Chapter 9
'Exit... Stage Left' was mixed at Le Studio in September. Terry ended up doing most of the work, and for the first time he was to receive the sole production credit. "I guess because I spent so much time in the control room," says Terry, "while everybody else was flying planes, swimming, and driving cars. So that's how it turned out. Normally it's a co-production. The four of us have input into what goes on and how it's done, so it's a genuine coproduction. This time around so much of my time was spent in the control room, and of course they had already done what they were going to do. It was already on tape. Basically it was like 'let us know when you finish this tune.' That's really how it went down."
Some tough decisions had to be made. They wanted to get a balance of different types of songs. So some excellent material had to be left out. One of the leftovers, 'Vital Signs', was later released as the B-side of the 'New World Man' single. There was also the compromise between the best technically recorded versions of songs and the ones that had the best feel. For example, Rush were a better band on the Moving Pictures Tour and more advanced sound equipment was used to capture the shows. But during the Glasgow concert on the Waves Tour, the audience spontaneously began singing along to 'Closer To The Heart' and 'The Trees'. It was decided to use 'Closer to The Heart' from that date, but a different version of 'The Trees' made it on to vinyl.
Like the first live record, some overdubs were done, but a mistake or two did slip into the grooves. During 'Tom Sawyer' my favourite drum fill at the end of the song is missing. With all these considerations to take into account, Terry ended up using the English dates on side two and the Canadian concerts on the rest of the record.
The recording is a strong show-case for the band. They are always best on stage, especially when they reinterpret older songs. 'A Passage To Bangkok', 'Beneath, Between And Behind', 'YYZ', 'Closer To The Heart', 'Xanadu' and 'La Villa Strangiato' are better than their studio counterparts. The lone, new addition is 'Broon's Bane', a classical guitar introduction to 'The Trees' titled after Terry's nickname.
Rush are a different band when compared to the first live album. While they are not as wild, they more than compensate for this with better material and vastly improved playing. The record highlights the remarkable interplay between the members of the trio. The keyboards are an added element on some of the older material, and there is a leap in Geddy's bass playing and vocals. Neil's drumming is an extension of his studio work. The professor always pounds precisely. The jazz-fusion elements Alex had been experimenting with add a whole new dimension to his playing and he really shines throughout the entire record.
As a document of the band, 'Exit... Stage Left' differs in two major ways from 'Stage'. Firstly, it is not a record of the band live at one point in their career. It covers two separate tours. Secondly, it covers two different periods in their history as a recording group; the more seventies-style art rock of 'A Farewell To Kings' and 'Hemispheres', and the more stripped down approach of 'Permanent Waves' and 'Moving Pictures'. Having voluntarily removed themselves from much of the production work on the live record, Alex, Geddy and Neil shortly found themselves bored with their recreational activities. During the long periods when they weren't needed for consultation on different tracks, Alex and Geddy would jam on new material. They were soon working very seriously on individual songs. Neil was putting together lyrics. All three wanted a change. 'Moving Pictures' and now the live record almost seemed to be coming too easily. They needed new challenges. An even further jump into keyboard related material and different musical styles would put up some more walls for Rush to break through.
With a studio so close at hand it was inevitable that some of these new experiments would be recorded. The first one laid down was actually a Jack Secret song that Neil had worked out with Jack and Skip Gildersleeve from the road crew. Eventually Alex and Geddy joined in and 'Tough Break' was recorded. The Jack Secret original has not made it to vinyl, not yet, anyway! The second tune that was completed did. The lyrics were about growing up in the suburbs and 'Subdivisions' was to open a whole new chapter in the band's history. With a heavy synth sound, and 7/8 and 3/4 time signatures, and a new lyrical theme and approach, it was a real departure. While before Neil had written songs for their largely suburban audience, this song was about their audience and themselves. This made for a new directness in the band's writing. While before they reflected their audience's dreams, now they were talking about what would happen to much of their audience. And for a great deal of those listeners, the future was not so bright.
Work was also done on 'Digital Man', sections of 'The Analog Kid' and 'Losing It', but with a European tour scheduled for late autumn, there was no time to finish the new experiments.
