ASIA Trivia — 226 Entries
226 sourced facts about ASIA.
Trivia
In 1987 Downes and Wetton tried to restart Asia, with Scott Gorham of Thin Lizzy on guitar and Michael Sturgis on drums. In the recollection carried on Downes's official site, JVC in Japan made a fairly substantial offer at that point — but by then the momentum had gone, and Gorham and Sturgis split off to put 21 Guns together.
In Japan the John Payne era of the band is filed as a separate artist. Sony Music's official site lists those records under the name "Asia Featuring John Payne" — and Aria was given a Japanese title of its own, 『天空のアリア』. Aqua, Arena and Archiva, reissued alongside it, were all left as katakana transliterations, so Aria is the only one of them carrying a Japanese name.
In February 2026 Asia returned to Japan under the title ASIA IN ASIA, performing the set from their first Japanese tour of 1983. The dates were Billboard Live Osaka on 3 and 4 February, Billboard Live Yokohama on 6 February and Billboard Live Tokyo on 8 and 9 February, two stages each day — the running order of the night that was broadcast by satellite from the Nippon Budokan forty-three years earlier.
The Japanese edition of that 2022 box includes replicas of the period tour programme and ticket. Both were manufactured in Japan, and their contents differ from the European edition's — the same release, with different paper inside it depending on the country. The artwork is newly drawn by Roger Dean, and the Japanese box also carries a Japan-only 2LP.
Two songs were played at the Budokan in 1983 after the satellite broadcast had ended: the encore of "Cutting It Fine" and "Daylight". Both had been cut from the video and LaserDisc issues of the time. The 2022 box set finally includes them.
A story has long circulated about the 1983 Japanese shows: that Greg Lake disliked "Don't Cry" and refused to sing it. Asked about it by a Japanese interviewer in 2025, Geoff Downes pulled the claim back a little. Lake did say the song was too pop and too straightforward, but it was not as strong a thing as a refusal. It was the hit single from the album they were then promoting, and — Downes says — Lake played it several times while saying he did not like it.
How many concerts Asia actually played in Japan in December 1983 is recorded in Billboard's own report from Tokyo at the time: four in all — three at the Nippon Budokan and one in Osaka. The same article adds that they might be released as a live album in Japan the following year.
Sources date the satellite-broadcast Budokan concert to 6 December and to 7 December alike. That is not a contradiction but a time zone. Billboard's report from Tokyo says the show went off without a hitch "last Wednesday (7)" — and 7 December 1983 was a Wednesday, 6 December a Tuesday. The American date is the 6th, the Japanese date the 7th, and they are the same night. A sold-out house of 10,000 saw it, among them the winners of an MTV contest.
The 6 December Budokan show, released for the first time in the 2022 box set, was not merely the previous night's concert. Billboard reported at the time that a backup concert was taped at the Budokan on 6 December and sent by the same route as the following day's event: in part a full dress rehearsal to test the technical elements, and also designed to be played over MTV in case of problems with the live feed. The night that would have gone out if the broadcast had failed finally went on sale thirty-nine years later.
The broadcast was not aimed only at America. Billboard names the parties as the tour promoter Udo Artists, Sony/PCL, manager Brian Lane, Westwood One, the Japanese television station tvk, Vestron Video and others — and the concert aired in Japan as well. The reason was regulatory: under Japanese rules the signal could not be sent to Ibaraki unless a local television station owned the rights to the programming, so a deal had to be put together quickly so that the concert could air in Japan. On radio, 285 stations carried it simultaneously.
The lyric insert of the 1982 Japanese LP of the debut carried a printed apology about its own translations. Because the lyrics were abstract, it said, and because the wording had been transcribed in Japan, parts of the Japanese translation might be unclear in meaning, and the buyer's understanding was requested. The record was, in effect, admitting that no English lyric sheet had come with it and that the words had been taken down by ear in Japan. Manami Izumiyama, who reproduced the notice in her Sanseido column, says she listened on an imported copy and only saw the Japanese insert much later.
The Japanese title given to the debut album — 『詠時感～時へのロマン～』 — was the work of Sony, the company releasing it in Japan at the time. The statement comes from a uDiscover Music Japan column by Shunichiro Mori, who spent more than twenty years working in international repertoire at Toshiba-EMI. The original title was simply Asia; the Japanese one was added here.
The three characters 詠時感 are the band's name forced into Japanese script — and the forcing breaks down halfway. As the same column lays it out: 詠 can be read "ei", and 時 can be read "ji", but there is no rule by which 感 reads "a". The reader is simply strong-armed, by sheer atmosphere, into taking the three together as "Eijia".
On 3 July 2026, members of Asia performed at an event in Odaiba, Tokyo, marking 250 years of American independence, sharing the stage with members of Kansas, REO Speedwagon and Survivor. Japan's Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications, Yoshimasa Hayashi, came up on stage and joined in on guitar and backing vocals; uDiscover Music Japan reports that footage of it drew considerable attention. One of the songs played was "Only Time Will Tell".
Geoff Downes says that the bass Harry Whitley plays on stage is the instrument John Wetton used in Asia, and that he would be bringing it to Japan for the 2025 shows. Three of the current four have played with Wetton; Whitley alone never got the chance to meet him — but if John had heard him sing, Downes said, he would certainly have given his blessing.
The Wetton-side official biography has quietly changed who gets the credit. In captures of Wetton's own site, johnwetton.com, from 2010 to 2012, he joins forces with Brian Lane, who is working with the rising A&R man John Kalodner and Geffen Records to assemble a group — and "Lane found his dream line-up". From 2014 the same paragraph is rearranged so that it is Kalodner who wants to assemble a group and "he found his dream line-up". On the current estate site Lane's name has gone from the passage altogether, leaving Kalodner as the only possible subject. The rest of the wording runs on almost unchanged through all three versions.
Roger Dean's own site sets out the brief behind the dragon that wraps the 1982 debut. The painting and the logo were to look unlike Yes — that was the whole of it. There was very little time, and he wanted to have fun, so what came back was a very energetic dragon.
The third album had another title before it had this one. Roger Dean's site says the painting was conceived for the Asia album of the same name, and then adds that the album's first title was Innocence. The painting itself is recorded there as 1985, acrylic on canvas, 72 by 48 inches.
The title Aqua was not chosen by the band or the label but by the man who painted the sleeve. Rodney Matthews's own site says Asia came to him for suggestions for an album that at that point had no title. Asia tradition required a single word with an "a" at each end, so Matthews went through a dictionary and came back with "aqua". Asked to give the image both a watery and a spacey feel, he worked both into most of the seven drawings that followed — and Geoff Downes and John Payne came to his studio to pick the one that was used.
What restarted Asia in the late 1980s was not a plan for a record but an offer of work. Carl Palmer's official biography says that late in 1989 an invitation to play a series of stadium dates with the Beach Boys brought Palmer and John Wetton back into the Asia fold, alongside the hired guns John Young and Alan Darby. Encouraged by the reception, the band arranged a further tour for that autumn and convinced Geoff Downes to return.
In 1992 John Payne became Asia's frontman at Geoff Downes's invitation, replacing John Wetton on bass and lead vocals. Payne's own official site says the band toured the world extensively for the next fourteen years and released eight studio albums and several live recordings with him fronting it. The era ended in 2006, when Downes left to reform the 1982 line-up for its 25th anniversary.
The current Asia is often said to have been born at the 2023 memorial concert — but the four men playing that night were not the four playing now. In Lisa Wetton's statement, the Asia set Downes assembled that August was the closing act of a five-hour evening and the first time the outside world heard Harry Whitley on lead vocals. Jay Schellen drummed and Billy Sherwood played bass. Whitley took on bass as well as vocals, and Virgil Donati came in on drums, nine months later, for the 2024 tour.
The date of the agreement under which Payne came to trade as "Asia Featuring John Payne" differs by a year between two versions of the same official site. The current site says 9 May 2007; the older site (theasiaband.com), as archived in 2011, says 9 May 2006. Everything else in the sentence is identical — the five men contractually agreeing that Payne would continue his fourteen-year legacy. The 2006 date in circulation traces back to that older official page.
Asia's official discography does not list a single album from the John Payne era. As of August 2026 it runs fourteen entries, from 2026's Indigo back to 1982's Asia, and after 2005 – Gold it jumps straight to 1990 – Then & Now. The words "Aura" and "Silent Nation" appear nowhere on the page. Given that two of the band's highest-charting albums in Japan come from those fifteen years, the gap is conspicuous.
