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Current Yes frontman Jon Davison has issued a statement regarding the copyright lawsuit filed by his former friend and bandmate Riz Story.
Story, whose legal name is Rudolph Zahler, is claiming Davison and Yes’ Steve Howe stole the music from his song “Reunion,” which was featured in the indie movie A Winter Rose, for the Yes song “Dare To Know,” which appeared on the band’s 2021 album, The Quest.
“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,” Davis shared on Yes’ website, calling Riz’s claims “blatant lies.”
Davison says he and the band have evidence proving they didn’t steal “Reunion,” and says the musicologist report in Riz’s suit that claims the songs are similar “is seriously flawed and uses deceptive methods to force a similarity that is not there.”
Davison goes on to say he didn’t write “Dare To Know,” and that he never heard Riz’s composition “Reunion” and didn’t see the movie, noting he only congratulated him on the film “out of politeness.”
He also says it’s “a complete fabrication” that he talked about the music from the film with Riz, adding, “The ‘composition’ isn’t even on the soundtrack album, so I couldn’t have even stumbled across it by accident.”
“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,” Davison says. “Our lawyer described this as a ‘shakedown’, and I can see no better word for it.”
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