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The National Midnight Star, Number 392
Monday, 2 December 1991
Today's Topics:
Canadian Musician Interview 10/91
----------------------------------------------------------
[ Thanks to both Victor Kamutzki <wcsvic@ccs.carleton.ca> and Lewis
Bernstein <V087N562@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu> for this! :rush-mgr ]
RUSH - STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART
------------------------------
(from the October 1991 issue of _Canadian_Musician_)
Rush is doing it again. With the band's 14th studio album on the
racks and an impending tour, the multi-platinum trio is set to satisfy
its legions of devoted fans around the world. Needless to say, a lot
has been said about Rush since it released its self-titled debut in
1974 and rocketed to international stardom in the '80s. Much more can
be said, but it may be better to give Geddy Lee, bassist, vocalist &
keyboardist, a little breathing room. Here's the interview, taped in
Toronto in July after the band completed its latest release, _Roll_
_The_Bones_.
CM: You just finished a new record - how did it go for you?
GL: It was probably the fastest we've made a record in some time. We
say we made the record in 8 weeks, but we spent 10 weeks rehearsing
and writing so the recording time was quick - that's good because
that's usually the painful part.
CM: Neil Peart told me it took a day and a half to put down all the
basic drums, which is incredible.
GL: We did the drums and bass tracks over a long weekend, so that was
good. It's nice to know you can do them quickly, but I don't think it
really amounts to anything. The bottom line is what you end up with,
whether it takes you a long weekend or four weeks. I don't think it
matters, as long as you get what you're after.
CM: I've listened to the record once. To me it sounds like a very
joyous record, especially the opening track. There's a breath of
freshness.
GL: Yeah, our intent was to express ourselves in a kind of looser,
more hard rockin' way, so I guess we were fairly exuberant during our
writing. The chemistry that went down was very up, and I hope that
would translate onto the vinyl.
CM: As a band you seem to have found some kind of hope for continuing
- that there's a real purpose for doing it and a renewed sense of
identity.
GL: Yeah, I'd say that's accurate. There was definitely a "clicking
in" of mental frame of mind between the three of us. When you've been
in a band for as long as we have - and there haven't been very many
bands that have been around as long as we have - you go through many
different frames of mind. Sometimes the three of you are just not in
sync. You think you are and you act like you are but you're really
not - I think sometimes that shows in the stuff you write and the way
you behave on stage and the way you tour. Other times you're very,
very much of one mind.
Fortunately for us we're really at home when we're writing -
that's the moment where the three of us are most happy and the most in
sync with each other. This time we found ourselves at home in that
writing stage with more of a united purpose. I don't know if that
makes any sense to an outsider. It's a subtle difference, but a very
profound difference in the kind of energy that you're willing to put
into the project.
CM: Is that perhaps one of the reasons why you think Rush has held
together as long as it has?
GL: I think we've stayed together fo a lot of reasons. One, we're all
pretty soft-spoken and we don't have a tendency to blow up in each
other's faces. Good or bad, I think that means if something's going
on in the band and you're not happy about it, before you freak out you
think about it. It's just our nature. We're a little more
introspective as individuals and I think that lends itself to
longevity.
On the other side of it (away from the personal side), there's a
very strong musical vision that is always, or almost always, very
united. So you get these three people that have had, say, six months
off and have gone through completely different experiences on their
own, and then you sit them down together and you think: "My God, how
are these three people going to decide on what to write; how are they
going to have any point of reference anymore?", because their
individual lives are quite different. But time and time again, we
want to do the same kind of thing. Our musical goals are
frighteningly aligned. I think those two factors are really the only
factors that have kept us together for that long.
CM: On the new album you've once again used Rupert Hine as a
co-producer. Why did you use him and how is he in sync with what
you're trying to express? What are his strengths and his
contributions to the record?
GL: We had a very pleasant expreience on _Presto_ working with Rupert.
He and his engineer Stephen W. Taylor are professional, very
congenial, extremely musical and we found things went very smoothly
and very quickly. It was an efficient process.
I think we're fairly capable of producing ourselves, but we need
that extra little sounding board - that person who we can bounce ideas
off of and sometimes contribute with an idea that we would never have
thought of. But for the basic writing and arrangements on the last
two albums, I think there's been very little [difference], in a
fundamental sense, from before we had producer's input to after.
There's a confidence that the songs that we're writing are in fairly
good shape by the time the producer comes in.
So the producer, for us, helps us with feel in terms of putting a
record down and making sure that our fanatacism in terms of tightness
and perfection does not overwhelm the song from feeling good. I think
that's something we've learned from Rupert to a large degree and I
think that's probably, to my mind, his strongest influence on us over
the past two records - even though the track may not be 100 percent
tight in terms of a microscopic view, that's not really the issue.
