RUSH - The Story Of Rush - Polish subtitles (polskie napisy)

[Music] [Music] lovino lighted stage think I'm in touch with some TV [Music] [Applause] Wow [Applause] please welcome from Canada gosh [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] but they're marching [Music] if you got a band together growing up you didn't think about writing your own music you learned other songs they kind of identified yourself by this kind of music you play and all the best players that quickly learns the the language was [Music] [Music] first time I heard rush I was like oh my god I had no idea this band was this this incredible I became obsessed they work My gods I listened to it and I thought wow that is amazing playing my mind was just totally blown I bought every magazine I had every record I cut out every picture and I would go to sleep at night with rush on the heads and you know wake up and it was still playing like I did that I Sebastian Bach was member number three of the rush backstage club Toronto mothertrucker rush is just one of those bands that has a deep reservoir of rocket sauce a lot of bands they've only got so much in the bottle they use it up sometimes in one song these guys were the real deal their bottle was so big and so filled to the brim they they were shaking it literally for decades and still there was sauce coming out [Music] what makes rush unique is fearlessness it's the quality of starting to write a song and not caring about what's popular what's not there's only one band that sounds like that what kind of band is rush its rush I believe when people step back and actually really look at who the great bands were they are one of those bands but somehow they were never popular enough that they get commonly name checked as one of the great bands of all time a lot of the other stuff has been over explained Zeppelin has been over explained the Beatles have been over explained it doesn't tell the whole story and you can say why was this band marginalized what was it it doesn't matter at some point they're there and somebody has to explain why they're there [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] that game [Music] once up in [Music] I guess we should start at the beginning talk about your upbringing where you were born and what your childhood was like okay how do I start like my beginning so I was born in Willowdale Ontario I was a nebbishy quiet kid my parents were both Holocaust survivors and emigrated here after the war they basically arrived with ten bucks in their pocket and they worked their way up to a lower middle-class kind of income and raised me in the suburbs when we first moved in we were one of the few Jewish families to live in our neighborhood and we were constantly living in terror of being beat up because of that fact so it was an exciting time when I was 12 my father passed away and I had to go to synagogue in the morning and in the evening every day for 11 months in one day I was not really allowed to listen to music so that whole year was devoid of what all the other kids were just starting to get turned on to after the year he really came out there was himself I said to get mom wants to buy you a nice bread and you were such a good hard-working kid he's his mom he says next door Terry has a guitar as we drove into the drive I says he has fifty dollars go to Terry gets you guitar and then Alex entered my life in junior high school we like same kind of bands but I think we bonded more over goofiness than over music my earliest memory I was born in Fernie in British Columbia my parents came over after the war from Yugoslavia we moved to Toronto and I would say it was a very normal upbringing my father usually had two or three jobs at any given time and he believed that if you wanted something you went out you worked for it period this is when Alex was you know youngster and this is when he was a neighborly cadet such a cutie one day he came and he said mom dad if I bring you a good report card will you buy me a guitar and you know he brought very good report card and we promised and we didn't even have money we just borrowed the money and bought him guitar I would come home after school and play until dinner and then supposed to do my homework and just playing guitar all the time I couldn't stop playing this wasn't here none of these hours is nothing score in a field yeah there's very little I remember of my homeroom class was the third window from the end Alex was always the teacher's pet at school he always smiled up to the teachers and you know he was a real smooth sir we were in the same homeroom I knew we'd used to take all our classes together in the great night we did the one year we rode each other's tests almost finished the test and we said oh yeah that's how bad we were yeah we upset the teacher we were very similar we both felt like we were really outside the rest of our class the rest of our school the rest of everything and then we discovered this manic love for music that we both had we got this gig early in September of 1968 in this church basement John Watson was a neighbor that played drums and I asked dad if he would sit in because he knew these same songs that we all knew so I said sure I came down we were playing this drop-in center and we'll they called the coffin that was the cop you have to come in here and used to go downstairs we had maybe 35 people there we got paid $10 to do the show for the whole band not each 10 bucks and we went to Panzers deli afterwards and the three of us sat in a booth planning our takeover of the world [Music] when I started hanging around with Alex and John we would come downtown and there was a coffee shop in New York folk called the upper crust a lot of the musicians would hang out there there was another band that we really idolized at the time called the poppers you could see that guys from that band hanging around so of course we would go in there and order a cup of tea like they were and be cool and you know we're just his little suburban hippies always playing with your hair you know trying to look like you fit in I was living on Yorkville Avenue and I had met the guys at a concert in the church hall even though they were 16 year old kids they were incredibly good players you know I was a fan immediately they were playing the kind of music that I liked ray said you guys need a manager and what did we know and we said yeah sure get us up to 12 bucks from 10 bucks and rave started booking dances and putting up posters on telephone poles and we started to grow in Ontario at the time with the drinking age that high the high schools took it upon themselves to create entertainment for teenagers so there was a real circuit to do that's really what Benz did back then you played at a school dance and hopefully you had a repertory that covered a lots of the current popular music that wasn't really our thing [Music] we played a lot of Sadie Hawkins dances we played a lot of dances where people couldn't dance very well because we weren't really a dance ban everyone will be staying at the back of the hall they wouldn't even be coming near us like we were contagious or something we probably bummed out a lot of people on their high school memories I was trying to do this full-time and stay alive and the three of them were still in high school they were pretty much a part-time band playing high schools on weekends and they were practicing at getting at Alex's House [Music] we're rehearsing in my basement and playing with these guys weren't Jewish guys we were really loud and it didn't sound anything like music to my family they just thought I was nuts they thought I was probably a drug taking freak so they were scared they were freaked out they didn't know what to do they didn't know how to handle it [Applause] the whole neighborhood was just bumping because the music was so loud and everything was vibrating I really didn't like the little resin my kind of music and Perry Como was my kind of music Alex s mom and I used to talk always on the phone crying each other shoulder it was hard because he he wanted to just play and practice and he couldn't study he would go to sleep late couldn't get up then that's why he said I'm quitting grade 12 and we were very upset I don't wanna make a bunch of money like if I make a lot of money that's great but I'm not gonna go to university I don't want to drive around in a big car and see and get people to go hey there goes Alex he's loaded with money and wow he's really set himself up great I don't see why I have to go through all the the [ __ ] of high school to learn music it's not that we're forcing Alex to go to university I don't know anything we're just asking a little favor of him just to finish grade 12 and then he's on his own we wanted for him to be something you know to have education I was a little bit worried about his future if he doesn't finish high school what's gonna happen and if the group doesn't succeed you know it was tough you know it was tough to go through that you know the thing is my parents were right I thought I knew everything you know they came from Yugoslavia people were getting killed everywhere my dad was in prison camps nearly came to Canada and their kids are everything that was I'm sure a great disappointment to them that I wasn't gonna do something that was more professional the whole idea of leaving school was a stressful decision but you know at that age I was just wanting to be a kid and there was so much heaviness in my family's life being Holocaust survivors losing your dad at 12 I kind of wanted to run away from that a little bit so my mother was the equivalent of joining a circus really she didn't see any music in what we were doing this was just madness and she didn't really get it until she one day years later saw me I'll tell and then it kind of oh oh he's an entertainer you know now I understand what he's doing once again we're back at the Laura Secord secondary school got a great field guys here the call himself rush and I think we'll like John the drummer introduced the rest of the guys to work allegedly seen on lead guitar and vocals Alex Lifeson lead vocals and bass guitars everywhere pasady behind the Grammys here I sell John Watson okay we're gonna see in discover we get you to make us doesn't take too much [Music] [Music] [Music] the turning point came in 1971 when the drinking age was lowered to 18 for 21 in Ontario soon as the drinking age dropped actually to 18 and was right at the time we turned 18 so we could finally start playing in bars which were better paying more serious sakes see what happened is Yorkville got shut down by 1970 they wanted to rid that area of get these at the club's is it shifted on the Yonge Street and down on Queen Street as well and as soon as the drinking age went down in 71 and invited a whole different kind of music because a drinking crowd wants a different kind of