On 10, 11 and 12 April 2025 Asia played three consecutive nights at Trading Boundaries, one album per night: Asia on the 10th, Alpha on the 11th and Astra on the 12th — the Geffen trilogy in order, with other hits added each day. The announcement went out on 19 December 2024 in the names of Downes, Donati, Mitchell and Whitley.
Indigo, Asia's fourteenth studio album, is released on 6 November 2026 through Frontiers Music Srl — their first studio record in twelve years, since Gravitas in 2014. The line-up on it is Geoff Downes on keyboards, Virgil Donati on drums, John Mitchell on guitar and Harry Whitley on bass and lead vocals.
Indigo has two guests. Founder member Steve Howe plays acoustic guitar on "Chesapeake Bay", and Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater performs on the bonus track "Tattoo Indigo (Part 3)". The song Howe plays on is also one of those Wetton had worked on in his lifetime. Carl Palmer does not appear on the record at all.
On 19 June 2025 Frontiers Music Srl announced that it had signed Asia. Downes called it very much a homecoming for the band, and said they were entering a new chapter with live albums, DVDs and a brand-new studio album set for 2026. Frontiers' VP Mario de Riso added that it was thanks to the new line-up that new music from Asia could now come to fruition.
When the original four reunited in 2006, it raised the question of what to do with the band that had been carrying the name for nearly fifteen years. According to John Payne's official site, on 9 May 2007 Payne, Geoff Downes, John Wetton, Carl Palmer and Steve Howe contractually agreed that Payne would continue his fourteen-year legacy with Asia as "ASIA Featuring John Payne". The same site records that this band has toured North America since 2008.
After Wetton's death Asia went out on the Journey arena tour as planned, with Billy Sherwood — described by the Wetton estate as John's chosen successor — taking bass and lead vocals. The estate's official site records that on that tour Journey's Neal Schon introduced "Lights" every night by asking the whole audience to switch their phones to torch mode, as a tribute to John Wetton.
When Phoenix was reissued in 2016, the bonus disc was the American 2008 edition itself. The band explained why: the American edition had a different mix of the opening track "Never Again" and different mastering throughout. They were aware that US fans might have a different perception of the album because of it, so that version was included whole.
Who put Asia together? Brian Lane, the band's manager, has told it himself. The day after he lost Yes and the Buggles in a single meeting, Steve Howe and Geoff Downes paid him a surprise visit, apologising for that meeting and telling him they had left Yes. "I said, 'Well, let's try and form a new band.'" Lane was friendly with John Wetton — Wetton's wife was Lane's secretary — and after enlisting Carl Palmer, Asia were formed. And he adds: this was all done with the support of arguably the best A&R man that ever lived, John Kalodner of Geffen Records.
"Heat Of The Moment" begins before Asia existed. Wetton said he started writing it in 1980, when he was with Wishbone Ash: they were making the Number The Brave album at Criteria Studios in Miami, and he stayed behind every night after recording finished to work on song ideas. This was one of them. As to whom it was for, he says here that it was written for his girlfriend Jill, who later became his wife — though in another interview he described the lyric's target not as one person but as an amalgamation of two or three. On that point his own accounts do not agree.
John Wetton described "Heat Of The Moment" as an apology from beginning to end. He got it wrong, he never meant it to turn out that way, and he is sorry — that, he said, is basically what the song is. He put it that way in an interview given in 2014.
What produced "The Smile Has Left Your Eyes" on Alpha was another band member's heartbreak. Wetton's account is that Geoff Downes was going through complete emotional turmoil over a girl, that he identified with it so strongly he went home and wrote the song in five minutes, sitting straight down at the piano. If anything of his was straight from the heart, he said, that song was.
Gravitas came close to being called Valkyrie. At a band meeting Carl Palmer objected that Valkyrie was too feminine and not tough enough. Wetton disagreed — look at the mythology, he argued, and the Valkyrie has more power than the male deities. He gave way all the same, and proposed instead that they name the album after the next song they were working on. That song was "Gravitas".
"Lento", the classical-sounding introduction to "Gravitas", was not written so much as overheard. Downes says the phrase started as something his hands fell into during a soundcheck before a show. Wetton caught it and told him it was very good and to remember it. Downes, who studied Mahler and Debussy at music college, reckons that is where the phrase came from.
The sea heard at the start of Aqua is not from an effects library. The record was made in Brighton, on the coast, and one night the band went down and recorded the ocean itself — that is what opens "Aqua Part 1". The Harley-Davidson at the top of "Back in Town" was got the same way: they met a Hell's Angel in a Brighton pub, asked him to bring his Harley and ride it up and down the street, and recorded it between two microphones. The account is John Payne's.
Both Steve Howe and Carl Palmer play on Aqua, the first album after Wetton's departure — but Al Pitrelli was brought in for lead and rhythm guitars, Anthony Glynne added further guitar parts, and the drummers Simon Phillips and Nigel Glockler appear on some tracks as well. By Payne's recollection, Glockler, of Saxon, played on "Heaven on Earth" and a few others, and Phillips on "Back in Town" and "Love Under Fire".
Asia had a convention: album titles were a single word beginning and ending with "a". Asia, Alpha, Astra, Aqua, Aria, Arena, Aura — every one of them, up to 2004. Silent Nation broke it, and the Japanese press introduced the album as exactly that: a title that broke the band's own long-standing rule.
The follow-up announced in 2005 as Architect of Time was never finished as an Asia record. Payne says he and Downes had written around sixty songs for the next Asia album and had gone into the studio to record basic tracks with the label fully behind them — and then, before long, the original line-up got back together and they had to explore other options. The material went instead into GPS: Payne, Guthrie Govan and Jay Schellen went back into the studio, reworked some of the already-written songs along with new ones, and made them more progressive and longer.
In 2006 the original four reconvened. Wetton says a meeting was booked at a hotel in Paddington. The two men at the centre of the trouble were himself and Steve Howe — "the protagonists, or antagonists", as he puts it. As fate would have it, the two of them ran into each other in the lobby first, not having seen each other for years. They had a hug, and it was all over before they had even got in the lift.
Carl Palmer was in line to drum on Black Sabbath's 2013 album 13. Tony Iommi put him forward when the band was looking for drummers. Palmer had to turn it down: he was away touring with Asia. He would have loved to do it, he said, but it just was not on the cards. In the same interview he described himself as fundamentally a rock drummer who had never been in an out-and-out guitar band like Sabbath, and characterised Asia's own music as a little more corporate rock and melodic.
On "The Heat Of The Moment Tour" of North America, which opened in July 2024, Roger Dean acted as MC at every performance — the sleeve artist on stage, running the show. Asia headlined over Focus, Martin Turner (ex-Wishbone Ash) and Curved Air, across 21 dates in the USA and Canada from 3 July. Downes closed the announcement by tying it to the calendar: it is the Year of the Dragon, just as it was in 1982, when they released the first Asia album.
Greg Lake has described exactly how the job reached him. Carl Palmer phoned him one night and asked a favour: could he play with Asia for a couple of weeks in Japan, because they had just fallen out with John Wetton, had no singer, and the shows were already booked. When Lake asked when the shows were, Palmer told him three weeks' time. Lake did it, in his own words, as a favour to Carl.
The nine weeks the debut spent at No.1 on the Billboard 200 were not consecutive. Following the weekly charts: it is No.1 on 15 and 22 May 1982, then gives way to Paul McCartney's Tug Of War for three weeks, then returns for seven straight weeks from 19 June to 31 July. Nine in total — the same figure Billboard's own artist chart history records as "1 for 9 weeks".
Some Japanese sources give the debut's UK peak as No.14; the Official Charts Company gives No.11. Both numbers are real. Following the weekly charts: it enters at No.24, reaches No.14 the next week, then No.11, then falls to No.17. The 14 was a single week's position on the way up, not where the album finished — the peak is No.11.
A version of this story has Wetton returning on condition that Howe be removed. The sequence Geoff Downes described in a 2001 interview is different. The original four did reconvene and work together for a while, rehearsing and cutting about half a dozen demos — and it was at the end of those sessions that Wetton said he could not carry on with Steve Howe in the proceedings. Howe's own official site places his departure while the band was rehearsing for the third album, which agrees on the point that matters: this happened after work had begun, not as a term agreed beforehand.
The 40th-anniversary tour never happened. Booked for August 2022 as a double bill with The Alan Parsons Live Project, it was moved to early 2023 for Parsons' surgery. Then, in an interview published in February 2023, Carl Palmer said the tour got cancelled after Parsons' back operation; the promoter had wanted to buy a package, so nothing else could be put in its place, and by the time they heard from Parsons it was too late to do anything. At that moment, he said, Asia had nothing on the table. The next US tour announced was July 2024's, with a changed line-up. The band's own site, meanwhile, attributes the cancellation to the Covid pandemic.
