Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee on Rockline for Presto
Rockline, April 30, 1990, transcribed by Elisabeth Perrin
Bob Coburn: Every now and then on Rockline, we like to catch up with a major band in mid-tour to see how things are going. Tonight is one of those nights. Rush is one of the most respected bands in rock and roll and rock radio is already several tracks deep into Presto, their latest release. Things seem to be once again going extrememly well for the Toronto-based trio. But let's find out for sure as we welcome from Rush, Geddy Lee. Geddy, good evening; welcome back!
Geddy: Hi, how ya doing?
BC: I'm doing great tonight. And with you is supreme guitarist Alex Lifeson. Alex, welcome back to Rockline.
Alex: Hello.
BC: How are things going on this tour? Any major surprises so far?
Geddy: I guess the surprise is that we're enjoying it as much as we are. It's been a really good tour, and the pacing's been great and the crowds have been really better than we expected and everything's really been on quite a positive note.
BC: Now the album seems to be very straightforward to me, and the stage setup this time is the same. Is it just me, or were there a few frills that were done without this time?
Geddy: Well, actually, not really; in terms of presentation from our production standpoint there's alot more, kind of animation and you know, weaving of film and different little things in and out of our songs. It's kind of a bit of a cleaner stage set-up and a slightly different look and -
Alex: Oh, we have a new carpet.
BC: A new carpet?
Geddy: Yeah, that's right.
Alex: That's why it's cleaner.
Geddy: We have a better vaccuum cleaner that could explain something.
BC: How long do you plan to tour this time? Do you run to the end of June with this tour?
Alex: Yeah, we're right through till the very end of June. I think we've -
BC: Now I've heard - go ahead Alex.
Alex: No, I was just gonna say, I think we finish midnight on the 30th.
BC: He's already got it planned out, and a plane booked the following morning probably. I heard you had to reschedule some shows but didn't miss any. You had some vocal problems, Geddy; can you fill us in that?
Geddy: Well, I had a 10-day break after the last run of dates - actually the ones we finished in California. I got home and of course the Canadian weather did me a favor and I basically just got a cold. The time we were supposed to play Rochester I was a little beyond performance status so we just rescheduled it a couple of weeks later.
BC: I was a little surprised at the set list at the show I saw in Los Angeles. You played some selections I hadn't heard you guys play live in years. How do you choose the old songs? You just kind of talk it out amongst yourselves?
Alex: Yeah, basically that's it. Some songs like "Xanadu" for instance, we haven't played in about 60 or 70 years so we thought it'd be kind of fun to bring a song like that back.
Geddy: Just to try to scare the audience.
BC: I expected a little more of Presto and what are you playing -five, six songs from Presto?
Geddy: There's I think five songs in the set right now. And the difficult thing is - I mean, obviously we love alot of the songs on Presto and we wanted to play more, but it was really a battle to try to get the set to two hours. And we've been chopping things left and right, and it's difficult when you have so many albums out cause there's people that come and they want to hear the new record, and so obviously we have a predominance of new songs in the set but we want to include something from alot of the other albums that people are, you know, really looking forward to hearing. It's really a very very difficult thing to do, to juggle, to try to work out exactly what songs we want to play.
BC: I have a call from Cincinnati to begin things. It's Bill, a listener of WEBN. Good evening Bill.
Caller: Hi, how ya doing?
Geddy: Good, how are you doing?
Alex: Hey, Bill.
Caller: Oh this is just great man! I tried to get through the other time, I missed you guys. This is great. I saw your show in Cincinnati and you guys really rocked. That is some good stuff.
Geddy: Thank you very much.
Alex: Thanks.
Caller: Question about your - there was a biography that was supposed to come out about 2 years ago by a fan of yours and it was called "Visions" and I looked for it in the stores in late August, of '88 I think it was, and I couldn't find it. You know what happened to it?
Geddy: Well it did come out; I don't understand why you haven't been able to find it, but I'm sure if you asked the bookstore, place an order, I'm sure they'd be able to dig it up for you.
BC: Was this a sanctioned biography?
