Write By Night
“Got my sights on the stars, won’t get that far but I’ll try anyway”
Write By Night
The date is 14 August 1974, a Wednesday, and the venue is the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. For two young musicians about to walk on stage, there is the adrenalin and excitement of playing live to their largest audience yet. For the third, there is total fear as he steps into the unknown, masked with an accepting determination. And for the eleven thousand or more that fill the hall, there is…
Rush mythology has the figure at 11,642 people, though there may have been up to 18,000.
The first objective when Neil arrived was to get him in place on the drummer’s stool. There was just over a week to prepare for the dates that had already been booked, and Neil had a full set of new material to learn. Neil threw himself into the new project like it had been his destiny. Given his devotion to duty, he took it all in his stride – nothing a few hours practice a day with the others couldn’t solve. Alex was delighted, but to the introspective bassist, this was just a little scary. “He was very excited and took a very dominant role,” said Geddy, who felt a little intimidated by Neil’s studious determination. Says Donna Halper, “Geddy thought Neil was more educated and more intellectual – interesting, given that both had dropped out of school!”
Despite such initial worries, everything felt very right. Above all else, Neil had an attitude of making things work, which clicked with Geddy and Alex. However, where with John there had remained an element of ‘schoolboys together’, Neil’s arrival put any such feelings firmly in the past. “We realised that there are a lot of issues contingent to being a musician, a lot of choices to be made,” said Neil. “That was when everything became professional.” All three players were energised not only by the excitement at having a recording contract and a defined future, but also the abject panic of having to perform together in a week.
Central to Neil’s successful integration was that he shared the others’ aspirations to push forward with their musicianship. Confirmed Donna, “Geddy and Alex had no intention of being a Toronto bar band. They wanted Neil in the band precisely because of what he had to offer.” Agreed Geddy, “Neil was the third piece to the puzzle and he confirmed all the stuff we wanted to do. We started fucking up our music.” The unspoken rule was, though hard rock would always be their first love, there would never be any kind of music that was seen as out of bounds to the band. “From our beginnings we decided to remain amorphous,” said Neil.
Neil’s percussion approach was to let the drums do the talking – a lightness of touch here, a change of rhythm there – which was exactly what Geddy and Alex had been looking for. Not that Neil lacked power, comments early fan and later collaborator Robert Scovill. “The first time I saw Neil play shortly after he joined the band, he was clearly the consummate combination of power and technique. He had all the odd time signature and rudiment chops1 but presented them with incredible power.” To complete the bass section, Geddy’s desire to be more than the average bass player fitted with Neil’s approach like paper around a stone. Said Neil, much later, “Geddy and I are both much busier than the average bass player and drummer, both individually and together.”
Alex, too, was keen to push in new directions, As well as absorbing whatever Jimmy Page could do, he was picking up on still more progressive guitarists – notably Steve Howe of Yes and Steve Hackett of Genesis, both of whom had developed a more textural, layered approach to guitar. Alex applied what he learned to the needs of the power trio, placing suspended chords and arpeggios and finding a middle ground between lead and rhythm guitar. “As a three-piece band it’s important for the guitar to fill a wide tonal area… I concentrated on playing suspended chords just to fill in that space,” he said.
When the week was up, the band felt ready to face the music. They flew to Pittsburgh for the first date on 14 August 1974, and spent the next four days bouncing from state to state – Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Indiana and Nebraska, in support of ATI stablemates Manfred Mann, Uriah Heep and Kiss. A week after that baptism of fire, the wide-eyed rockers played the Agora Ballroom in Cleveland, and were broadcast live for the first time on Donna Halper’s FM station, WMMS. Donna was invited to introduce the gig, much to her delight as she was getting grief from her old station about exactly who had “discovered” the band. “Several of the guys on the staff decided that I was getting too much attention and they tried to put forth the story that they were the ones who really found Rush,” says Donna. “When I spoke to Ray and Vic about it, they decided to show everyone who had really done the discovering. When the guys arrived from Toronto, they told my Program Director that they wanted me to introduce the band and as far as they were concerned, the subject was now closed.”
The majority of dates were in support of Kiss, unsurprising as Ira Blacker was US tour agent for both. Kiss was, “the only band that’s never given us trouble on the road,” according to Neil. “Kiss impose reasonable restrictions and we get along really well with them as friends and business-wise.” There was another, highly educational benefit of gigging with Kiss, who were not building their off-stage reputation by being wallflowers. Rather, they provided an insightful demonstration of how rock stars should behave. Not that our heroes didn’t gamely join in with the entertainments… but all three agreed, they were musicians first. Rather than getting too deeply into the sex and the drugs, they settled for the rock and roll. “They weren’t into drugs,” says Bruce Cole. “This gets back to it being a business rather than it being a lifestyle.” Bands such as Uriah Heep and Rory Gallagher taught them that there was plenty of room to be human and friendly, even when you were centre of attention; meanwhile, the others were living examples of how the drink and drugs could get out of hand.
