Chapter 13
With the Power Windows Tour closed, it was time for the band to be reacquainted with their families. Geddy's wife, Nancy, flew out to California so they could enjoy a West Coast holiday. Nancy is a successful fashion designer and maintains a hectic schedule herself so these weeks together were much needed for the Lees. Alex flew back to Ontario where his wife, Charlene, and sons, Justin and Adrian, were constructing their new home (Lerxsts's Graceland North). Neil was looking forward to spending the summer with his wife and their daughter. He then took a biking trip through, up, and over Switzerland, planned with his brother Dan.

Neil also took time to record a solo song for Modern Drummer magazine titled 'Pieces of Eight'. "In one of the upcoming issues of Modern Drummer," wrote Neil, "I have one of those soundsheet deals featuring a piece I wrote and played with marimba and all kinds of sampled percussion stuff, with the acoustic drums over that. I've always wanted to create an all-percussion piece, and this is the perfect tool for that.

"Modern Drummer's going to be full of me for the next little while. I have an article coming up about Larry, an article about my new drumkit, the results of the drum test I did in Fort Wayne, and all about my new electronic scene, the soundsheet, and then an article announcing the next big drum giveaway.

"I'm giving away the two old sets of Slingerlands and the red Tamas by way of a contest, in which people send me a taped two minute performance, to be judged by the editorial staff of Modern Drummer. Then they will send the 30 or so finalists on to me for final judgement. Should be a lot easier than the 4625 essays I had to read last time!" (This is Neil's second drum giveaway).

After a few months holiday, the band began to think about writing. Soundcheck jams were reviewed and notebooks studied. Rush had done their homework. The studio writing sessions started September 27, 1986 at Elora Sound in Ontario, with Peter Collins again in attendance. "Peter had more influence, " says Geddy, "during the writing stage of the new album. He pushed us to improve and try different approaches. The results of his pushing are very different versions of 'Mission' and 'Open Secrets'!"

By mid-December the band had written nine songs: 'Time Stand Still', 'Open Secrets', 'Second Nature', 'Prime Mover', 'Lock And Key', 'Mission', 'Turn The Page', 'Tai-Shan', and 'High Water', but Peter Collins wanted another. "He thought it was important to do one more song," said Geddy, "so 'Force 10' was written the last day of pre-production on December 14." Neil took some lyrics that Pye Dubois had mailed to him and added some verses to them. With the changes completed, Neil handed Alex and Geddy the lyrics to 'Force 10' and they both liked them immediately. A few hours later Rush had written their tenth song for the new album. 'Force 10' is the first time since 'Tom Sawyer' that someone outside of Rush has collaborated on a song. With 10 new songs ready to go, Rush enjoyed the Christmas holiday with their families.

On January 5 the band began recording at the Manor Studios in the UK. "We got the basic tracks done really quickly," says Neil, "all the drums, bass, and basic keyboards were done, along with guide guitar and vocals. We worked with Andy Richards again and he has done some exciting work on each of the new songs."

During the end of the last tour Neil tested different makes of drums at the Percussion Centre in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and hosted another drum clinic. He chose Ludwig, "The new Ludwigs," said Neil, "sound really great on the new album, as I hoped they would, and the new electronic sampling set-up I've been using has given me a much richer choice of sounds for the Simmons kit . . . all kinds of ethnic drums and weird sounds to play with. I also got one of those MIDI marimbas, basically a MIDI controller, with a percussion keyboard that you can play with mallets. I even have a marimba solo on the album (!) which I played on that one."

The drums and bass were recorded with an analogue tape then transferred over to digital tape, in essence making the record a full digital recording. "It took some time," said Geddy, "to get used to recording with digital tape. It is however very convenient. You can bounce things from track to track without losing a generation. It opens up a lot of areas. You can keep higher quality control. Analogue tape has noise that comes with it, but digital tape is clean."

