Republican John Brabender has served as a strategist on presidential campaigns for Rick Santorum and Rudy Giuliani. Democrat Tad Devine helped steer such efforts for John Kerry and Al Gore. And Steve Capus, a Republican turned Independent, ran NBC News for almost eight years until this past February.
But this year, the three are blurring party lines to collaborate on a campaign: Getting the ’70s prog-rock band Yes into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“The fan base is astonished that the band is not in yet. Everyone we talk to says, ‘What do you mean they’re not in?’ ” says Capus, a New Yorker.
The band has been eligible for the Hall for almost two decades (acts are eligible 25 years after a debut release; Yes’ first album came out in 1969). But, despite having scored seven top-10 albums between 1971 and 1983, this year is the first time they’ve been nominated. (The Hall of Fame is expected to make its judgment in the next couple of weeks.)
Yes has long polarized the rock world. Fans admire the band for their classically influenced musicianship and experimental songs; detractors roll their eyes at the new-agey lyrics and scenery-chewing solos.
Brabender, who, like Devine, lives in Washington, D.C., has been a Yes fan since his teens, and estimates he’s seen them some 35 times. “I found it was music you could listen to over and over again,” he says.
This grass-roots campaign, called Voices for Yes, is his brainchild. Brabender estimates that he, Capus and Devine spend a minimum of 10 hours a week on the project, applying political strategies to a p.r. campaign aimed at music-industry voters.
Voting for the Hall is a secretive process that involves more than 600 mostly unidentified musicians, music journalists, executives and others.
Brabender, Capus and Devine are organizing famous fans to tweet their support. Among the boldface names who love Yes: former NBA coach Phil Jackson and former presidential candidates Jon Huntsman and Mike Huckabee.
To help further spread the word, Voices of Yes is producing a six- to 10-minute video, which is where Capus comes in.
The former NBC News president is such a big Yes fan that when he announced he was leaving the network, several of his colleagues, including anchor Brian Williams, got band members Steve Howe and Chris Squire to participate in a video tribute.
“I remember taking [the woman who’s now] my wife to a Yes concert in ’96, and the fact that she obliged [made me think], ‘OK, she’s serious,’ ” jokes Capus.
He is supervising the video, which includes live footage and interviews with the band.
“We did extensive research to learn the [voting] criteria. It’s not just record sales,” says Brabender. “One is the influence they’ve had on other bands.” So Voices for Yes compiled a dossier of quotes from musicians discussing the band’s influence. “Rush got in last year, and Rush has made it very clear that Yes was a huge influence [on them, as have] bands from Pearl Jam to the Red Hot Chili Peppers to members of Led Zeppelin,” Brabender says.
Another aspect of the campaign relates to a new component that allows fans to vote at the Hall’s Web site, but only counts the collective fan opinion as one ballot.
Still, Brabender says Voices of Yes is actively trying to get fans to vote, because he’s learned that some voters take the fan opinion into account. At press time, Yes was in fourth place — behind, in order, KISS, Nirvana and Deep Purple — and Brabender hopes to get them up to second or third before voting concludes on Dec. 10.
The funny thing is, after almost 20 years of being shunned by the Hall, the band —which releases a 13-CD box set on Dec. 24 — is a bit non-plussed by the nomination.
“It’s a constant thing from fans and journalists: ‘Why aren’t you in the Hall?’ ” says Squire. “For a long time there was a bias against prog rock. It’s just in the last few years that the tide has changed. I haven’t lost sleep over the fact that we haven’t been inducted, but it would be a nice thing.”
Brabender, Capus and Devine say that if Yes is not voted in this year, Voices for Yes will continue until they are.
“I don’t think doing something for a rock band will end gridlock in Washington,” Devine says.
“But I hope that people can see, notwithstanding real policy differences, that there are opportunities to find common ground and to work together on things people believe in, and that if we look for those opportunities, good things can happen.”