Love Quote by Trevor Rabin

There’s a particular kind of defensiveness that only shows up when someone is proud of their work but tired of the mythology around it. Trevor Rabin’s line is ostensibly about joy - the rush of being in a band, the creative give-and-take - but the real action is in the parenthetical: “although some would suggest…” That clause is a quiet rebuttal to an old rock-world accusation, the one that shadows any member perceived as the “composer guy,” the studio brain, the hired-gun virtuoso: talented, yes, but supposedly not “one of the lads.”

Rabin came into Yes during its 1980s reinvention, a moment when prog’s communal, jam-based romance collided with pop polish, radio deadlines, and producer logic. In that environment, “collaboration” becomes a contested word. Fans and bandmates often treat it like a moral category: authentic bands merge identities; compromised ones submit to a dominant writer or a corporate sheen. Rabin’s insistence that the critique “is not true” isn’t just self-defense; it’s a bid to redefine collaboration as something that can include leadership, arrangement, and making hard calls.

The line works because it captures the contradiction at the heart of famous group dynamics: the audience demands a unified “we,” while the work often requires someone to steer. Rabin isn’t denying conflict; he’s challenging the simplistic narrative that control and collaboration are opposites. In a band, you can be decisive and still be communal - but you’ll be accused of not sharing the wheel the moment the steering becomes visible.