Geddy: Well, not exactly, I mean not literally. It was kind of a - there was this fan that we met in Philidelphia who became friends with us over the years, and he sorta took it upon himself to put together a biography, but more in the form of a fanzine from a fan's point of view. Alot of kind of details of, you know, what we went through, becoming a band, and sort of stages of our career. And he sorta did it with our help in the sense that we provided him with some information and things like that. So I wouldn't exactly call it an official biography but it certainly had our approval.
BC: And it's out there, Bill. Made Bill a very happy guy tonight. Thank you for calling. Gonna talk to Dan now, in Birmingham, a listener of Rock 99. You're on the Rockline, Dan.
Caller: Geddy, Alex, how ya doing?
Alex: Good.
Geddy: Good, how are you?
Caller: Well I too tried to call you guys in 1979 - er, 1984, and I did, I was the second to last caller. And I'm going to see you tomorrow night in Atlanta and I'm looking at my copy of "Visions." It took me six months to get it.
BC: What's the publisher on that, Dan? Do you know offhand?
Caller: The publisher is Omnibus Press, London, New York, Sydney, and Colonge.
BC: There you go; maybe that'll help the previous caller. What's on your mind tonight, Dan?
Caller: Well, I just wanted to tell you guys that you guys are phenominal, man. It's like, I have a kid named - I have a little boy named Geddy, my sister has a little boy named Alex, and we're just like totally impressed. What can I say?
Geddy: Well, I had nothing to do with it.
Alex: I know a little kid named Geddy too.
Caller: Canadian, that's ok. My first question was, Geddy, did your use of sequencers free up your bass playing at all?
Geddy: I'm sorry, I didn't hear - understand the question.
Caller: No, the use of sequencers on stage; did that free up your bass playing like you planned for it to do?
Geddy: Um, yes it has. The use of sequencers and various electronic sampling devices has let me play alot more bass on this tour which makes me alot happier.
BC: Yeah, gotta keep Geddy happy. Dan, thanks for calling. It's Rich's turn. Southbend, Indiana is where he's located, and our station's 95 WAOR. Hi, Rich.
Caller: How ya doing?
Geddy: Good.
Alex: Good.
Caller: Good. My question's to Geddy. Wondering with Neil Peart writing all the songs on pretty much every album, I was wondering how you sing the words with such emotion or conviction without even writing them and maybe not always agreeing with what they say?
Geddy: Well, that's kind of a complicated question but 1) because I write all the melodies, vocal melodies, and because of the amount of interplay that the three of us have when putting a song together, there's alot of discussion musically and lyrically before anything's really decided upon. And for me, I have to either agree with the lyrics or be able to put myself in a frame of mind to interpret his lyrics. And if either of those things is the case, then I have no problem being emotive about singing them. But there is alot of discussion with the music that Alex and I write, and Neil, and the lyrics that he writes back and forth, so you don't really feel separated from them, you know. You feel that it's a statement that you can call your own and that you have had some kind of relationship with the birth of the song and the writing of the song.
Alex: Except my ideas are usually alot better.
BC: Rich, thanks for calling. "Superconductor" by Rush from Presto. That's not your basic 4/4 time rock and roll song there, is it there guys? What time is that in?
Geddy: Well, there's part of it in 7, and it slips kind of back and forth between 7 and 4. We like to actually drop a beat every once in a while just in case someone's dancing; they might hurt themselves.
BC: We're gonna take a call from Ottawa now. It's Rob, a listener of SHAY 106. Rob, you're on with Alex and Geddy.
Caller: Hi Ged, hi King Lerxst.
Alex: Hello, O loyal subject.
Geddy: Hello.
Caller: How are you both tonight?
Alex: Excellent.
Geddy: Excellent.
Caller: Good. I'm going to see you guys in a couple of weeks in Montreal and a couple of days later in Toronto. I'm really looking forward to it. I've been a big fan of Rush's for a long time, and first I want to say that I've enjoyed all the music you've given us over the years. Everthing from "I Think I'm Going Bald" to a song like "Tom Saywer" - thanks alot.
Geddy and Alex: Well, thank you.
Caller: I have two questions; the first one's for Geddy and the second one's for Alex. Geddy, one of my favorite songs from the Presto album is "Available Light." How did the song come to exist and what does it mean to Rush? And also will there be a video for it?