Hugh came in to work on the cover for the live album. This time he decided to put in elements from every Rush cover to date. Eleven albums was a lot of ground to cover, but as usual, Hugh proved up to the task.
'Exit... Stage Left' came out at the end of October 1981. I was very excited about the record, especially since their first live album had been what introduced me to the band. When I discovered they would not be playing in the States until December, I convinced my boss we needed another Rush show. Unfortunately, he would not spring for the whole trip, but he covered part of the expense.
I arrived in London to see the band's multi-night stand at one of the city's largest concert halls, Wembley Arena. All three nights were sold out, quite an achievement when a hometown band like Yes could only fill the place for one night. The show featured 'Subdivisions' and most of the material on the live album. The soundcheck before the second Wembley show revealed the band had made startling changes. Alex and Neil were concentrating on rhythm while Geddy played most of the leads on keyboards. This was a whole new role for Alex, who had always been very much a lead guitar player. It was very interesting to watch them strike out in new directions. After the soundcheck on November 5, Geddy gave the world premiere of his latest vocal performance on record. 'Take Off' could be heard shaking Wembley.
The comedy single was by Bob and Doug McKenzie of Second City TV. It would make Geddy a pop star of sorts. Bob and Doug were quite a hit on television with their version of Canadian hicks. They decided to record a comedy record, complete with a single that would actually be a song. 'Take Off' ended up taking off in the United States and Canada. On the tune Geddy comes in on the chorus as the special guest star. He sings, 'Take off to the Great White North. Take off. It's a beauty way to go.' Doug explained how Geddy was recruited. "We were friends in school, and we were doing the record, so I called him up. We paid him a few bucks. He came in, put on his toque and sang it."
Geddy commented on the record. "Canada has finally found an identity. I just came in, they paid me my 10 bucks to come in and sing a few words. It was different from any session I've ever done. These two guys were coaching me... telling me what to do."
A party after the gig that night showed that Rush could kick out the jams when they wanted. Members of Styx, UFO and Thin Lizzy all kept going until dawn. At the party Neil came up to me and we talked briefly about an interview I was scheduled to do with him the next day. He was trying to be friendly but the whole situation seemed forced.
When we actually sat down to do it, I was nervous. Neil can be intimidating, even when he is not trying to be. He has a very concentrated stare and when someone locks eyes with him, Neil is not usually the first one to turn away.
The interview covered a wide range of topics. We started out talking about his influences. "I would say that most of our influences have been European, particularly English. Lately there are a lot of so-called New Romantic bands that I like a lot like Ultravox and Visage. I still like The Police and am also listening to quite a bit of reggae. When it comes to American bands, Talking Heads are an interesting group."
The subject soon moved to the drummer that first inspired him. "When King Crimson first came out... Michael Giles was a big influence because he had technical chops that just killed me. I couldn't believe this guy was doing those things. He meant a lot to me because he was the drummer I wanted to be, you know... Also the way he played with a total lack of discipline. I love it, just totally show-off, overplaying all over the place, and to this day I think I follow that tendency to a great degree.
"When Bill Bruford left Yes and went out on his own that opened a whole new world of things to me. And then Billy Cobham came along and changed the face of things, and I learnt a great deal from his way of playing jazz."
The topic soon switched to electronic drums. "I'm not into them because I have no affinity for wires, I can't stand electronic things. To me, my relationship with drums is... I hit them with a stick and they speak, and it's a very simple relationship, very primal. I also lose patience with them if they don't work. Now, acoustic drums always work. You hit them and they always talk. That's very reassuring to me."
Modern technology brought out Neil's thoughts on the new wave. "Music has gone through the crassness of the new wave, and it's started to come around to a really valid way of looking at things. People like Talking Heads and Peter Gabriel are really going after fresh rhythmic approaches. They are also stripping the music down and getting rid of the unnecessary decoration.
"Now, although we have always been interested in a more stylistic approach to music, and making it better, perhaps, in terms of putting more into a song than it really needs, we've found ourselves changing.
"We've started streamlining a bit. Our songwriting now comes from a stronger rhythmic point of view. We find a pulse that feels really good and build our changes around it. Whereas in the past we tended to do the reverse. We would find a melodic passage that we liked and go nuts on it rhythmically, and put so many time changes and meter changes in it that it became like an octopus."