entertainment than a listening crowd you wanted something harder and heavier so a whole new world grew the scene in Toronto was vibrant as far as live bands go there are a ton of live venues I went into a place called the Abbey Road pub which was on Queen Street and saw rush one night and the remember watching him going wow there's just something going on here we went from playing a couple of high school dances in the course of a month to playing six nights a week with matinees on Saturdays sometimes and playing four or five 40-minute sets we started to get a little more experimental with music and that was great because that's really where we learned our chops gonna do a number called Garden Road for you [Music] [Applause] [Music] initially I was trying to get them a record deal and no one was going to sign them I couldn't get arrested so it became obvious that I was gonna have to come up with the money and do the record myself we looked for cheese i guess about four months trying to get a record deal on rush in this country and couldn't get anyone interested at all there was just no reaction we were willing to literally give the album away if somebody would just make a commitment to promote it couldn't get that part of the general attitude in Canada is unfortunately the people coming out to see you not all of them but quite a few them go well they're a local band how good can they be and it's funny you know when other people from the states come out and they see these so-called local bands they go man these guys are fantastic there was no one in Canada to sign you there were no record companies here they were outposts really you had to get an American deal if you wanted to to do anything Cleveland rocks son WM a man I was up in my office and I was listening to the new music we were deciding what we were gonna play that week and suddenly I get this thing from Canada and I remember dropping the needle on what was the longest cut because back in those days in album Rock you were always looking for what was called bathroom songs and a bathroom song was something that if you did have to answer the call of nature the record wouldn't run out and then I start listening to the song and I'm just oh my god this is a perfect record for Cleveland back then it was a factory town the song working man every listener in the audience felt like that [Music] [Music] [Music] phones light up immediately when's the new Led Zeppelin album ouch no no not a new Led Zeppelin album Canadian band rush every time the record gets played people are calling where can we get one where can we get one we had this cult following going already June 1974 I was working at Mercury Records in Chicago it was a Monday morning and on my desk was an album there's a note that comes along with it it says here this is the first album by a Canadian group called Rush and that it's already selling in Cleveland and they're looking for a deal in the United States artists and repertoire person who would normally listen was not in so they took it to the you know the least qualified guy me I put on the record and got blown away I said get the president in the company on the line we should sign this band he said don't make a deal with anyone till we talk and he loved the record and he really wanted to sign us by the end of the day we had worked out a deal signing the band like within eight hours of hearing it we went from getting this offer to getting an advance to buying equipment everything was happening very very quickly I don't think that John really felt comfortable with what was happening you know we talked about musical differences and he was a much more straight ahead Rock kind of guy he was more into bad company whereas get and I were more into yes and Genesis and Pink Floyd and bands like that you know if we'd stayed on the Toronto local circuit we probably would have stayed together and that would have been fine but suddenly things were turning a page John was not a healthy boy he had sugar diabetes of course like any teenagers they'd like to drink and whatever else he was not taking care of himself and I took Eddie and Alex aside and Ray and I said we have to replace John for his health we can't put him out there on that tour or we'll bring in a moment a box so I discussed it with John of course he was heartbroken but he understood there was no saying that John wasn't doing his job it wasn't for his ability to drum that he was let go it was for health reasons it's like coming to the end of high school and you're with all your friends in high school and you think oh yeah well we'll know each other forever and then everybody just goes in their own Dirac then you know for the most part you never see those people again it was a big deal we had an American contract we were gonna go to the States we only had less than a month to find somebody and get them in shape for us to go on the road we needed a drummer let's put it like that [Music] Oh broken drum head I thought it would be good to start at the beginning oh how predicted the very beginning where you were born where you grew up much of that I don't remember I know but I was born in the we lived on the family farm near Haysville Ontario at the time and went to the nearest hospital which was in Hamilton and moved to st. Catherine's when I was about four or so I had never been athletic I never could play hockey I skated on my ankles which for a young Canadian kid that's automatically like the hugest curse a young boy could have well he was in those days I used to say weird he doesn't read everything he just read everything there was to read he even had to learn to knit because he had to know how that was done it was horrible coming into high school once I got interested in rock bands and all that and and started to grow my hair a little over my ears and wear bell-bottoms and all that stuff the taunting in the hallways and even physical abuse over the smoking area and the constant misfit sense for any kid especially a sense of the board just wears you down so that's why drumming became an instrument of self-esteem for me this was the first time I was admired for anything and that doubled my fervor about [Music] Portia I was in a very serious band at the time called Jo a flood we practice all week days and then weekend smoothly playing high schools around Ontario or the Knights of Columbus Halsman [Music] in the summer of 74 I was working behind the parts counter for my dad meant the farm equipment dealers and this white Corvette pulled up a white Corvette doesn't pull up in the farm equipment dealership that often they came and asked if they could talk to kneel and take him up to lunch and I could tell that Neil come back the rest of the afternoon that he was really troubled with something he told me then that these guys were the managers of rush and they wanted a deal to come over in addition and he said I don't know what to do dad and I said well two things first of all we'll talk it over with your mother but secondly as far as I'm concerned this is your passion this is all you have wanted all your life and I said I guess there will always be a farce department here so I think you've got to go for it so I borrowed my mom's Pinto ha ha so perfect and loaded my drums into that and drove up to Ajax so the car pulls up with this kind of gangly guy that's really kind of short hair my first impression was that he was kind of goofy remember thinking dad he's not it's not nearly cool enough to pee in his pants I had Rodgers with to 18-inch bass drums and everything set up really high and kind of weird-looking and I was kind of weird-looking and then he started playing him and he pounded the crap out of those drums I mean he played like Keith Moon and John Bonham at the same time I was blown away as soon as he started playing he's playing these triplets in he was so good I think it's very common for musicians especially in the early years to feel that you totally blew it and I had that feeling I could have played better I should have played better all that stuff but they picked me [Music] present [Music] I was like a tornado came and hit my life and swept it away we had two weeks to prepare and to learn songs that I'd never heard before and to gel a little bit as much as we could the first show was going to be in front of 11,000 people at Pittsburgh Civic Arena opening for Manfred Mann and right [Music] [Music] we found that the biggest rock audience was Midwest and we go rush the perfect audience to come into it was a great rock audience you know and they loved their rock music we had a dressing room that was just a small kind of room under the stands at the far end of the arena away from the other dressing rooms we had this tour manager Howard Unger liar who had come in from New York he was teaching us how to be professional I remember Howard saying well you know you can have booze or something and they'll supply it for you and we went really okay cool I ordered like a little bottle of Southern Comfort and I think Alex ordered Dean on wine or something like that I remember taking a sip of this stuff and I went straight to my head and I was completely dizzy and we hit the stage by the time I kind of came to my senses the set was over and we were off and had no idea how well we played my immediate thoughts were God he can sing hi was my first thought and I fully accounted for just a three piece and rush come here nailed it it was obvious that they were gonna you know move up the ladder pretty quick [Music] it was huge this was the start of our tour and it was America big bold beautiful America we were so excited to be doing it here are these three 20 year old guys living a dream it was a very exciting time and we were working 11 days on one day off nine days on one day off I mean we were really working a lot and traveling all over the place the circuit was different back then the money certainly wasn't as great and you wanted to play five or six times a week you could play markets like Johnson City Tennessee or Yakima Washington you would talk about how many it shows in Iowa you were going to do every day then we would always share the driving and everybody she was sharing rooms we had a room rotation schedule back there and it was kind of fun traveling around in a rental car it wasn't even a bus or a ban sleeping on your baggage now you know you'd be in traction for a month if you did a week traveling like we used to travel for months [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] life of an opening act back then was hooking up from circuit to circuit sometimes you didn't know where you were going because sometimes your gigs would run out and you'd be in the states waiting to find out if you're on another tour [Applause] [Music] as soon as we heard that first rushed record we just like what is this this is like Canadian Zeppelin yeah oh yeah what the hell is that and we literally said we