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In an ongoing effort to bring the best guests to Community Port, we're
proud to introduce "Community Port Quick Hits." The "Quick Hits" program
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Rush
Earlier this year singer-bassist Geddy Lee,
drummer Neil Peart and guitarist Alex Lifeson released
Vapor Trails, the first studio album from Rush since
1996, accompanied by their first tour in five years. So a look
back is in order for the most unusually successful band in
rock history - all 20 of its previous original studio and live
albums is either gold or platinum despite having only one U.S.
pop Top 40 single.

The Spirit Of Radio: Greatest Hits (1974-1987),
(Mercury/UME), brings together 16 unedited Rush classics
spanning the band's career on Mercury; tracks from 11 of its
12 studio albums on the label, each digitally remastered. The
package also includes a 16-page booklet.

Formed in 1968 in Toronto, Canada, the power trio (with
then-drummer John Rutsey) self-released a self-titled debut in
1974. Imports to the U.S. prompted Mercury to sign the band
and re-release the album later that year. Peart then replaced
Rutsey, and the triumvirate has been together ever since.
Peart also took over the lyricist duties and his fascination
with fantasy and grand themes became a trademark for Rush, as
did Lee's high-pitched voice and Lifeson's guitar
histrionics.

Be sure to check out the best of Rush on their new
compilation, which will be released on February 11, 2003.

Discuss
Rush's Q&A session on the Arts & Entertainment
board!

What was the motivation for the latest album? What are the details
on its release?
It's called the "Spirit of Radio." Well the
motivation is (Laugh), ah, part of a contractual thing with Paul Egram
with Mercury Records from our previous deal with them, which expired in
1990. So they have the rights to do a number of greatest hits or packaged
records. So I think they wanted to put together something that represented
some of our stronger radio songs over the course of the catalog. "Spirit
of Radio" will be released February 11, 2003!

What is your set list like these days? How much do you blend the old
stuff in with the new?
Um, actually ah, a fair bit of it. I would
say probably 60%. Ah, 60% of the songs that are in the set when we tour
are on this compilation.

What's the best thing about being rock stars? Money? Women? Money?
Women?
Ah, rock star? (Laugh) I'm just a musician man, I just play
guitar. Um, well there are certainly some wonderful things about being in
rock music. For as long as we've been in it, that's for sure. I mean we
started in 1968, that's when we were 15 years old. We'd get our first gig
in September of that year. When we knew, I think 5 songs that we've played
over and over and over again. We made $10 bucks, the money got better. Um,
I'm still with the same girl that I was with back then. That's a good
thing too. Yeah, and it's been just wonderful to be able to continue
writing music, making records, touring, never having to grow up. It's a
wonderful advantage.

Do you get tired of playing certain songs?
To be honest with
you, not really. We were on tour from mid-June until to the end of
November of last year. And we put a set together; it's a 3-hour set, a lot
of older material that we never played before. You know, I never got sick
of it one night. It was such a joy to play every night. You get tired of
some of the stuff, but I don't know, you kind of rise above it. The
audience is getting into it so you feed off of that.

Alex, how did you get the nickname "Musical Scientist"?
I
don't know, maybe it's our approach to the way we worked in the past. We
were quite anal about recording. You know, we would do a take about a
million times, work on a section of the song that was 10 seconds long
until we got it absolutely perfect. And I think over the last couple of
records we've gotten away from that and it's more about the feel now. If
there's some looseness in playing, it doesn't really matter; it's all
about how it feels. That's what's really important. So, hopefully we're
sort of getting over that kind of reputation.

How do you know when you're there?
You just know it. It just
feels right. It sits right. It's an intuitive thing. A lot of our last
record was recorded that way. We jammed. Geddy and I would jam and we used
a lot of those jams as the basis for those songs. So, Neil would record
his drums and we'd keep the bass and the guitar from those jams and build
on top of it. It was really great to be able to approach it in that way.
It was a lot more organic.

Do you prefer playing small clubs or large arenas?
I'm much
more comfortable in large arenas. I think we've been doing it for so long
now that that is a comfortable format for us. We've played some small
clubs on a European tour that we did 10 years ago. We played some smaller
venues in Germany, about 1,200 or 1,500 seats. It was okay, but I
certainly don't have this great - or any of us really - desire to go back
playing clubs.

Isn't that what you're trying to get away from (small clubs) when
you're getting started?
Well, I'm a co-owner of a club in Toronto
called the "Orbit Room." If we really jam them in, we get 100 people. So,
I get my fix there if I want to get that kind of thing. There are a couple
of great bands that play there through the week. I'll go in there and jam
or sit-in with them.

With us, a lot of it's visual, so you need the space to be able to
project all the rear screen stuff and all the other visuals.

What's it like to look out and see thousands and thousands of
people?
It's amazing! At the moment, you don't really think about
it. You're focused on what you're doing. Within the monitors, it's
eliminated a lot of the excitement of the audience. As great a benefit as
they are in terms of how you play and how in-time you are and how in-tune
you are, you give up on getting the energy of the audience. We did a show
in November in South Palo. We had 60,000 people, it's the biggest gig
we've ever done. And, we came on stage and I pull my plugs out. I just had
to hear it, because I couldn't hear anything. I mean I heard like
"wahwahwahwah", the rumbling, but I pulled them out and "AH" I mean the
hair stood up on the back of my neck. It was just incredible. It's very,
very exciting.