Some support slots were ill-considered in the extreme: on one date, in Baltimore in support to Sha Na Na2, the band were booed off the stage. “It was like a greaseball dressup masquerade dance and it bordered on horribleness,” said Alex. “They didn’t like us at all.” Perhaps it was more of a mismatch than anything, explains Geddy, “We came out and just blistered their faces.”
In general however, the band were more appropriately teamed, and were better received as a result. One of the combo’s first national reviews, if not the first ever in the US, appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer on August 31. “It’s a more polished sound, complete with the variety you hardly ever find in heavy metal,” said journalist Jim Knippenberg. All in all, “a pretty good start,” said Jim. “The only weakness has to do with the lyrics, they could use some polish.” If only he knew.
As the number of dates continued to grow, so did the reviews – each city had its newspaper and its resident rock critic, so the band quickly amassed a comprehensive report card. While some reviews were encouraging, many critics were disappointed to find a new hard rock band jumping on what the reviewers hoped was a bandwagon in the descendant; others just could not get on with the band’s idiosyncratic style, led by Geddy’s unique vocals.
As time went by, a transition occurred. Songs such as the old Beatles cover ‘Bad Boy’ were still in the set, and the old Rush style was still prevalent, but the growing confidence of the trio was reflected in the increasingly frequent new arrangements. The threesome started to explore new song ideas, part of a continuing process for Geddy and Alex, who were used to using tour buses and hotel rooms as ersatz writing rooms and demo studios. Indeed, it was becoming clear that a couple of the songs such as ‘Fancy Dancer’ and ‘Garden Road’ belonged with the ghost of Rush past, and would not make it onto any future album. Others, such as ‘Best I Can’ and ‘In The End’, seemed to have mileage. Neil made his own rhythmic contribution, opening opportunities for the other two to explore new directions and build on the new guy’s capabilities, but that was not all.
Sooner or later, the subject of lyrics had to be broached. Neither Geddy nor Alex had ever felt particularly poetic – indeed, explained Geddy, “We hated writing lyrics, we just wanted to write music.” Over the weeks, an unexpected aspect of the drummer’s personality dawned on them: his head was rarely out of a book. Neil had an “incredible appetite” for reading, according to Geddy, who went on, “He also spoke English better than anyone we knew – in fact, better than anyone we had ever met.” It became increasingly evident therefore, that Neil might have a talent for lyrical content.
Impressed by his studious nature (for which he had already earned the nickname ‘The Professor’), Geddy and Alex gently persuaded Neil to have a go at the wordsmithing. “I thought, well, I’ve always been interested in words and reading and so on. I’ll give it a shot,” he decided. With tangible relief, the Willowdale boys accepted Neil’s writings as their own. Said Geddy, “Alex and I just looked at each other – this is the guy to solve all our problems…”
With their more stylised musical compositions, the symbolism in Neil’s lyrics was exactly what the others wanted to play to. In the spirit of art rock bands such as Camel, Gentle Giant and King Crimson, the band avoided restraint in either the words or the music. “We had lofty ambitions,” said Geddy. “Neil’s lyrics dealt with things that appealed to our sensibility – a noble kind of rock ‘n’ roll.” Alex was rarely seen without a guitar to pluck at, and continued to experiment with his style; meanwhile, Geddy was developing his own bass skills, again learning on the job from progressive players, who saw bass guitar as a melodic device as well as part of a rhythm section. Geddy had a strong sense of how to achieve the overall sound, so he focused on ensuring the combined output made sense, working with the others on the arrangements and adding the necessary bass lines and vocal melodies to tie it all together. “I don’t like ‘metal’. We need a new name for it,” said Geddy at the time, rejecting preconceptions and starting as he meant to go on.
New songs started to form, leaving older ones by the wayside if they didn’t come up to scratch. The first example of the band’s combined output was the song ‘Fly By Night’, written in October 1974 while the band had a three-day stop over in East Lansing, Michigan. Other songs followed, and by the end of the tour, the band were feeling confident enough to create what was to be their masterwork up to that point – the epic ‘By-Tor and The Snow Dog’.