On 3 August 2023 the concert "John Wetton: An Extraordinary Life" was held at Trading Boundaries in East Sussex. The performers named in the advance announcement from the Wetton family and QEDG Management were Chris Braide, Roger Chapman, Jim Cregan, David Cross, Roger Dean, Chris Difford, Geoff Downes, Steve Hackett, Annie Haslam, Dave Kilminster, Phil Manzanera, John Mitchell, Martin Orford, Guy Pratt, Jay Schellen, Billy Sherwood, Rick Wakeman and Harry Whitley, with The Paul Green Rock Academy, hosted by Prog's editor Jerry Ewing. The day-of announcement added Mel Collins and Laurie Wisefield.
The Japanese guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei is involved in "Into The Arena", the instrumental that opens 1996's Arena. The writing credit carried in the Japanese edition's product data names four people: Geoffrey Downes, John Payne, Elliott Randall and Hotei. The label's own copy also presents his appearance on the track as something for Japanese listeners to be proud of.
On how the dispute over the Asia name was settled, Payne himself says it never reached a courtroom. In a 2013 interview he explained that it was mediated by lawyers instead — a sad thing to have to do, he said, but sometimes only external forces can cut through the emotions. He would happily have gone out with two bands; the other side wanted to focus on the original line-up, and he understands that. The same article's own introduction frames it as a court battle won, which is not what Payne's answer says.
On 12 June 2019, the day John Wetton would have turned 70, a previously unheard Asia rehearsal recording was released. It had been made on 12 June 1981 — the same date, eighteen years earlier — as a fly-on-the-wall document, and it went out as a teaser for the box set An Extraordinary Life. The article leaves open the question of which song the fragment became. The night before, Asia had opened a 28-date US run as special guests on Yes's Royal Affair Tour, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Asia's live set takes in "Video Killed The Radio Star", from Geoff Downes's earlier band The Buggles — about which Downes corrects a common claim: Hans Zimmer was not a member of the Buggles but their programmer. Downes and Trevor Horn had a project called Chromium, he says, and brought Zimmer in to programme it; that grew into the Buggles. Zimmer programmed sounds like electric timpani and synthesiser tones, and appeared in the video — it is Zimmer playing the Moog modular synth in it.
For the debut's 30th anniversary in 2012 the box carried a newly commissioned Roger Dean painting, updating the dragon and pearl of the 1982 sleeve to 2012 — the Year of the Water Dragon in the Chinese calendar. Inside were two audio CDs (a remastered debut plus a disc of rare live tracks), an expansive historical booklet, a limited-edition T-shirt, items from the 1982 tour, and a DVD of the documentary ASIA – 30 Years On.
On Billboard's own chart-history database the 1982 debut is recorded at No.1 on the Billboard 200, holding the top spot for nine weeks. It entered on the chart dated 3 April 1982 at No.28 and reached the peak on the chart dated 15 May 1982, spending 64 weeks on the chart in all.
John Wetton died in the early hours of Tuesday 31 January 2017, after a long and courageous battle with colon cancer. The announcement also recorded that he valued his more than eleven years of sobriety and gave time in fellowship with other alcoholics, sharing his experience, strength and hope with them. He was survived by his recently married wife Lisa, his 18-year-old son Dylan, his brother Robert and his mother Peggy.
When Downes announced a new line-up in 2024, some objected that a band with no original members but Downes should not carry the name. Wetton's widow, Lisa Wetton, answered them in a public statement. It would be easy to reject an Asia with no other band members, she wrote, but there is one problem with doing so: John Wetton himself wanted the music to live on, and would have approved of this tour. He would have wanted the name to continue for as long as Downes led it, and changing it would go against his wishes. This is still Asia.
Indigo, released in 2026, is the continuation of work begun more than ten years earlier. Downes says the initial writing period started in 2015, after Gravitas came out in 2014: he and John Wetton were putting ideas together with the aim of getting into the studio once more. Wetton became seriously ill during that time, the plans were put on hold, and he died before they could be completed. It was always in his mind, Downes says, that it would be a shame not to finish some of these songs off — and the 2023 tribute concert for Wetton was what encouraged him.
On the Japanese edition, the songs carry Japanese titles as well. The set Universal Music Japan uses runs, in order: Heat Of The Moment, Toki e no Roman, Kodoku no Survivor, One Step Closer, Time Again, Kono Yume no Hate made, Without You, Nagare no Mama ni, Tokimeki no Omokage. Five of the nine are not transliterations at all but new Japanese phrases coined here — "Only Time Will Tell", "Sole Survivor", "Wildest Dreams", "Cutting It Fine" and "Here Comes the Feeling" all arrived under names of their own.
The Japanese 40th-anniversary edition of the debut (UICY-40355, 26 January 2022) puts two different originals in one package. The card sleeve is a miniature reproduction of the US first-pressing LP; the obi wrapped around it reproduces the design of the JAPANESE first pressing. The audio is a 2010 DSD master taken from the US original analogue tape and converted to 352.8 kHz/24-bit, in a limited pressing. The single bonus track is "Ride Easy", at track 10.
On 26 January 2022 Universal Music Japan reissued four Asia titles as hi-res CDs for the band's 40th anniversary: the debut with one bonus track, Then & Now, Astra and Alpha with two, all as limited-production MQA-CD/UHQCD pressings. Line the four up and the shape of the catalogue shows: they are the Geffen years and their immediate aftermath, and not one of the five John Payne-era albums is among them.
In the same 2022 series, Alpha appears as "+2": "Daylight" at track 11 and "Lying To Yourself" at track 12 — the latter being the one writing credit Steve Howe got out of the Alpha sessions, and the one that did not make the album. The source is a 2014 DSD master taken from the US original analogue tape, a different vintage from the 2010 master used for the debut in the same series.
The Japanese edition of Axis XXX Live In San Francisco adds footage shot in Japan: three songs — "Only Time Will Tell", "Sole Survivor" and "Heat Of The Moment" — recorded at Shibuya Kokaido in Tokyo on 25 September 2012. The Japanese release date, 1 July 2015, is ahead of the international one.
The 2026 live album Asia – Live In England differs in Japan too. "Daylight" is a video-only bonus on the international editions; on the Japanese CD it appears as track 13, as audio. The same performance is something you can listen to or only watch, depending on which edition you have.
The ASIA IN ASIA 1983 box went on sale in Japan on 27 May 2022, two weeks ahead of the overseas edition on 10 June — the recording of a Japanese concert reaching Japan first.
How the band arrived in Japan without its singer in 1983 is told differently depending on who is telling it. The Japanese label Ward Records puts it bluntly on its feature page: immediately before the Japanese shows John Wetton was dismissed, and the band brought in Greg Lake and came to Japan with him. The band's own site describes the same event as Wetton being "temporarily sidelined" in December 1983. Wetton himself said in later years that he had been thrown out.
Indigo is a simultaneous worldwide release on 6 November 2026. The Japanese catalogue numbers are GQCS-91792 for the CD, GQCS-91793~4 for the CD plus Blu-ray Audio in Dolby Atmos, and GQJS-90012~3 for the 2LP, with a mail-order-only edition, WRDZX-332, bundled with a card hand-signed by Geoff Downes.
The Japanese edition of Indigo carries one song no other edition has: track 17, "Chesapeake Bay" featuring John Mitchell — a second version of the song whose international version features Steve Howe. The Japanese release comes with a Japanese booklet and translated lyrics, on the worldwide date of 6 November 2026.
The vinyl edition of Indigo has a Japan-only specification: manufactured entirely in Japan, in a Japan-exclusive ultra-clear colour, cut in Japan and pressed at Sony Music Solutions' Oigawa Production Center. It is a separate pressing from the black, gold and splatter variants Frontiers issues for the international market.
Omega has a different track listing in Japan. The band's own discography page prints the two side by side: "Emily", which is on the worldwide edition, is absent from the Japanese one, and in its place is "Drop a Stone" — a song that appears on no other listed edition.
The acoustic bonus tracks on Phoenix differed by territory. The band's own discography lists "An Extraordinary Life" on the Europe Limited Edition and "I Will Remember You" in Japan.
The Japanese edition of Gravitas came out on 19 March 2014, ahead of the international release. Its Japan-only bonus track is number 12, an acoustic version of "Russian Dolls". The two acoustic tracks at 10 and 11 on the first-press CD are not Japan-exclusive — only the twelfth is.
The Japanese edition of Silent Nation appeared on 22 September 2004 on Victor as VICP-62852, with "Rise" as an eleventh track — a Japanese bonus — plus liner notes, lyrics and translations. The limited edition with a DVD that was planned for the US was announced in advance as not being released in Japan.