Geddy: Yeah, that's a three-parter all in one. How did the song come to be? Well, actually, the music - I wrote - the verse music was written as part of the very early stages of writing for Presto, and it wasn't until later in the writing sessions that Neil had some lyrics that seemed to suit the mood that the verses have, but even before that Alex had been working on another part of the song which was the choruses, which he had written at home in his home studio that have virtually remained untouched with the exception of a couple of....
Alex: Better vocals.
Geddy: So that song came together kind of in bits and pieces, and what was the rest of your question? Oh yeah, is there gonna be a video for it? I can't really say at this stage, I don't really know if there will be.
BC: And what else tonight, Rob?
Caller: Alex, I don't know if this is true, but I heard that years ago that the song "La Villa Strangiato" was about a nightmare that you had and you put it to music. If this is true, what was that nightmare about?
Alex: I can't talk about it. No, it was not a nightmare, it's more like dreams. Well, I guess I'm plagued by these interesting dreams.
Geddy: No, no, WE'RE plagued by these interesting dreams. We have to hear you tell us about them.
Alex: Yeah, and they're kind of off the wall like most dreams should be I think, and we just thought that song being broken up into so many sections would benefit from this influence.
BC: I read that also cartoon soundtracks may have influenced that song; is that the truth?
Geddy: Yes, that's true. Cartoon music is greatly underrated.
Alex: Monster cartoon music.
BC: Monster cartoon music? Amazing. Let's talk to Bob now, in Atlanta, a listener of 96 ROCK, which is where Geddy and Alex are located tonight. Bob, you're on the Rockline.
Caller: Gentlemen, welcome to the neighborhood.
Geddy and Alex: Hello.
Caller: It's a pleasure to talk to you guys and I look forward to the show. My first question: was Rush considered appearing on any live TV shows such as Arsenio Hall or Saturday Night Live and if you were asked to do so, would you do it?
Geddy: I don't think so.
Alex: Yeah, no one's ever asked.
Geddy: What was the question? No, I don't think it's really the place for us to play cause it doesn't seem to be idiom.
BC: Nobody's ever asked though - that amazes me!
Geddy: Well, they may have, but nobody asked us personally.
BC: I guess it's a moot point anyway since you wouldn't do it. Bob, what else?
Caller: Ok, question number 2: King, during the "Smoke on the Water" benefit recording, did you get a chance to play that much with David Gilmour or Brian May or anyone else and when will that be released?
Alex: No, I actually missed most of the recording of that. We were mixing Presto in the studio next door, and they asked if I would come in and just do a little bit of guitar work, as if they needed another guitar player. They had about 75 guitar players on it and the original recording had everyone in the studio at basically the same time, and I think they filmed most of the video at that point. I did the very last thing and then they mixed right after I finished, so I was sorta out of the whole picture, so to speak.
BC: Ok Bob, thanks for the call tonight. Geddy I was reading that you had become so removed from the song ["Red Barchetta"] you actually had to take out a _Moving Pictures_ CD and listen to it again to learn it. Any truth behind it?
Geddy: That's absolutely true. I had - we hadn't played it in years and I had to listen to it and try to remember what the heck I was playing on that song. And it struck me while I was listening to it what an odd arrangement it was. At the time it seemed completely normal to put an arrangement like that together.
BC: Now what was odd about it to you? Why did you feel that way about it?
Geddy: Well, just the, I guess, what has become kind of a signature style of the way we put songs together; we would write little movements, little pieces of music of varying and differing lengths and we would just kind of assemble them all together, and if we needed to drop a beat or add two beats to make the line extend itself into the next line we would, without thinking, without considering the continuity or anything like that. I hadn't realized that really it was kind of a very skeletal way of arranging and that is kind of I think how our style developed and listening back to it this many years later was kind of informative, having that objective distance.
BC: That sure sounds good on this current tour. Back to the phones; more calls for Geddy and Alex, this one from Edmonton. Glen, a listener of K-97, is on the Rockline. Hi, Glen.
Caller: How ya doing? Geddy, Alex, and Neil wherever you are, how ya doing?
Alex: Good, Glen.
Geddy: Hi.
