Rush

by Martin Popoff

  Inspired very much by Led Zeppelin’s deft manipulation of light and shade, as well as the new, post-psych genre of progressive rock, Geddy began to sing higher, belting it out on a growing stash of original compositions, such as “Run Willie Run,” “Feel So Good,” “Garden Road,” “Keep in Line,” “Child Reborn,” “Margarite,” “Fancy Dancer,” and “Morning Star,” that were slowly being shoehorned into the band’s crowd-pleasing covers set. “When we were growing up,” noted Geddy in 1976, “the big bands were Zeppelin and Beck. We used to do a lot of Zeppelin material before we started writing our own stuff and I used to have to scream to hit the high notes. Now it’s all pretty natural.”

  The short-lived (three months) line-up from 1971 that included Mitch Bossi (front) on second guitar.

  “I don’t acknowledge the resemblance the way most people do,” noted Geddy, on the Robert Plant comparisons that would dog him all through the ’70s. “Superficially, we are similar … yes. I have a very high voice, so does Robert Plant, but it’s an entirely different voice. Both bands play at a pretty high volume, but the music is different. And when you look inside at what motivates the music, you see it’s very different.”

  “In Canada, you’re influenced by American things, but you also absorb a great deal of the Commonwealth country’s British background,” continued Lee. “Our influences are still around—that makes it a bit tougher. We’re still a young band. With us, we’re still competing with some of our very influences.”

  Adding to the pressure of working day and night, Alex got his girlfriend Charlene McNichol pregnant with son Justin, prompting their shacking up together and very soon after, marriage. Piling on the work, the band’s prospects for the future experienced a pronounced uptick with the lowering of the drinking age from 21 to 18 on January 1, 1971. Suddenly, the band could gig every night of the week if they could hack it, rather than a couple of nights for high school kids. “It was like when the Beatles played for weeks at a time in Germany,” said Grandy. “So much time to fill, so songs would come and go, and you’re playing them again and again. We were a big band on that circuit and filled the bars, leading you to think you could actually make a living doing this.”

  “The worst was Northern Ontario,” noted Geddy on the age-old quandary of originals versus covers. “They don’t care what you do. They don’t care if you do the greatest original material in the world if their ears haven’t heard it before. They just want to get drunk and hear their favorite tunes. It was just persistence. We only did tunes that we liked, and we’d sneak in an original here and there. Eventually, we built up our own little following. We just kept ourselves going. My family didn’t understand what I was doing … until I started making money!”

  Ah, yes, it was at this juncture that the guys had the penultimate talks with their parents about quitting high school (heartbreakingly close to graduation) and pursuing their rock ’n’ roll dream. Having delicately reassured their parents of their intentions to go back to school if things didn’t work out (well, Geddy, anyway), the band maintained their presence on the high school circuit, driving farther afield to places like North Bay, Sudbury, Kirkland Lake, London, Deep River, and Windsor, while also venturing into recording, having given it a shot in a crude facility in the notorious hippie-fied Rochdale College and at a second workmanlike setup called Sound Horn.

  Still, the high school circuit had started to “erode,” as Ray put it, and Rush actually saw reduced activity in 1971, not taking full advantage of the lower drinking age. Eventually, however, Ray had them regularly appearing at a handful of rooms in Toronto, sometimes for a week at a time, allowing the band some semblance of steady income. In conjunction, Danniels mixed it up between cover charges and selling tickets, so that by early 1972, Rush was playing what could be called small concerts.

  Clowning with Ray Danniels. © Bruce Cole–Plum Studios

  In 1970 and 1971 the band worked the Ontario high school circuit hard, playing locales like London, Deep River, and Sudbury. “The worst was Northern Ontario,” Geddy recalled. “They don’t care what you do…. They just want to get drunk and hear their favorite tunes.”

