Living In The Present
Despite Geddy’s past interest in playing with new musical ideas at his Rosedale home, he had not seen them as anything more than experimentation, and he certainly didn’t intend to put out his own recordings. “I am not really driven by the kind of ambition to feature myself on a solo album,” he had said, what seemed like an age before.
Against his temperament Geddy couldn’t resist the urge to develop a few lyrics with his friend Kent Bendinck, understandably feeling himself in the shadow of, in his words, “the great lyric writer.” He’d also been talking to Ben Mink; indeed, when Geddy had visited Ben back in 1997, when the ‘Test For Echo’ tour stopped in Vancouver, they’d had a jam and agreed that it would be good to write together one day. “We were hoping it would be awful, so we would never have to talk about it,” explained Geddy. But it wasn’t. “That’s when all the trouble began…” Neither envisioned that the opportunity would arise to do so, not so quickly and certainly not in the circumstances.
Late in the same year, Ben came over to Geddy’s home studio for a week to try out some writing. Even as the material formed itself into songs, Geddy was reluctant to consider releasing an album: it felt just a little disrespectful. Eventually however, the songs themselves refused to be silenced. “I liked the songs too much to leave them languishing on the shelf,” said Geddy. “It seemed unfair to the music.” With a final push from Atlantic exec Val Azzoli, Geddy decided that he owed it to himself, and to the future, to go ahead with what would become his first ever solo project.
No stranger to tragedy, Geddy felt well aware of what Neil was going through. “In my life I’ve had events like this, ever since I was 12 years old and my dad passed away,” he remarked. “And both my parents were Holocaust survivors.” Geddy put these feelings in a number of songs on the album, comparing Neil’s experiences with what his own family had been through. “When this bad time happened, of course it was a revisiting of all those feelings,” said Geddy. “So you work through it, try to make sense of it.”
In particular there was ‘Present Tense’, primarily about existential angst but also about making the most of the moment. Geddy was aware of his own existential weakness, as he commented, “I have it, and I am sure there are other people out there who have it. We can’t run from it. That is a healthy part of self-awareness.” More directly still, ‘Grace To Grace’ was largely about his mother, who had been through the horrors of the Second World War and come out of the other side, glad to be alive and still prepared to make a life. The album wasn’t all quite so soul-searching – the title track ‘My Favorite Headache’ summed up Geddy’s perspectives on making music. “It describes the creative process to a ‘T’ – something you love to do but it makes you crazy to do it!” he remarked. To understand why it could make him crazy, look no further than ‘Working At Perfekt’: “It is the story of my life!”
As the music developed, so did the relationship between Geddy and Ben as they moved between each other’s homes, Factory Studios in Vancouver and Reaction Studios in Toronto. One song in particular, which became ‘Slipping’, cemented the relationship and acted as the catalyst for the rest of the album. “There was something about it that felt too good to ignore,” agreed the pair. With both Ben and Geddy involved in both guitars and programming, Geddy managed to avoid any issues of space and priority. The original idea was to use David Gilmour for the guitar solos on the album, but the idea was dropped when the pair realised “there was no soloing” – ironically, that was exactly what Alex had hankered for on ‘Counterparts’. Geddy spent more time on the melodies, something which he had a “particular love” for, using overdubs where necessary to strengthen the vocal lines. Handily, he found that this love was shared by Ben. “We both would arrive at the same place very naturally,” said Geddy. “That was a bit startling at the time!”
At Ben’s recommendation, Geddy brought in producer, David Leonard, who had worked with Prince, Santana and The Barenaked Ladies. David proved to be a good counterbalance for both Geddy and Ben’s perfectionism, making sure that an original idea was not thrown away in the desire to achieve perfection. “I found Geddy to be one of the nicest people on the planet,” says David. “He’d come in the session every morning with coffee and muffins for everybody and his little dog2, it was just really nice.”
As the writing drew to a close, Geddy and Ben knew they had to bring in a real drummer to replace the black box, and Geddy suggested Matt Cameron of Pearl Jam. Time was short: Matt was going on tour, so the pair flew to Seattle’s Studio X, where Matt was already set up. The original plan was to have Matt play on a handful of songs, but he worked through the whole set!
Only one song didn’t make it to the album, through no fault of Matt’s – Geddy decided to ditch the whole thing, leaving room for another. Over Geddy’s birthday weekend, he and Ben wrote the quirky ‘Home On The Strange’; on the Monday they called in local lad Jeremy Taggart3 who added drums to the song, sharpish. The album was complete, much to Geddy’s relief. In the past, Geddy had looked to the steadying influences of Alex and Neil, but this time, even with the interventions of Ben and David, Geddy was largely on his own with his angst. As he explained, “The responsibility of getting it done and making sure it was done properly and saying: is this mix good enough? Do we remix this? Do I delay the release date because I have got to do this or I am not happy with this?”
On the upside, while ‘My Favourite Headache’ was undeniably Geddy and despite the occasional, evocative jangle of guitar, the album was clearly different than anything his old band would have put together. Like Alex, Geddy had proved that he could work equally well with other parties, and the production experiences he’d gained would stand him in good stead in the future.
Whatever should happen.
‘My Favourite Headache’ was finally released on 14 November 2000. Despite the understandable pent-up demand from the fans, the album failed to chart – not that it mattered that much. It was enough to be working, and for the songs to be heard by those that wanted to hear them. “Without the support and curiosity of our fans, there wouldn’t be the welcoming which all our albums receive when it comes out,” said Geddy.
The title track, ‘Grace To Grace’, and ‘Home On The Strange’ were released as promo singles to US radio, and there was the possibility of a small tour to test out the material live. “It sure would be fun to go out and do some very small venues and have a good time with those guys,” said Geddy. “Both Matt and Jeremy have expressed a desire to go do it live, it’s just a matter of logistics.” But then, everything changed again: Geddy wasn’t going to get the chance to go on the road, not like that anyway.
“My day job is calling me back,” he said.