In October 2025, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee John Lodge of the Moody Blues passed away at the age of 82. Though the Moody Blues had stopped touring back in 2018, that hadn’t kept Lodge from hitting the road with his 10,000 Light Years Band, where he’d continue to perform some of the band’s most notable songs that he’d written, including “Isn’t Life Strange,” “I’m Just A Singer (In A Rock and Roll Band)” and “Ride My See-Saw”. During this time, John was often joined on tour by Jon Davison, the lead singer for Yes since 2012. The two became close both musically and personally when Davison began a relationship with Lodge’s daughter, Emily (the two are now married).
Jon and Emily recently announced A Tribute to John Lodge: An Evening of Moody Blues Music, two concerts taking place in July and featuring the 10,000 Light Years Band performing alongside video footage of John. The shows take place at The Bilheimer Capitol Theatre, Clearwater, Florida, on July 17 and then at Esher Theatre, Esher, UK, on July 26. I had the chance to get on the phone again with Jon, whom I first spoke with back in 2018 during Yes’ 50th Anniversary Tour, to talk about his relationship with John, Emily, the music of the Moody Blues, and the upcoming tribute shows. Oh, and Yes as well.
Jon Davison: Yo, Andy. How you doing?
Andy Burns: Good! It’s great to talk to you again.
Jon Davison: You too. We finally connected in a voice-to-voice, which is nice.
Andy Burns: It’s been a while. How are you?
Jon Davison: I’m great, thanks. All things considered, it’s been quite a rollercoaster ride, let me tell you. Being really inducted into the Lodge family and standing strong, keeping the women in the family together, and dealing with my own grief and listening to this wonderful music of John’s, getting into that, and getting myself prepared for the performances that we’ll do in his honour. So there is a lot of emotion going around, but all in all, where there is love, I always say, there is progress.
Andy Burns: That’s beautiful. It’s a great way to begin. Your recent life and these shows that you are going to be doing, remembering John Lodge, it really began as a love story. Tell me about meeting Emily, because I feel like so much of your life over the last little while has been this relationship you two have.
Jon Davison: That’s really at the core of it. And that was part of John’s values. He was such a family man. It was a beautiful experience because we met on a Cruise To The Edge in 2019. John Lodge’s band happened to be on the cruise as well, so naturally, Emily was there managing everything. And our publicist, Sharon Chevin, John and Yes all share the same publicist; Sharon was there with Emily. They kind of stumbled out of a restaurant after having a very merry time. I was standing at the bar, and they just sort of filled the room. And Sharon said, “I want you to meet Emily Lodge.” And you know, it’s that kind of moment, it’s almost like an eureka moment where there is light radiating out from her smile. And you know, Andy, it’s fascinating because for whatever reason, the Moody Blues were never in my music listening orbit. So I hadn’t really discovered their canon. I knew a few of the milestone songs, but they were always on the periphery of my music listening. And that was better at that time because I think if I had been like a super fan or something, the dynamic would have been different. But the point is that I approached Emily for the person she is. It had nothing to do with her dad’s success; it didn’t cloud anything. Meeting John and his lovely wife Kirsten, the same thing—I could just meet him person to person and obviously relate highly because of our musicality and the type of careers we have, but there was never any sort of admiration that was clouding my judgment or anything, and they could pick up on that. So it was a very natural relationship that developed.
Andy Burns: Let’s stick on that for one second. You brought up the music of the Moody Blues. They’re a band I only started listening to after seeing John Lodge on the Royal Affair tour. But a year before that, I was very lucky to be in Cleveland to see the Moody Blues get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I was an absolute latecomer to that music, though. My prog rock leanings as a teenager were Yes, it was Genesis, and it was King Crimson; music with a little bit of a harder edge, that spoke to my fifteen-year-old, would-be rocker ways. When you started listening to the Moody Blues post-meeting Emily and post-meeting John, what did you take away from that music as an adult that you wouldn’t have taken away as a teenager exploring your own musical tastes?
Jon Davison: Like you, Andy, I came from the school of RUSH, and I could relate to Yes, the “Heart of the Sunrise,” the “Roundabout,” and the “Relayer ” stuff; the driven rhythmic centric stuff of Chris Squire and Alan White. I could relate to that. I appreciated the rockier edge. And you know, Genesis, with all their flowery kind of delicacy and pastoral kind of ethereal vibe, they also had some pretty rocky, dark kind of stuff going on. So those were my two favourites too. I don’t know if I would have understood Moody Blues at the time. But what was neat was falling in love with Emily and really falling in love with the family and spending time with them. We were stuck during a second lockdown in Barbados altogether, and we had all this free time that we really bonded as people. I think it was then that I wanted to listen to my friend’s music. That was what drove me to listen to the music because I just wanted to understand more about what John was all about. So I went back, and I just dove deep into the whole (Moody Blues) canon, the original core six or the core seven, and I must tell you, Andy, I felt like it resonated so true to my heart. Honestly, I felt like, “Wow. This is a piece of my childhood that somehow I missed.” And perhaps as I said, I wouldn’t have understood it as much then, but I understand it now, and it gave me a sense of innocence; the whimsical sort of spiritual-themed music that resonates with me. You know how they say you can’t go back to reclaim your childhood? Where I sort of was able to go back, with listening to all these fantastic albums of the early Moody Blues; it actually did take me back, and I feel more that this music was a big piece missing from my life. It’s really something deep in me, and to think now we can honour John, propelling the music forward as he asked me to.