  1973–1974

  ENTER THE PROFESSOR

  “Now well established in the Midwest, with their second album, Fly by Night, Rush on a staggering tour are pushing to hurl themselves over the high jump to American fame. Bringing their traditional brand of Canadian rock to the suburban U.S., Rush is challenging Bachman-Turner Overdone for the title as most important musical export this side of Joni Mitchell’s cheekbones.”

  —Michael Gross, Circus Rave, 1975

  WRYLY SPEAKING, by 1973, Rush were rock ’n’ roll veterans. Yet they hadn’t made a record, nor had they ventured far from home, their ingrained Canadian practicality perhaps standing them in good stead—baby steps, sure and steady wins the race, et cetera.

  Keeping it local, the band had shopped the two-track demos from the Rochdale session around to the Canadian record labels, mostly sleepy branch economies with limited power. “We took about four months, I guess, trying to get a record deal for Rush in this country,” said Ray, not without some bile, “and couldn’t get anybody interested at all. There was just no reaction. The attitude was, just because that kind of band can do well in England, it couldn’t happen over here. We would literally just give the album away if someone made a commitment to promote it.”

  Relegated to DIY status and without much fanfare, Rush decided to cut an indie single, pairing a cover of the Buddy Holly/Rolling Stones hit “Not Fade Away” with a workmanlike barroom rocker of Rutsey’s called “You Can’t Fight It.” The Moon Records 7-inch, recorded at Eastern Sound on the cheap in the middle of the night, became a hot item in Geddy’s mom’s convenience store as well as at Rush gigs, selling out quickly. By this stage, local booking adversaries Ray Danniels and industry veteran Vic Wilson had bonded over lunch, forming in December 1972 a management company called SRO Productions (as in Standing Room Only) on Eglinton Avenue in Toronto, partway between the ’burbs and the downtown clubs where Rush would cut its teeth. Wilson recalled SRO as a happy family, with Ray and himself splitting management duties, the band being essentially five guys, namely, Geddy (the quiet one), John Rutsey (the spokesman), roadies Ian Grandy and Liam Burt, and of course Alex, who would bring the office homemade soup, courtesy of his mom.

  Geddy and Alex have always quipped that the nerdy guy they brought into the band “knew words,” “read books,” and perhaps most amusingly, “spoke English better than anyone we knew.” © Rich Galbraith

  Author collection

  © Rock ’n’ Roll Comics, Revolutionary Comics. Courtesy Jay Allen Sanford

  Rush’s first record was a cover of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” b/w the John Rutsey–penned rocker “You Can’t Fight It.”

  With the single not making any waves, management figured that perhaps the labels would take notice if they cranked out a whole album and plopped it on their desks. The grinding hard rocker that would become the self-titled debut long-player was initially recorded, like the single, at Eastern, but then rerecorded at a more upscale facility when the quality of the original tapes was thought to be lacking aggression. “The first stab at that album was done in eight hours following a gig,” explained Alex. “We cut it at Eastern Sound in Toronto and we were warmed up after the show so most of the songs came in two or three takes. Then we decided we could do it better, so we recut the whole thing eight months later at Toronto Sound.”

  Enter one Terry Brown, an already seasoned producer who would become associated with the Rush nameplate throughout all of the band’s classic albums in the ’70s and early ’80s. “We started a studio together in Toronto that took the technology of London, which was way ahead of the game at that point, as was New York. We took that technology to Toronto and started a big multitrack studio there. And as a result of that, we sort of got some notoriety and had some hit records there too, and became known by the Rush management team, an
d one Vic Wilson, who was partners with Ray Danniels at the time. Vic was from England too, so we’ve got, as we used to say, from one teabag to another. ‘I know this teabag over at this studio. He’ll help us out.’