The subject turned to the longer concept pieces on the earlier albums. "I think all those numbers came from a lyrical premise, where I was involved with an idea that demanded that kind of musical length. And now my writing is much more concise, and I'm more interested in stating things briefly and clearly, rather than decorating them with all kinds of metaphors. There's also the fact that we've shown off a lot musically and we don't necessarily have as much to prove as we did. On our first few albums we weren't that good, and it was something we were concerned about because we wanted to be good. I think we've reached the point now where we at least feel that we have reached a certain technical level of expertise, and the confidence that comes with that allows us to be less concerned with all of that experimentation and all that frittering around."
Neil talked about his role in the band's song writing. "I'm never just a lyricist. I'm always writing songs for music. So I tend to put into my phrasing certain twists that will demand a certain kind of musical interpretation. I'm always thinking of the musical foundation within the context of the lyrical framework. "
With lyrics on his mind Neil started to discuss his literary influences. "I'm basically your self-educated guy. I'm a high school drop-out. I tend to go from writer to writer, but it's almost been an historical progression. When I first started, I got interested in really simple things and went back to mythology, for example, the early Greek and Anglo-Saxon tales. I then worked my way up to the Victorian writers, people like Flaubert, Dickens and Hardy. Now, I find myself reading the North and South American writers of this century. I really like John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Basically the new world writers of this century represent to me the thrust and energy of the times."
With all these different styles of writing that appealed to Neil, I asked him about different musical genres, and their effect on Rush. He described how the reggae beat was becoming more important to the band. Neil said he understood why rock drummers were attracted to it, its strong emphasis on the upbeat really enchanted western percussionists. And the whole group had absorbed them because, "We've always tried not to be restricted in style, and if for example Alex is interested in classical guitar, or I'm interested in reggae or ska, or Geddy wants to go after a fusion-type sound, we are all willing to explore it.
"Added to this is that personally we've remained really strong friends, and we are able to give each other room. I don't think that's the case with a lot of bands."
The subject went back to drumming. Neil explained why he played with the butt end of his sticks. "When I first started playing and I would break the proper end, I could not afford new sticks. So I would tape them up and turn them around. It's also partly that I like to use a lighter stick, but at the same time I want to hit the drum head with a lot of muscle. So using the butt end is a way to get a lot of surface area struck, without having to shift a couple of pounds of drumsticks around. This is especially important because I like to do a lot of quick little things and really rapid little movements that really aren't possible with big logs.
"At the same time when I'm keeping a beat with a high-hat, a snare, or a bass drum, I like to lay almost the whole length of the stick across the snare, from the rim right in. I've found, for example, on some of my tom toms, especially the higher pitched tom toms, that I get quite a different sound by laying about five or six inches of wood actually on the drumhead. Then as it depresses it, it stretches down on the head and de-tunes it. So it gives it more throatiness."
I then asked Neil if it was a problem switching back and forth from his regular kit and sticks to other percussion instruments and mallets. "Once I get down a series of moves and counterpoints of balance, shifting from one side of the kit to the other, it's all right. Given the wide lateral spread of my drumkit, I can't sort of sit in the middle and reach everything, so I'm constantly shifting my weight. Where it can get hard is when you are hitting the glockenspiel... you have a margin of error of about an inch and a quarter."
He then discussed how he branched out to other percussion instruments. "I guess I got into it because of musical greed... just wanting to do more. There were points in songs that I didn't feel right playing drums, but at the same time, I didn't feel right just sitting back there and doing nothing. So it was a way I could complement a musical passage in a more melodic way."
Discussion of technique soon brought Neil back to his starting days as a drummer. "It was never a question of discipline for me, because I loved it so much. I came home from school every day and played for two hours or as long as my mother could stand it. I never had to force it. Discipline is a good thing, but I think when it's an obsession, as much as that it restricts your life, as much as I did miss out in my teenage years, because I spent so much time playing drums, and watching bands and so on... I could have spent that time driving around in cars and picking up girls. I might have missed the whole social scene in my teenage years, but it's a trade-off you make and I probably wouldn't have done it out of discipline, because I was a typical teenager. I was lazy and rebellious and not very interested in anything. There is one other thing I should mention. I had a drum teacher who once said to me if I worked hard enough, I would be a drummer one day, and that's all the encouragement I needed. I just tried not to copy one drummer, but 20 drummers, so eventually I developed my own style."