On the day of the satellite broadcast Carl Palmer was in no state to enjoy it. Speaking to the British paper the Daily Star, he said it is fine to look back on now, but at the time it was frightening: something could have gone wrong, the satellite signal might have failed to send or be received properly. He could not enjoy it, he said, for worrying about what might happen.
That Japanese LP cost ¥2,500 at the time — more than the imported copy. And the 1982 liner notes, lyrics and translations were carried over unchanged onto the Japanese CD when the album reached that format. The translation with the apology attached to it was passed on intact to the next generation of the record.
The extra Tokyo show added on 13 May 2008, at Shibuya C.C.Lemon Hall, was announced as a concert in two halves. The first half took in new songs and hits plus the songs that had marked each member's own career — which is to say The Buggles, Yes, ELP and King Crimson. The second half was the debut album, played complete.
The Buggles' "Video Killed The Radio Star" was in the set on that Japanese tour, and the distinctive treated voice of the original was reproduced not with an effect but through a megaphone-shaped hand-held microphone. The detail is recorded in a review of the 12 May 2008 show at Tokyo International Forum Hall A.
On paper the two Tokyo shows of 12 and 13 May 2008 were different concerts, the second having been billed as ex-band songs plus the debut album complete. In the event the ex-band selections were almost the same on both nights. One thing changed: Steve Howe's acoustic guitar solo, which was "The Clap" at Tokyo International Forum and "Mood for a Day" at C.C.Lemon Hall.
In April 2011, the month after the Tōhoku earthquake, BARKS published a short message from John Wetton addressed to Japan: he was looking forward to meeting everyone in April, and wished them God's protection. The messages were gathered with the cooperation of the Music Pen Club Japan and the promoter Udo Artists.
Writing after Wetton's death, BARKS's Tomoyuki Yamazaki recalled an interview session during the original line-up's September 2012 visit to Japan. A television shoot required all four men to sit on one sofa. Wetton and Geoff Downes arrived first and sat down, at which point two thirds of the sofa was already taken; the slimmer Howe and Palmer then arrived, and the four of them just fitted.
The second half of the Japanese title, 「時へのロマン」, was not coined for the album at all: it was already the Japanese title of the second single, "Only Time Will Tell". The album's Japanese name is therefore the band's name in characters joined to a single's Japanese title. The same column notes that the title has survived every change of Japanese licensee, from Warner-Pioneer through to Universal.
The Japanese edition of Aria gives its songs poetic Japanese titles too: 「最期の夏」 for "Summer", 「TOWA NO TOKI～永遠の瞬間」 for "Remembrance Day", 「時空の戦士」 for "Military Man", and 「天空のアリア」 for the title track. The 2012 paper-sleeve edition added two bonus tracks: "Reality" and a 2003 live acoustic reading of "Military Man".
The way the debut's Japanese title was built echoes down the catalogue. On Oricon's record, 2012's XXX was released in Japan as 『XXX〜ロマンへの回帰』 (20 June 2012, peak No.36, five weeks) and 2014's Gravitas as 『グラヴィタス〜荘厳なる刻』 (19 March 2014, peak No.42, four weeks) — the original title with a Japanese subtitle joined on by a wave dash, exactly the shape of 『詠時感〜時へのロマン〜』 in 1982.
On 19 September 2012 Sony Music Japan International reissued the John Payne-era albums in card sleeves for the first time in Japan: Blu-spec CDs, newly remastered in 2010, with newly written Japanese liner notes and translated lyrics. The occasion given was Asia's 30th anniversary and a Japanese tour. The Japanese Aqua gained three bonus tracks — 「とりつかれて」 and live 1992 readings of "Little Rich Boy" and "Love Under Fire".
On 25 September 2012 Asia played Shibuya Kokaido on the 30th-anniversary XXX tour. Three songs from that night — "Only Time Will Tell", "Sole Survivor" and "Heat Of The Moment" — had been filmed for the BS Fuji programme "Masanori Ito's Rock Night: Asia Special". The footage was later re-edited and added, all three complete, as a bonus to the Japanese edition of Axis XXX Live In San Francisco.
The reunited original line-up first toured Japan in March 2007, in the band's twenty-fifth year, promoted by Udo Artists. The dates were 4 March at the Aichi Kinro Kaikan, 5 March at the Osaka Kosei Nenkin Kaikan Large Hall, 7 and 8 March at the Tokyo Kosei Nenkin Kaikan and 10 and 11 March at Shibuya C.C.Lemon Hall, with a further Shibuya date added on 9 March.
Before the reunited original line-up reached Japan, Wetton and Downes came as a duo. In October 2006 they played as Icon: 24 October at Harajuku Astro Hall, 25 October at the Nagoya Blue Note and 26 October at the Osaka Blue Note, with the second Icon album, Rubicon, given a Japan-first release.
The Heat of the Moment Japan Tour 2025 ran over four days — Billboard Live Osaka on 15 and 16 April, Billboard Live Tokyo on 18 and 19 April — with a first and a second stage each day. The "eight shows in Japan" the band refer to are those four days doubled.
Symfonia – Live In Bulgaria 2013, filmed at the band's orchestral concert in Plovdiv, was released in Japan ahead of the rest of the world on 10 February 2017. The Japanese edition carries a Japanese booklet and Japanese subtitles, and a Japan-only bonus track: "Valkyrie", recorded at The Canyon Club in California on 19 October 2014. It reached the shops days after Wetton's death.
Dean's official site puts Yes's Relayer and Asia's Alpha side by side as the high point of his "drawn" works on stretched paper — the last of them before he changed his method for major colour pieces and began painting directly onto canvas, usually linen.
What the Astra painting actually depicts is answered by Dean's own shop copy, which calls the cover image "The Asia Astra Robot". His catalogue lists the same work simply as ASTRA, so it is the shop page that names the subject.
Matthews's second Asia commission was Arena. His site says Geoff Downes gave him a fairly clear brief — a confrontational scene of positive against negative, good against evil. Several preliminary sketches missed, he felt, until this one. Its layout let him make more of the nuclear symbol and turn it into a skull; ever since Chernobyl, the page says, he has been more concerned about the tightrope we walk in using nuclear energy. Downes and John Payne chose the design.
The place where the present-day Asia began and the place where their sleeves are painted turn out to be the same building. Trading Boundaries, the East Sussex venue where Geoff Downes staged the John Wetton tribute concert on 3 August 2023 that led directly to the band's relaunch, is in the same facility as Roger Dean's art studio. The band's own site notes this, and calls it a coincidence.
"The Traveller (Into The Light)", the advance track from 2026's Indigo, was among the earliest ideas Downes and Harry Whitley worked on together, and one that came together very organically. Downes describes it as a high-energy piece carrying a few elements of prog trickery while keeping the accessible chorus block that has been an Asia signature from the beginning. Its subject, he says, is optimism: looking forward to the future, and travelling into the light.
Seen from Downes's side, what brought him back was not the touring but the label. His official biography says that while Wetton and Palmer toured parts of Europe with a string of guitar players and a new keyboard player, John Young, he himself was brought back into the fold when Geffen got serious and authorised the release of a new best-of collection, Then And Now.
Around 1990 Asia toured hard to build interest in another album. Palmer's official biography names Pat Thrall as the guitarist for that push, and lists successful tours in Germany, the UK, Japan, Brazil and Russia. The Russian shows in particular it counts among the high points of the band's story, and they were captured on the CD and video releases of Asia Live in Moscow.
That line-up did not last either. Carl Palmer's official biography says that as Asia prepared to write a new album in 1991, John Wetton decided to leave, and Palmer jumped at the chance to reunite with Keith Emerson and Greg Lake in ELP. Wetton's own official site puts it differently: although the band was still going strong at the end of the eighties, he felt it was sounding tired and he was ready for a break.
Howe's involvement was not a return to the band. His official site records, in its 1990s section, that Downes invited him to contribute to the album and that he toured with the band as a "Special Guest Artist" — a guest appearance, not a rejoining.
The Aqua world tour went out on the hit "Who Will Stop The Rain" with Steve Howe in the line-up. When it ended, Downes's official biography says, Howe returned to solo work, and Downes and Payne made Aria in 1994 with Al Pitrelli on guitar and Michael Sturgis on drums.
Downes and Payne made Arena in 1996 with nobody managing them. His official biography puts it in one line: the two men soldiered on without management and produced Arena in 1996.
The lion and the serpent on the Arena sleeve are the record's theme made visible. There is a lot of conflict on the album, Downes says, and especially on the cover, with the lion and the serpent at opposite ends of the arena. After all of that, he adds, they wanted to end on something nice and uplifting — which is the closing track, "Bella Nova".