Caller: I don't know if you remember me, but I talked to you here in Edmonton and on Rockline when you were on in December -
Geddy: Sure!
Caller: [unintelligible]... the sound check.
Geddy: Oh, that was you?
Caller: Yeah, that was me.
Alex: You were wearing jeans and a coat, right?
Caller: A leather jacket.
Alex: That's it.
Geddy: Yeah, we remember.
Caller: That was the most incredible thing, I talked to you, shaking your hand, I just cannot believe, my friends still don't believe it. I'll get right to my question now cause my friends will kill me, I mean, anyways -
Alex: You don't have very nice friends.
Caller: Ok, for the first question: will Rupert Hine be used to co-produce the next album or will you try to use a different producer?
Geddy: We don't know that at this stage.
Alex: Yeah, it's way too early to make a decision like that.
Geddy: I mean we loved working with Rupert and would enjoy working with him again but at the same time we loved working with Peter Collins and we would enjoy working with him again, so we have no idea what we're going to do next time round.
BC: Too far into the future there, Glen. What else tonight?
Caller: Ok, what sort of chronical - have you picked any songs to go on it yet, or will the record company have most of the input as to which great songs will appear? And I must sneak in - who's a better tennis player?
Geddy: I'm sorry, I didn't understand that question.
BC: Yeah, I didn't either. That one went right past me. Slow down a little, Glen; try it again.
Caller: Ok, what's the word on _Chronical_? Have you picked any of the songs to go on it yet or will the record company have most of the input as to which great songs will appear on it? And I just snuck in, who's a better tennis player?
Geddy: We don't know very much about _Chronical_ - that's our old record company so it's kind of their thing.
BC: That'll be left up to them then, huh?
Geddy: Yeah.
BC: And of course, the key question: who's the better tennis player?
Geddy: Well, uh...
Alex: Depends on who you ask.
Geddy: That's a tough question to answer while Alex is in the room.
BC: Glen, thanks, let's move on to Davenport, Iowa. Lori's been waiting for turn. She's a listener of 97X. Hi.
Caller: Hello. I want to amend what the announcer said at the beginning of the show. Alex, you are not A supreme guitar player, you are THE supreme guitar player.
Alex: Hello. Do you have a boyfriend?
Geddy: Actually, he's two supreme guitar players.
Caller: Same goes with you, Geddy, for your bass playing, and Neil, wherever he is, nobody writes better lyrics.
Geddy: Well, that's nice of you to say so.
Caller: Moving on to my question, speaking of lyrics, I want to bring up an old album. As a newer fan, it was an album I got to know later, but I think when he wrote "2112" and talked about a society with censorship and artistic censorship, especially music, did you realize that 14 years later, or do you think now that this is more relevant than it was then?
Geddy: Well, I think that's a question that's always relevant. I think it's one that's been dealt with through history again and again and again. Always comes up and I think it's a really important issue and, you know, I don't think - we like to think we live in a free society, and a free society is exactly that; a free society. And you can't start censoring the arts or any kind of form of free speech. If you wanna believe that you do live in a free society, so I think what "2112" dealt with back then is something that's going on still and something that we certainly weren't the first to bring it up. You know, it's echoing a sentiment and a belief from many many years.
Alex: And it's being addresses in Europe as we speak.
BC: Indeed, good call Lori. Thank you for it. We're gonna talk to Mike now as we head to Chicago. Our station is "The Loop" FM 98. Mike, you're on with Geddy and Alex from Rush.
Caller: Hi Alex, hi Geddy.
Alex: Hi Mike.
Geddy: Hi.
Caller: Here's my question: some musicians have their own unique ways of coming up new material. Jon Bon Jovi, for example, performed an experiment down a guitar down a staircase just to see if he could come up some ideas. Does Rush have any behind the sceens unique strategies?
Geddy: Well, none that we can mention on the air. I don't know, we just get together and it's - nothing is very premeditated, you know. We reserve a time and we look forward to this time where we get together apart from the kind of daily hustle and bustle. We like to get out of the city and have some privacy, but it's really kind of a natural thing that happens. We just start writing; we go in there every day, you know, all dressed up with nowhere to go and we start working on stuff, and we just try to have fun with it. And try to get something across that we're naturally feeling like expressing.