The issue is making the song feel good and making the performance feel
right.
I think we had a tendency to be almost sterile in the way we went
about putting together a performance. I mean we were very adamant
about tightness to the millisecond between bass, drums and guitar.
Super, super, super tight - beyond, in some people's opinion, anybody
else's ability to hear the difference.
So I think he's brought more of a feel... helped us be more aware
of when a song is feeling good from us. It's created a bit of a
looser vibe and I ike that a lot. So, his overseeing the performances
going to tape has been very helpful to us and his contribution in
terms of vocal arrangements and things like that, to me, are Rupert's
strengths.
Both [Hine and Taylor] are musicians so they understand an
appreciate everything you're doing regardless of how complex it is.
That helps cut down a lot of time and wasted energy in the studio.
They're a very musical-efficient team and they complemented over the
last two records the job that we had already done as co-producers.
CM: I find that you're using the word "efficient" quite a lot. You
obviously live by your own rules, because you've been together for
this long and have done so much. Efficiency must mean a great deal to
you and the rest of the band with the way you run things.
GL: Well, just in the fact that we've been a band that's been together
for a long time. Time is very important to us. Personal time, home
time, family time.
CM: And yet you've done so much.
GL: Yeah we have, but as we progress, and, I hesitate to use the
phrase, as we get older, those things are important. When we're
together in a studio we want to make sure we're not wasting our time.
We don't mind working - we like to work and get down to it, but we
don't want to sit around the studio twiddling our thumbs and
frittering away time when we could be doing something else, which at
that point could be more important to us. So we want to make sure
that there is a sense of of efficiency and we are making the most of
our hours there.
When we were younger, we did albums in residential studios and we
were working 24 hours a day. We'd work all night and we would spend a
long time making records and it was... it was the lifestyle. It's not
any longer. Now it is a way of getting our music on tape and we want
to make sure we have a good time doing it, but we want to make sure it
gets done right and then we're out of there, onto the next thing.
CM: You're efficient in another way - musically. You're a trio that
sounds like a 10-piece band. You use all your talents very
efficiently. Neil writes the words, you and Alex write the music, and
the way you put it together sounds like a gigantic rock orchestra -
and there are only three of you. You're not adding people - there's
never been a fourth member of Rush. You've sparsely used even
background vocalists.
GL: Yeah, we have been pretty self-sufficient over the years. Whether
that's good or bad I guess only time will tell...
We are very much a closed circle - it's just the three of us.
Sometimes I think that's unhealthy. When we can have somebody new in
the control room - whether it be a producer, engineer, keyboard
player, string arranger, vocalist - all these things help teach us
something. And that is something I think that we probably did not do
enough of in our earlier years. As a result, I think that's why every
couple of records we seem to be changing producers. Just for the sake
of moving on and learning more. There's else somebody out there that
can bring some fresh influence to the band.
CM: You're talking about influences now and people influencing you.
How much do you listen to and get influenced by what's happening
outside of Rush musically? You've seen popular music change radically
since you began. How much do you let that affect what you're putting
out right now?
GL: Right now there's very little influencing me in terms of rock. I
don't listen to very much contemporary music at the moment - there's
just not very much that catches my fancy. I seem to be listening to
old records and things that are very different from what I'm doing. I
listen to classical records, I listen to Billie Holliday, I listen to
Louis Armstrong: all kinds of stuff that really has nothing to do
with what I'm doing at the moment, aside from the rock bands that I
really like a lot, like The Cure, Simple Minds, Talking Heads - I
always have time for those bands.
Nonetheless, there are different times in our past where we have
been very influenced by what's going on. It was the late '70s when
bands like The Police - there was a heavily rhythmic influence on rock
and pop that we liked a lot and we reacted to. We wanted to be part
of that movement and learn from [it]. That was a big influence on us.
In the early '70s when we first started, we were pretty heavily
influenced by a lot of the progressive rock bands like Yes and
Genesis. So we started off being very influenced and at different
times there are different kinds of music that do influence us. But I
think we're always being influenced that we listen to, whether it's
contemporary or not.
In one way or another, as a musician, you're always listening and
you're always asking the same questions to yourself as you're
listening to a piece of music. So I think it's very hard for an
active musician not to be influenced by what he's listening to,
whether it be in an overt way or a very subtle way. I think it always
goes down and as I say at the moment there's no great contemporary
influence, but there are probably 10 or 12 more subtle influences that
are affecting each one of us in our own way.