Arena got no supporting tour at all. On top of that, Downes's official biography says, an attempt to reunite the original band for a tour failed, so he placed Asia on the shelf for a time and released his own solo album The World Service in 1999.
Carl Palmer's later verdict on Lake standing in for Wetton at the Budokan: he jumped into John's shoes and did a great job, there were so many songs to sing and he did it so well — it was impressive. Palmer said so in the official announcement of the 2022 box set that finally released those recordings.
On the Budokan production, Geoff Downes says the stage was the same iconic "A-frame" shape the band had used on their US tour. It was a grand and sumptuous affair with a lot of people behind them — crew, lighting designers, cameramen and backing singers — and in the end, he thinks, they pulled it off admirably.
Steve Howe called the Budokan show an important global commitment — one they had to rise to, and did, with Greg's help. They could not have done it without him, he says, for sure.
The reunion has a date on it. On 6 January 2006 the four original members convened in a London hotel room to plan their return. The band's own site says the object was to mark 25 years since their formation in 1981 by touring the world and playing the debut album in its entirety.
Asia were not booked to play Cruise to the Edge in February 2017. The cruise's own list of acts carries John Wetton as an individual artist, not the band. Wetton's own statement scopes Billy Sherwood's stand-in role explicitly to the twelve Journey dates. Wetton died a week before the ship sailed.
Harry Whitley was born in 1995 near Wrexham in North Wales, and was introduced to Asia and to John Wetton's music by his former tutor and friend Timothy Jones. He was still in his twenties when he joined the band.
After Wetton's death the new recordings moved to Dukes Of The Orient, but the name "Asia Featuring John Payne" itself did not disappear. The live act has carried on without a break, and the official site currently advertises dates into 2027.
How many tracks Indigo has depends on the format. On Frontiers' own product data the CD and vinyl index the three-part "Tattoo Indigo" as a single track, so the disc runs thirteen plus the bonus; the digital edition splits Parts 1 to 3 separately and runs sixteen. On the 2LP the suite closes side B, and the Portnoy bonus track closes side D.
Frontiers issues Indigo in at least seven formats, each with its own catalogue number: CD (FRCD1602), a CD plus Blu-ray Dolby Atmos digipak (FRCDBR1602), black 2LP (FRLP1602), gold 2LP (FRLP1602GO), red/blue splatter 2LP (FRLP1602RBS), a "KiTalbum" (FRKIT1602) and a vinyl test pressing (FRLP1602TP) — before the four Japanese configurations are counted.
On Yes's 2019 Royal Affair Tour, with Asia along as guests, Steve Howe joined Asia on stage every night to play a few of the band's biggest hits and honour the memory of his friend John Wetton. It was, the official announcement says, the first time Howe had performed with the band since he left.
The guitarist and lead singer of that 2019 line-up was Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, formerly of Guns N' Roses. The invitation came from both Carl Palmer and Geoff Downes, the official announcement says, after Downes had worked with him in a project called The Platinum Rock All Stars. Downes called Thal a remarkably innovative guitarist with a multi-range lead vocal ability, and said he believed it would give the band's material a whole new dimension.
Sam Coulson, who joined as Steve Howe's replacement in 2013 and played on Gravitas, left the band in 2018 to concentrate on solo projects, with what the band called sincere gratitude for his five years of contributions.
XXX — pronounced Triple X — came out on Frontiers Records on 3 July 2012, produced by Mike Paxman and carrying original artwork by Roger Dean. The first single, "Face On The Bridge", had gone out worldwide on 14 May.
On 10 January 2013, announcing Sam Coulson as its new guitarist, Asia also announced the title of the next studio album: Valkyrie, to be recorded for Frontiers Records during 2013. The album that appeared in 2014 was called Gravitas, and "Valkyrie" opens it.
The DVD of the 2011 live release Spirit Of The Night carries a notable extra: footage of "In The Court Of The Crimson King" featuring King Crimson's founding member Ian McDonald. Frontiers' announcement gives the CD as 13 tracks, with "Fanfare For The Common Man" exclusive to the CD and "Midnight Sun" as a bonus track, and the DVD as 85 minutes of material plus bonus content including an EPK.
The live package Resonance – The Omega Tour was recorded on 4 May 2010 in Basel, Switzerland — one night of the Omega world tour by the original four — and released on 27 November in North America and 23 November in Europe.
All three nights were recorded and filmed, and each is to become a live release of its own. The first — the night of the debut album — appeared as Asia – Live In England on Frontiers on 13 March 2026. The band describe it as the first of three, with the Alpha and Astra nights to follow.
On 3 December 2021 BMG issued a ten-disc box, The Official Live Bootlegs Volume 1: five complete original-line-up concerts as 5 x 2CD — Buffalo NY in 1982, Worcester MA in 1983, São Paulo in 2007, Tokyo in 2008 and London in 2010. It followed the five-CD box of studio recordings that had come out that April.
The Reunion Albums: 2007–2012, a five-CD box issued by BMG on 11 June 2021, pairs the two-CD Fantasia, Live In Tokyo with Phoenix, Omega and XXX. It was designed by Roger Dean, who had produced all of those albums' artwork; the box's cover image had never been used before, and Dean also updated the Fantasia sleeve for it.
In 2021 Asia signed a deal with BMG to reissue their reunion albums for the band's 40th anniversary in 2022: Phoenix, Omega, Fantasia: Live In Tokyo and XXX, along with Gravitas, the album with Sam Coulson. The same announcement lists, as a plan, a box set of the 1983 simulcast, ASIA In Asia.
The band's own channel walks through what is inside the 2022 deluxe box Asia In Asia: Live at the Budokan, Tokyo, 1983: 2LP colour vinyl, a 2xCD holding the MTV satellite broadcast concert and the previous night, remixed audio, unreleased tracks, a 40-page 12-inch book with new band quotes, a Blu-ray of the concert video, printed memorabilia and an "Asia" pin badge.
Indigo was recorded throughout 2025 and produced by Downes and the band, with mixing and mastering handled by the guitarist, John Mitchell — playing, production and finishing all kept inside the group.
On what follows Indigo, Frontiers' own product page goes further than the band's announcement does: after a resurgence of live activity across the US, Japan and Europe, Asia are set to take the album on the road, with a North American tour planned for late 2026 and European dates to follow in early 2027. No dates or cities are named.
John Wetton's illness became public on 25 May 2015, in a statement from the band: he had undergone surgery on 16 May for the successful removal of a one-kilo malignant mass. That August the band relayed a note in his own words. He was starting chemotherapy the next day, and he urged everyone to be checked for cancer regularly, because it grows fast.
On 11 January 2017 Wetton published a statement of his own. A new chemotherapy procedure would make flying impossible, so he was withdrawing from Cruise to the Edge and from the first leg of the Journey tour, 15 March to 4 April. His good friend Billy Sherwood would fill in for him within Asia, he wrote, keeping his seat warm for the initial twelve Journey dates. He was naturally disappointed to miss the start of what he knew would be an historic tour, but intended to return to the stage with Asia later in 2017. It is signed from Bournemouth. He died three weeks later.
In the band's own announcement, Carl Palmer set Wetton's two fights side by side. His ability to triumph over alcohol abuse made him an inspiration to many who had fought that battle themselves; for those who knew and worked with him, his valiant struggle against cancer was a further inspiration. He would miss his talent, his sense of humour and his infectious smile — and to say goodbye Palmer reached for one of the band's own song titles: ride easy, my old friend.
The band's own site explains why its two other surviving founders are not in it. Steve Howe remains at the helm of Yes, and Carl Palmer is touring the world with An Evening With Emerson, Lake & Palmer — so it fell to Downes to reimagine Asia for the new era, with John Mitchell and Harry Whitley. Completing the line-up is Virgil Donati, who toured with Wetton as a member of UK from 2013 to 2015.
Both of the new men have a direct line back to Wetton. John Mitchell was a founder member of the Wetton/Downes side project Icon, toured with them and played on their first two studio albums, and for many years was part of John Wetton's own live band. Virgil Donati toured with Wetton as a member of UK from 2013 to 2015.
That 2016 reissue came out on a label the band own. It was announced by all four original members and issued on their own imprint, ASIA Music Ltd, through Cherry Red. Because it was their own label, the announcement says, they were able to keep the increase in wholesale price to little more than the cost of the extra disc.
The idea of naming the band after a continent came from Brian Lane, the group's manager at the time. The Japanese music site BARKS reports it in its obituary for John Wetton. Given the four men's histories the name could have been made to carry a great deal; what it actually was, was one word off a map.
