Former Yes drummer Bill Bruford reflected on his return to the band for 1991’s Union album, telling Rolling Stone the experience was, simply, “no good.”Bruford cofounded Yes and played with the band from 1968 to 1972, leaving after they released the landmark Close to the Edge (which is getting a deluxe reissue next month). He went on to play with King Crimson and Genesis that decade, and he formed the jazz group Earthworks in 1986. Bruford reunited with some of his Yes bandmates in the late ’80s for Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, which joined the then-current Yes lineup (Tony Kaye, Chris Squire, Trevor Rabin and Alan White) to write and record Union.Sound like a lot of cooks in the kitchen? Bruford agrees. “Too many people. Too artificial,” he told Rolling Stone. “It’s a kind of Hollywood idea. It was a mad idea, I think, seven or eight odd people [playing at once]. It was a kind of fantasy that a record executive would dream up. So it wasn’t a great place to be. But on the other hand, if you’re overpaid for doing very little, as I was there, you can often take that money and inject it into some other project you’re working on like Earthworks, which is a band I ran for 20 years and feed the money into that. So that worked well.”Bruford also took part in the ensuing Union tour, sharing drumming duties with White. When asked how they divided the parts, Bruford replied: “Pretty badly, I think. Mostly, I was on electronic drums and playing percussion to his heavy rock drums. Occasionally, I think I played maybe ‘Heart of the Sunrise’ alone, something like that. One critic I thought put it really well. They wrote that ‘Bill Bruford was Hollandaise sauce to Alan White’s meat and potatoes,’ which I thought was really nice. It was about right.”READ MORE: Top 50 Progressive Rock ArtistsBill Bruford Has No Desire to Reunite With YesBruford left Yes for the second and final time in 1992, going on to briefly rejoin King Crimson and then reform Earthworks. He announced his retirement from drumming in 2009, though he returned to much humbler stages in 2022 with the Pete Roth Trio.Despite returning to music, Bruford has no desire to play with Yes again. “I think I’m asked that twice a week, and have been for about 15 years,” he said. “And the answer remains, ‘No, thanks. I’m fine. I’m not going to do that.'”He’s also not holding his breath for Yes guitarist Steve Howe and former singer Jon Anderson, who now performs with the Band Geeks, to reconcile. “No, I don’t hope for those things at all,” he said. “Funnily enough, Jon and I have something in common. I think we’ve both returned in a way. Jon had a lot of time away from Yes, and he’s returned with this fresh thing and a new album. He’s putting new miles under his belt, which I think is great. And I feel kind of the same way.”Top 50 Progressive Rock Albums From ‘The Lamb’ to ‘Octopus’ to ‘The Snow Goose’ — the best LPs that dream beyond 4/4.Gallery Credit: Ryan Reed