want that band to open Canada we then took them across America with kiss we probably played 50 60 shows in the first couple of tours where they were just this weird band from New York and we got very very close regardless of what you want to say about KISS musically or otherwise there was no harder working band and kiss and there was no band more determined to put on spectacular show and give people their money's worth and kiss that was a great thing to see as an opening act we were so impression about and we are so green they were very good to us those guys like to have a good time especially gene and their hotels were always fun to watch every night after the show the girls is line up my god you can even be an ugly bastard like me and get laid and none of the rush guys ever did it I just never understood it and I said they're not gay no farm animals no that's not it I what the [ __ ] did you do when you went back to your hotel room I mean I even remember Oh night it was in Milwaukee I think and there was a female bowling league sharing the same floor and they're walking around in their nightgowns and their doors a hotel room doors are opening their drink and all the guys are rushing by they're in their rooms just watching TV after a kid there probably woke up the next day going these Canadian bands sure are boring that was getting to know you period for us and Neil he was one of the weirdest people we'd ever met just because we never met anyone that was so literate and so opinionated before and it was hard for him he was always and still is the new guy in some strange way Alex and I were bonded old friends and he had to kind of make his way to be part of that in some ways he was very serious and we were totally goofy certainly he had a bigger brain than us that was a target what more perfect portable education than having a lot of free time on your hands and bookstores everywhere so for the next few years I'd say basically I started filling those hours with reading yeah we said how many books you read look at the words you use it's this guy is probably capable of writing lyrics [Music] it was really stimulating but really a mouthful to sing in a kind of rocking style that we were doing at that time [Music] [Music] we worked on songs as we travel my little handwritten lyrics sheets for the time I think I wrote the cities that all of those songs were written and they varied widely all over the map it was like the Monkees you know I would have an acoustic guitar and we'd be working on a song in a rental car in a hotel room after a show that's how pretty much fly by night was written that's the way bands used to do it they write the record while they were on the road they go home and cut it in two or three weeks on the new album would appear every six months pretty amazing to think of that today [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] five a night was a little different from the first record so the record company wasn't sure if we were developing in the correct way they wanted us to be more like bad company and not so much like this weird thing that we were becoming by touring the snow dog what the hell was that all about with by turning a snow dog that was the start of writing in more of a thematic multi piece idea and then with Chris of Steel we did the whole side that fountain of lamb Nath and the necromancer was kind of like that it was the start of those longer pieces Neil had come up with this concept and we had to put it all together and make it work and it seemed like just an evolution of where they were going I thought it had amazing potential it's a dark record but it was certainly a good record I thought but that view wasn't shared by everybody I know we played crusted steel once for Paul Stan and we just got it we played it in our van for him one night and you could see that he just he didn't get it a lot of people didn't get it and we wondered if we even got it I think we were pretty high when we made a lot of that record and it sounds like it to me [Music] [Music] caress of Steel was not well-received by the record company it was not well-received by our agents everything took an awful downturn and it was off the crest of a wave too because we were so in love with what we've done you know we were so into it so proud of it when crest of Steel pretty much met a deaf ear the ensuing tour we were opening acts on smaller tours and playing backwater clubs and we called it at the time the down the tubes tour you would find yourself in places like Battle Creek Michigan playing to 20 people wondering why you were still continuing everybody thought that it was over audiences were becoming smaller and smaller so we thought the end was near at that time Ted Nugent was also not breaking so the two of us played a lot of small clubs together it was a pretty depressing tour we were kind of lost figured that we would probably not survive to see another tour and the record company was really not happy with us and our management was trying to defend us I remember going to Chicago and meeting with Mercury Records to not give up on the band to not drop the band I nodded to every request they had they wanted singles more commercial yeah yes sure I'm sure that's what they're gonna do that was a terrible winter I didn't know money I was sleeping on a friend's couch things couldn't even bleaker really record company everybody was all we're gonna have to be more commercial here and think about some singles and and just leaning on us at our weakest we talked about how we would rather go down fighting than try to make the kind of record they wanted us to make we made 2112 figuring everyone would hate it but we were gonna go out in a blaze of glory we all decided that we would rather go back to our jobs working on a farm or working as a plumbers mate for my dad or whatever then give in and just be something that everybody else wants us to be we did summon that strength of character to say no we won't do that we're doing it our way and if this is the last hurrah fine you know back to the farm of a dealership for me it was a big no-no we're not doing any of that no you can't tell us what to do and no we don't care [Music] when the record company purred a full side concept like the first side of 2112 people panicked they thought wow we're screwed they didn't get it this was like I ordered salmon and they brought me a steak what the hell is this the nature of the story itself that evolved in 2112 of course was the individual against the mast and that album did communicate and reach people on a level that just blossomed outward by the classic form of word-of-mouth obviously the opening 20 minute piece did not get played on the radio [Music] suddenly it was like you gotta check this band out and you know the first thing that struck you was the level of musicianship was just insane I remember vividly I was in my bedroom with my neighbor and he brought over 2112 it was just something I've never heard before just the fact that was a three-piece rip I know they were pulling off this stuff that sounds like a huge prog rock production it took me on a journey instantly and I looked at the album cover and saw that there were only three of them and they're wearing some funky clothes but I thought how can three guys make such a sound I remember the keyboards amps and all sudden it kicked in and it was just like a whole new experience to music something I'd never heard before the drumming was incredible the bass plane was incredible that was it that's what did it for me man I was hooked on Roush ever since then there was a moment in my life and I and I willingly admit this that I actually knew how to play the entire side I knew how to play 2112 all the way down I knew every note every moment and I think back now I think how long did I have to [ __ ] learn that you know I must have said the bedroom for a year to learn that [ __ ] song I was into the story you know I read the back and it was dedicated to the fountainhead the book and I went right out and bought The Fountainhead and read it I mean I'm not too many bands make a twelve-year-old go out and buy The Fountainhead by goddamn is rock Ben's got me all fired up about literature [Music] as it turned out the concept record went through the roof and they were right 2112 really bought us our independence the record company has never been in on a single session that we've ever done in fact when we're done it's all packaged and they accept it the way it is they have no choice that somehow was the plateau of untouchable nobody thought they had the right anymore so yeah 2112 was absolutely the pass apart to you know the skeleton key that opened that door that we could close behind us okay from now on we do what we want [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] most critics ignored 2112 or treated brush I think very very negatively I mean what do critics hate generally they hate heavy metal and they hate progressive music I would say probably most of the reviews were bad I don't know if it was discouraging to read bad press I mean after a while it's like oh yeah whatever usually it's critics back then particularly just trying to be cool and have so they would you know write all sorts of things [Music] [Applause] [Music] Gettys soaring boys to describe some rather unkind waves a hamster in overdrive the dead howling in Hades Mickey Mouse on helium strangling a hamster a cat being chased out the door the blowtorch up its ass there was constant insults hurled that way but it was never like that with the audience's we found that we had a growing audience that didn't care about any of that press stuff that they were into the band and they liked what we were trying to do and we were a little more thoughtful about the way we wrote music and certainly how we wrote lyrics and how we put it all together and I'd rather read fan reviews than some guy who always hated us and didn't stay for half the show critically we were designated terminally unhappy and that prevents you from getting mainstream press our songs were too long to go on mainstream radio so what the hell are we every once in a while you have an artist that is very sophisticated but somehow in their sophistication they don't alienate a common person they're really a people's band and the great hole in their career has been that they've never been truly accepted by the Intelligencia but with a band like Rush you can't say well they can't play they can't sing so what was it well they're nerdy you're there they just don't fit in a neat box the one constant with Rush throughout the decades is that it has been difficult to fit them into any kind of definition their music was hard rock but at the same time it was orchestral the melodies were simple but at the same time complex nobody could ever really put their finger on exactly what they were I think the fashion that was associated with it defied