Rush Looks Back At Road To Stardom
By James Muretich, Calgary Herald, November 10, 1998, transcribed by pwrwindows
The measure of a band's success isn't in the music.
It's in the vehicle it drives while on tour.
All of which is to say that Rush, the Toronto hard-rock trio that formed 29 years ago, has been successful beyond its wildest pubescent dreams for quite some time.
"On the first tour, we were sleeping on our baggage in the back of a snow-covered rental station wagon," says lead singer and bassist Geddy Lee who's reminiscing about days of yore since Rush's new triple live CD set - Different Stages - hits stores today.
"The big thrill of our lives was when we actually graduated to a minivan on our third tour and you could actually stand up in it.
"By the third tour we had a winnebago and finally we earned enough money so that we could travel by bus.
"It was a long haul to get to that point."
It has been many a long and winding road from the days when the group would be mistaken for the Montreal metal band Mahogany Rush - all the time - to today when, at the age of 45, Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart are respected throughout the rock world for their 22 album legacy, beginning with their 1974 self-titled debut disc.
Together the musicians have gone from being hard-rock mystics with a Tolkien tendency to mature, elder, rock statesmen with an analytical social bent in their lyrics.
"We've gone through various periods and I guess in the early '70s, late '70s, we were kind of naive and idealistic about a lot of things - which I think is fairly normal for that period of your life," says Lee.
"You're searching for a better way and you're convinced that there has to be a better society than what you're dealt with and then, as you age, I think you spend your time thinking of ways of dealing with what does exist as opposed to what could exist.
"I think every artist reserves the right to be wrong and to grow from a point in the past," says Lee.
"I think the only thing that matters is that you did what you did with real conviction at the time."
Different Stages, the new retrospective set, certainly puts the band's growth in perspective. While the first two CDs are culled from more than 100 shows recorded during the trio's 1993 Counterparts and 1996 Test for Echo tours, the third CD comes from a tape of a 1978 Rush show at London's Hammersmith Odeon that Lee found in his Toronto home.
"It's interesting because during that period we did a lot of work in England where punk was alive and well with the Sex Pistols, Stranglers and all these other bands.
"In a way, they instantly legitimized us as musicians because no matter how crude we were considered before this, suddenly we were sophisticated and masters of our instruments compared to guys who only knew three chords.
"We had a burgeoning group of fans in London and those gigs were special. So, when I found those tapes in my basement I thought it would be kind of cool to bring them up and see if we could utilize them."
It was a period when Lee was the target of many a critic's poison pen when it came to his high-pitched vocal style.
"Of course, when you're a young kid with stars in your eyes and out there touring, it does bother you ... but I very quickly had to learn to deal with it because," he says laughing, "it was a fairly regular occurrence."
If anything, listening to countless hours of Rush has made him more aware of the special relationship he shares with his musical mates, especially at this difficult time in the group's personal history.
Peart has had to suffer the loss of his 19-year-old daughter, Selena, in a car accident last year and the death of his wife, Jackie, from cancer this year.
"At the end of it all, you realize here are three people who really enjoy each other's company as friends, who enjoy working together and who have tremendous respect for each other's individuality..."
Different Stages, Rush's new triple live CD set, hits stores today.