Rush is a Band

A blog devoted to RUSH:
Neil Peart, Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

Thu, Mar 28, 2024

Updates and other random Rush stuff

Fri, Jan 6, 2012@12:23PM | comments removed/disabled

Welcome to 2012 everyone! Things are already off to a great start in Rush-land this year as more news regarding the band's upcoming Clockwork Angels album starts to trickle in. Geddy Lee was interviewed for a 2012 album preview feature in the latest issue of Classic Rock magazine and spoke a little about the album. Geddy confirms that the band recorded the album at Revolution Recording and Noble Street Studios in Toronto, and had the following to say regarding the title track along with the steampunk theme of Clockwork Angels:

... the title track is shaping up to be a classic Rush epic. "That song is a longer piece, and I think if anything it'll only get longer when we've finished with it," he says. "I don't think it's double digits yet in terms of minutes, but we're pushing all the songs as long as we can." ... "There's a story going on," confirms Lee. "When we had discussions about themes for the album it was connected to the idea of a different kind of future and the whole aesthetic of steampunk, which is so cool. It's a futuristic point of view that's rooted in the past, which makes it so interesting. When you look at the steampunk designs they all look Victorian yet fast-forwarded in some magical way to the future. The idea of building a story around that world appealed to us. The Time Machine tour really was a preview of that. We jumped the gun a bit and got too excited and couldn't hold it back." ...

You can read the whole interview by clicking on the scans. Moog Music also caught up with Geddy in the studio recently to talk about Moog Taurus pedals. They posted the first installment of a 3-part interview to their website yesterday in which Geddy talks about his first introduction to the Taurus sound, how it influenced Rush's song construction back in the '70s, and the new Moog Minitaur. Geddy also mentions how much of a fan of the Taurus pedals their producer Nick Raskulinecz is and reveals that they've already used them on a few of the tracks on the new album. You can check out the video at this link. According to Darryl Sterdan of Canada's Sun Media, Rush's upcoming album and tour are among the most-anticipated of 2012. Earlier this week he revealed his list of the 12 most-anticipated albums of 2012 and Rush was #8:

#8 - Rush, Clockwork Angels: Tick tock, dudes. Way back in the summer of 2010, the long-running Canadian power trio teased us with two tracks -- Caravan and BU2B -- from this 19th studio album. Word is they'll finally unveil the rest this June.

Rush's upcoming tour in support of the album also made his top 12 most-anticipated tours of 2012. Clockwork Angels was also one of the featured upcoming albums of 2012 in MSN.com's 2012 New Music Guide (thanks Red Comet):

As Rush are a musical religion that doesn't evangelize, there's no point in this writer singing their praises to the crossed arms and rolled eyes of the haters. But to those of us who worship at their melodic math-rock altar, "Clockwork Angels" is one of the most anticipated releases of the year. Due out in March, this, the band's 19th studio album, has been in process for close to three years. In fact, the first single, "Caravan," was released way back in June 2010. When it drops, look for a rush to the record store (no pun intended).

So Sterdan says the album is coming in June and MSN says March. I don't think they have any inside information and are just speculating. June seems too late and March too early. I'm guessing it'll be more like April/May, but we'll see soon enough. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some kind of official album/tour announcement by early next month. Methinks 2/1/12 would be an appropriate date for an announcement. :)

The influential BBC television show The Old Grey Whistle Test - which ran from 1971 to 1987 - celebrated its 40th anniversary last year and will commemorate the occasion with a special show at the Sage Hall in Gateshead, UK on January 15th that will unveil rare footage from BBC Worldwide archive recording. What they are claiming will be the highlight of the show is some rare footage of Rush playing Xanadu. However, the rare footage in question that was aired on the show originally back in 1977 was the same in-studio video that was included as an extra on the R30 DVD and has been available online and to bootleggers in various forms for years. Rush actually never appeared live on the show itself, so it looks like they'll just be showing this same video, although we are still awaiting clarification.

The Rush Backstage Club is running a new contest where you could win an autographed, vinyl copy of A Show of Hands:

This coveted RUSH "A Show Of Hands Vinyl" was signed by Geddy, Alex and Neil many years ago. Found in the vaults, we are willing to give this rare item away to one lucky winner!

For all the details and to enter just go to this link.

The Village Voice ran an article on New Year's Day which focused on mnemonic devices to help you remember that the year is now 2012. In the article they have a series of 3 pictures - one of which is Geddy Lee - along with the following instructions:

... On the left is Geddy Lee, the lead singer of Rush. Rush's most famous album is, of course, "2112." The middle picture is of a woman sneezing. Sneezing occurs when your sinuses are irritated. Sinus sounds like minus. On the right is novelist Gabriel García Márquez, who wrote 100 Years of Solitude. So: 2112-100 (years of solitude)= 2012. It's 2012! ...