definition as well we were never very good at the whole fashion image thing let's face it we didn't have a clue we desperately just wanted to wear jeans and t-shirts but were raised in a period that said that's not OK so we looked for some way of standing out in the crowd I remember we were in San Francisco and we're staying in the Japanese part of town so we found all these kind of kimonos and rows he said hey why don't we try these so that began the period of the absurdly prophetic robes [Music] must be the ones who starved [Music] to the heart [Music] [Music] these were the salad dates because we were transitioning and we could feel the world was expanding for us it's starting to record in England starting to get success in England and to go over there and actually have a song in the charts and play Hammersmith Odeon was really gratifying because all of our heroes were English rock musicians so that gave us a tremendous amount of confidence [Music] as the records regressed the palette got bigger and bigger Neal was constantly changing and adding to his drum kit and we had more choice of guitars and acoustic guitars bass pedals the keyboards developed every time we went into the studio kid was staying on top of that the first time I worked with the band it was a three-piece I think we may have had a cowbell held within the pleasure - cream body cooler [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you know what really helped us get out of that robe period was touring with UFO they made fun of us relentlessly and they wouldn't hold up signs and make fun of our lyrics and I would go up to my microphone and there'd be a pair of furry slippers nailed to the stage beside my mic and they used to call me and Glee and guys would be at the side town music goes perfect with you rode Glee it was good for us because you know you go on stage thinking it may be there has to be some other thing but in the end it is always back to the music for us [Music] [Music] Hemisphere's was the album that broke the camel's back in terms of long songs a hemisphere side of that album was incredibly complex both thematically and structurally [Music] we went to a little farmhouse in Wales and wrote all that music arranged that learned how to play it it was so ambitious and so demanding so experimental all of that it was quite manic and her hours became later and later and later and it just kind of went around so that we were going to bed at noon and we were getting up at 7 o'clock and having breakfast then and then working through the nights of the morning unending with no time off even the shorter songs on that record like globulus Trangia we're really hard and of course we were bound and determined to record la ville estado live in one take it was so complicated and went through so many different mood and time signature changes it would needed to have been charted out in order to keep track of where you were at any given point I think we spent eleven days trying to record the bed track only and we finally had to admit defeat we had to do it in three parts [Music] [Laughter] [Music] that one kind of slow open soul that Alex plays the way he he built that up hadn't a huge impression on me because he was creating a mood by playing very very sparsely and just slowly and being up the intensity I just thought that was the greatest thing in terms of lead guitar dynamics and phrasing I see them as the high priests of conceptual metal big influence huge [Music] probably the hardest song I ever learned how to play was Levias from jata the drumming is it takes everything you got to get through it that was the benchmark of drumming when I was a kid I could play YYZ but can you play love via string Giotto [Music] [Applause] [Music] we had written material that was really a little beyond us considering our level of musicianship at the time and that was the thing about rush we're always overreaching when you listen to early rush I mean it was like the riffs were simpler they got more complex as it kept going with the arrangements it would be so long you know it'd be like the boys would be up there going we did write this didn't we you know it's like what part of this all are we in if you could learn those songs that was a stepping stone to just about everything you needed to know if you could play those songs with some proficiency you could play pretty much anything else just eerily precise everything was just right on the nuggets like I bet if you went in with a computer Neil Peart would probably be right on the beat to like an atom or at least that's how it sounds when you're listening with the headphones like he's not even human Geddy Lee is still my favorite bass player and be like wow that guy who's shredding the bass is also singing and playing the keyboards with his feet and his and he would move his microphone a lot with his nose which was he actually figured a way to use it if it weren't for the nose I don't think he could have done the keywords of bass and singing I really I think the nose was when it enabled him to get the microphone where he needed to be he has a big nose approach to the nose [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we knew at the time you know we were over reaching ourselves and we agreed among ourselves in 1978 when we finished hemispheres we're not doing this again you know we're not making this kind of record again we knew that was the end of that era of the ethics you've been touring now for how many years well professionally in the United States about five years how many concerts do average a year 200 concerts here for five years how long can you keep out signs we can we were working all the time I remember at one point we counted 17 one-nighters in a row we were getting fried and getting stupid not taking care of ourselves just burning out we didn't like what we were becoming as people my personal life I was getting alienated from my wife we were just starting to have kids and once you started introducing children into your life you can't be so selfish you just can't I think we all cherish the fact that we're pretty normal guys I got married when I was young I had a family early I introduced Gettys wife to him when we were teenagers family it was the most important thing to me with my life we are trying to remember music is just one of the things we had chosen to do with our lives not everything if we'd kept going like that we would have crashed something started to break I think there's a heaviness of hemispheres made us want to run away from that kind of album so we ran from hemispheres straight into spear derating [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] permanent waves was a joy to me we were in Canada you know our families were close that's when we discovered with Studio and the songs just came together just boom boom boom okay the new album there are a number of new things on the some new approaches to the album tell me what's new about it you tell them basically its new this derives from experiments that I guess we've conducted over the last couple of moments through hemispheres and farewell to Kings we're experimenting with a lot of instruments and sounds and rhythmic approaches and so on this time we found ways to put all those directions into a single stream and consequently I think the album probably has a more direct feel to it the whole music industry is going in primitive New Wave minimal rock and roll you care some bands have gone back to basics kind of thing but those are the bands that can doing it and what play basics but all the really interesting new way then seem to be developing and progressing into more interesting styles have you listened to her on all kinds of people recently been talking heads and on the turntable a lot the police I was a huge fan of the police and Ultravox and all these new English fans I loved them it became a part of our sensibility permanent wave still had a couple of longer songs on it but the spirit of radio was the emblematic song of that period and the mix of sounds and at the approach electronic music and reggae that's all the stuff I was listening to [Music] let's see they have that knack of being able to use time signatures at will and yet make them feel seamless if you're changing time signatures and your audience aren't really aware of it then you've got something special rush finds a real interesting way of sort of drawing a straight line through this home whether it's melodically or rhythmically when you put together the sound of the band just being so recognized and their ability to make sure that there's a lifeline for people out there that can't quite tap their foot to an odd time signature that makes what rush just genius when it comes to still being able to be played on the radio [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I think permanent waves was in in a way the most important stepping stone because just like caress of Steel's to 2112 there would be no moving pictures without permanent waves first as I define it that's when we became us we I think rush was born with moving pictures really it represents so much that we learned up to that time and about song writing about arrangements that's when we brought our band identity together to how we like to play individually and as a band at the same time now when I look back on those songs I'm glad to say the people that I will never get tired of playing counselor because it's always difficult to play right you know anytime I do play it right I feel good [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] suddenly we were on the radio everywhere that summer our concert audience is doubled you could just picture it in the high school cause you can see Rush oh yeah you know we were that band that year we were playing 120 hundred and thirty cities in America we were going back to places where if we were a theater act at the start of that tour by the end of that cycle we had gone back to those places and we were in the arena their latest release moving pictures is number one on Toronto's album charts and they're close to selling out an unprecedented three nights at the full Maple Leaf Gardens here's a cut for moving pictures platinum after only four weeks of release [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] moving pictures was a mixed blessing to me in retrospect in for me personally in my life a lot of strange people came out of the woodwork there was so much attention on us at that time that was transitory you know generally we're pretty private and I think movie pictures what's the matter in point one there was a lot more pressure from fans for people wanting a piece of you or believing they were connected to you in some other way there was a time when we first started getting recognized that I got a little touchy about it and I remember I started thinking about this thing about Fame and how you deal with it that was kind of an