John Wetton never accepted the word "supergroup". The band had never used it themselves, he said; it was a convenient tag the record company used to sell the thing, and before the four of them had even had time to think about it every DJ in America was saying it. He went on to describe the group as four egos put into one bottle, where it was only a matter of time before something blew. He said this in an interview given in 2010.
To the charge that Asia were assembled in a record-company boardroom, Wetton's answer was to count the months. They rehearsed for six months in a cramped little hall in Shepherd's Bush, then spent another six making the record. They had not, he said, breezed into a studio like four megastars and phoned their overdubs in.
The thread that leads to this band starts five years before it existed. In 1976, while Wetton was still with Roxy Music, a stranger came up to him backstage after a show at the Santa Monica Civic and put it to him, in blunt terms, that playing back-up to Bryan Ferry was not his destiny. The stranger was John Kalodner, then head of AOR West Coast at Roxy's own label, Atlantic Records, and later the man who would take Asia to Geffen.
Asia are known as a quartet, but the original drawing had five people on it. Geoff Downes says a five-piece was what the label wanted: they auditioned Robert Fleischman, briefly a singer in Journey, and Trevor Rabin came over too. Rabin did not get the job, in Downes's account, because he did not think Steve Howe would have been happy with a second guitarist. While they were looking for that extra person Wetton was the one singing — and in the end the four of them decided that was answer enough. A separate Louder piece states flatly that Rabin "was briefly a member", and on that point the two accounts do not agree.
The fifth man got further than an audition. Robert Fleischmann, who had briefly fronted Journey, actually joined the band in the studio. In rehearsal, Downes says, it was Wetton who was leading the field vocally — so they concluded the four of them were fine as they were, and Fleischmann was sent home.
There was a period when the band was considering two guitarists, and Carl Palmer brought a fellow Midlander — Roy Wood of The Move — along to an early rehearsal. Wood turned up in odd-coloured shoes, got through a bottle of vodka, and kept telling Steve Howe to play some of those posh licks. The reason Palmer gives for not taking it further, though, is neither the vodka nor the shoes: socially, he says, the band was already very strong.
Richard Branson turns up in the story of how the band came to be signed. Downes remembers Branson walking into a rehearsal one day with about six other people from Virgin, in single file, listening to a few songs and offering their manager Brian Lane something like $60,000 for the UK and European rights. Lane thought the figure derisory, and Geffen — who came in for the world — took the band instead.
Downes has said that Asia were the first band signed to the newly founded Geffen Records — the label's earlier releases having been a John Lennon solo album and a Simon & Garfunkel live set, which is to say no group had come before them. A statement needed to be made, in his telling: David Geffen had a point to prove, so no punches were pulled.
In looking for a producer for the debut the band met several well-known names, Bob Ezrin and Jimmy Iovine among them — Iovine being honest enough to tell them they could do the job themselves. The name that stuck was Mike Stone, and it was Kalodner who put it forward. Stone had engineered for Queen, and had co-produced Journey's Escape the year before.
The debut was recorded through the summer and autumn of 1981 at two studios in West London: Richard Branson's Townhouse, and Marcus Studios. The writing sessions that preceded it — Downes, Wetton, Howe and Palmer together — had begun somewhere else again, at Nomis Studios.
One of the things Wetton and Downes had in common was English church music. Wetton said his brother was a choirmaster and church organist, and that this was the music he grew up on. Downes puts it more strongly: English church music was fundamental to the Asia sound, and it is where those anthemic chords came from.
The story that "Heat Of The Moment" came together in a single short session only makes sense once you know that two halves already existed. In Downes's account, Wetton had a chorus in a different time signature from the one that ended up on the recording, and he himself had a verse; they put the two together in one session and wrote the middle bridge the following day. On what that original metre was, Wetton called his chorus 6/8 and laughed that it would have made a very good country song, while Downes said 3/4 in a 2025 announcement. The two numbers do not match — and in 2018 Downes named none at all, saying only that it was a different time signature.
Dean's own account of where the dragon came from is more offhand than the finished sleeve suggests. He met the band at the studio, where all the design proposals were laid out on the table and they liked none of them. He said he could do something utterly unlike Yes — by painting something like a dragon. He is careful to add that he was not proposing a dragon as such; he was saying it is no great challenge to do something different. The logo followed the same reasoning: a sharp-edged logo would not be a Yes logo.
Not everyone wanted Dean from the start. Carl Palmer admits he was not so sure: Brian Lane and Steve Howe had wanted Dean involved from the beginning, but ELP had always thought him very good at what he did and possibly a little over the top. In the end, Palmer says, he was talked round.
There is an unplanned rhyme between the painting and the lyric. Dean's image is a scaled sea dragon rising out of the water in pursuit of the pearl of wisdom. Louder reports that Wetton wrote a lyric about a pearl and a dragon's wings on the very day the band first saw the painting — neither prompting the other, the two arrived at independently.
The label did not welcome either the sleeve or the logo. Dean says Geffen were very dismissive when they first saw the logo, and did not like the painting either. Much later, he says, Wetton told him what happened when the album was delivered: the head of Geffen put an arm around him and said he had a logo nobody could read, a cover that was too dark, and that they just did not hear a hit single.
For the second album, Alpha, Dean says he was mostly given an entirely free hand. He did talk to the band, though, and they all had completely different ideas — which, by his own account, he mischievously worked into the one painting. He does not say whose idea became which part of it.
The Astra logo has siblings that were never used. The gallery that represents Dean records that before the title was settled he painted several different words in that same style — among them ACADAMIA and ARCADIA. The lettering, in other words, was made for candidate titles the album never took.
Steve Howe did not volunteer the guitar figure that opens "Heat Of The Moment". Downes says it was a very, very un-Steve part, that Howe plainly felt it was too poppy for his taste, and that it took a bit of a struggle — but in the end he stepped up to it. And then, Downes adds, it became the band's biggest hit.
That the song's verse sits close in metre to The Buggles' "Video Killed The Radio Star" has been pointed out to Downes often enough, and he does not deny it — plagiarising yourself, as he puts it, is allowed. The power-chord intro that makes the record so recognisable, he says, did not occur to them until they were already in the studio.
Carl Palmer remembers that the band cut "Heat Of The Moment" at two in the morning, very late in the session. The magazine adds a reading of its own: that this may have been a half-conscious way of playing down the song's importance in front of Howe.
"Only Time Will Tell" is the answering move to that apology. In Wetton's account the man who said the fault was his in "Heat Of The Moment" turns here to tell her that the new man is not as good as he is, that only time will tell, and that she is making a big mistake. He also said he took stick for the song being misogynistic.
Wetton described the first three songs of the debut as a single emotional arc: the first an apology, the second an angry accusation, the third a decision to get over it. People loved it, he added — the same shape, three times.
The two songs are mirror images even in how they were built. "Only Time Will Tell" is Wetton's lyric, a very personal one about the end of a relationship, with his verse and Downes's chorus. "Heat Of The Moment", he notes, was the other way round.
The same thing happened three times in a row on Asia's first three albums: the last song recorded became the first single. "Heat Of The Moment", then "Don't Cry" from Alpha, then "Go" from Astra. Wetton's own explanation is that he and Downes are very, very focused by the end of a recording.
Wetton put the confessional cast of the debut down to Joni Mitchell — her first-person writing was the reason he wrote that way. The first Asia record, he said, was splattered with his own experiences and emotions: nearly every song on it comes from personal experience.
The promo films for both "Only Time Will Tell" and "Heat Of The Moment" were shot by the same pair: Godley & Creme, the former 10cc duo, who were the hottest names in video at the time.
The slow-motion gymnast in the "Only Time Will Tell" video does not mean anything. Kevin Godley's account is that they simply felt it would look interesting — they were not driven by it having a meaning — and that it felt, to a degree, the way the music felt.
"Don't Cry" was the last song written for Alpha. In a 1983 radio interview Geoff Downes said they wrote it in a bit of a hurry because they felt they did not have the right track to open the album with. The method was the familiar one: he had an idea, Wetton had another, and the two were cemented together.
Every song on Alpha was written by Wetton and Downes. Steve Howe had five co-writing credits on the debut and none at all on the second album. Howe's own line on it is that he did have songs for Alpha — they just never got finished.
The one writing credit Howe did get out of the Alpha sessions is not on the album. It is "Lying To Yourself", which went out as the B-side of the "The Smile Has Left Your Eyes" single.
Of "My Own Time (I'll Do What I Want)" on Alpha, Wetton said the chorus means exactly what it says — he is going to do what he wants, when he wants to. He was not warm about it later, though. People still tell him it is the greatest song he ever wrote, and his own answer is that it was really, really bitter.
