Rush
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Surprisingly, all of this was captured in collaboration with co-producer Peter Collins, who, in his time away from Rush, had picked up some heavy credentials with Queensryche, Gary Moore, and Alice Cooper. But really, engineer Kevin “Caveman” Shirley deserves much of the credit for forging the fire while getting a subversive, Steve Albini–like “Recorded by” credit, well earned, given the struggle Shirley had pulling the metal out of these respectable gents. An extremely confident and opinionated Shirley, horrified at the sound Rush had been getting over the last few records, was a whirlwind in the studio, configuring mics to give Neil’s drums maximum bleed, making Geddy use his old Fender Jazz Bass and an ancient, ailing tube amp, and championing guitar at every turn.
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“Stick It Out” U.S. promo, 1993. Author collection
“Nobody’s Hero” U.S. promo, 1994. Author collection
“Rupert was great to work with, especially on Presto,” said Alex, charting the move from Hine to Collins, who in turn brought in Shirley when Jim “Jimbo” Barton wasn’t available. “He led us in a direction that had more emphasis on just the feel, rather than on the technical aspect. His idea basically was play it and if it feels good then it is good. Don’t worry if two notes are not absolutely right on the beat in the whole song. That is something that we always got caught up on—being extremely accurate, to the point of being maybe anal-retentive at times [laughs]. With Roll the Bones we just felt like we had gone as far as we could with Rupert. The idea really for the last while has been to use different producers on each record, but we get comfortable with a guy and we stick with him, when what we need to do is to keep trying different people because it really stimulates you. Bringing Peter back was great. He’s a wonderful music producer who loves music. He’s not interested in the technical end of recording—he loves the song. When we talked to him he was so enthusiastic to work with us, and we were enthusiastic to work with him again. He takes all the pressure and worry off being in the studio, and it allows you to think about what you’re doing in musical terms.”
“We’re at that period in our lives where we’re starting to question our relationships with each other,” noted Geddy, explaining the title of the album, which necessarily leads to an exposé of the tension that went into the muscular record. “You start to ask, ‘Why am I still hanging around with these guys?’ To some extent Counterparts is a recognition of how the three of us have grown in different ways over the past few years. There were certainly a lot more fights during these sessions. Almost every Monday morning Alex and I would have a full-blown, in-your-face argument. It was probably a good thing.
“You could see it coming on the last tour,” continued Lee. “Both Alex and I would have our moments, but our fights have always been very brotherly. When you spend more time apart you develop a stronger sense of what you like and what you don’t like. Our musical vision certainly isn’t as similar as it was, so we’d end up questioning each other more. When ideas come up that you’re not comfortable with, it either leads to an agreement or an argument. The more confident you get as a human being, the more likely you are to stand your ground. Alex is very reactionary. He must have said 10,000 times that he didn’t want any keyboards on the album, so when I brought my keyboards into the studio there was an immediate atmosphere. He kept looking at them like they were really threatening. Now, we wrote all the last album on bass, guitar, and drums and added the keys at the end to embellish. That was the only reason the keys were there—or maybe to help me express myself when I was painted into a musical corner—but Alex was making assumptions that I wanted keyboards all over the place. It was a very volatile situation.”
It’s hard even to find keyboards on Counterparts. Instead, what you do find is encompassing, low-end bass, lots of Alex up front, distortion pedal egregiously stomped, and drums with wet snare and booming bass. Indeed, as evidenced by “Animate” and funky, hook-mad instrumental “Leave That Thing Alone,” Neil adds a sense of swing to his playing, with more soon to be coaxed from his heretofore disciplined frame through lessons from jazz legend Freddie Gruber, known for his theories on flow and circular motion around the kit. All told (and with a little Caveman chaos), the twee Rush of late was gone, replaced by a full-bodied, rocking Rush, even if “Nobody’s Hero,” one of the band’s most poignant and successful ballads in years, includes plush orchestration courtesy of Michael Kamen.
“There are moments on Counterparts that are heavier than anything we have ever done in a long time,” agrees Geddy—with qualification. “But even if we became really heavy again it wouldn’t be like the way we were on 2112. Those records were made in a certain time and place and the only way we’d be able to re-create it would be accidentally. If we did it on purpose it would sound like bullshit.”
Despite Counterparts’ goodly reputation today, the band was drained, fed up. Alex thought the record could have been better, and Geddy felt that he acquiesced to too many demands from the engineering department. Despite a crazy No. 2 showing on Billboard, the album hit only gold for a band that was looking old (granted, the same month, December 1993, a bunch of the back catalog was certified gold, platinum, and even multiplatinum). Yet selling Counterparts harder wasn’t in the cards. Geddy was about to be a father for the second time and vowed to be around for those baby moments more than he had been the last time. This, in conjunction with Alex’s dreams of being more creative elsewhere, maybe on a solo record, coincided to make the Counterparts tour a mere four months long, and only in North America.
