And Then There Were Three
‘Power Windows’ had been a success, and this was in no small part down to Peter Collins and his cohort, Jimbo Barton. “We enjoyed working with Peter – we feel he is good for our music,” said Neil. So, they decided to do it all again.
Writing started at the end of September 1986, back at Elora Sound, this time with Peter in attendance from the start. A concept quickly evolved – this time introspective, focusing on the creative process itself. “It relates to the burning desire to do something and how important it is to keep your fire lit, regardless of circumstances,” explained Geddy. “It’s important to hold yourself together or stick to your guns.” Indeed, not least with respect to technology, which was now encroaching on how songs were written. “I think it’s just a handy tool,” said Geddy of his new Apple Macintosh, on which he was running Composer software. “You can put a Mac in the hands of five people, and not everybody’s going to write a good song.” Even Neil tried using a Mac for lyric writing, delighting in shifting phrases around without writing the whole thing out again. The first time he did this, Geddy wasn’t quite so impressed. “I’m so used to his little hand- written lyric sheets that he gives me, ‘cause they’re always so cool and he draws these little pictures on the top of them and stuff,” he said.
Symbolically in itself, Neil’s lyrical printouts were finally freed from the symbolism and allegory that had been his trademark. “I’ve grown out of such a style as both a person and as a writer,” he remarked, finding inspiration instead from non-fiction writings. “I’m much more into history and sociology, geography and the world around me,” he was to say. Across the album, Neil returned to the theme of, as he put it, “trying to recognise idealism with clear-sighted reality.” Computers or no computers, it all came together smoothly enough. The final song to be written, ‘Force Ten’ was an experiment in the same, genre-crossing mould as ‘Digital Man’, squeezed into the last couple of days of writing time. Peter had suggested that a rock song would balance the album, and Neil had just been sent a piece of lyrical material by his friend Pye Dubois – the two ideas seemed to fit. “Neil played with it a bit until he was happy with the result and showed it to us,” said Geddy. “We brainstormed for about two or three hours, and we had ‘Force 10’.” Writing came to a close 14 December, just in time for the holidays.
After the break, recording started back at the Manor on 5 January 1987, followed by Ridge Farm studios, near Horsham. The process with Peter was by now off pat, with just the right balance between schedule and creativity. Neil had perfected the art of rehearsal, trying to perform his parts in a single take and making good use of his new equipment, to flick between sound samples. “In one of the new songs, I play an African drum setup for the verses, and then ‘click’ to a setup of my acoustic Tama drums, sampled from ‘Grand Designs’, for the choruses,” said Neil. “Fantastic! I love it!”
Once again a number of collaborators were brought in. For ‘Time Stand Still’, in the writing stage the band took the step of bringing a female into what had previously been a men-only club. Geddy put it succinctly: “Hell, let’s get a girl in here!” Having approached both Chrissie Hynde and Cyndi Lauper (who turned the boys down), someone at SRO sent down a copy of a ‘Til Tuesday album, fronted by Aimee Mann. “I don’t know if she’d heard of us,” said Neil, “But we were impressed by her great range – between the angelic quality, and that emotional contralto she has.” Aimee’s voice was also “used” at the end of ‘Tai Shan’, played backwards to give “an eerie, pseudo-Chinese sound.”
Peter was making even wilder suggestions for the arrangements. “I was pushing the envelope with them,” says Peter. In particular, he suggested a brass section on ‘Mission’. “I had them try a colliery band on that song – sort of the ‘Hovis’7 sound. It was a little too much for them,” he says. “I remember thinking, perhaps I have gone a little too far this time, but at least they tried it! That was what was always so fantastic about them, if I had a strong idea they would always try it even if they didn’t use it.” Peter went to enormous lengths to find what he wanted – eventually settling on the William Faery brass band, recorded in Oldham in the North of England. New Yorker Steve Margoshes and Englishman Andrew Jackman also helped with a number of the arrangements, then it was off to Montserrat again for three weeks to record the guitars. Just as with the last album, Alex’s parts were recorded after the others, but at least this time the others remembered to leave some gaps.