CM: I asked you that question because I noticed on the title track,
_Roll_The_Bones_, there's quite a funky groove to it and there's,
what appears to be, a little bit of rap in the middle of it. So
I was wondering if you were stretching out and exploring that area
as it pertains to the success and the popularity of that musical form
today.
GL: Yeah. I guess that track is something that was influenced by more
of the spoken word stuff that is going on, although I can't sit here
and say I'm a fan of rap. I like some rap things, but a lot of I
don't like. I think there's some of it that's really well done -
there are some clever people out there. But it's also not a new
influence.
People are talking about rap music like it's something new - it's
not new at all. It's been around for over a decade, if not always in
one form. And there are songs, like "Territories", where we have used
a similar kind of thing, although it was never related to rap because
it wasn't the music of the moment - so we have used spoken word
sections before.
This one is written more from Neil's point of view. The lyrics
were written very much in concert with contemporary rap music: the
way the words react against each other and the structures form more in
sympathy with what's going on in a contemporary rap way. To a degree
we are having fun with that. We couldn't make up our minds really if
we wanted to be influenced by rap or satirize it, so I think that song
kind of falls between the cracks and in the end I think it came out to
be neither, it came out to be something that is very much us.
CM: It definitely sounds like Rush.
GL: I guess with the three of us it's pretty hard not to. I mean
there are certain elements of our sound that are kind of inimitable at
this stage.
CM: You rely a lot on technology. How much does the technology you're
using affect your songwriting? Is there an experimental element to
the technology that you use?
GL: Yeah. It's definitely experimental. I think technology has a
great effect on what we do - less of an effect now than perhaps
records of the past. The last two records were rebellion, in a sense,
against the technology that we kind of got locked into.
With _Hold_Your_Fire_ and _Power_Windows_ we were _so_ technology
oriented. We were really after a marriage of synthesizer technology
and hard rock. Those records were experiments in balance of those
two, and that experiment started with _Signals_, really. That was
the first major experiment.
After _Signals_ was finished, we felt it was kind of a failure
in getting the right balance. With _Grace_Under_Pressure_ we
still felt we were experimenting with that balance; with
"Subdivisions" we felt like we leaned too heavily into keyboards
and ignored the guitar aspect of it. With _Grace_Under_Pressure_ we
felt felt we over-reacted too much the other way.
With _Power_Windows_ and _Hold_Your_Fire_ we felt we kind of
achieved the balance. So because we'd gone through literally four
records of trying to balance those two things out I think by the time
we came to write _Presto_ and this record we didn't want to know
anything about being restricted to a concept. We just wanted to
write.
As a writer I hesitated going to my keyboards, hesitated going to
my sequencers - always thought of first writing from a vocal and
guitar point of view. So if those four albums were experiments in
guitar/synthesizer balancing, then these last two records have been a
bit of a return to our fundamental - I hesitate to use, return to
basics, because I don't think we ever do have a "back to basics"
approach - trio attitude with the experimenting all done in the vocal
area.
Melodically I think these last two albums are much different than
something we could have done four or five years ago. The vocal
layering and the influence that writing around a vocal melody has on
the rest of the song has been really what these two records fo me have
been about as a writer, and I think the band as a whole.
CM: So you're feeling fairly stable with the balance that you've
manged to create.
GL: Yeah, I guess to wrap it up correctly, the last two records have
been freer attempts at writing - less confined. There are incredible
orchestration and textural possibilities when you're locked into using
sequencers and synthesizers. It's a great sonic advantage, but
there's also an emotional and feel restriction when you get too locked
into that technology, so these two records (and particularly this one)
have been a bit of a revolt against that restriction to create a freer
sound with the band.
We will use [technology] as a way of enhancing our songs as
opposed to it being the fundamental song itself. And this is
coordination with an interest in experimenting with vocal melodies and
layering - again a more organic approach to writing.
CM: How are you going to reproduce that vocal layering and the much
more complex vocal stylings in a live situation?
GL: Well, a lot of that is very difficult. You see, the freer we get
in the studio the more it creates a hell-on-earth onstage. It was
very difficult last tour. Obviously Alex has to be a lot more
involved in singing back-up, and there's always the decision of what
parts to sequence and what parts to use backing sampling and things
like that. So it's a very difficult thing and I'm not quite sure how
we're going to achieve it for the next tour, although last tour we got
quite a good balance between Alex and electronics helping us out.