The two-hour interview went much better than I expected. Besides any material I would be able to use for the radio show, I felt I had gained an insight into the passion and intelligence that went into the band's music. You could almost feel it as Neil sat leaning slightly forward with his legs crossed, chain-smoking, as torrents of words flowed from him. It almost seemed like a human encyclopedia was speaking as we jumped from topic to topic.
Before the band left Wembley late that evening, they had Kevin Flewitt line up the fans who had been waiting hours on end to catch a glimpse of Rush. The fans caught more than a glimpse because Alex, Geddy and Neil signed autographs for every last one of them.
A few days later came the best show I have ever seen a band perform. The place was Edinburgh, Scotland; the hall, The Royal Highland Exhibition. Even though it was very cold, there were about 3,000 people outside the venue some five or six hours before the show because the promoter had sold all the tickets on a general admission basis. The interior of the arena was literally a skating rink with no seats at all. And it was almost as cold inside as it was outside. To make matters worse, the soundcheck was a disaster. Geddy's equipment was not working and he was very angry. The band as a whole were upset because they had needed a police escort to get from the airport which was just a quarter of a mile away from the hall. Another crowd of kids had been waiting for them at the landing strip.
When the doors finally opened, it seemed like a burst of people had been stuffed into a cannon and shot into the hall. Actually it was more like a machine gun because the stream did not stop until it looked like 8,000 had been crammed into a space that could comfortably hold half that amount. A quick look outside showed that there were another 3,000 people trying to get in. They began banging on the doors in unison looking for a way inside. At one point another burst of teenagers managed to crash the gates and dissolve into the crowd.
From the moment the band came onstage, the audience was with them. A sea of arms punted in perfect time with the music. The kids sang along with every song, even the relatively obscure ones like 'By-Tor And The Snowdog'. The audience inspired the trio to deliver a performance way above their usual high standards. Even more than in Allentown, it was one of those magical moments when audience and group are at their very best.
About halfway through the show, the heat of the crowd began to raise the temperature in the hall. People were sweating as if it was the middle of summer. At the exits to the venue, where the cold and the hot air met, giant clouds of fog were created. It cast a strange glow over the entire arena. By the time Rush ended the concert with 'La Villa Strangiato', I thought that much of the audience would not have enough energy to leave. Amazingly, everyone was able to walk away.
When I got back to the US my boss liked the interview with Neil and I was able to convince him that we needed a major two-hour radio special on Rush. A month later I was in Hartford, Connecticut, to interview Geddy and Alex. I talked to Geddy first. He was relaxed. It was hard to believe that he would be playing in front of 20,000 people in just a few hours.
He started off talking about the European tour. He seemed happy with the results although he said many of the halls were larger than he expected them to be. He added that even when they played in more intimate settings, it was different to the small venues they played at the start of their career.
"In the early days," he said, "you are really struggling and those smaller halls, they don't seem that small to you at all. They are big, important shows. So you are always moving forward and going somewhere and you are pretty hungry. Whereas now there is more of a relaxed feeling about playing smaller halls, once you have played the big places. After one of the (European) shows Neil turned to me and said, 'There are a lot of Rush fans in the United States who would give their left arm to see us in a place like this,' and I think he was right." The band would keep this in mind and eventually do something about it.
We then got on to the subject of the group's insistence on continuing as a trio. "It's a direction we have moved in... to be able to approach material that a trio would not normally be able to do. If you bring in enough instruments and make yourself adaptable enough, it's possible. Just the introduction of different sounds at the right time makes it feel like a whole different thing. It's a breath of fresh air that blows in on the guitar, bass, and drums when suddenly everyone switches to synthesizers."