Andy Burns: Both of us discovered the Moody Blues at a little bit of an older age. If you were to recommend to someone who’s going to read our interview, and maybe they’re coming to it through Yes, maybe there’s a little bit less familiarity with the Moody Blues, what album or albums would you recommend to them first?
Jon Davison: I would say go back to the beginning: Days of Future Passed. Absorb that album. Listen to it a couple times. Maybe spend a week on it. And then move on to the next one: In Search of the Lost Chord. I would go chronologically like that, and I would take the journey of their evolution because it’s very interesting. I think if you see their earlier time, you are able to understand more why they went the directions they did. It’s definitely an album-oriented experience. That’s what I would say.
Andy Burns: You‘re doing two concerts called A Tribute to John Lodge: An Evening of Moody Blues Music, one in the UK and one in Florida. How did the idea for these shows come together for you?
Jon Davison: You know, John actually did ask me, “Someday, you can carry all this on,” and I was all blushes because I didn’t want to even imagine life without him. (Music Director) Alan Hewitt is in the same situation as I was. We were saying, “How can we carry this on?” John wants us to carry it on, but he was such a larger-than-life character, and he was the captain of the ship. How can we steer this in a way that honours him? We couldn’t really imagine doing it without him at the same time. And then Alan had this brilliant idea: “Well, why don’t we sync some of his past performances that we have on video to the music, and we can have him on stage with us, on a large screen.” Suddenly, it started to make sense.
Andy Burns: Was it a hard decision to think about doing shows like this, knowing he wanted you to continue on this music?
Jon Davison: I think what’s most important is that we honour his wishes, and he’d want us to go on, and he’d want us to celebrate the music. Music that he was very proud of, music that he poured his heart and soul into. His lyrics, they’re love letters to humanity really, and that’s something that needs to carry on. I think the world needs it now more than ever.
Andy Burns: You’re going to be playing bass during these tribute shows, which I know is a core instrument for you. How does it feel going back to playing bass?
Jon Davison: It really, really is exciting. If I didn’t admire John enough already, going back and really putting his bass parts under the microscope, I am just like, “Wow.” These bass parts are so melodic, but beautifully technical at the same time. They were such a driving force for the band. It’s just such an honour. It’s great to get back into that work mode of picking up an instrument and really digging in long hours of playing and honing the parts. It’s a different kind of mindset than doing that for vocals, really. I realized how much I missed that from my Sky Cries Mary days. I made it a point to keep practicing and keep my chops up and all that, but I haven’t really had a reason to pick up the bass so regularly as I do now. It’s very rewarding. And again, I just feel so honoured to help John Lodge’s band carry on by stepping into that role. It’s sort of perfect that I happen to play bass.
Andy Burns: What are some of the songs fans can expect to hear at A Tribute to John Lodge: An Evening of Moody Blues Music?
Jon Davison: It’s going to be a nice balance of our focus on John’s original music through his time with the Moody Blues, but also we’re going to honour his bandmates in the Moody Blues as well. We’ll be paying tribute. It’s a well-rounded Moody Blues experience, like most fans have positively commented on through the years since I’ve been part of John’s band. They feel that John was always carrying on what was most accurate to the spirit of Moody Blues, and so we will preserve that. There’ll be a few surprises, but it’ll be just a balance of honouring John’s successes as a songwriter, but also honouring the Moody Blues as a whole.
Andy Burns: You’ve got John’s 10,000 Light Years Band playing this music as well, which is great. Tell me about these guys.
Jon Davison: Alan Hewitt was always John’s musical director. He was the brilliant mind and talent behind recreating the orchestral arrangements of Days of Future Past. He’s kind of a mastermind of putting together the sound. Then there’s Billy Ashbaugh, who was also in the Moody Blues as a drummer. What’s great about Billy is that he was actually in the band NSYNC. He’s got this super tight, in the pocket on top of the beat skill set, but what he does so brilliantly is he marries that with the natural swing of Graham Edge, that Moody, smoky swing and jazzy swing, but with a little bit more of a current proggy kind of edge that John loved. Because remember, John was the rocker, he wanted the music energized. Billy brings a beautiful balance to both those elements. And then John told Alan, “You’ve got to have some kind of live string element in the mix,” so we have the cellist Jason Charbonneau. He’s been in the 10,000 Light Years band all these years as well. So we have a live cellist on stage, bringing so much air, movement and beauty to these string arrangements. And Duffy King is a longtime guitar player. We all want to just give a huge thanks to John for helping our careers and believing in us.
Andy Burns: Let me ask you about a specific song. I saw you on the Royal Affair tour with John, and you played “Ride My See-Saw.”
