Culturally at this time the emphasis was changing from the need to produce hit singles to maintain profile and going more towards recording albums. However, the problem that we had at that time was we were still required to produce a hit single every six months or so and we were not coming up with the creative goods in that way. We were also exhausted from all the touring apart from Jimmy who had only been travelling around with us for a relatively short time. Keith and I began to write songs together but they were not the style of songs that were suitable for the Yardbirds. I think we had had enough of doing heavy music and we wanted to do something a bit more lyrical and experimental. In 1968 Keith and I decided to leave The Yardbirds to do something else which eventually turned into Renaissance…Jimmy and Chris decided to carry on as The New Yardbirds but they never played together. Jimmy found new members and changed the name to Led Zeppelin and Chris transformed his interest in photography into a professional career. 

Three years after the 1992 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the Yardbirds reformed but we chose to stay below the radar tweaking the line-up and working up material until in 2003 we did our first studio recording since “Little Games” in 1967. The new album “Birdland” was on Steve Vai’s Favored Nations record label and featured invited guests such as Brian May, Joe Satriani, Slash, Steve Vai himself and even a contribution from Jeff Beck. The guests played mainly on new versions of the old hits and the rest of the album was made up of new original songs mostly of which I had composed such as “Mystery of Being” and played by the line-up of that time. 

Other than Chris Dreja  and myself, the band consisted of Gypie Mayo on lead guitar, Alan Glenn on harmonica and John Idan on bass and lead vocals. “Detroit John” as we called him joined the band when we reformed in 1995. He had been formally playing with me in my own blues band called the Jim McCarty Band that came together thanks mostly to Top Topham, in the late 1980s.  John was remarkably tuned in to the original Yardbirds sounds and very honourable towards Keith Relf’ s vocal style. He introduced Ben King to the group, a young lead guitar student from a contemporary music academy where John was teaching, and who plays in a style which is really unusual to hear from someone of another generation but is really faithful to our sound but in his own original way. We went on to record a live album called “Live at BB Kings” during a tour of the US in 2006. At that time Billy Boy Miskimmin was playing on harmonica and I was beginning to really enjoy the cohesion of the group on stage. 

John recently decided to leave the band to go solo in 2008/09 and at the time of writing we are about to embark on another US tour with two new members. After John left, we decided that we wished to revert to the original idea of singer/harmonica player and have just recruited, (thanks to Ben seeing him play live just at the right time), Andy Mitchel to front the band together with Dave Smale on bass, the latter another real talented music student. During auditions there was a real sense of musical communication and fresh energy between us all and that I felt was really exciting - a new line-up with the potential of a whole new chapter beginning - original all unto its own. I am now looking forward to getting into the studio to rehearse …and will report back NEWS after the Rock Royalty tour in June/July 2009.