Alex: Yeah, we set up a very comfortable little area to write in, and it's always been condusive to results, and we do have another little area that we get away to once in a while just to get away from it. And always come back with better ideas.
Geddy: That's true.
BC: Didn't you isolate yourselves from the city this time around. I mean, you went to a cabin north of Toronto somewhere?
Geddy: It was a studio just outside of the city, but we've been doing that for I guess the last 4 or 5 albums. It's no great planned - there's nothing mystical about it or anything, it's just practical. The phone doesn't ring as much, and we try to be close enough to our homes that we can come home on the weekends and still live some semblance of a normal life.
BC: Thanks for being on Rockline, Mike. We have another Mike on the line, this time in Columbus, Ohio. Q-FM 96 is our affiliate. Good evening.
Caller: Good evening. Hi Geddy, Al, and Bob from me and from Ohio State University.
BC: Yeah.
Geddy: Hello.
Alex: Hi.
Caller: How ya doing? Two quick one for you. First of all, have you changed your set you'll be playing from the first leg of your tour, and secondly, for my friend Dave in Toledo, the songs "The Pass" and "Warpaint" and the video for "Show Don't Tell" seem to come from a teenager's focus, kind of like some of the stuff on _Signals_. Now I was wondering if this was just by chance or has the band and like Neil especially purposely concentrate on adult-teen relationships for some reason?
Geddy: Well, the first part of your question, I think the set has changed a little bit from the beginning of the tour, but I won't tell you how. To deal with the subject matter of the videos and the album, like I said before I don't think there was any great premeditated kind of blueprint to this album. There was a number of the songs, like "The Pass" for example, is a subject that I think is quite current, in the papers alot so it's very topical. And I think that inspired some of that point of view on this album. Just basically keeping up with current events.
Alex: And those teenage years are very turbulent years; there's alot happening in anyone's life at that point.
BC: Boy, that's an understatement very definitely. Mike, thank you for the call. Back to the phones now; Houston this time around, it's Eric, a listener of 101 KLOL. Eric, you're on the show.
Caller: All right, hi, how ya doing guys?
Alex and Geddy: Good.
Caller: I first would like to tel you that I've grown up listening to your music, songs like "Lakeside Park" things like that. Nothing puts a chill up my spine like that stuff. My question is, the last 4 albums have kind of departed from the older style music and I noticed that the lyrics are getting more politically-based and you're becoming more in tune to the issues that are going on. Have you gotten any feedback from fans on where things are going and where are they gonna continue to go in the future?
Geddy: Well, that's kind of a difficult question to answer, mainly because I don't really understand it, but -
Alex: Well, I think that for all the material over the last few records, we've always felt like we have to go somewhere; it's pointless to repeat a record that might be a successful record on some term, and just do that over and over again. We'd rather take the chance and try other things and learn from those things. They perhaps don't always work out, but I think the records that follow it always benefit from what we've learned from those experiments.
Geddy: And I think that's really true with every record we've done. I don't think there's any two records that have really followed one after the other in any kind of similar way. We keep diverting, and like I said earlier there's no great plan to what we're gonna do so it just kinda comes out and I think that's the best way we work. In terms of the future and in terms of what kind of fan reaction we get to that, you know, it's always mixed; you always get some people that love what you're doing now and then you get some people that want you to be what you were 5 years ago which is impossible. So we just keep carrying on what we're doing.
BC: Thanks, Eric. We're gonna move on to Munten, New Brunswick. We have Fernand on the line, a listener of rock 103 CJMO. Good evening.
Caller: Hello!
Geddy: Hello!
Caller: Yes, how are you guys?
Geddy: Good, how are you?
Caller: Fine. I would like to know, first I want like to tell you that I really enjoy your music and I started to listen to your music when I was a teenager and now I am an adult and I still enjoy it as well. And I know, I'm sure that alot of people on this planet like your music, but my question would go to Geddy and I would like to know if you feel that the band tended to have the recognition they deserve worldwide as far as critic?