On February 2, Rush entered Ridge Farm Studios in the UK and an excerpt from one of Neil's letters sums up their stay.

'As to the album, there are going to be 10 new tracks on this one, but don't worry, they're not short or anything. We simply decided that since more and more people are buying cassettes and CDs, why should we be limited by the archaic time considerations of records? So we're probably going to have over 50 minutes of music on this album, which will give a cutting engineer headaches, but means much more scope for us, and of course 'good value for money' (in the English phrase) for the buyer.

'The extra 10 minutes really makes a lot of difference in our conception of the album, as it gives that much more room to explore the strange corners of the things we like to do. Thus there is yet a greater variety of music on this one, and I think it will cover a lot more areas dynamically, texturally, and stylistically.

'The title is going to be 'Hold Your Fire', as the album revolves around the theme of instincts and primal responses to life, as well as the inner drives that, well, drive us. (All privileged information, you understand.) Hugh and I have been working on some cover ideas lately, and we're planning some very different ideas for that as well. (Too early to offer any hints.)

'But it's all very exciting, and it's all moving ahead, even a little ahead of schedule (shouldn't say that really; bad luck), so everybody is feeling very positive and doing good work.

'At the end of this week we're off to Montserrat, which will be really wonderful. Here at Ridge Farm, an Elizabethan kind of half-timbered place, south of London in Surrey, Jimbo has been transferring things over to the digital machine for the last few days, so our presence hasn't been necessary. So Dirk and I decided to go up to London yesterday, and we had a really wonderful time.

'We each took off for the afternoon, went our separate ways, and had separate plans for the evening, but we got together for a drink in between (at the Savoy Hotel American Bar, don't you know). We were both so energised by the environment, and stimulated by the contrast to being in the studio out in the country, that we just started talking together like new friends!

'The amazing thing was that after all these years of living and working together, we still had a very stimulating and satisfying conversation, each with our separate fields of interest and ambition to feed the conversation. Away from the work environment we just became two friends leading individual lives, which of course gives us things to talk about when we're together.

'I don't know if that all makes sense, but it was just a really nice time, the sort of interlude that's all too rare with people who work together on a day-to-day basis, especially when we are so often obliged to talk about serious questions, and try to make mutually-agreeable decisions.'

On March 1 the band began overdubs at Montserrat, Leeward Islands, West Indies. Three weeks later Rush flew home to Ontario to begin work at McLear Place where overdubs were finished and embellishments added. Aimee Mann from 'Til Tuesday' was in Toronto to sing back-up vocals on 'Time Stand Still' and 'Open Secrets!' "We had some high parts," said Geddy, "and I sang them, but my voice didn't suit the parts, so we thought it would be great to have a female voice on those two songs. We phoned up Aimee Mann and she agreed."

Next came the orchestra recording on 'High Water', 'Mission' and 'Second Nature'. The main arranger, Steve Margoshes, was up from New York. "This guy has written some really bizarre arrangements for our tunes," said Geddy. As Steve departed for New York City Alex said, "We are going to play a couple of days at Madison Square Garden in December. You should stop by, Steve."

On April 24 it was funny to be sitting behind Alex, Geddy and Neil in the control room with a gospel choir singing to Rush in the studio. While Geddy was heard singing, 'Anything can happen/ The point of surrender/ Anything can happen', the choir sang a crescendo background vocal that built to an exciting climax.

After the recording was completed I got to spend some time with the band, researching all of their personal Rush archives. Geddy has the original stage left television from 'Power Windows' in his living room, while Neil's home features Hugh Syme's stunning original paintings from 'Grace Under Pressure' and 'Power Windows'. Before Neil could say, "What's different about the 'Power Windows' painting, B-Man?," I was saying, "The boy's not looking back through the TV." Neil smiled.