When at Montserrat, the band met recording engineer Ken Blair. “What I found remarkable about those Rush sessions was the truly organised, methodical and businesslike way the band worked,” says Ken. “A whole range of amps and speaker combinations had been set up in the studio area and an extra-long guitar lead routed from the control room through to the amps so that Alex could sit in the control room and play. When Alex recorded a part the speakers were cranked up loud to get a good vibe going. However, once a part had been recorded the speakers were turned way down for the playback. They were working with the knowledge that it was pretty easy to make things sound impressive if you listened loud but it was important to them that the parts also sounded good and impressive even at low replay level.”
While Geddy, Peter, Jimbo and Ken worked with Alex on the sound, Neil kept out of the way – he was planning another cycle trip, and he always had his reading. Once a track was done, Neil would join the others in democratic discussion. “Neil brought a fresh pair of ears to the situation, gave his opinion and any issues were discussed between the band,” says Ken. “If anything needed to be redone it was; otherwise they moved on and Neil left them to it again for a while. It was an extremely effective and efficient way of working but also never lacked a sense of doing good creative work, never clinical or mechanised.” Effective perhaps – but just slightly oppressive for the unconfident Alex. “In the control room he was very sensitive,” says Peter. “What does Geddy think, what does the producer think. You are very aware of their vibe and facial expression even if they don’t say anything. You are picking up a vibe that if you have done something that is not quite right it can be very discouraging to keep doing it over and over again and not knowing exactly what one is going for.”
With guitars and final vocals done, in May 1987 the team trooped off to the Guillaume Tell Studio in Paris to do the mixes. Each studio offered a change of scenery and had its own strengths, and besides, it kept everyone happy to move around. “I think it kept giving us a new outlook on the album,” said Geddy – and why not? “I could either mix at home or I can mix in this cheap studio around the corner; or I can go to Paris, spend a few extra dollars and have a wonderful new experience mixing, so I vote for the latter, you know? Let’s have some fun.”
All in all, ‘Hold Your Fire’ had been a rather pleasant recording experience, and everyone was happy with the results. “[What] we’ve been striving to achieve over the last three or four records has finally come to rest in ‘Hold Your Fire’,” said Geddy. All the same, while there was a feeling that ‘Hold Your Fire’ had been more focused, clearly there was more work – or less work – to be done. “We climbed up a hill and now we’ve gotten to the top and we have to decide where we go from here,” he said.
The cover of ‘Hold Your Fire’ was art-directed by Hugh Syme as a pun-filled street scene. To tie up a city street and wet it down for a shoot was considered extortionate, so Hugh, living in Los Angeles at the time, decided to go small, engaging photographer Glen Wexler and three miniaturists, Patrick Johnson, Scott Alexander and Olivia Ramirez to help bring the dark, wet street to life. “We all descended on North Highland Avenue for the better part of a month, where Glen lent his studio, his legendarily critical eye, and his creativity to yet another collaboration, proving to be the consummate host, all the while,” says Hugh Syme.
“The main building was built at 1/12 scale, as were the Jackson alley buildings,” explains Scott. “The diner and other details to the right side of the main building were done at 1/24 scale, as forced perspective elements.” Apart from working with Scott in the painting and finishing of the set, including the neon sign on the Chinese diner, and a cat in the alley that Hugh cut out of some black paper, fraying the edges to catch the light, Hugh and Glen worked for several days to light the finished set. The ‘water’ on the street was paint thinner, continually having to be reapplied as it kept evaporating, and the juggler’s fireballs were basketballs, coated with highly flammable rubber cement. “I combined several individual photographic images by re- exposing them on 8x10 film in my darkroom,” says Glen Wexler.
One part of the set – the “Jackson Alley” – was left over from a Michael Jackson shoot. “Glen still had the buildings, so we used them to create an alley to the left of the foreground building,” says Scott. For characters, the original plan was to use actor Dennis Hopper as the juggler but a schedule conflict prevented this. “We ended up casting Stanley Brock, best known for his role in the movie ‘Tin Men’,” says Glen. The boy in the window with his binoculars was the same Toronto stockbroker as Hugh had sit for his painting for ‘Power Windows’, flown down to LA for the shoot. Perplexing as it was for management to comprehend (who were approving the budget for this street scene extravaganza), Hugh decided to retire the street scene to the inner sleeve, replacing it with an outer cover that was shocking in its simplicity. In these pre-digital days, however, even this was not simple to produce. “The ‘Rush’ type was vacuum formed and inset into a 4 by 8 feet plastic surface that was then painted by an auto body shop,” explains Glen. “The red balls are a repetition of a suspended billiard ball.” There was plenty that could be read into symbolism of the three balls, caught in a mutual, perpetual orbit. “Sure, you can look at it as three people, three balls, but it’s all that and more,” said Geddy.
