Rush is a Band

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Neil Peart, Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

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Steel Assassin cover of Rush's Red Sector A now online

Fri, Apr 20, 2012@9:35AM | comments removed/disabled

Last summer I reported that Boston-based heavy metal band Steel Assassin would include a cover of Rush's Red Sector A on their forthcoming album WWII: Metal Of Honor which is due out on May 15th. The band recently posted the Red Sector A cover to YouTube at this link. It's an up-tempo, very heavy version of the track without any keyboards. In a recent interview with Mathias Madder from High Roller, guitarist Mike Mooney comments:

I actually made a demo of the song about five years ago basically for my own purposes. I've always loved the way Geddy (Lee) sings that song, there's a hopelessness and longing in his voice that is brilliant, but there's also a quality of urgency that I thought would translate well to metal, so I basically changed up the tempos and really kept everything else the same. I call Rush my 'desert island' band, meaning if I were ever stranded on desert island and could only listen to one artist, it would be Rush. Kevin and I are both huge fans all the way back to their earliest days. Their writing in a lot of ways is very metal, but they are so much more diverse than just that. 'Red Sector A' also ties in rather neatly with the military concept of our record. We were at my house combing through some demos for the new record, when I came across my old version of it, and all at once it struck me, this would be an awesome addition to the World War II theme. I began the campaign right then to have this song on the album, Kevin instantly agreed and the rest would follow. Lyrically and musically it's a perfect compliment to this record and the whole band is really excited about it.

Thanks to Metal Tim at BW&BK for the heads up and above quote.

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