The short tour was followed by a long break. Neil kept thinking percussion, however, working on his Burning for Buddy tribute project, a gathering of drummers paying homage to Buddy Rich, in concert and captured on CD. Additionally, he started taking instruction from Gruber, whom Neil credited with transforming his entire approach to the drums, beginning with the all-important switch from matched grip to traditional. Alex continued to work on his golf game, while co-opening the Orbit Room, a blues club in Toronto at which he would occasionally play as part of the Dexters. Each of the guys did some guesting on other rockers’ projects (one notable credit of Alex’s was his solo work on Tom Cochrane’s Ragged Ass Road). Most significantly, Alex constructed a solo album called Victor (band name also Victor) featuring all manner of guest stars but most significantly, I Mother Earth’s Edwin on vocals.
Ticket to the 1994 Juno Awards, at which Rush received three nominations (Group of the Year, Producers of the Year, and Hard Rock Album of the Year) and were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Ray Wawrzyniak collection
During a long break after the short Counterparts tour, Alex continued to work on his golf game, while co-opening the Orbit Room, a blues club in Toronto at which he would occasionally play as part of the Dexters. Ray Wawrzyniak collection
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Rush returned to work in a manner that was bemusing and new to them. In a sense, it was a gathering to see if they even had another album in them. The dynamic had changed, as well. Geddy was rusty from lack of playing, whereas Neil was re-energized as a drummer and Alex was much more confident in all areas of record-making, having just made one wearing the captain’s hat. Assembling at their usual writing haunt, Chalet Studio, Alex indicated that he’d like to produce more on the next record and be produced less by Geddy, who surprised himself by being more laid-back about his role than any time previous.
It would be natural for Rush to feel a little irrelevant (a) attempting a return after such a long break, and (b) given the continued success of youthful alternative music at the expense of all manner of oldster. Explaining the curious title of the new album, issued September 10, 1996, Geddy reflected, “Test for Echo [is] interesting because it accurately reflects the current situation in the group. I mean, despite the fact that Rush has existed for over twenty years, when we got together after the break to do the next album, we were not certain that anyone listened to our music anymore, that what we do means something
to anyone. So this song is a kind of question: ‘Is there anyone out there?’ Its lyrics also allow for a certain realization as to how strange the world had become for the group Rush [laughs].”
Test for Echo tour, HP Pavilion, San Jose, California, November 20, 1996. Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images
TEST FOR ECHO Neil Daniels
Rush’s sixteenth album is remembered as the last Rush album before a series of tragedies in Neil Peart’s life. Released three years after Counterparts (where they had tried their hand at alternative rock), Test for Echo was recorded at New York’s Bearsville Studios and Toronto’s Reaction Studios between January and March 1996. The band produced the album with the London-born producer Peter Collins, who had previously worked with the band on Power Windows (1985) and Hold Your Fire (1987).
Test for Echo is not one of Rush’s most well-known albums, although Peart continued to explore his fascination with science fiction and fantasy on the track “Virtuality,” which explores how the Internet affects relationships between people. Academics have dissected the band’s songs and written entire books on the meaning behind Rush’s lyrics, and although some critics have lambasted the trio for appearing to be pretentious and self-important, others have praised them for their originality and focus. Such science fiction–tinged subjects have helped Rush become one of the most interesting bands to come out of the Great White North, as well as one of rock’s greatest and, in many respects, most underrated bands. Messrs. Lee, Lifeson, and Peart came up trumps with this album, in the eyes of many prog rock fans who yearned for the band to return to their roots.
In the 1980s, the band explored far more accessible and chart-friendly musical territories as evident on 1980’s Permanent Waves et al. But by the end of the decade and into the 1990s with Presto in 1989, Roll the Bones in 1991 and 1993’s Counterparts, they had ventured back to a more guitar-driven sound, much to the delight of long-standing fans. The transition from synthesizers to guitars climaxed with Test for Echo.
It can be argued that Rush had become an AOR band in the ’80s, having left their progressive rock roots of the 1970s behind, yet there are touches of prog rock on Test for Echo, as exampled on “Time and Motion,” which has a number of time signatures, and the instrumental track “Limbo” is a nod to 1970s Rush. On the track “Limbo,” Lee’s voice is being used as an instrument rather than as a vocalist because he does not sing any words; this is similar to “2112 Overture.” Such instrumentals and complex arrangements and time signatures are stables of progressive rock. Test for Echo is not an especially challenging album, with Lifeson and Lee playing in a similar guitar-bass vein as shown on the previous three albums. Peart’s drumming, meanwhile, had changed technique after having received training from jazz instructor Freddie Gruber.
To promote the album, the band went on a two-year tour that was divided into two parts. However, once the tour climaxed, the band went on a five-year hiatus after Peart’s daughter died in a car accident in August 1997 and his wife sadly succumbed to cancer in June 1998. As a form of therapy, Peart traveled around North America on his BMV motorbike and wrote about his experiences in a series of books.
Test for Echo was released on September 10, 1996, and peaked at No. 5 in the U.S. Billboard Top 200 album charts. It received generally positive reviews. “Test for Echo,” “Half the World,” “Driven,” and “Virtuality” were released as singles.