Following mastering, over the summer the band took the time to make a couple of videos, bringing Aimee Mann back in for ‘Time Stand Still’, directed by Zbigniew Rybczynski. As the production process neared its end, Alex managed to squeeze in a session with his friend Rik Emmett of the band Triumph, on ‘Beyond Borders’. It gave him the opportunity to try out new directions that he felt wouldn’t have suited Rush. “When I got involved with this project, everything was just about finished,” he explained. “That enabled me to sit back and put my feet up and play whatever I wanted.”
‘Hold Your Fire’ was released on 8 September 1987, and as it was being released, Neil took off to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. ‘Time Stand Still’ was released as a single, reaching Number 3 in the Billboard single rock charts. When Neil returned it was time to get the tour together, ready for kick-off at the end of October.
This time, the band had agreed to make a proper go of touring, not least going to Europe for the first time since ‘Signals’. Somehow, it was hoped, the songs would translate to the ever-expanding live show. A few songs, like ‘Time Stand Still’, required a click-track to ensure the band stayed in sync with the visuals (not to mention with Aimee Mann’s recorded voice). “We’re using so much electronics, sometimes it’s easy to go overboard and just play the tapes,” said Geddy. “We’re trying to avoid doing that and feel that if we have hands-on control it’s still part of the performance.” The idea of a fourth player was brought up once again – and rejected. Even though there was a number of talented players in their close entourage, not least Hugh Syme, nobody wanted to change the central dynamic of the band. “Every year I get closer and closer to saying yes to that,” said Geddy, “At this stage, we believe we can pull it off. If we fail, maybe next time around you’ll see another guy banging on the keyboards.” Like the others, Neil was determined to ensure the band could play multiple parts without a fourth member. “We take a lot of pride in being able to do it all ourselves.”
Once again, Tony Geranios took the brunt of the technical strain. After his ‘Power Windows’ experiences, Tony worked hard on ensuring nothing would go wrong. “I built in lots of redundancy,” he says. “If something were to go wrong, we had a backup.” All the same, he says, “It became very stressful at times!” Geddy learned certain tricks to minimise the margin for error, such as assigning the same sample to three adjacent notes on the keyboard, a necessary trick when he found himself running across the stage to hit a trigger.
The technologies themselves were improving all the time, not least for Neil’s rig, his KAT MIDI mallet controller meeting his live needs nicely. “All of the keyboard percussion stuff that I had been trying to fit in physically and also get reproduced in a live setting, I was finally able to do,” he said. However, it was perhaps inevitable that the synthesizers would lose their shine given the demands they imposed. Geddy had been content to forgo a bit of bass to make way for keyboards, but he wasn’t happy with the thought of them taking over completely. “When we’re recording, a lot of times I know I won’t be able to play bass in certain parts of songs because I’ll be playing the keyboards,” he said. “I’m very reluctant to put a bass part on the record that I won’t be able to play live. So it’s a battle.”
Keyboards had grown to fill the space allocated and then some, first to Alex’s chagrin and then to Geddy and Neil’s. “It’s like the little thing that grew,” said Geddy. “We became addicted to the idea of having an extra member in the band without having an extra member. Now almost every limb I have is connected to something.” Perhaps most of all however, and despite taking up piano lessons (“It’s really boring, but it’s already helping me.”), Geddy realised that he would never be a master of the keyboards, in the same way as he was of the bass. This was not a battle anyone could “win”, and trying more was just making things harder still.
Perhaps, trying harder was not the answer.
The Birmingham, UK dates in April 1988 were considered the most appropriate to record a live video and a live album. As director Larry Jordan came on the road to prepare for the recordings, he immediately saw the main difficulty with capturing Rush live. “They don’t do anything,” he says. “For them, it’s all about the musicianship. Documenting their performance was my challenge. I had to make it interesting visually, and gain their trust that I’m not going to mess with their image.” To achieve a sufficiently dynamic result, Larry chose to work with multiple cameras, being careful not to put off the musicians, particularly Neil. “You don’t want to cut away from the punch line,” says Larry. “In a ten minute drum solo, you’ve got to change angles.”