Geddy: Well, it's a difficult thing to comment on, critical recognition, I mean, we do our music not to please critics; we do our music to please ourselves and to please our fans, and obviously there's a role for the critic, and there's a role that can be instructional, educational and sometimes very helpful in helping you recognize things about what you do that maybe you didn't realize before. There's also a destructive element that criticises without a kind of seeming any kind of real interest in what you're doing, just as something to talk about. So it's a hard question to answer, whether we've received the kind of critical recognition we deserved, I don't know. We're doing very well, and we have alot of faithful fans and we're quite happy with the kind of music that we make, so I guess that's kind of all there is to it.
BC: Fernand, thank you for your call. I mentioned at the beginning of the show that I was really surprised at the set list - very pleasantly surprised. You've gone all the way back to the first album for "In The Mood." Why'd you choose to play this on this tour?
Alex: Well, we've actually been playing "In The Mood" on every single tour that we ever ever did.
BC: Have you really? Every single one?
Geddy: Yeah, I don't think we ever dropped it.
Alex: We've wanted to.
BC: You've wanted to.
Geddy: And tried to.
BC: And tried to.
Geddy: But we kinda do a satirical version of it now. We've always felt that we have to play at least one song from that first album, and that's the one we seem to have the most fun with. And also, the set is so complicated and there's so much musically that's being digested and then that we're having to think about during the show that we like to end the show on a really loose and upbeat kinda note and that song seems to provide an atmosphere of kind of reckless abandon, for lack of better description. And it's fun to do and everyone seems to enjoy it, so it's been our sort of perennial, night end of set song.
BC: Well, we're gonna put it on the air right now on Rockline.
Alex: Oh, no! Oh, no! Here it is!
Geddy: Ah, we'll be right back.
Alex: We were just kidding about what we said.
BC: The special long version there for ya, with the sociopolitical commentary, yes.
Geddy: This is the extended dance mix.
BC: Hey, baby, I'm in the mood.
Geddy: It's the 12 inch.
BC: We have a call from Alec; he wants to talk to Alex and Geddy. He's in Lamore, California listening to 106 KKDJ in Fresno. Hi!
Caller: Hi!
Geddy: Hi!
Caller: I have a question for Alex.
Alex: Ok, Alec.
Caller: Yes, in 1987 you had produced a song "Beyond Borders" with the Canadian Guitar Summet I wonder if you produced an album to go along with that song?
Alex: No, that was for a sound page for a guitar player and it was Rick Emmet's idea to get a group of different Canadian guitarists from different forms of music to play together on a piece and kind of showcase each other within the context of the song. And he called me up and I think we were in the studio working on... _Power Windows_? No it wasn't _Power Windows_ it was -
Geddy: It was the "In The Mood" 12 inch.
Alex: That's right we were remixing that. And he sent me a tape with a rough sketch of what he thought it should be. He actually wrote the song and then everyone kind of filled in their own parts. It was alot of fun to do; it was the first time I met Leona Boyd and she was alot of fun to work with.
BC: Alec, thank you. We're gonna let John have his turn. He's in Orange, California, listening to 95.5 KLOS. You're on the Rockline with Geddy and Alex.
Caller: Hi! Good day to Geddy and to Alex. Take my wife, please.
Alex: Why?
Caller: I got an autograph -
BC: Well, if you don't want her -
Geddy: What's wrong with her?
Caller: I got an autograph from Alex and he wrote that on there so I wanted to return the favor. A question for each of you; for Geddy I've noticed - as a photographer myself - I've noticed that you use a Lyca R-5 and that you like Andre Curtez, and I wanted to know your interest in photography.
Geddy: Well, that's an interesting question and one that would probably get a very long answer from me. But it's a hobby of mine, and it's something from an appreciation point of view that I'm interested in alot of different photographers and it's becoming a more and more respected art form, and there's alot of great work out there; alot of galleries and museums around the world where you can spend an afternoon before a show appreciating other people's expressions, so it's kind of a hobby of mine.
BC: John, we have time for a second question if you can do a quick one.
Caller: I would like to know if Alex is gonna put out an instructional video on how to live with sharks.
Alex: How to live with sharks? Yes, it'll be very very short. Don't. Don't.
BC: Thanks. Right now we have a call from Greg in Bloomington, Minnesota, a listener of 92 KQRS in Minneapolis. Greg, you're on the show.