There were certain things on the last tour that were very heavily
animated so there were moments where soundtrack on film took over
certain moments of our songs and we'd come back in afterwards. It's
kind of a mixed media thing. Because we're so heavily involved in
using sampling and sequencing machines and audio visual stuff it's
very much a combination of technology and human beings on stage when
you go to a Rush show. It's a marriage of the two. And all of that
fuss is just to avoid adding another person onstage.
There's nothing that we use onstage that's triggered by anyone
else, because there's this kind of unwritten code that if we're going
to use a sampled piece or a sequenced piece it has to be triggered by
us, which is why we have this elaborate foot pedal setup. Nothing
happens without some connection to performance for us. So you have to
be there and if you have a small rhythmic sequence that's going to be
playing, somebody has to trigger it at the right time - it's more of a
choreography of technology.
You've got to be there at the right time, you've got to trigger it
in time, you've got to add that element of performance, and if you
screw up you can't use the part, so no matter how complex our show
gets in the use of technology, we make sure that there has to be that
element of human error that makes the difference. You have to be able
to trigger it. It has to be connected to us in some way.
CM: It seems like you're making it very difficult for yourselves when
it could be done a lot easier. You say it's an unwritten rule in the
band, but...
GL: Yeah. It could be a lot easier with another person. And I don't
know why... We talked... Before the last tour we had very serious
talks about adding another member.
CM: Just for the tour?
GL: Just for the tour, yeah - not in the band. But we came to the
conclusion that our fans would rather see us use technology to try to
pull it off than have somebody else on the stage. And I really think
that that was the main reason why we opted to try to do it ourselves.
We figured that people who have been coming to see us for 15 years
would rather see us up there fighting our way through the show
than hiring somebody else. We figured that technology was a more
acceptable answer than not being a three-piece.
CM: You mentioned your marriage between technology and the human
element. How much do the visual aspects come in? Do you get very
involved in that personally?
GL: Yeah, very involved. Personally I have a lot of input into the
film portions of our show. In the past, lighting effects and all
those things have always been left to our lighting designer. But as
far as the use of animation - that's something I'm very interested in.
I'm pretty proud of the kinds of animation we've put together over the
last few years because we've used some very talented artists in town
here and I think we've achieved some really unique pieces of work that
I think stand up. And it's an area that I'm very interested in and
have a lot of fun doing.
CM: And you also have a lot of personal input into the videos that you
put out as well.
GL: Well, I have as much as will fit. Sometimes we work with the
director; sometimes we let them do the job because they have a very
strong sense of where the project should go; other times you have to
put in a lot more; and sometimes you want to put more in, so it really
depends.
I figure that some of our videos have been very successful, some
of them haven't. It's never a completely satisfying experience for me
because there are so many limitations. It's such a strange thing,
this video - it's gotta be too practical to be considered really a
piece of art, although you can be very artful about doing it.
It's basically a commercial for your song. There's something
about that that really kind of turns me off from the word go. And
depending on the director you're using, you know they usually have
very little feel for the music itself and that kind of bothers me. So
it's very rare that we've used the same director twice.
CM: We were talking a little bit about influences before. I want to
do a little extension of that: Rush seems to be in a certain niche in
the musical sphere that no-one has been able to duplicate.
GL: Or want to? (laughter)
CM: I don't know about that... You have a lot of fans and you're very
popular not only in Canada, but also on the international scene. You
must have come across many instances where someone will come up to you
and say, "You've really done a lot for me in my musical career and one
of your records changed my life. It made me decide to do this and
this." How do you react to something like that?
GL: It's a difficult thing to react to in any real way because you're
gratified that what you've done has had some effect on that person,
although the intention was not to change their life - just to
entertain them.
The fact that they've taken something you;ve done very seriously
is kind of a double-edged sword. You're complimented that, but at the
same time you can't let it go beyond that kind of compliment.
Otherwise you start thinking of yourself in much too serious a light.
Like, "what I'm doing affects someone's life."
You can't think like that because it affects the way you write.
It allows part of your ego to become awkwardly large. It's not for
any great reason to be a humble guy, it's just that the more out of
proportion your ego gets, the harder it is to do a good job; the
harder it is for you to be in touch with what it is about your music
that works and doesn't work. Likewise what it is about your
personality that is happening or not happening. So to take those
kind of compliments too seriously I think damages your ego. People
say it pumps you up, but I think that's wrong. I don't think it helps
you in any way as a person, and I think it can have a very negative
effect on you as a writer.
CM: Perhaps you'd also have a sense of responsibility. It would tag
you; you might think: "Oh, I'm responsible for that." It might make
you feel uneasy.
GL: Yeah that's true. You want to feel the freedom of being able to
do what you want. A complaint that I get a lot from fans is: "Why
don't you do this record again... how come you don't sound more like
_Moving_Pictures_ or _2112_, or how come you don't play like
_Hemispheres_ any more??"