Test for Echo is by no means the perfect Rush album, but it does represent Rush’s change in sound and the closing of a particular chapter of their career as they would not release a new album until 2002’s Vapor Trails. Test for Echo has far more in common with their 1970s albums, such as A Farewell to Kings, than it does their 1980s work, such as Power Windows. On Test for Echo, it can be argued that Rush demonstrated their musical prowess better than on any album in over a decade.
Test for Echo tour, HP Pavilion, San Jose, California, November 20, 1996. Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images
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In a sense, one might argue that the writing on Test for Echo harkened back to the Rupert Hine period, but that there were even more rough ’n’ rumble guitars and percussion whacks than on Counterparts. “It’s a slightly different approach with a different production team,” said Geddy. “It’s the first time we used an all American production team, with the exception of our producer, Peter Collins, who is British, but is now living in America. We were going after a little more ‘in your face,’ slightly American attitude to what we do. Sonically, we wanted to have a drier sound and more aggressive bottom end.”
“As the record progressed we found ourselves overloading the tracks with too many guitars, too many this, too many that,” added Lee. “We were getting quite dense again and we were actually worried because we were trying to do something different. That’s the point where we made the decision to bring in Andy Wallace to mix it. People say you’ve got to be more alternative these days, but what does that mean? If anything it makes me want to sound more like us. You can tell when some band is trying to jump on the alternative bandwagon. Instead of taking that tack I want to learn from what’s going on. I may have influenced them in their early, formative years but now they’re in a way different space than we are and have something to teach me.”
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Test for Echo tour, Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, New York, December 14, 1996. Both Patti Ouderkirk/WireImage/Getty Images
PolyGram Retrospective I and II print ad with typo, 1997. Author collection
Test for Echo promo flat, 1996. Author collection
Print ad for the remastered catalog and Canadian tour dates, 1997. Author collection
Retrospective I print ad, 1997. Author collection
On the subject of recent influences, Geddy said, “A couple of years ago I would have cited the Chili Peppers, because there was a funky and hard edge to what they were doing. When Soundgarden first came on the scene I liked that kind of unbridled fury that was in their music. And I have a great appreciation for the economical songwriting of the Smashing Pumpkins. They inspire you to have another go at it from a different point of view. That’s why going into each project is so exciting for us. We don’t know what’s going to come out the other end.”
Fans need not have feared that Rush would go “alternative,” even if there was a palpable noisy and combative vibe to tracks like “Driven,” “Time and Motion,” “Dog Years,” and “Virtuality,” the latter being the band’s amusing commentary on this new Internet thing, Rush always ready to play the role of early adopter.
A couple of features concerning the band’s tour for the album would be the decision to play the song/side “2112” in its entirety, made possible in part by the bigger decision to conduct the tour as “An Evening with,” meaning a longer show with an intermission and no support act. On July 4, 1997, Geddy, Alex, and Neil closed out the brief Test for Echo tour in Canada’s capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, the culmination of a typically short central Canadian leg. It would be the band’s last live appearance for five unimaginably heartbreaking years.
One of the band’s most significant milestones in the final years of the 20th century was the release of the Different Stages live set on November 10, 1998.
Released in May and June 1997, Retrospectives I and II provided notable highlights of the band’s recorded output through 1987.
Over the years, members of Rush have performed at the White Ribbon benefit concert organized by Crash Karma drummer Jeff Burrows to help end violence against women. Ray Wawrzyniak collection
2000–2007
OUTSIDERS NO MORE
“Every night the show went on without a hitch. But, we did have our guests come up on stage and do ‘dryer duty.’ We never knew who was going to show up to put coins in the machines. One night our chef appeared and he was wearing his apron and that was all. Other nights we had people I didn’t even know show up in French maid
costumes. One night a stripper wearing chaps came out onstage with the coins and on other nights, crewmembers in crash helmets came scooting across the stage on their electric scooters.”
—Geddy Lee, quoted by Christopher Buttner, Bass Guitar, 2003
HAVING CLOSED OUT THE TEST FOR ECHO TOUR with no uncommon sense of triumph attached to either the live work or the record—both possessed a drifted sense of Rush just going to work—the band members scattered back to their rich personal lives. The early days of 1997 found the band in receipt of the prestigious Order of Canada, the first time the award had ever been bestowed upon an entire rock group, partly for being Rush, partly for the band’s quiet devotion to charitable causes, having raised over a million dollars for the United Way and food banks over the years, along with participation in myriad other charitable projects and recordings.
On August 10, 1997, the relative calm of Rush in repose was shattered by the death of Neil’s daughter and only child, Selena, killed in a car accident along the straight and generally peaceful Highway 401 on her way back to university. No other vehicles were involved. Selena was only nineteen, with a world of opportunity ahead. Neil’s wife, Jackie, was inconsolable and, as Neil has expressed, not all that upset at her own arriving cancer diagnosis. On June 20 the following year, Jackie died, as Neil put it, “of a broken heart,” after months of shock and depression that saw the embattled couple drift from London to the Bahamas to Toronto, looking for purpose without Selena.