epiphany and I said to myself gonna go where I want to go and if somebody comes up to me and he's nice to me and wants an autograph I got time for him it's no big deal Getty right that's right oh my god that's Getty one a star you want to move it in your way [Music] I can walk around the city and get it recognized from time to time getting more so he's got a very distinctive look about but generally people are very polite they don't want too much from you I understand that these are your fans that just love what you do there's been a moment in their lives where your music has been so important to them that to take a couple of minutes and just chat shake a hand or a hug or something it's not a big deal no I met them I was just struck by Getty Lee and license friendship seemed like they had a real deep bond real playful and sort of goofy just seemed like there was a lot of joy there a lot of a lot of genuine fun and then I turned the corner and then I saw the master Neil Peart he had sort of a different vibe going just as focused but a brewing intensity blue wisps of darkness Neil has a real struggle with fans and it's not a personal thing it's a shyness thing he's not able to be as relaxed around strangers as Alex or I am you know he doesn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings by it he's not trying to be rude he's just not comfortable okay I was the world's biggest who fan as a kid I never dreamed of trying to find their hotel and knocking on their door or interfering in their lives in any way that I don't understand I love being appreciated being respected is awfully good but anything beyond that just creeps me out you know any sense of adulation it's just like so wrong I got a chance to go meet Neil Peart and I got brought into a room and I started to tell him hey I'm a huge fan ever and I got sort of the Neil Peart cold shoulder and the security guard removed me from the room it was a weird uncomfortable situation I love Neil furred even though he totally blacklisted me but I was like if I was Neil fair and Ike walked in the room I would probably want to remove me too Neil was right very intense man but you know his line I can't pretend a stranger is a long-awaited friend that's Neil people have a fantasy I don't want to trample on it but I also don't want to live it and people can think that I'm antisocial or a sourpuss or anything it's really not it doesn't make me mad at him this is me the other guys you know are obviously comfortable with it and they do the meets and greets every night and then fine so you know that they can do it [Applause] one two three I am so appreciative of our fans I bless their hearts every single day but they're hard to analyze as a group because they're so different we have hardcore fans the old fans and I've been there from the beginning and they're usually male and they are really intense in the early stages it was very young almost 100% male and then as the years went by it remained a hundred percent male chicks did not really dig it you know still don't throw in caress of Steel that often with my wife around [Applause] like is my 13 the last time I missed a show anywhere in your it was on the signals talk tonight will be the seventh on this to have been to two in America one in Canada did all six in the ICU care to it my name's Pete I'm from Cleveland Ohio I just had my 100th show in Stockholm [Music] ruch fans are like NASCAR fans ain't going anywhere and their brand loyalty they are a cult band when you go to a rush concert Varian anybody leaving until the song is over they're waiting for their favorite parts or nudging their friend they're going look he played it perfectly riveted to the band the band have that relationship with their audience where their audience really feel like the rush lyrics communicate to them make them feel like their experience is heard I have this memory of sitting in the basement with my my mother I actually said to her I want to play you a song it was very hard to ever get my parents attention for anything so it was like a big deal will you please sit here and I want to play you a song and I play Entre Nous and I gave her the lyric sheet because I wanted her to understand that this saw was connecting with me on some level when I was 16 years old I wasn't an emotionally open I was very withdrawn so something about that song allowed me to say somehow this song is almost like it's written for me music when you're going up is like such a strong part of like what do you like what's your deal what's your identity rush seems to be just a complete added dimension of not being just obsessed with girls and hair and [ __ ] like that you know it mean they seem to be kind of smart and of course fancy myself is a really smart kid I was like oh that's my deal then when you're when you're hearing like lyrics like that that are so earnest and sincere talking about honesty in art and asking some of the tougher intellectual questions with that great music behind it they really offered something in rock that was in short supply and plus they sang in French on circumstances clues say that mem please sail mm shows that was pretty tricky you didn't hear that on any kiss records it's like to do to sing it in French now I'm just I can't even figure out his english it wasn't for everybody you know and it wasn't necessarily cool you were kind of like a rush geek you know a music a kind of nerd and a sort of nerdy music I suppose [Music] you listen the subdivisions and it just seemed like exactly my life you know I was that kid who was watching the car drive away with all the cool kids going off to a party that I wasn't invited to it was just nice to feel like there was a rock song out there that spoke to my experience trying to be cool and worrying about being cast out of a group of friends if you weren't cool I wasn't very cool but luckily I had a group of friends that was equally not cool I lived in a housing development suburbia backyard barbecues and a lot of the stuff that I think most American kids could relate to I remember watching the video and my dad that represents me right there this one person walking around not really being in a group it seemed like it was the person that nobody really could relate to [Music] the thing I loved about Neal was he took very complex metaphysical themes and he was able to put them in a way that everybody could understand and whether he was ripping off Shakespeare or he was quoting his own heart he was able to do it in a way that never felt snobby or I always felt like he was in the room talking to you a words can carry different Freight for different people of course but those who do have the sensitivity to pay the kind of attention to lyrics that I put into them it's wonderful to connect that way to feel that you're not playing down to anyone we've always had the impression that people are just as smart as we are so if we can figure this stuff out they can too you know and we're not being that that terrible damning word pretentious we're not pretending anything this is really what turned us on this year you know lyrically it's always been a reflection of my times and the times I observe but every one is a reflection of me [Music] we could have gone in and done moving pictures all over again but you're too curious we're too dissatisfied with where we're at and just because we got successful doesn't mean we're gonna stop and that's the motivation we have to find the better rush it was a big shift happening on signals and the keyboards were becoming more and more important from getti standpoint that is and also one of the biggest things at that point for me was Neil getting into the electronic drum kit didn't really appeal to me I wanted to still have that element of the basic acoustic band we'd been working with Terry for 10 years at that point and we really felt the need to expand and see what it was like to work with other people and it was a very tough transition because we were so close really Terry was like the fourth member of the band it was Neil who broke the news to me on the bus and he said you know just think of it like you know boyfriend and girlfriend they want to split up for a while and have a break from each other I was surprised because I figured we would figure it out and we moved to the next level but it was time for a change and I didn't really want to do an electronic band which is where I thought it was going [Music] riding across the cities of the plain in the deadly water singing Nene I see ready rather lives he actually uh I'd never really heard of rationing when I was a pop producer so I was kind of amused when I got the call to come and produce of them I was coming from that whole British 80s music scene I was trying to bring them into line with what I perceived to be the contemporary modern hot music the new technology the new keyboard sounds we all loved the music of that time we were young enough to and we didn't have any protective nature of what rush was that it could never be allowed to be influenced by New Wave music earth could never use an African rhythm there was no such thing as that doesn't suit rush those words have never been uttered [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] synthesizers and technology became a way of sparking your creativity I liked it because my need to write melodies is more satisfied writing on a keyboard as a songwriter you're always looking for an angle to give you something fresh coming from a trained keyboard background you always felt kind of left out in the rock world because keyboards really weren't that cool rush was one of those bands that the way they started integrating since seemed wildly exciting to me and wow this can actually fill the role at what a guitar player would have done eats up the mid-range rhythm section space I'd be hard-pressed to think of another someone else who's done it like that once the keyboards and the shorter songs became more of their sound that's when I kind of moved on to other things I don't like it and I still really don't like it that much and gety would spend a lot of time on the keyboard and as a bass player I love the bass and so when my favorite bass player is playing keyboards I'm not that psyched about it I love the idea of the keyboards when we first started I think as that part of our sound developed there were times where we just got on the wrong track Alex and I had some real disagreements about how profound the keyboard should be but the power windows is a really important record because it was the final and essential blending of keyboards and guitar to me for rush with power windows I found it really really difficult to work around the way the keyboards were developing why am I looking for a different place I shouldn't be looking for a different place what what's going on with these keyboards you know they're not even real it's not even a real instrument [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you know I love the synthesizers and I actually think it's just as important as any of their other work the ultimate thing that people were saying was they kind of moved somewhat away from the rock and they kind of got a little bit more in the middle of what they did to me you know ruch middle of the road is still somebody else's left field there are certain periods of rush that are more Universal than other periods now you could say on the one hand that maybe they're better records maybe that's the best rush moving pictures got us into a much broader world of rock fans and when there was a shift we've lost some of those people but we realized after time that there was a core of our fan base that was as curious as to where we were going yes we were and those are the ones that have sustained us you know after all these years and I can't fault them for not wanting to be a prog-rock band for another 15 years they had different periods that's what makes them interesting [Music] hold your fire was the record that told me that there was a shift in the way we were writing was pushing us away from rock it was starting to move into a jazzier softer kind of tonal area things can go too far in any one direction and then we correct ourselves and eventually go whoa you know we tried to go along this way but it's too much that was the very first thing I said on the first meeting it seems absolutely crazy to me but one of the few remaining power tree is on this planet guitar bass and drums are smothered in keyboards and I said my interest is to get you back to being a power trio but if modern tape we just find out what that contemporary definition of power trio really is [Music] [Music] Alex particularly wanted to assert guitar more as the dominant instrument and pushed the keyboard side and baguette II and I would know okay we can do that Alex is pretty let's have a concept let's not have keyboard and I went along with it I was a little bit sad pressed on roll the buns for me were very much indicative of what was going on in the 80s and there was thin sounding records too they didn't have any balls to them so when I got in there I was kind of hell-bent on making a heavy record the caveman pushed us you know wanted me to use my Fender bass go through old ampeg amps and recorded old-school everything was old-school there were battles because every engineer wants Alex to play without his pedals and all his own synthesizers that he plays into when Alex would ask for his fridge of effects and I would just say no and you'd say you know I want reverb and I'd say no and he's like I [ __ ] want reverb if I want some reverb then I want some reverb and I'm like no if you sound terrible its reverb you're not having any reverb so we we ended up going to a bar that night and drinking two but five bottles of scotch had terrible hangover the next day but we sort of ironed it out we had a lot of few drinks together and I know what Kevin was going for and he's right the counter parts turned out to be the record that we envisioned when we first started working on it the songs were thicker and more hair on them that record was a big turning point in reconnecting with the kind of rock'n'roll guts of Russia [Music] [Music] the opening song animated I think is one of our all-time best I love the drive of it I love the arrangement of it but I was starting to get conflicted about my own drumming at that point I've been working so much with sequencers and with click tracks for so many years and I had developed a really good precision of time but I felt the stiffness because of that metronomic need but I didn't have the looseness that I wanted to hear out of my own playing after so many years of being an amazing player Anil could have clearly just decided not to play drums until it was time to go play a rest show but instead he cared enough about what he did to try and break down his current technique and work with Freddy Gruber and sort of reinvent his playing style I was in New York doing a Buddy Rich tribute recording over that recording sessions in New York I met Freddie and had dinner and got curious what would it be like to study with a guy like that and I had the time so I thought yes I'm gonna try this it's not to make it sound easy because when I studied with Freddie I asked myself can I really do this well I have the discipline it's a huge commitment of him he was easy you know because he wasn't nuts I was you know and it was like you know was fun it didn't have to go to some strange land we never played that the drums we talked about motion and told a lot of stories and did some dancing we were behind the set of drums because the approach to what you do results and what you get you understand Freddie is all about the motion and it was all about the motion of the hands and feet that contributed to a dance and one of the first things he did was stand up and do a little soft shoe dance for me and saying when you're doing that is that dance happening on the floor no it's happening in the air so these were revelations to me to start thinking about not just the hit but the motions between time is linear it's it's not it's like the pogo stick you know a lot of pop music is played like that it's extremely vertical it's like people slapping water when they swim mm-hmm yeah it doesn't in efficient motion breathe let's put it this way you can have a beautiful body and look marvelous thank you but what if you're not breathing it's not alive you know so you gotta at least put the breath in there huh I can play a simple beat now completely different from how I would have played that simple beat 15 years ago not that takes a lot of courage being a drummer stature that Neil Pierre does to be able to say I can improve and when he came back out and he made his appearances after working with Freddie and he turned his grip traditional grip and had a different approach he was so much more relaxed I was the most refreshing thing he could have seen is that your hero could also still learn that they weren't just done and I worked with my bandmates right after that on the test borracho songs and the other guys would say well it still sounds like you and at first I was kind of disappointed but then I thought well of course it does they thought it sounded the same but that when they went to play with me there was a different clock at work now [Music] to drive but it's my turn [Music] [Music] in mid August of 97 we finished the tour earlier that summer and there was a message to call the office it was urgent one of the girls from our office told me what had happened Neal's daughter was in a terrible car accident lost her life I mean it was just such a horrible shock it was I mean I could still feel it today it was the start of a whole lot of emotions that we'd never felt before I had not had not had a friend who had gone through anything like this ray called me and told me about the accident and I was just in shock as everyone was you're just so unprepared for how devastating it is and you just don't know what to do or how to help or error or any of that he could be such a private guy and whence news like this hits you don't want to do the wrong thing you don't want to try to comfort them and find out that you're only just comforting yourself everything to do with the band ended at that moment it it just didn't seem important it's it was not something they even thought about thinking about they didn't really know what to do with themselves so they left Toronto they got away from all those reminders and then Jackie got sick after she passed away he was lost and so he ran and got on his mother's side when his wife died he had to do what he needed to do to just find some kind of peace he embarked on a long very very painful journey just going and going and going and going yeah everybody was so worried about me and in fact there was a network I know among my friends and loved ones all I heard from him today I know I got a postcard or he called you know they would all to reassure each other because yeah anything could have happened to me even by accident let alone by design fact we were so worried about him I just but he you know he was at arm's length Neal need a time it to be honest I had no real interest in music for about a year I hardly play hardly listen to music we we were on sabbatical we were shut down basically we're talking about a journey that stretched 55,000 miles starting from Quebec and going up to the Arctic and around Alaska and Mexico across all of Mexico from Baja across the whole Mexican mainland down to Belize I go the small towns and the back roads generally stopping for the night in motels along the way and I don't think in that whole fifty five thousand miles I don't know if I was ever recognized once in a little town in a gas station or a motel or a diner because I'm just a guy sitting there with a hat on reading the book you know a lot of times I can just slip around and be a guy and that's all I want from traveling to I just want to be a guy and that's life enough for me [Music] [Music] Travel has always been known as a soothing balm you know a Navin motion from the time where little babies you know we want to be rocked and if the baby's crying it and take it for a drive in the car in a common town that's the way I described it to myself at that time that I was so stirred up into my little baby soul would only be soothed by motion I traveled out of the darkest place a human being can come from and it was landscapes highways and Wildlife that revitalized me of the timeless landscapes gives your tiny existence a new perspective when you're among things that are millions of years old [Music] I remember getting postcards from him from wherever and he was using different names we have like about 6,000 nicknames for each other so I would get a postcard with that nickname on it so I knew who it was from they were lifelines you know those little contacts and he knew we were there somewhere and he knew that we would be there if he wanted us to be there all he had to do was reach out as far as the band was concerned as things went on it seemed less and less of a possibility that we would get back together and and it looked like either the band was basically it was four years that the band was done oh I thought it was I thought it was over yeah Alex and I would talk about it once in a while but there was no point you know I don't want to play and rush without those other two guys you know there's no replacing anybody in this fan it's just not possible it is the band the three of us you know even though he's the new guy he's just as important those two guys were the most stable thing I had my family and loved ones and those that dared to stay around me through that time and so hard that you know I would have walked my concern was just that he would be okay and I thought it was pointless