Still, he got what he wanted, and by working with the individual operators and careful editing, he ensured there appeared to be plenty of activity. “Geddy said we look like twenty years younger!” he laughs.
The following night, it was Guy Charbonneau’s turn to record an audio performance. In the absence of cameras, the boys relaxed visibly. “It almost felt like nothing was happening,” said Geddy. “Everybody gave a very loose performance in relief that there was no camera pointed at us.”
The band had the offer to play a festival gig at Castle Donnington in the UK, but didn’t fancy it, particularly given the feedback of Howard Ungerleider, who had worked Donnington with Metallica. “It was everything they hated, in terms of the integrity of the show,” says Howard. “It would compromise everything they worked for. The kids were throwing mud and shit at the stage, I couldn’t see them dealing with that!” Indeed, said Neil, “Why put yourself through that.”
Indeed, why put themselves through touring at all? The last day of the tour was 5 May, 1988, supported by Wishbone Ash in Stuttgart, Germany. At the end of the six months the band felt tired and bemused. Alex had flu, and Geddy had voice problems. The band had played up to 250 dates a year and they were, unsurprisingly, burned out. There was plenty to feel good about, but it was clear that shorter tours in less countries were the better model. “We still enjoy touring so long as it’s not too crazy as it has been at times in the past,” said Alex. “We prefer to work a little less than we used to and spend a little more time at home with our families.”
Of the threesome, it was perhaps Geddy who suffered the most. “That tour was a very difficult tour for me personally,” said Geddy. “I was getting ill a lot on the road and I wasn’t very healthy and the tour seemed to go on forever. Following that I think we had kind of a dark period.” Things were working out in the studio, but there wasn’t quite enough to give anyone a solid feeling that it was worth doing it all again – not yet. “I don’t know if we ever talked about splitting up but individually we all thought about it,” said Geddy. “It’s never actually came out of our mouths.”
The live album, to be called ‘A Show of Hands’, freed the band from any last obligations to its record label Mercury/Phonogram, and nobody was too bothered about renewing the contract. Mercury’s pre-‘2112’ panic had been replaced by a conspicuous lack of attention. Initially this had been to the band’s advantage; after ‘Moving Pictures’ there was a flurry of support, but this had died back again, as management changes at the label pushed Rush back into a pigeonhole. Neither was there anyone batting their corner, particularly – Cliff Burnstein had left the label years before. “Rush has out-lived, it would seem, countless hierarchies of management at the label,” said Geddy. “We didn’t have any feel for who was at our old company anymore and I kind of objected to being inherited and transferred from one president to another.” The band felt like a cash cow, with minimal effort required from the label to generate the requisite amount of sales. Said Neil, “We felt that the whole machinery rested on us – that if we stopped doing interviews, if we stopped touring for any reason, nobody else would be doing anything.”
Old ally Donna Halper, who had worked at Mercury for a year as East Coast A&R Director, saw things from the inside. “There reached a point where it became obvious that Mercury was a small label without a lot of clout,” says Donna. “They lacked the leverage to get Rush into places that perhaps an Atlantic or another major label could.” To indicate they’d had enough, Rush insisted that ‘A Show of Hands’ be released as a single CD even though it had to be a double vinyl album. “Everybody was freakin’ out about that,” said Val Azzoli, working at SRO at the time. “They wanted two CDs so they could charge $40 instead of $20. They were just being greedy. That would have been pure profit for the record company and the retailers, profit which we wouldn’t have seen, but we won that battle.”
Leaving the label gave everybody pause for thought. The band took a six-month sojourn to spend time with their families, hold their own fire and contemplate the future. “We found ourselves free of deadlines and obligations – for the first time in fifteen years – so we decided to make the most of that,” said Neil. “We took some time off, got to know ourselves and our families once again, and generally just backed away from the infectious machinery of Rash – I mean Rush.”
The boys needed a break, and while the question hung in the air about carrying on at all, the reality was far more complex. “The reason for this break,” said Geddy, “is one of those little awareness-moments where you realise you’re burning out on being ambitious, that you’re burning out on the treadmill of accomplishment. You’re living one life and visiting another and trying to teach yourself to assimilate instantly – you get home and you try to meld yourself into that person that you left… So we’re finally taking time to fully live a settled life.”
If time was the great healer, it was time to take some.