Jon Davison: That’s right, I did the encore. He invited me out to do that.
Andy Burns: I think I probably first heard that song in my early, early twenties. It’s so very different from, say, “Nights and White Satin,” which is a massive radio staple. At that point, the Royal Affair tour, that’s early on in your relationship. Had you gotten to know each other very well? What was the setting like there?
Jon Davison: We were actually in the midst of getting to know each other, so when you watch a performance of that, be it firsthand as you did, or if you watch videos or hear recordings of it, that’s two souls, not just musicians and friends, but souls bonding. That’s it on stage; that’s it happening. It was happening then. It was beautiful. And you know what’s fun? Just going back to your previous point, there’s “Nights In White Satin” and “Ride My See-Saw.” What was so great about John and his diversity was that he could write a beautiful song like “Isn’t Life Strange,” which to me is an equivalent of “Nights in White Satin.” He was the rocker as well. So he wrote “Ride My See-Saw” and “I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band),” “Peak Hour,” another song from the first album. He was the rocker in the band, and he wrote some really freaking good ones. There is so much diversity in the band, but I always admired that about John because, second to Justin Hayward, he wrote some of the major hits—both soft ballad-type stuff, but also the rockier stuff. He was very diverse in that way, and I always admired that, and I still do.
Andy Burns: You’ve got two shows lined up. Are there thoughts of doing more? I know you’re a busy guy.
Jon Davison: I think we would love to do it. We’re going to just read the audiences and see how they feel, because this celebration of life isn’t just about the band honouring John; it’s about fans coming out and sharing their love. It’s the exchange of energy between those on stage and those in the audience. It’s of paramount importance that fans come out and support it if they want to see more of it. It does make a difference, and it means the world to us, and I know it will mean the world to John.
Andy Burns: As you know, I saw you perform with Yes in York, Pennsylvania, back in October 2025, and it was just a couple of days after John passed away. I think you’ve said elsewhere that John would have said,” You know, go ahead, the show must go on.” And I think maybe Emily would have said something similar. How was it for you on a personal level?
Jon Davison: It was really tough, Andy, because I couldn’t be with Emily and the family through their most difficult hour. You know, the show did have to go on. And as much as I knew that John would want me to go on stage and put a smile on my face, (at) the moment it was hard because that first set is full of balladry and soft, romantic, heartfelt music. We had the part of “Gates” that proceeds “Soon” so we had a rockier, heavier bit, and we start with “Siberian,” and we went into “Silent Wings of Freedom” and we end the first set with “Tempus Fugit,” but beyond that, there was a lot of mellow, romantic parts of that set, and all that emotion I was feeling, the grief and the confusion, I was reluctant. I thought, “How can I go on and sing this very emotional set and not just break down?” Because he just passed. I felt part of the healing process would be to pay tribute to John. Everyone else in the band was so supportive, and they all, of course, unanimously said, “Oh yes, let’s do it.” So Emily and I crafted the idea of having John’s picture. Emily chose that picture, one of her favourites, and we wrote ” In Loving Memory ” beneath it. I thought of the area where it should pop up on screen on “Soon.” I thought that was perfect because that really is a hymn to life, not just the material life, but spiritual life, perhaps the afterlife. It means a lot of things to a lot of people. I thought that was perfect. But I do remember, Andy, standing there, and I’m not sure if the first couple nights I could even look back at the screen. Eventually, I was able to, I could face the screen, and it came up. I would sort of bow at John and then turn and go and sing songs for him. But the first couple nights, I don’t think I could even look because I probably just would have broken down in tears. The voice is such an emotional instrument. I believe you can transfer your emotion into an instrument, but it’s always this other apparatus. You could argue and say, “No, Jimi Hendrix was one with his guitar.” Of course, but what I am saying is the voice is your actual body. Your instrument is your body, so it’s going to reveal every quiver of emotion. Ultimately, I have to say it was transcending, and it was healing, and it got better over time, and I did feel like John was with me looking down and saying, “Come on, you know, chin up. Get through this, celebrate the music. I want to carry on joyfully.”
Andy Burns: Now, before I let you go, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you about the new Yes album, which I know you’ve been working on and is coming out this summer. What can you tell me?
Jon Davison: I consider this new album, called Aurora, to be very much part of a trifecta with the last two albums. There is a continuity from The Quest. From that to Mirror in the Sky, then to Aurora. Just like we evolved from The Quest and did Mirror…, which had its own aspects, we’ve done the same again. We’ve gone another direction with Aurora. So there’ll be enough familiarity there. There’s a sense of momentum, and there’ll be a lot of surprises. So all I can say to you, Andy, is you’ll be surprised!
Thanks to Jon Davison for his time and to Glass Onyon’s Keith James for helping make it happen.
You can get tickets to A Tribute To The Moody Blues’ John Lodge at The Bilheimer Capitol Theatre, Clearwater, Florida, on July 17 here.
You can get tickets to A Tribute To The Moody Blues’ John Lodge at Esher Theatre, Esher, UK, on July 26 here.