What achievement in the band's long career are you most proud of?

Well, I think there have been quite a few. We've made a lot of
records. We never expected to make as many records as we have when we
started out. Certainly, when we started touring America when we got our
first record deal. Um, the fact that we went through a very difficult
period, ah, Neil's tragedy in his family, and having come back from it and
having done a successful tour and made a record that we're very proud of.
I think that's a huge accomplishment for us.

You're on the "South Park" movie soundtrack with Engelbert
Humperdink. We spoke with him not too long ago and he loved doing "Lesbian
Seagull." How did your group like doing "Oh Canada" with the kids?

Oh, we loved it! The problem with it is we got in at the tail end.
I know Matt wanted to work it into the movie itself. But, he didn't get in
touch with us until the last couple of weeks of their production. So it
was all kind of a "rush" job but, ah - God I can't believe I just said
that (laugh). But, it was great and he's a wonderful guy, very, very
funny, very smart and it was really great.

What bands inspired your work?
Oh certainly in the
beginning, Cream. Led Zeppelin of course was a huge inspiration. Jimi
Hendrix, The Who, really that ilk of that period.

The Rush sound has been defined as prototypical, "Progessive" Rock.
Are you comfortable with that title?
Well, you know, we've always
considered ourselves as a hard rock band. I don't think we're a
progressive rock band like some of them are. I don't know, you know it's,
what's in a name like that? You know, why try to progress in terms of
where our music goes and how we challenge ourselves in our writing. But I
don't think stylistically we are really like those other progressive
bands, maybe in the earlier years of our recording history.

Which new artists or bands impress you most?
Um, I like Tool
a lot. Um, more currently, I haven't been listening too much lately.

If you could change one thing about the Music Industry in its
current state, what would that be?
Yeah, that's a tough question.
The music industry is in such a state a transition right now and the
industry itself I sense is in a state of panic. They don't know what to do
about file sharing, they were slow to pick it up, they were taking
advantage of the consumer for a long time and its come back on the
industry.

What to change? Boy, I guess that whole attitude of how the industry
works really. You know, they sell a product that's cost them very little
and they charge an awful lot for it. So, it's not surprising it's all gone
this way.

Where do you stand in the whole Napster debate?
You know, I
think its theft whatever way you look at it. I know what it costs to make
a Rush record and it's not cheap. So music is not free. It's a lot of
work. It's a lot of your heart that goes into it, a lot of your sweat. You
care very much about the way it's presented, the packaging we get involved
in it. You know, the way our deal works is that we put the whole thing
together and deliver it to the record company. So we're involved in every
aspect of it. So, it's stealing when it comes down to that.

On the other hand, I understand how certainly with the generation, this
younger generation, they don't want to spend $19 on a CD that they know
costs maybe 50 cents or a few dollars to make in terms of production. And
what the record companies are spending, you know, it's a business; they
got to make money to spend money. At some point, you know all the things
are changing. The record companies are asking bands to give them a piece
of their touring. That's very, very wrong. It's really in a very strange
state of affairs right now.

What's in your CD player right now?
My son's CD. It's
"Contact". My son is 25 years old. He writes electronic music, he's got a
couple different things that he does, different people that he works with.
So, stylistically they are different. One's trancier, one's a little more
rhythmic, more dance oriented. I help him. I use that term very loosely
because he knows what he's doing. I play guitar on some of his stuff and
then he rips it apart and samples it and moves it around and re-organizes
the whole thing and makes it sound amazing. So I stay out of his way.

I was like, it's incredible because I have a studio and I let him in
there. I'll spend some time doing a bunch of takes and then I'll go in and
I'll start editing and he'll sit there quietly and then he'll get up and
take over. And he'll do in minutes what took me an hour to do in a much
more interesting way (laugh). So I've come to realize that I'm just there
as a hired hand. When I finish playing, I'm supposed to go back to the
couch and play Playstation 2 and eat chips (laugh). But it's so great to
be able to do that with your kids. It's really, really a wonderful
feeling.

What's the best thing that's happened to the band in the last 30
days?
We had a wonderful Chinese New Year dinner last night. That
was a very wonderful positive thing. It was a beautiful experience. I
can't begin to tell you. It was a 9-course dinner, served in reverse. We
started with the main course first, which was venison and une (pronounced
"ooh-nee") in a really light sauce with mashed turnips and then we kinda
worked back. We finished with desert but the penultimate course was kind
of like an appetizer crap dish at "Suser's" in Toronto. Suser Lee is a
renowned chef, brilliant, very good friends with Geddy and his wife. So he
goes down, you know, fairly often, even just to stop in and have a glass
of wine. But Suser is an artistic genius when it comes to food. It's
Chinese fusion and it's very, very authentic and individual and really,
really great.

If you could have a meal with anyone in history, who and why?

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think, you know, I think it
would be hard to pick a person. Um, Winston Churchill would be a
fascinating person to sit down and have a meal with. A great orator,
incredible history, especially in these times it would be amazing to get
his perspective on what's going on in the world. It would be very, very
interesting to hear what he would have to say.

Um, a light lunch with Jesus Christ wouldn't be bad (laugh). To get a
sense of what he meant and where his whole story went. You know, how it
changed from what he was trying to say I think would be very, very
interesting. Well, there are two anyways.

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