Wetton described "Never Again", from the reunion album Phoenix, as virtually the Ten Commandments — about never wanting to be judgmental, murderous or ill-intentioned. He acknowledged that its guitar intro and powerful chorus make it reminiscent of "Heat Of The Moment", said that was not intentional, and added that he thought that was all right.
The Phoenix suite "Parallel Worlds / Vortex / Deya" is three pieces written years apart and joined together. By Wetton's account "Deya" was written in 1976, in Deià on Mallorca. "Parallel Worlds" was written in the Seneca Hotel at Niagara Falls and originally carried the title "Sitting on Top of the World". "Vortex", he said, Downes had written quite recently.
Prog's obituary feature on John Wetton states that he wrote "An Extraordinary Life", on Asia's Phoenix, about the emergency heart surgery he underwent in 2007. That attribution is the magazine's own — no interview in which Wetton says so has been found. The song's title was later given to his posthumous box set and to his official biography.
"Finger On The Trigger" on Omega was not written for Asia. Downes says the song had already been recorded by himself and Wetton for the Icon album Rubicon, and that the record label saw it as appropriate for Asia. "Never Again" and "An Extraordinary Life", by contrast, were written with Asia in mind from the start.
Of "I Know How You Feel" on XXX, Downes said he thinks it is Wetton's favourite track on the album. It came out of their writing sessions and had a lot of emotion in it from the first — the way he and Wetton write, he said, is very much from the heart.
"Valkyrie" on Gravitas came out of a death close to the band. Wetton said he put himself in the position of the man lying dead on the battlefield, with the spirit arriving to carry him away. It is a joyful song, he said — quite dark, but joyous, and triumphant in the end. He did not say who had died.
The title song "Gravitas" refers to dignity, in the plain sense of the Latin. In Wetton's account it is about a man going through a divorce, who is asking only whether he can come out of it with some dignity.
Asked which song sums the album up lyrically, Wetton named "The Closer I Get To You" — a man who does not know what is going on, cannot understand what is happening, and is lost in a whirlpool of emotions. References to dignity, he said, are all over the record.
The title Gravitas was settled by unanimous agreement across the band. BARKS glosses the word as dignity and weight, and describes "Russian Dolls" on the same album as a romantic song depicting the journey of a Russian tour.
Wetton called Gravitas the first album in Asia's history made without outside interference: no requests from the record company, no producer hired, every song written by him and Downes and the two of them producing. The claim is his own assessment, and he does not say how he is counting the five studio albums the band made during the John Payne years, when he was not in it.
Two songs on Aqua did not begin life as Asia songs. John Payne says he had been working with Downes on a project that was going to be called Rain, and that they recorded "Don't Call Me" and "Who Will Stop the Rain" at Advision Studios in London — before he joined Asia. The pair finished the two for Aqua afterwards.
"Echo Of You", which closes the album, also came out of the main writing sessions between Downes and Whitley. Downes says it took on a completely different angle in the later stages of development, moving towards electronica and a spacey production. It is a happy, uplifting tune despite the nostalgia in the lyric — a love song with a twist — and it ends in a tangle of counter-themes and chord changes before a deliberate old-fashioned fade-out, offered as a nod to nostalgia.
"An Extraordinary Life", from 2008's Phoenix, was chosen as the theme music for the American television show America's Got Talent. The statement comes from the band and label's own press material.
"Days Like These", the single from the compilation Then & Now, entered Billboard's Mainstream Rock Airplay chart on 18 August 1990 and peaked at No.2 on the chart dated 15 September, spending eleven weeks on it. Setting aside the No.1s of 1982 and 1983, it is the band's highest placing on that chart.
The invitation reached Payne without warning. Downes and his manager called him down to the studio, and when he got there he was asked to join Asia — an offer he found a bit confusing, because he had not heard Wetton was leaving. After some discussion and some time to think, he became the band's new bassist and singer. He had played bass before and had sung professionally before, but until Asia he had never done both at once.
Aqua was made in a converted church in Brighton, and Payne remembers that they simply lived there while it was being recorded — residential, day after day, twelve hours every day, for four months.
Aqua's German run is on the official record: it entered on 29 June 1992 at No.85, peaked at No.51 for one week, last charted on 14 September 1992 at No.97, and spent eleven weeks on the chart in all. Payne has said they sold a lot more records in Germany than anywhere else.
The band credited on 2001's Aura is John Payne on vocals and bass, Guthrie Govan on guitars, Geoff Downes on keyboards and Chris Slade on drums. It was produced by Asia together with Simon Hanhart, who also engineered it; John Payne and Tim Lewis mixed it and Ray Staff mastered it.
Aura is a record with a lot of guests on it. The names Get Ready to ROCK! confirms are Ian Crichton of Saga, Steve Howe and Michael Sturgis. Howe's appearance is separately confirmed by Prog/Louder, which notes that he guested on the 2001 album despite not being a member of the Downes/Payne line-up.
The Digipak edition of Aura carries three songs the standard issue does not: "Under The Gun", "Come Make My Day" and "Hands Of Time". The Japanese edition of 31 January 2001 (Victor Entertainment, VICP-61250) ran to eleven tracks and did not include them; they reached Japan on 25 January 2008, when MSI reissued the album as a 2CD set (MSIG-0448~9) with the three added to the first disc.
Silent Nation, from 2004, came out on Inside Out and was produced, engineered and mixed by John Payne himself. The credited band is Payne on vocals, guitars and bass, Guthrie Govan on guitars, Geoff Downes on keyboards and Chris Slade on drums. Ant Glynne, Billy Sherwood and Jay Schellen appear at the pre-production stage.
Silent Nation took a year. Payne described writing about fifty songs with Downes, cutting them to twenty, then to thirteen or fourteen, and only then recording.
Greg Lake has given his own reason for not staying in Asia. He did a brief stint with them, he says, and did not want to go in that corporate rock direction — he did not believe in that sort of music, so he did not continue.
Lake was blunt about what he found inside the band. Asia were a funny bunch at that time, he says: everyone was firing everyone, there were huge conspiracies, and you could walk down a corridor and find people plotting to fire each other in every room. He allows that they are more settled now.
Steve Howe has been specific about what the Alpha period was like. He prefaces it by saying he does not like the version of the story people have heard, and that it was not that simple. Then: everything got out of hand, none of them was happy with the mix of Alpha, and the tour was crazy — champagne from the morning onwards. So he stopped getting on the plane with the band and started travelling by car instead. It was chaos, he says.
The band's success did not sit equally well with all four. As Howe sees it, it was wonderful, and after the way Yes had come apart it felt like vindication — but he had already been through things like sold-out US arena tours with Yes, and so had Palmer. For Wetton, he thinks, it was different. The pressure was real, and Howe describes him becoming very inward-looking and building walls.
Carl Palmer's verdict on the second album is harsh. Quoted from the 2016 book Time and a Word: The Yes Story, he called Alpha a complete mistake, put together possibly through greed and the chasing-the-single syndrome, and full of pop tunes that died miserably. The sales figures are in open dispute between outlets: Ultimate Classic Rock gives over a million in the US and about 60,000 in the UK, while Louder's Prog feature says three million sales of the hurriedly recorded album were regarded as disappointing.
Seven UK dates of Asia's 30th-anniversary tour, booked for December 2012, were cancelled days before they began, because Carl Palmer had contracted a severe E. coli infection. In his statement he said he had been given less than a 10% chance of playing the tour; by the Thursday afternoon he had lost the battle and could hardly stand up, and his doctors instructed him to cancel. He had always been proud, he wrote, of never having cancelled a tour in 47 years as a musician — a personal goal now sadly lost.
Carl Palmer explains Wetton's absence from the 1983 Japanese dates as a matter of health: they could not take him because he was not very well at the time, Palmer says, adding that Wetton suffered from alcoholism for many years and that the pressure was simply too much for him. Wetton's own account is that he was pushed out of the band — the two men describe the same moment in different terms.
The debut did not arrive at 4x Platinum in one step. The RIAA's certification timeline runs: Gold and Platinum both on 2 June 1982, 3x Platinum on 22 October 1984, and 4x Platinum on 10 February 1995 — the four-million mark certified thirteen years after release. The same database record gives the release date as "March 18, 1992", which is a wrong year.
Asked in 2001 whose idea Greg Lake had been, Downes answered that he thinks it was Carl's. He explained the circumstances too: the Japanese shows had been booked two months before the situation with Wetton erupted, and the commitments had been made. The record company was involved as well, he said — John Kalodner in particular was fairly instrumental in suggesting Lake.