The February, 2012 issue of Bass Player magazine features a cover story and interview with Fishbone's Norwood Fisher. When asked about his favorite live rhythm sections he mentions Neil Peart and Geddy Lee:

... Neil Peart's musicianship has always set the bar high, but the way he and Geddy Lee lock-dude! ...

He also mentions Geddy as an early influence:

... We cut our teeth playing a lot of Rush-I learned all those Geddy Lee bass lines from Permanent Waves [1980] and Moving Pictures [1981] ...

Thanks to Marc C for the heads up.

Pro Sound Network recently posted an article (thanks RushFanForever) on the Sonic Reality Sonic Elements project which I'd first mentioned back in November. They talk with Triumph's Rik Emmett about his recording of Red Barchetta which he did with the help of Sonic Reality's Neil Peart Drums sample software:

..."It was such a great day in the studio, jamming out to Neil's incredible tracks, getting to play virtual 'basement band' and laying down my versions of Geddy and Alex's parts. I felt like I had been transported back to 1980 for an afternoon. 'Red Barchetta' is one of my absolute favorite Rush songs—like an exciting, Ray Bradbury-esque short story, told by a progressive rock band—so to get a crack at it, with the actual drum takes that Neil performed, was an 'artistic' challenge, almost like accepting a dare." ... "This is like Rock Band for the seriously, deeply committed." ...

The Sonic Elements project will be releasing an entire album's worth of Rush covers sometime in the next few months. You can check out a sample of Red Barchetta along with several other Rush cover samples at the Sonic Elements page on SoundCloud.

Reader RushFanForever located this short CBC radio interview with Le Studio founder Andre Perry which was posted to the Raised on Radio blog back in October. Perry owned Le Studio back in its heyday and talks about what it was like to be witness to the recording of 7 classic Rush albums. He also mentions how much of a class act Rush was to work with. You can listen to the interview at this link.

Reader Road Map of Jupiter let me know that on Dec. 26th Sirius XM aired their Artist Confidential series featuring American rock band Evanescence. Rush producer Nick Raskulinecz produced the band's 2011 self-titled album and they gush over Nick in the interview. When asked to tell a good Nick story, the band's guitarist mentions how Nick took the band to see Rush's show in Nashville last year where they got to meet Alex and Geddy. You can listen to the interview on YouTube at this link; the Rush part comes in at about the 28-minute mark.

Andrew Olson recently created a survey on Facebook and asked people to vote on their favorite from among 10 of Neil Peart's most well-known drum kits. After 129 votes, he posted the results over on his Neil Peart fan page at this link. The overwhelming winner with 43% of the vote was Neil's Time Machine DW kit.

Speaking of Neil, apparently he was a student at the Ontario College of Percussion at some point in his early career according to the school's website. My guess is he attended some low-profile clinic at one point and the school decided to flaunt it. :) Thanks to RushFanForever for the heads up.

Author Evan Manderly released a book this past September titled Q: A Novel and was interviewed for the Book Club Girl podcast shortly after the release. In the course of discussing the book he reveals that he was a big Rush fan, and particularly a fan of Neil Peart. He goes on to describe how reading Neil's Ghost Rider book gave him the idea and inspiration for the story told in Q. You can listen to the interview at this link; the Rush part comes in at about the 7-minute mark. Thanks to AmyBrink for the heads up.

Cultural Transmogrifier Magazine recently posted an article on Neil Peart, Rush and politics titled The Political Importance of Rush. The article mentions the influence of Ayn Rand on Peart's lyrics and philosophy, but also makes the argument that Peart's philosophy is closer to French philosopher Michel Foucault than to Rand. You can check out the article at this link.

Neil Peart also gets a quick mention in this Vancouver Sun article on the BMW 1200 GS:

... Ewan McGregor and Charly Boorman introduced the motorcycling world to the possibilities of adventure travel and lifted any preconceived inhibitions of their viewers by travelling the globe in 2004 on BMW R1150 GS, also the bike of choice of Rush drummer Neil Peart, who upgraded to the BMW R1200 GS after logging over 160,000 kilometres for his epic journeys. ...

The No Treble website for bass players has put together a mini-site calling for Rush's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The site is called Before 2112 and features this snazzy little video along with a petition that already has over 800 signatures. To check out the site and sign the petition just go to this link (thanks Druphis).

Classic Rock's Prog magazine is conducting its annual readers poll and Rush needs your vote. You can take the poll at this link (thanks RushFanForever).

Here's part 1 of Geddy Lee's 3-part video interview with Moog Music:

That's all for the first week of 2012. Have a great weekend!

NOTE: Posts over 10 years old are partially archived. All comments, images and other embedded media have been removed.

Share