Caller: Yeah, hi Geddy and Alex.
Alex: Hi.
Geddy: Hello.
Caller: Yeah, it's good to speak with you again. I was reading an interview with Neil Peart in _Modern Drummer_, and he said that when you guys arrange music, you arrange it around a drum machine, and then you give the music to him and he writes the drum piece. I've been wondering, how long have you been using, or arranging, around a drum machine and have you ever done it differently?
Alex: Yeah, just the last 3 records we've been using a drum machine and it's only to establish some tempo for us. It doesn't get very involved...
Geddy: Except for sometimes when we add the special comedy/dramas.
BC: I'd like to hear that sometime.
Alex: But before that, we didn't use anything really to establish any sort of tempo like that.
Geddy: Which is why the tempos are always shifted - no.
BC: Greg, there you go. Thanks for being on the Rockline. We're gonna let Brian have a shot. He's in Cleveland, listening to WMMS, one of the first stations really to break Rush, and Brian you're on the Rockline. Hello Brian are you there?
Caller: Yeah, hi, hi Geddy, Alex.
Alex: Hi Brian.
Geddy: Hello.
Caller: I was just wondering, years and years ago there was a poster of you guys put out; it was a large life-size poster, sort of like a Zeppelin poster. I was wondering if it was still in print or could be ordered from anywhere. It was such a rarity I can never find it.
Geddy: I couldn't tell you that I know the poster that you're talking about.
Alex: Is it like the Mr. Goodwrench poster?
Caller: No, it was a big giant poster, almost like - they make them of Zeppelin, I was wondering -
Geddy: I don't really know. I wouldn't know a thing about it I'm afraid.
BC: Do you know the year or anything, Brian, any more clues?
Caller: It was around like a _2112_ print, like around '76 or something like that.
Geddy: I would say your best bet is to contact our office in Toronto somehow, and try to ask them. They might know.
BC: And if you don't have the address you can always get in touch with Rockline and we'll set it up for you. Time for a couple more calls, quickly. To Binghamton, Pennsylvania, a listener of WKGB FM, Brian. You're on the show.
Caller: Geddy, King Lerxst, how's it going, eh?
Alex and Geddy: Good.
Caller: Not to ignore Alex, but my question is for Geddy.
Alex: Oh, never mind.
Caller: Oh, ok. I read in an interview last year that you'd been taking keyboading/piano lessons to improve your playing?
Geddy: Yes.
Caller: I just wondered how they were going now.
Geddy: Slowly. Actually, I was doing quite well and then I got interrupted by having to make the record and now the tour, so I've fallen behind a little bit but I'm gonna pick it up again when I get back home.
BC: That's dedication. Brian, thanks for the call. We have Carmen on the line in Buffalo, New York. 97 rock's our station. Carmen, hi.
Caller: Yes, how's it going guys?
Alex: Good.
Geddy: Pretty good.
Caller: That's good. It seems to me, like with Presto, you guys have achieved what you've been hoping for, basically throughout the years. And it sounds to me like you really enjoyed making the record, and I was wondering if that was true, and also if you did, was it a positive experience enough for you to wanna stick around inthe business that much longer?
Alex: I think we had the best time yet making this record. Everything went very quickly, we were really well-prepared, we had alot of fun. It was just wonderful to make. Usually, it's a very stressful period and it's very concentrated and it's alot of hard work, but this one really was alot of fun.
Geddy: Yeah, and I think you're right. This is a kind of a record that we've been trying to make for a while. Alot of things came together just in terms of the drive and the power and the songs and the combination of melodies and cohesiveness that we've been trying to approach from a writing standpoint, so, you know, we are very pleased with it. And I think it does mean we'll be around for a little while longer, anyway. Hope so.
BC: Yeah, let's hope so. Yeah, definitely. Carmen, thank you. Thanks to everybody for listening and calling. Of course a special thanks to Geddy and Alex themselves. Gentlemen, it is always a pleasure, loved the concert here in Los Angeles, good luck with the rest of the tour, and I hope your Blue Jays do well for you this year.
Alex: Thanks.
Geddy: Thanks, Bob. It's always a pleasure for us to come back.