interview about touring, Braide said, "The live thing is
always [...] the elephant in the room" for the band with both
himself and Downes busy with other projects. He continued: "We
just wait for our time in the [...] limelight [...] it will
happen, y'know. It's just a case of when and how we do it." The Prog
interview has that Downes "promises to fit in some new gigs around
his commitments to Yes." It then quotes Downes: "Until now we
haven't really had the opportunity, but next year [2024] we hope
to travel around the country [presumably the UK] and take our
music out there". In a Sep
2023 interview, Braide says touring "depends on schedules"
and that Yes "comes first" in terms of live work, but that they
would "love to do it". He continued, "I only want to do it if we
can do it properly". He also said that he and Marc Almond will
perform "Darker Side of Fame" at a joint live
show in Nov 2023, and possibly further material from the
album. In another Sep 2023
interview, he said they would also do "Warm Summer Sun".
With
Trevor Horn
The Buggles news is under Horn.
Some years back, the pair were working together on new material,
and there was talk of a possible tour and musical. Horn toured as
The Buggles without Downes in 2023, as support on a tour by Seal.
Some
material, also with Horn, is included on The Definitive
Anthology 1977-1981 from Bruce Woolley and the Camera
Club: see
under Horn for details.
Other news
In a Sep 2026
interview, with All Music Magazine, asked about writing an
autobiography, Downes replied, "I'm working on it. Yeah, I will
put it out one day, because I've got some great memories and
some great moments". In a May
2023 interview, he had talked about writing a memoir at some
point.
On 25 Jul 2025, Downes played a sold out show in Usk, Wales to
raise money for the Love
Hope Strength Foundation, a charity founded by the late Mike
Peters (The Alarm). Downes was joined by
Harry Whitley (Asia; vocals,
keys) for a set including "House of the Rising Sun" (originally by
The Animals), "Delilah" (originally by Tom Jones) and something by
The Eagles, while "Video Killed the Radio Star" was performed with
Whitley on vocals and guitar, Angharad Griffiths (vocals) and, I
think, Jim Ramsey (guitar).
Downes and Whitley were doing another charity appearance at a concert
in Tenby, Wales on 21 May 2026 for Save the Children,
organised by the Tenby Male Choir.
Also performing were children from most of Tenby’s primary and
secondary schools, the Tenby Community Learners Choir and Tenby
Male Choir.
In a Sep
2021 interview with Prog Radar, when asked about the
possibility of a new solo album, Downes replied, "I have been
thinking about doing something, although quite what that will be
is very open. I think I'd like to do something in a similar vein
to 'The Light Program' from 1987, a sort of 'stream of
consciousness' album of its time". Asked in the Oct 2020
interview about the possibility of doing another New Dance
Orchestra album, Downes replied, "I'm always open to doing another
one".
Downes appeared on Steve Howe's EP
Signals Crossed, out Dec 2025: see under Howe.
In 1977, Downes was in Gary Boyle's solo band, after Boyle had
left the band Isotope. Three tracks from a BBC session by Boyle
were released in the 2004 album Live
at the BBC by Isotope and Gary Boyle. Those tracks are
now also included on Boyle's 2CD Light
Again - The Recordings 1977-1978 (Esoteric,
ECLEC22945), out 24 Jul 2026.
In a May
2022 interview, Downes said, "during lockdown John [Lodge (ex-The Moody Blues)] and I wrote a couple of
songs together; remotely of course (laughter). After that, John
sent me a song a couple of months ago and I was going to put some
keyboards on it, so I did that, and John really liked what I did
on it." The latter song appears to be "Whispering Angels",
included on the EP Love will Conquer All, out Feb 2025,
and also with input from Jon Davison, Lodge's son-in-law. Lodge
has since passed away. See more under
Davison.
Downes played on the Producers' 2012 album Made in Basing
Street with Trevor Horn. The album received a 5CD box set
re-release in Jul 2024, although I don't think any of the
previously unreleased material features Downes. A Blu-ray version
follows in 2026: see under
Horn for details.