Acknowledgements
You’ve got to be a little obsessive to write a book, but after a while the thing starts dictating, rather than being dictated – I confess there was a time where I wondered what I’d bitten off. Every interview I found seemed to reference three others; every person I spoke to recommended a handful more people who I absolutely had to interview. So it developed, until I found two years had passed and it seemed I was still nowhere near the end. I felt something like M. Mangetout (a.k.a. Michel Lotito) must have felt, when he realised just how much metal there was on a Cessna… It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that the people around you have to be very understanding, and I take off my hat, my coat and my boots to my family, Liz, Ben and Sophie, who have persevered and put up with me throughout.
This book would not be what it has become without the help and support of a number of people who have worked closely with Rush throughout the years. Special mention and heartfelt thanks go to Rupert Hine, who agreed so positively and readily to an interview when I was just getting things off the ground. Donna Halper was also there at the start, with her insights and sage words about the early days. Hugh Syme has done an amazing cover and has been inordinately helpful, and Howard Ungerleider invited me for an interview at Wembley Stadium that led to a gold mine of information from a cross section of the crew. Terry Brown, Peter Collins, Peter Henderson and Paul Northfield, thank you for all your help and for reviewing the text. Thanks also go to Adam Ayan, Barry McVicker, Barry Miles, Bob Roper, Brian Lee, Dave Meegan, Fin Costello, Rich Vinyard, Jaymz Bee, Steve Margoshes, Mark Kelly, Kooster McAllister, Patrick McLoughlin, Scott Alexander, Robert Scovill, Nick Kotos, Norman Stangl, George Graves, Neal Graham, Guy Charbonneau, Scott K Fish, Rob Wallis and Paul Siegel, Frank Opolko, Brad Madix, Geoff Barton, Peter Collins, Lorne Wheaton, Lou Pomanti, Russ Ryan, Neil Warnock, Stephen Tayler, Larry Jordan, Craig Blazier, Brett Zihali, Cliff Burnstein, David Marsden, Jorn Anderson, Mendelson Joe, Ira Blacker, James ‘Jimbo’ Barton, Peter Cardinali, Greg Hermanovic, Eric Hansen, Ronnie Hawkins, Andrew MacNaughtan, Bernie Labarge, Brian Collins, Tony “Jack Secret” Geranios, Glen Wexler, Rick Britton, Chris Stringer and John Fillion. Thanks to David Stopps, for kicking off a whole chain of events. Huge thanks to Pegi Cecconi at SRO, who has been an evenhanded proponent of this project since the start. And last but certainly not least, thank you to the many people who have co-ordinated the interviews and meetings, and put up with my small talk, at SRO and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, back home I cannot thank enough my good friends and reviewers. Particular thanks to Shane “Phone” Faulkner, who has helped me more than he could ever know, and Karin Breiter, Carole Bergen and Jane Moyer, for being there at the start (remember the green glass!). Thanks also to Mark Tiplady, Mark Dempster, Fraser Marshall, Dean Pedley, Dave Rogers and Mark Kennedy, who have fact-checked the text. None of this would even have started if it hadn’t been for my publisher Sean Body, who innocently asked, “What’s next?” and who has given the manuscript all the attention it deserves. Thanks to John and Julia, for putting me up (as ever) at short notice, and thanks of course to my Uncle, Les, for taping a copy of ‘A Farewell To Kings’ for my sister, Nicky (who, thinking little of it, passed it on to me). Thanks and a big hug to Christine Cooper, because I can. Good luck H and D.
I’d like to tip my hat to all the journalists and authors who have contributed to the corpus of Rush-related literature in the past – not least Steve Gett and Brian Harrigan‘s books, and the more recent tome from Martin Popoff, but also the many, many interviews that have been conducted through the years. I gained some small insight into what it meant to be an immigrant family in post-war Toronto, from the deeply moving ‘Fugitive Pieces’, by Anne Michaels.
All errors are my own – there will undoubtedly be some, for which an Errata section has been set up at www.rushchemistry.com. Some old interviews and articles contain contradictory information – what you have in your hands right now is, to the best of my knowledge, the most accurate version of the story so far. Because Rush operated as a family, it has sometimes been difficult to determine exactly who did what. Where necessary, I have used the term “they” to mean the band, the producer, the management and record label, and indeed just about anybody! Finally, to distinguish between the two my own interviews are reported in the present tense, and past interviews are quoted in the past tense.
This book has been written, typed and dictated in some of the strangest of places – notably on trains, planes and in automobiles. Special mention goes to The Snooty Fox in Tetbury, The Organic Shop Café, Cirencester Brewery Arts and the AV8 Bistro at Kemble Airfield. Thanks to all of you – now you know what I was up to.
Jon Collins, July 2005