It's very hard to explain that thing - you kind of have to be
making records or writing music for a long time to understand it. It
just doesn't come out. You've got other things that interest you and
you want to keep challenging yourself, but it's not this big decision
to keep challenging yourself. It's a very natural thing. You go in
the studio and you just start writing. We get together, and we just
start writing. So what you end up with has a lot to do with who you
are at that point in time. So you cannot sit there and go, "OK, let's
write _Moving_Pictures_ all over again - let's go back in time 10
years and see if we can capture that feel".
That would be somehow dishonest to everything you've done since
then and it would feel like you were just going through the motions -
and you cannot stay a band for very long if you're just trying to
capitalize on some successful moment moment you've had in your past
and build your future on your past.
It's all stepping stones. I still like to think that we haven't
made the best record we can make. I still like to think that we're
looking for that real fabulous combination of performance and writing
and feeling that will make a timeless record. But I don't think you
can do that by looking over your shoulder.
CM: Despite your personal philosophy on making records and the changes
you've made, you've managed to maintain a sound which is distinctly
Rush.
GL: I think that's because it comes from your hands. A lot of people
are afraid to change producers. We used to be like this. We said,
"Well, we can't change producers because our sound will change." And
then suddenly you change producers; your sound changes a little bit,
but it doesn't really change - the heart of it is still the same.
Here we are, four or five producers past Terry Brown, and we still
sound like Rush. Well, why is that? That's 'cause we _are_ Rush,
because the combination of the three of us working together, our
fingers on our instruments, has a particular sound that you really
can't erase. Our views of music and our style of writing are so much
_us_ that I don't think you can squash that - you really can't take it
away from us.
It's just the way we are - it's the way we sound. I think
musicians have to have a lot of confidence in themselves - if they
have a sound to call their own they shouldn't be afraid of working
with other people or be afraid anyone can take that sound away from
them as long as they have a strong sense of where they're at as a
writer and as a musician. I don't think they should be scared of that
kind of change because their sound comes from their fingers - it comes
from their way of thinking.
======================================================================
Sidebar: "Neil Peart On..."
There's a running joke about us doing solo albums," Neil Peart
says cheerfully. "Lucky there's only three of us."
As Rush's lyricist and percussionist, Peart is privy to one of the
most popular and longest running rock icon bands in the world - but
you wouldn't know it to talk to him on the phone.
"We work under a kinda superstition - an element of change is
critical for us. We feel there's no sense of guarantee at all," Peart
says, referring to his many years of hard work and dedication to the
precarious craft of musicianship.
"As a young musician you're used to disillusionment and
disappointment. You're disillusioned and disappointed so many times;
even when I had a chance to join this band... I never thought it
would turn out this way."
"This way", as Peart describes it, is pretty much on the top of
the heap in terms of Rush's musical success.
"I always think of Rush widely spread on musical influences - from
African, to hard rock, to Toronto R&B. There are no areas of
frustration."
Then there is Peart's personal contribution to the art of rock
drumming, something not to be trifled with as he has earned the
respect and admiration of his peers and fans around the world.
"I don't need to practise every day any more. After 25 years it
doesn't go away. If I leave drumming for a few months I sit down at
the same level I left at; I just have to build up the calices again."
Pulling his weight not only as an extremely effective drummer,
Peart has also been Rush's wordsmith practically since the day he
joined the band.
"Lyric writing is as technical as drumming is, and should be
approached with purpose and discipline," Peart says. "I'll sit and
stare and a blank sheet of paper for three days if that's what it
takes.
"I have long discussions with Geddy about which type of lyrics
work and which don't. I'm very sensitive to where the vocalist may
be, and if I want to punch up or drop out.
"I realize that sometimes the lyrics are secondary. Lyrics used
to be so good and so finely crafted in the '30s and '40s - no one
would put out second rate lyrics. Then the '50s came out with things
like 'Be-bop a-lula'. A sense of craft and care is not definable...
I please myself with structure, but realize that it doesn't matter."
With the release of _Roll_The_Bones_ and a massive tour just
around the corner, Peart is, as he surely has been during his long
association with Rush, genuinely enthusiastic about what the future
holds.
"We're driving full bore; we've moved our plans way up. You have
to create your own challenge; make it dangerous; keep it exciting.
You can't let the excitement go away.
"We've learned not to take anything for granted. We don't know,
but we can _hope_. That's something you can't allow to die."
----------------------------------------------------------
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Editor, The National Midnight Star
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End of The National Midnight Star Number 392
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