to think about it beyond that after I don't know a year and a half whatever two years I sensed that he would do it again that he would be okay I don't think he worked that hard to be what most people consider is the best in the world at something and not go and do it again one day I didn't know if it meant that it would take five years or ten years but I thought that one day he'd have to do that again [Music] when I stopped writing I was ready traveling all that time was when I came to rest and I I came out to California and met my wife-to-be and I got some stability there and with with Kerry's help then realized that I was I was wanting to work again that's basically what it what it took I had to stop moving first he was a little apprehensive and thought that perhaps maybe we might try to talk about perhaps trying to maybe think about possibly getting back in the studio to record a record and it was really like that it was quite a fragile delicate proposition I don't think he knew if he could do it you know he hadn't played his drums in hell of a long time he's such a perfectionist such a [ __ ] monster musician I think he was afraid of not being as good as he once was it was a none sureness for me especially can I do this can I write rock lyrics like it's the most important thing in the world can i slave over and over and over on a drum part to refine every detail of it like it's the most important thing in the world I don't know we basically booked the studio seven days a week for 14 or 15 months everything had so much weight to it and for him to get back his chops was really a slow process I could hear my state of mind in my drumming anger obviously but confusion that the state I was in and it's in the lyrics to of course how many of them had to deal with you know I could not sidestep all of that stuff but there was something that was so pure and truthful about the energy on vapor trails it really is a representation of that time of the coming back of the van [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] coming back to the stage is way more difficult because I also that's the essential existence of a band is on a stage I've come back to that many time in one of the things that keeps me from quitting touring all the time is that's what a man does so coming back to the stage was the biggest recovery possible the United States of America nice to be back here wait long enough I think that was an Hartford Connecticut on the vapor trails tour and it was such a dramatic thing after all this that we gone through that here we were at our first gig back on the road and we never even thought we would work again I think it was one of the few times we've had a group hug before the show it wasn't lost on us that getting to that point was almost impossible so you know we kind of looked at each other gave each other a hug and said okay let's go [Music] [Applause] crowd was amazing and welcomed us back really warm Anil was really nervous so I figured my job is to go over there and make him not nervous so I kept checking on I'm throwing him some shapes to make sure he was smile on her laughing that's what that night was like I was completely folded into the job of performing but there were just moments when the three of us connected visually and we knew what we were doing and I remember saying to Rey afterwards that it would have been a shame if that never happened again it was amazing and it was amazing to see how happy he was after the show there were some demons were gone that night part of the rebirth of the band was suddenly a willingness to go where we hadn't gone and see these legions of fans it was such a positive effect on us and it's like okay this is a second chance for us to go back out and place a new place [Music] [Applause] [Music] we had no idea going to Brazil of any popularity that we might have and then the South Hollow show was 60,000 people let me by far the largest audience we singularly have ever played to there was the sense of wild tumultuous impossible masses of people but so locked in a unifying way that it was just a magical we elevated [Applause] [Music] having gone through that whole tour being in this place where we had people going totally mental playing one little victory it was a huge victory that we'd survived the previous five years finishing on such a high note was quite a trip the newness of touring was over and I think we had successfully returned [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh yeah martyred a warrior named Tom Sawyer he slowed it down a river on a raft with a backyard [Music] those aren't the right lyrics fat-ass I am Kenny Lee and I was seeing whatever they're about there's a lot of people who were 18 in 1978 guys who were crazy Rush fans there were positions of relative power now they're raising their hands and going yeah I want to be on this bandwagon now I always was there now they had the ability to actually bring it to more people than ever before my guests tonight have 24 gold and 14 platinum records Neil Alex thank you so much for joining us I just want to remind everybody that this is your first appearance on American television in 33 years correct I think one of the greatest things to happen to the collective community that has very much enjoyed Russia for many years was their appearance on The Colbert Report because I've seen these guys get beaten up by this supposedly cool people for a long time and then in one fell swoop Stephen Colbert puts them on their show and gives them the hand of coolness you're known for some sort of long songs have you ever written a song so epic that by the end of the song you were actually being influenced by yourself [Applause] are yet to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is there any chance your next album be called that's bullsh you could get into the sociological and cultural reasons why a band like Rush was publicly marginalized and you could say what was it was it they were too weird Gettys voice I like to think that at the end of the day people will step back and all those labels fall away because the body of work is significant to me they remain one of the top bands in the world now whether some guy at Rolling Stone decides there or not is completely irrelevant because at the end of the day rock is a people's game and the people have generally and consistently voted for this band there's a generation of rock critics that have kept them from being in Rolling Stone and from being a part of that conversation they were on the other side of this divide that we're talking about back when they were pounding corners by Rush fans at parties going but you don't understand the understan and they really liked Elvis Costello or they really like David Bowie or something it was a little more critically accepted and now it's kind of we're all so old that even if you hated rush in the 80s and 70s now you got to give it up for him you just got to or else you're just being an old [ __ ] I think that in many ways you're served better if you're not quite as successful if you never become a pop star if you don't have top 40 hits then what you have is kind of a pure memory for people they don't think you ever sold out virtue is actually rewarded I believe [Music] the thing with us is we've always walked along the shore of the main stream and we've been attached to it and connected ourselves to it time and again but we've always been a little bit outside of it we had our own stream it wasn't the main one but it was not too far away from the mainland I always like to consider us the world's most popular cult band the rush fan well it's a stereotype that it's like mostly guys who like heavy metal there are many devoted female fans it's kind of like a giant Club people turn on their kids to rush who turn on their kids to rush it's just amazing that the music's been able to go from this generation to this generation and even a younger generation if their fans have stuck with them through all of it all their shows are sold out still I mean when snakes & Arrows came out in 2007 it charted really well for quite a while it was some of the biggest shows they've ever played it's just amazing for them to come back really strong like that it was just like it took off it took off again all of a sudden it seems like they're bigger now than they've ever been which is fantastic there's a comfort in knowing that those same three guys are out there and it's also spectacular to see three guys on tolerating each other for all these years and still make music make good music they're just such a unique and weird concoction and I get the sense and I always have from Rush they're on a righteous path there's something there that's really silly and honest it did root of all of it it's also really good you know that matters more than anything else there's a magic and a coolness to them that continues to this day and that's a testament to the music's power I mean that's how you know it's the only way you know you check in after 25 years this is still resonating yeah it's the only to test just down all right now what now you mean now right now no I can't go on now what things to do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] you could tell us where we're going tonight we're going to meet with Neil we're gonna talk about stuff I guess drink some local wine well there may be a discussion of the next steps for the band well we don't really want to hang around with the Chi so yeah that's it was just a business meeting this is the first one this will be your 24th record what's the motivation to keep doing it chicks it's so great to drink wine it tastes fantastic and it makes you feel funny did I ever tell you that love is genius the grad the televi he manifested every single day why don't we write some songs great well let's start I don't know what I thought was on the Frankenstein boats we've ever had a conversation let's not start now you know what they say about if you put a hundred monkeys in the room with typewriters that they'll eventually you know produce the works of Shakespeare who's gonna clean those typewriters we're getting into weirder you know defecation I don't know you this relationship is they're so sick of you guys we're really helpful for me this is I'm working through something emotional too psychologically and yet yeah [ __ ] stupid bears okay take your smokes and go that as soon as I can get over there I'm gonna rise to my knees and kick that sounds like the new Russia today oh my god you're genius I'm gonna do a hockey nights with the drum solo for with the Latino stuff in it boy that's gonna be one way that's the next album guys no God it's sort of that okay I think we've been successful in destroying these peoples film I will remind them that I said you would regret it yes I just wanted to say that I said don't be surprised when you discover now I like rush the louder the better now