In the course of gigging, travelling and writing together, the relationship strengthened between the trio but it remained strongest between Geddy and Alex, who would refer to Neil as “the new boy” for many years afterwards. “Alex and I were teenage idiots together, but we didn’t know who this strange creature was,” said Geddy. Perhaps because he arrived when the tour was already underway, or maybe because of his nature, Neil felt himself to be an outsider, feeling a separation from the other two and a more general discomfort with fame that he would never quite shake off. Explained Neil, “Kids would turn up at the backstage door waiting for Geddy and Alex, and even though they didn’t know who I was, nonetheless I felt very strange.” Given Alex and Geddy’s ability to relax with the fans and press, Neil didn’t feel any need to overcome his discomfort. The more existential Geddy took a while to get used to Neil’s more introverted approach, but easy-going Alex was sanguine: once he’d made a decision, he was content. Anything for a quiet life.
In parallel with the tour, SRO and Mercury were organising a string of media events on local radio and television. These culminated in the band’s first mainstream TV appearance on 10 October 1974, on Don Kirshner’s ‘Rock Concert’. It was fortunate that it was pre-recorded, as Neil broke a bass drum and the trio had to re-start its performance. It is probably no coincidence that the debut album reached the Billboard charts for the first time two weeks after the showing, on 21 October.
On 6 December they were back on the box, this time for ABC Television’s ‘In Concert’ series. As the tour drew to a close, the band managed to pick up a live slot on a New York radio show, recorded directly from the Electric Ladyland studios made famous by Jimi Hendrix.
The tour completed on Christmas Day 1974, back at the Agora Ballroom in Cleveland, and then it was home for some well-earned rest. Though it would be the first of many tours, longevity was not something that entered the band’s mind. “On our first tour we collected souvenirs and so on, thinking it might be the last,” said Neil. Not that they needed worry – by the end of the year, ‘Rush’ had sold 75,000 copies, making it Mercury’s biggest selling début album. Behind the scenes, management, label and agency had been working together closely, and all three agreed a sequel could not come too quickly.
First, there were some songs to finish. ‘Anthem’ and the Hackettesque ‘Rivendell’ were completed last, during some sessions at Beamsville, near St Catharines. As the New Year dawned, the new material was ready enough for the trio to go back to the studio, and to Terry Brown’s delight he was invited back. “I was just doing the first album out of enthusiasm, and it worked out really well, but I wasn’t really sure how it went down,” he says. “We had a ball working together, so it made sense that they’d probably come back.” Indeed it did: Terry had got the band out of a hole last time around, and it wasn’t a hole they wanted to go back into. So, it was back to Toronto Sound they trooped.
Terry knew that the band had something special, even if it had not come across fully with the first, raw album. “I can remember people would come through the studio, and they would say, ‘You’re working with Rush, aren’t you?’”, says Terry. “They would say, ‘What are you thinking? They’re rubbish!’” Terry had remained undaunted. “There’s more to this band than meets the eye, they’ve got something really happening,” he had said to the naysayers.
At least this time, recording sessions could take place without the pressure of fitting them in between live shows, and as before, most of the songs had already been trialled live. However, the band had only two weeks to lay their songs down to tape. “I remember it being a very short experience,” says Terry. “We worked every day until two or three in the morning, and just kept at it until we’d finished.” There were few pauses for thought, let alone meals, but at least everyone was clear about what they were trying to achieve: less Zep, more feeling, and more of the three of them. “When Neil arrived, I think that sort of cemented everything really,” recalls Terry. “It gave the band a lot more depth.”
As timescales shortened, so did the nights, until the final 24 hours were worked straight through. There was no slippage time – the day after they finished, the band had a flight booked to play a gig in Winnipeg. ‘Fly By Night’, indeed – the audience in Winnipeg did not know how fortunate they were to see the bedraggled, sleep-deprived performers.
The album was released at the end of January 1975, with a cover painted by Eraldo Carugati. By mid-February, with barely time to catch breath, Rush were back on the road again. Explains Bruce Cole, “Things were always very organised, prepared in advance… they’d set up their tour dates then everything would back up to that, when they would do their recordings, when they would do their writing. They weren’t throwing their weight around, it was a matter of tomorrow they had to be somewhere else, and the day before… Their management team didn’t let a day go by that they didn’t know where they were. Their golfing days were over!”
For Alex’s partner Charlene it was too ironic that the tour started on Valentine’s Day, given that the pair were engaged to be married on March 12. Sorry, she was pleased to get married, but not (as she had been asked) to go on honeymoon by herself with the promise that Alex would join her once she was there! At least, Charlene knew what she was getting into, and as it turned out, the week after the wedding was free of musical interruptions.