While driving to a Blue Jays game, Gedd played me a rough tape of 'Hold Your Fire'. There were torrents of sound rushing forth from the speakers, from marimba and Wal bass solo on 'Mission' to the orchestral background of 'High Water'. The Ontario evening was a little cold for baseball, so after we saw Kirby Puckett bat, we decided to leave. I really wanted to get back into the car to hear 'Hold Your Fire'.

The record opens with 'Force 10', the final song written in one day. "The fact that it is the opening song shows how strongly we feel about it. We just brainstormed the song in one day," says Alex.

'Time Stand Still' is a very personal song," says Alex, "about experience slipping away. One day you realise that suddenly time has passed. Some experiences in life are gone and it's hard to recapture those feelings."

"'Turn The Page' is the first song we recorded guitars on at Elora Sound, but we then re-did them in England," says Alex. "I used Signature guitars on this album. They are made in Vancouver and sound excellent. I think the guitar stands out more on 'Hold Your Fire'. It's more up front with the keyboards more in the background. We recorded the guitars with two Marshall stacks and two Dean Markely amps. The heads were in the control room with the speakers in the studio. We had a clean, jangley sort of sound that we called Lerxst Sound, and found ourselves going back to use it a lot on this record."

'Tai-Shan' is a personal song about Neil's climb up the sacred Chinese mountain. Legend has it that if you raise your hands to heaven on the mountain top, you will live for 100 years. 'High Water' is a song which expresses Neil's belief that we come from water, the source.

With the album recorded, final mixing began on May 7 at Studio William Tell in Paris. In June Gedd discussed the new record. "An important growth for us has been a writing outgrowth taken to the production of a song," he said. "In the old days, having to perform material live dictated the production of the songs. Now we don't worry until after the album is completed, and as a result, it's opened us up creatively production wise. Peter Collins has given us appreciation for how much further you can take a song without live performance. He's taught us not to under-produce, so we can do a song justice. It's the method we've developed and it gives us a far more open minded approach as to the recording of a song."

I asked Geddy to compare the album to 'Power Windows'. "'Hold Your Fire' has more melody and more variety," Geddy said. "The variety goes for more extremes. Some songs are direct rock 'n' roll and others have soft, moody orchestral arrangements. Overall, there are more extremes on 'Hold Your Fire'."

B-Man: "Where do you see Rush going in the future?" Geddy: "To the South of France!" (Laugh).

"Making this record," said Alex, "was like being in a car accident except much more fun!" (Laugh).

Towards the end of mixing, Alex flew back to Lerxst's Graceland North while Neil and Geddy had their wives meet them in France. Neil cycled from Barcelona to Paris with his brother Dan.

In mid-July Geddy mastered the album with Bob Ludwig at Masterdisk in New York City. During the summer Rush shot the 'Hold Your Fire' videos and Geddy, Alex and Neil began going through the mountains of live tapes the band have compiled for their next live album. 'Hold Your Fire' was released worldwide in early September.

In the early autumn it was time for the band to start worrying about reproducing the 'Fire' onstage. All the latest technology would be brought in, so extra time was needed to master these complex machines. With the sluggish start they had opening the Power Windows Tour, Rush made sure they were prepared for the Hold Your Fire 87-88 World Tour, set to begin in the Canadian Maritime Provinces of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia where fans have been petitioning Rush to play for years.

The tour was rescheduled in the north-eastern United States and Canada. December will see Rush perform multiple nights at New York's Madison Square Garden and the Philadelphia Spectrum.

The urban development that you see inside the cover is actually a set that is only 18-inches tall. "The set," says Hugh Syme, "was built by Scott Alexander. The road cases are only two inches square. When I look at this neighbourhood, one has to wonder, 'Where is this?' I couldn't resist putting the 'Signals' dog, Spot, next to the fire hydrant. The boy from 'Power Windows' makes another appearance, this time looking out the window, down the street, at something we're not yet made aware of."

"All will be revealed on the forthcoming live LP," says Hugh. "Anything can happen."

The End