He then talked about the problems of putting together a live album. "It's a very painful process listening to your own past performances over and over again. It's not like making an album from scratch where you are involved in the creative process. Because with a studio album you do not know where you are going next. It's like you are exploring... you are building the album as you go. But a live album is all patchwork. You are trying to pick the best performance... and fix mistakes. You are trying to make this instrument sound better or make that vocal have more impact. It's really all repair work."
I then asked Geddy about the growing popularity of Canadian bands in the United States. Many groups had received US record contracts in the wake of Rush's success. Geddy was reluctant to lump all the acts together. "I know a Canadian accent when I hear one, but I don't know that bands from Canada have any unified approach. They are all different."
While we were speaking of the differences I asked him what it was like to hear his own music on the radio. "A musician is forever trying to look at what he does and see what it is, and he can never do that, because it is impossible to be objective. I think in a situation where all of a sudden you hear your music on the radio, you have a tendency to try to zone in and figure out what you did. I mean what does it really sound like? But I really hate hearing myself in public. Like if I walk into a party and somebody puts a Rush record on. I find it very embarrassing."
The conversation ended with a few words about the band's motivation. "We started playing because we thought a musician would be a real cool thing to be. Then as you learned how to play, you wanted to learn how to play better. And as you started writing songs, you wanted to learn how to write better songs... it sort of never ends in a way."
A few hours later I sat down for my first interview with Alex. He was the most easy going of the three, as likely to tell a joke as discuss a guitar solo. While he was not as theoretical as the other two about the band's approach, he had a remarkable memory and could often recall the exact date or place where different events in Rush's career had taken place.
Alex was thinking about the differences between touring and his home life. "It's nice to have a family, to have that stability, and it's also nice to experience the craziness of being on the road. They both work well against each other even though they are opposites. You also can't stay home too long. But I must admit as the years go on, it gets nicer and nicer to stay home. " While talking about home Alex soon began to discuss how it felt to see some of his old friends now that he had 'made it'. "I know for me when I see those guys... they find it difficult to relate to me. Although I haven't changed really... all the things around me have. Plus it's (music) something I was doing even back then, so it's not an alien weird thing for me. But they look at the success and they relate you to quote 'rock stars' they read about, and it's strange. Of course there are a few friends that never change. They are always a joy to see."
The subject soon drifted back to music. Alex brought up Geddy's voice and the negative reaction it got from radio programmers and rock critics. "Gedd's voice was in a high enough register that it offended a lot of people which never really bothered us. We always thought it was a kind of good thing, because it brought our audience closer to us. We weren't the kind of band that you would hear on the radio... so it developed into a cult following. I think because we were not all that popular to the people that did not know the band well, we were all that more important to the ones that did, and we felt it."
And that cult status put the band in the position of not having to worry about hit singles. "We always thought the album was the important piece of work. Once it was out of our hands, if the record company wanted to release a single, it was up to them. We never sat down and wrote a song and said... 'This is going to be a hit single.' We always... I don't think consciously, maybe subconsciously, steered away from anything like that. The album was the result of our time in the studio... all that sweat... it wasn't just for one song."
When it came to the band's future, Alex was optimistic. "I'm really excited about the new material, it's going to be a real departure." The band's early versions of 'Subdivisions' and 'The Analog Kid' pointed to the direction they would take. As it turned out, a direction that Alex would not be happy with.
But first the Exit... Stage Left Tour had to come to a close. There was a final pair of dates at the Meadowlands in New Jersey on December 21 and 22, 1981, and the second night marked the last time Rush played all 12 minutes and 33 seconds of 'Xanadu'.
Then it was time for the trio to take a two and a half month holiday before they would get back together to continue writing new material. The future looked good. Three songs were already more or less completed and they had an extended period of time to work on the rest of the album.
Rush's record sales continued to escalate. 'Exit... Stage Left' was a top ten record and sold more than a million copies. This was impressive considering that double-record live albums had gone out of fashion. As always, their back catalogue continued to move off retailers' shelves. 'Moving Pictures' was approaching the double platinum mark, and 'Take Off' was a top ten single in the States. As 1982 began, Rush found that they were nominated for a quartet of Juno Awards. They were even competing against themselves for Album Of The Year with 'Moving Pictures' and 'Exit... Stage Left'.