  “They had been in the studio, working on the first record, which was the pink Rush record,” continued Brown. “They had been doing the graveyard shift. So they were getting very cheap time in the middle of the night and after they’d worked all day and did what they were doing at that time, getting their craft together and booking shows and playing arenas, small arenas, local school arenas. So they came over to me and asked me if I would help them finish it off because it got to a point when they really didn’t know how to finish it. Fortunately, I had some experience at that point, having had some hit records and I’d sort of learned an awful lot from some really good people. So they came in … and this was in the days when John Rutsey was playing drums too; it was the first incarnation. But they came in and we cut three songs: ‘Finding My Way,’ ‘Here Again,’ and ‘Need Some Love.’ But anyway, within three days, we had cut three songs and mixed the entire record.

  “And it came out to not a huge amount of success,” laughed Brown. “No accolades. And funny enough, people I was working with, my peers at the time, were saying to me, ‘What do you see in that band?’ And I’d say, ‘Well, I see a lot of success here.’ And one of the things that really took me … well, Ged’s voice for starters was astonishing. And he was really young and he could sing like a bird. Still does, but that was my first exposure to Ged. And Alex’s guitar playing blew me away. We would double the guitars, which was a thing I was very much into at that point. And we only had three days to do all this work. So we did guitar track, drums and bass, and then I said to him, ‘Let’s double it.’ And I’ll never forget, to this day, I put the original guitar on the left speaker, we put the new guitar on the right speaker, and he doubled it from top to bottom, flawlessly, in one take. And it sounded like one huge guitar, it was so accurate. And I had this huge grin on my face, and that just stuck with me forever, how good he was at that. So when peopled said, ‘What do you see in this band? It’s just like a loud noise and you really don’t hear anything.’ Well, I think you’re wrong. I hear strong melodies, some great playing, unique vocal sounds, great guitar playing, and I think they’re going to do very well.”

  In other words, Rush had put in their hours, arriving at the studio ready to record at more than a competent level, at least in the old-school manner of playing everything true and live, of making records work without the budget for bells and whistles. The end result was a fiercely electric album of hard rock and heaviness previously too bold for and from Canadian tastes. Rush was Zeppelin-esque, to be sure, especially at the vocal slot, but there was also a compelling variety and quality to Alex’s riffs, the album’s hard-charging emphasis on guitars set to synch with the rise of Aerosmith, Kiss, Blue Öyster Cult, and Ted Nugent, bands that would soon be sharing stages with Rush as the Canadians ventured south, rarely to come home again.

  Heaviest of the lot were “What You’re Doing” and “Finding My Way,” one Sabbatherian, the next Zeppelin-esque, along with blue-collar anthem “Working Man,” which was the track picked up on by Donna Halper and staffers at WMMS radio in Cleveland, a ringing endorsement that is widely credited with breaking the band stateside. Things snowballed from there. ATI booking agent Ira Blacker had sent a copy of the album to Mercury, where Cliff Burnstein (later to become one of rock’s biggest managers) dropped needle on lead track “Finding My Way” and promptly checked with Halper on the situation with this crazy record in Cleveland. Donna confirmed the mania for Rush in Cleveland and then suggested he listen to the rest of the record, particularly “Working Man.” By the end of the day, after Cliff made furtive phone calls to the president of Mercury, a deal was worked out and Rush was signed on to the label, home to Bachman-Turner Overdrive and the New York Dolls, and U.S. representation for Thin Lizzy and Uriah Heep.

  “Trio serves up a dose of good hard rock,” wrote Billboard, reviewing the album, “highlighted by the often Robert Plant–like lead vocals of Geddy Lee and the powerful guitar work of Alex Lifeson and solid drumming from John Rutsey. Good material here for AM or FM play. Only complaint might be the strong similarity to Led Zeppelin, but this cannot really be considered a complaint when one examines the success Zeppelin has and does enjoy.”

  Mark Kmetzko from The Scene, reviewing an early Cleveland stand, repeatedly made similar comparisons to Zeppelin, adding, “I really don’t see what all the excitement over Rush is about. They’re just another ‘high energy’ rock band who prides itself on its ability to ‘boogie.’ Big deal. I can stay home and listen to Foghat if I want that. From what I observed Monday night, Rush’s forte is supposed to be the vocals of bass player Geddy Lee. He doesn’t have a good voice, but it’s one that’s hard to forget. My comments aside, the crowd ate it up. They loved hearing Lee soar into his soprano register and make neat contorted faces. If that’s what it’s about, then I guess they succeeded.”