There is no single account of how Harry Whitley was found. Downes has said in one interview that Whitley sent Asia covers via Twitter, in another that he came across his YouTube channel, and in a Japanese interview that it was "Twitter rather than YouTube, I think" — adding there that an acquaintance had tipped him off in the first place. On which cover clinched it, Downes names "Heroine" and Whitley himself names "Heat of the Moment". What all the tellings share is that it was Asia covers Whitley had posted online.
On Oricon's record, Asia's highest-placing album in Japan is 『天空のアリア』 — Aria, from the Payne era. Released on 10 May 1994, it peaked at No.20 on the weekly album chart and spent four weeks on it. Aqua, also from the Payne era, sits next at No.21, and after that comes the 1990 compilation Then & Now at No.24. As far as the Japanese charts go, two Payne-era records lead the list.
Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, who fronted Asia in 2019, recorded an acoustic cover of "Only Time Will Tell" the following year. It appeared on his covers EP Barefoot 3, released on 5 June 2020 exclusively through Bandcamp, and an official music video for it followed on 17 July 2020.
In the autumn of 2006 Wetton and Downes were running two bands at once. They had just finished a US tour with the original line-up of Asia and had UK shows coming, while their own Icon II – Rubicon was set for release in Europe through Frontiers on 10 November. On that record The Gathering's Anneke van Giersbergen duets with Wetton on two songs, "To Catch a Thief" and "Tears of Joy".
The name "Asia Featuring John Payne" fell out of use in 2017. Frontiers' announcement describes the group as having begun in 2007, a band that continued after Downes left to reform the original 1982 line-up: Payne recruited Erik Norlander to join Guthrie Govan and Jay Schellen for US dates and initial recordings, some of which survived onto the later album. Govan left to form The Aristocrats. After Wetton's death, Payne and Norlander decided those recordings should give birth to a new band — Dukes Of The Orient.
The Payne band is still active. In late July 2025 John Payne announced a reworked line-up that included Francis Dunnery of It Bites and The Syn, with a tour to begin on 2 August in New Paltz, New York. Dunnery lasted one gig. His stated reason was that it was impossible for him to adapt to that role. This is the Payne band, not the Downes-led Asia.
In August 2005 the Payne-era Asia parted amicably with drummer Chris Slade (The Firm, AC/DC) and brought in Jay Schellen (Badfinger, Hurricane). Payne said Schellen had always been their first choice, that he had played on the demos for some Silent Nation tracks, and that they clicked from the start. The band had just entered the studio for the follow-up to Silent Nation, tentatively titled Architect of Time and due in the first half of 2006. No album under that title was ever released.
In January 2022 Asia announced a 40th-anniversary line-up: founding members Carl Palmer and Geoff Downes, longtime bassist and vocalist Billy Sherwood of Yes, and as newest member the guitarist and lead vocalist Marc Bonilla of the Keith Emerson Band. Downes said the success of the early albums had carried them through and given them the foundation when they reformed in 2006.
The sources do not agree on the year the band formed. Blabbermouth's 2021 piece states plainly that Asia were "formed in London in 1981", which is the clearest formation statement in its archive; Frontiers' 2025 press copy says 1982. The band's own site and biography give 1981, and that is what this site follows.
The chart on which it reached No.1 also shows what it displaced. On the Billboard 200 dated 15 May 1982, Asia is No.1, up from No.2 the week before, in its seventh week on the chart. Directly below it at No.2 sits Vangelis's Chariots Of Fire soundtrack, then in its thirty-first week.
On Billboard's year-end Billboard 200 Albums chart for 1982, Asia is ranked No.1 — ahead of the Go-Go's Beauty And The Beat at No.2 and Foreigner's 4 at No.3.
Asia's three highest-charting singles on the Billboard Hot 100 are "Heat Of The Moment" at No.4 (entering 17 April 1982, peaking on the chart dated 26 June 1982, 18 weeks), "Don't Cry" at No.10 (peak chart dated 17 September 1983) and "Only Time Will Tell" at No.17 (peak chart dated 18 September 1982, 14 weeks).
The band's strength on radio shows up more plainly than on the Hot 100. On the chart Billboard now calls Mainstream Rock Airplay, "Heat Of The Moment" went to No.1 and held it for six weeks — entering 3 April 1982, peaking on the chart dated 24 April, 22 weeks in all. "Don't Cry" also reached No.1 there, for one week, on the chart dated 20 August 1983.
Six songs from the debut charted on Billboard's rock radio chart during 1982: "Heat Of The Moment" at No.1, "Only Time Will Tell" at No.8, "Sole Survivor" at No.10, "Wildest Dreams" at No.28, "Here Comes The Feeling" at No.40 and "Time Again" at No.43 — two thirds of a nine-track album. Billboard lists 14 Asia entries on that chart across the whole career.
Asia's run on rock radio did not end in 1983. "Days Like These", from the 1990 compilation Then & Now, reached No.2 on Mainstream Rock Airplay — entering 18 August 1990, peaking on the chart dated 15 September, eleven weeks in all. Nothing after 1983 places higher for them on that chart.
The fall after the debut is steep on the Billboard 200. Alpha peaked at No.6 (entering 27 August 1983, peak chart dated 10 September, 25 weeks) and Astra at No.67 (entering 7 December 1985, peak chart dated 28 December, 17 weeks).
In Britain the debut did not climb as high as it did in America. The Official Charts Company records a peak of No.11, on Geffen, catalogue number GEF85577, first charting on 10 April 1982. It stayed a long time, though: 38 weeks on the chart, 13 of them inside the Top 20 and 24 inside the Top 40.
Asia's highest-placing UK album is not the debut but Alpha, which the Official Charts Company records at No.5 (Geffen GEF25508, first charting 20 August 1983, 11 weeks, two of them in the Top 10). Astra managed a single week at No.68, from 14 December 1985.
On the UK singles chart the band's best placing is not their best-known song. Of four entries the highest is "Don't Cry" at No.33 (five weeks from 13 August 1983); "Heat Of The Moment" reached only No.46 (five weeks from 3 July 1982), "Only Time Will Tell" No.54 (three weeks from 18 September 1982) and "The Smile Has Left Your Eyes" No.81 (two weeks from 22 October 1983).
Only five Asia albums have ever reached the main UK Official Albums Chart: Asia at No.11, Alpha at No.5, Astra at No.68, XXX at No.69 (14 July 2012) and Gravitas at No.92 (5 April 2014). The reunion albums Phoenix and Omega never entered it at all.
The same reunion-era records did far better on the UK Official Independent Albums Chart: XXX at No.8 (three weeks from 14 July 2012), Phoenix at No.10 (two weeks from 19 April 2008), Omega at No.13 (8 May 2010) and Gravitas at No.16 (5 April 2014). The two that never made the main chart are both here.
The one mark the 1990s Asia left on the UK charts is Arena, which reached No.34 on the Official Rock & Metal Albums Chart for two weeks from 16 March 1996. Thirty years later, on 26 March 2026, the live album Live In England entered the same chart at No.14.
Asia's name appears once on Billboard's classical charts. Symfonia: Live In Bulgaria 2013, the orchestral concert recorded in Plovdiv, is credited there to "Asia With The Plovdiv Opera Orchestra", and on entering the charts on 18 March 2017 it reached No.5 on both Classical Albums and Classical Crossover Albums.
There is exactly one audited sales figure for the band in the United States. The RIAA certified the debut album Asia 4x Platinum, with a certification date of 10 February 1995 — label Geffen, format album.
The RIAA lists two further Asia certifications: Alpha, Platinum, dated 11 October 1983, and the 1990 compilation Then And Now, Gold, dated 23 July 1998. Both on Geffen, both albums.
In Canada the debut's four certifications all carry the same date. Music Canada's database records Asia as Gold, Platinum, Double Platinum and Triple Platinum, every one of them dated 1 February 1983.
In Canada Alpha is certified Gold and Platinum, both of them dated 1 November 1983.
Asia were nominated for Best New Artist at the 25th Annual Grammy Awards — the 1983 ceremony, honouring recordings released between 1 October 1981 and 30 September 1982. The award went to Men At Work; the other nominees were the Stray Cats, Jennifer Holliday and the Human League.
The later albums did better away from the main chart. In the week of 21 July 2012 XXX reached No.21 on Billboard's Independent Albums chart and No.9 on Indie Store Album Sales, against No.134 on the Billboard 200 that same week. Both XXX and Gravitas peaked at No.45 on Top Rock Albums.
The same day, Geoff Downes signalled that the band would go on. "It is the end of an era for all of us," he wrote. "But we will soldier on — the music of John Wetton needs to be heard loud and clear from the rooftops."