Channel: Snowdog

Views: 253,665

Keywords:

Id: s8_lDIkMFyg

Length: 106min 56sec (6416 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 16 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Dangerboy73]

I just watched this on Netflix tonight, It’s fantastic, made by the same guy that did metal evolution and the ZZ TOP documentary.

[u/carsonnwells]

Entre Nous needs more airtime !!

[u/BaaadWolf]

Watched this on a plane. Laughing at the part where they are talking about there being no women at Rush shows (in the early days) and if there were they were likely “cat ladies”. Next thing I watched on the plane was a documentary about “cat ladies”. Yup. There was one wearing a 2112 T-shirt :(

[u/onelittleworld]

Even if you're not a huge Rush fan, this is a really well-done doc. Take note of the scene where young Alex is in the kitchen, talking to his mom & dad that he's really serious about this band thing. Look closely. It's pro-shot, and very possibly a 2-camera shoot.

[u/UnderTheMuddyWater]

I like Rush...not a super fan and mostly know the radio hits but respect the hell out of their talent. Loved this doc, watched it several times. Highly recommended. And respect these guys even more after for being so humble. These guys are the anti-rockstars. RIP Neil.

[u/potato-shaped-nuts]

One of the greatest bands ever.

[u/stunspot]

I grew up in an extremely rural area. All the radio stations were either good country and western, npr, or pop 40 crap, which I had been told was called "Rock and Roll". So, naturally, I grew up thinking I hated Rock. It wasn't until I was 13 and a friend played a vinyl copy of "2112" for me that the scales dropped from my eyes and I knew how badly I had been deceived. Thank you, Rush, for introducing me to universes of musical wonder.

[u/Thesorus]

Imagine meeting a drummer out of nowhere Ontario that will change your life forever.

[u/nkat2112]

Rush deeply inspired me and changed my life in such a positive way. I'm grateful to them beyond words. Thank you, OP, for posting this.