  The U.S. record deal, a hot-clocking proto-metal album, U.S. tour dates—it was a rock ’n’ roll dream come true. Except if you were John Rutsey. It was all a little much for the drummer, notwithstanding other concerns within the camp. Geddy and Alex have hinted in the press about John’s dark moods, and then there’s the incident during work on the album when Rutsey showed up and tore up all the lyrics he had written for the record. Even at the pure musicianship end, John was more of a 4/4 “Bad Company” guy than Alex and Geddy were on their way to becoming. More significantly, John partied a little harder than he should have, being a diabetic.

  The band honed their live chops as an opening act for a variety of headliners, both at home in Canada and in the northern tier of the United States.

  SRO-hosted party, Piccadilly Tube, Toronto, August 1973. © Bruce Cole–Plum Studios

  Promo shot, circa 1973. © Bruce Cole–Plum Studios

  Colonial Tavern, 1974. Author collection

  “Rutsey’s health was really bad,” said Geddy, in one of the band’s first features back in December 1974. “He was running himself right into the ground. The type of schedule we had is rough on a healthy person. It’s hard to put up with, but he was really suffering from having to play so hard so often. Also, Alex and I have always moved in the same musical direction, and he was growing in a different way. I knew—I think we all knew—that it was eventually going to happen. It should have happened a year before it did.”

  Courtesy Jeffrey Morgan

  RUSH Jeffrey Morgan

  Ask any working man who wouldn’t know Ayn Rand from Saran Wrap and he’ll tell you that not only is Rush’s eponymous album the greatest Canadian rock ’n’ roll record ever waxed, it sonically smearcases all other would-be Canucklehead contenders and leaves them tied for first loser. In other words, this one oozes to overflowing with everything you’d want a raucous rock record to reek of. It’s the only Rush album I’ve ever heard, and it’s the only Rush album you’ll ever need to hear too.

  And while we’re on the topic of singular events, the first—and only—time that I saw Rush perform live was in 1973 at their inaugural recital when they opened for the New York Dolls at Toronto’s Victory Burlesque, where illustrious cleavage heavers such as Alexandra the Great 48 would regularly strut their stacks down the long center runway that bisected the seats some ten rows deep.

  Nowadays everyone says that they were there that night, but I can prove it with unimpeachable authority because, as evidenced by the ducat on display, I still have my ticket from that epochal evening. The Dolls were great, but what we’re here for is the opening act, which, at the time of their appearance, hadn’t even released an album.

  Not that it mattered, because the lay-down-the-law firm of Rutsey, Lifeson & Lee MFIC proceeded to storm the stage and decimate the entire area with an unrelenting salvo of heavy metal shrapnel that began with the opening riff of “Finding My Way” and didn’t end until the
last brain-buffeting power chord had peeled the pasties off the panting usherettes. But that advance onslaught was nothing compared with the main invasion that occurred four months later when Rush’s first album was released on their own Moon Records label. After wearing out several copies in as many days, I barely managed to recuperate long enough to write the following review:

  To say that it’s a killer is the understatement of the year. Rush is virtually perfect from start to finish and it continues to burn rubber every time I sandwich it between my De-Stat disc and my Dual pickup. I’m listening to it right now as a matter of fact and, even though it’s 2:45 in the morning, I’ve got it cranked up full to give the next door neighbors an impromptu education in what real rock ’n’ roll sounds like. It’s non-stop splatter music and you don’t even notice the silence between the tracks. Power, power, power, that’s what this LP is all about and that’s why you owe it to yourself to grab a copy now. It wails like a child trapped in an abandoned refrigerator—and is twice as much fun.