Biography
Esquire are an English rock group. The beginnings of the group can be traced back to a night in mid-1982, when singer Nikki Squire and husband Yes-bassist Chris Squire saw a group called New Cross perform at the Embassy in London. Two of the group members were Nikki's cousin and cousin-in-law. They came to talk to Chris and Nikki after their set. They offered their studio, in Virginia Water, for New Cross to record a couple of tracks. Chris went to New York and Nikki worked with the group for a couple of weeks. During this time, Nikki began singing with he group, developing a good rapport with the group's bassist Nigel McLaren. The new line-up, with Nikki fronting, performed live at the Embassy.
New Cross were short-lived, but Nigel and Nikki continued to write together. They met and teamed up with keyboard-player Charles Olins, becoming a trio: Esquire. In March 1983, Jill Sinclair and Trevor Horn signed the group to ZTT Records. According to Nikki: "The three of us continued to write, but we were waiting for Trevor Horn to produce our album. In between the odd futile rehearsal sessions that Trevor would initiate and the numerous false starts to record the album, because Trevor hadn't finished the last project, then more late projects, we waited and went on waiting! This was a painful experience I can tell you. Then in 1986, three years later, John Kalodner of Geffen Records happened to be in Jill and Trevor's studio and I played him "Knock Twice for Heaven" and "Special Greetings" and he wanted to sign us immediately. After the lawyers, we had our release from our contract with ZTT! Esquire formed a band and became a band, at last. The album was recorded in Virginia Water, London, and California for Geffen."
Chris Squire appeared on some tracks, Alan White drummed on "To the Rescue", Nikki's eldest daughter Carmen Squire sang backing vocals on some tracks and other musicians included guitarists Steve Topping and Pat Thrall (who joined Asia in 1990) and drummer Jamie Lane with electronic drums provided anonymously by McLaren. The album was released in 1987 and two music videos were made for the singles: Esquire: To the Rescue (1987) and Esquire: Sunshine (1987).
Nikki explains: "Change is inevitable in everyone's life, but during the latter part of the making of the Esquire album, mine was changing drastically. By this time Chris and I were divorced after fifteen years of marriage and had a somewhat sketchy relationship. Finally our daughters and I were alone: our home, our lives, nothing was the same. Charles Olins had disappeared (so to speak) from the band, Nigel McLaren and myself were also alone. So in a scruffy smelly basement Nigel and I put together a small studio and set about writing "Coming Home". I wrote the title track: its about coming back to the home of one's heart to gather strength and understanding and feeling - the general lack of it - in the world. Later, as the album evolved [...] Nigel and I got more help and other players contributed. Carmen sang on the tracks again, a better studio and so forth. Finally after a long, long time the album was released" in 1994. Other musicians who appeared on "Coming Home" were Denny Laine and Chris Slade.
The album was re-released in 1998 with two additional tracks. The track "Tron Thomi" appeared on the compilation album "Yes, Friends and Relatives" the same year and several subsequent Yes family compilations. Ten years later, in 2008, Nikki Squire and Nigel McLaren began working on a third Esquire album and a photograph was taken of them for the front cover. It would be eight years before the album was completed and released. A year prior to this, in 2015, Nigel McLaren sadly died, just a few days after Nikki's former husband Chris Squire. The last track on the album, "Heaven Blessed" is effectively a McLaren solo performance and was also played at his funeral. The "No Spare Planet" album may never have been finished without the help of Daniel Earnshaw, of Yes management, who met Nikki at Chris Squire's London memorial service in October 2015.
Despite the loss of her musical collaborator, Nikki continued to keep Esquire going, now as its sole member. In 2018, she began work on a new album. The first song to be released was "Gaia (Mother of Heaven)": an unfinished tune co-written with Nigel, which Nikki subsequently added lyrics to. A video was made - Esquire: Gaia (Mother of Heaven) (2018) - with some cinematography by Nikki's eldest daughter Carmen Squire.
