Rush (band)
Rush was a Canadian rock band that primarily comprised Geddy Lee (bass guitar, keyboards, vocals), Alex Lifeson (guitar) and Neil Peart (drums, percussion, lyricist). The band formed in Toronto in 1968 with Lifeson, drummer John Rutsey, and bass guitarist/vocalist Jeff Jones, whom Lee immediately replaced. After Lee joined, the band went through several line-up changes before arriving at its classic power trio line-up with the addition of Peart in July 1974, who replaced Rutsey four months after the release of their self-titled debut album; this line-up remained intact for the remainder of the band's career.
Rush
- Hadrian[1]
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
1968–2015
- Alex Lifeson
- John Rutsey
- Jeff Jones
- Geddy Lee
- Lindy Young
- Joe Perna
- Bob Vopni
- Mitch Bossi
- Neil Peart
Rush first achieved moderate success with their second album Fly by Night (1975). The commercial failure of their next album Caress of Steel, released seven months after Fly by Night, resulted in the band almost getting dropped from their then-record label Mercury Records. Rush's fourth album, 2112 (1976), reignited their popularity, becoming their first album to enter the top five on the Canadian charts. Their next two albums, A Farewell to Kings (1977) and Hemispheres (1978), were also successful, with the former becoming Rush's first to enter the UK charts. The band's popularity continued throughout the 1980s and 1990s, with albums charting highly in Canada, the US and the UK, including Permanent Waves (1980), Moving Pictures (1981), Signals (1982), Grace Under Pressure (1984), Roll the Bones (1991), Counterparts (1993) and Test for Echo (1996). Rush continued to record and perform until 1997, after which the band entered a four-year hiatus due to personal tragedies in Peart's life. The trio regrouped in 2001 and released three more studio albums: Vapor Trails (2002), Snakes & Arrows (2007), and Clockwork Angels (2012). Rush performed their last concerts in 2015, with Peart retiring from music later that year. Lifeson later commented in January 2018 that the band decided not to resume activity following the R40 Tour,[9][10] which was later cemented by Peart's death from glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer, on January 7, 2020, at the age of 67.[11] Lee and Lifeson have continued to periodically work together since Peart's death, including performing at the 25th anniversary celebration of South Park and tributes to then-recently deceased Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins in 2022,[12][13] while tentative talks of a Rush reunion have ensued since 2023.[14]
Rush were known for their musicianship, complex compositions and eclectic lyrical motifs drawing heavily on science fiction, fantasy and philosophy. The band's style changed over the years, from a blues-inspired hard rock beginning, later moving into progressive rock, then a period in the 1980s marked by heavy use of synthesizers, before returning to guitar-driven hard rock at the end of the 1980s. Clockwork Angels marked a return to progressive rock. The members of Rush have been acknowledged as some of the most proficient players on their respective instruments, with each winning numerous awards in magazine readers' polls over the years.
As of 2022, Rush ranks 84th in the US with sales of 26 million albums[15] and industry sources estimate their total worldwide album sales at over 42 million. They have been awarded 14 platinum and 3 multi-platinum albums in the US,[16] plus 17 platinum albums in Canada. Rush were nominated for seven Grammy Awards,[17] won several Juno Awards, and won an International Achievement Award at the 2009 SOCAN Awards.[18] The band was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013.[19][20] Some consider Rush to be one of the greatest rock bands of all time.[21][22][23]
Musical style and influences[edit]
Rush's musical style changed substantially over the years. Its debut album was strongly influenced by British blues-based hard rock: an amalgam of sounds and styles from such rock bands as The Beatles, Black Sabbath, The Who, Cream, and Led Zeppelin.[144][38][145][146] Rush became increasingly influenced by bands of the British progressive rock movement of the mid-1970s, especially Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes, and Jethro Tull.[147][148] In the tradition of progressive rock, Rush wrote extended songs with irregular and shifting mood, timbre, and metre, combined with lyrics influenced by Ayn Rand.[149] In the 1980s, Rush merged their sound with the trends of this period, experimenting with new wave, reggae, and pop rock.[150] This period included the band's most extensive use of instruments such as synthesizers, sequencers, and electronic percussion. In the early 1990s, the band transformed their style once again to return to a more grounded hard rock style and simultaneously harmonize with the alternative rock movement.[151]
Sales[edit]
Rush has released 24 gold records and 14 platinum records (including three multi-platinum), placing them fifth behind The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Kiss and Aerosmith for the most consecutive gold or platinum studio albums by a rock band in the United States.[221] As of 2005, Rush had sold about 25 million copies of their albums in the US (ranked 88th among recording acts[222]) and 40 million worldwide.[223][224][225][226] As of April 2021, Moving Pictures was the band's highest-selling album at over 5 million units, having been certified 5× platinum by the RIAA.[227]
Despite dropping out of the public eye for five years after the gold-selling Test for Echo (which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 chart)[44] and the band being relegated almost solely to classic rock stations in the US, Vapor Trails reached No. 6 on the Billboard 200[44] in its first week of release in 2002, with 108,000 copies sold. It has sold about 343,000 units to date. The subsequent Vapor Trails tour grossed over $24 million and included the largest audience ever to see a headlining Rush show: 60,000 fans in São Paulo, Brazil.
Rush's triple-CD live album, Rush in Rio (2003), was certified gold, marking the fourth decade in which a Rush album had been released and certified at least gold. In 2004, Feedback cracked the top 20 on the Billboard 200 and received radio airplay. The band's 2007 album, Snakes & Arrows, debuted at No. 3 (just one position shy of Rush's highest-peaking albums, Counterparts (1993) and Clockwork Angels (2012), which both debuted at No. 2) on the Billboard 200, selling about 93,000 in its first week of release.[228] This marks the 13th Rush studio album to appear in the Top 20 and the band's 27th album to appear on the chart. The album also debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard's Top Rock Albums chart, and, when the album was released on the MVI format a month later, peaked at No. 1 on the Top Internet Albums chart.[229]
The tours in support of Snakes & Arrows in 2007 and 2008 accrued $21 million and $18.3 million respectively, earning Rush the No. 6 and 8 spots among the summers' rock concerts.[230][231]
Live performances[edit]
The members of Rush shared a strong work ethic, desiring to accurately recreate songs from their albums when playing live performances. To achieve this goal, beginning in the late 1980s, Rush included a capacious rack of digital samplers in their concert equipment to recreate the sounds of non-traditional instruments, accompaniments, vocal harmonies, and other sound "events" in real time to match the sounds on the studio versions of the songs. In live performances, the band members shared duties throughout most songs. Each member had one or more MIDI controllers, which were loaded with different sounds for each song, and they used available limbs to trigger the sounds while simultaneously playing their primary instrument(s).[232] It was with this technology that the group was able to present their arrangements in a live setting with the level of complexity and fidelity fans had come to expect, and without the need to resort to the use of backing tracks or employing an additional band member.[233] The members' coordinated use of pedal keyboards and other electronic triggers to "play" sampled instruments and audio events was subtly visible in their live performances, especially on the R30: 30th Anniversary World Tour, their 2005 concert DVD.
A staple of Rush's concerts was Neil Peart's drum solos, which included a basic framework of routines connected by sections of improvisation, making each performance unique. Each successive tour saw his solos become more advanced, with some routines dropped in favour of newer, more complex ones. Since the mid-1980s, Peart used MIDI trigger pads to elicit sounds sampled from various pieces of acoustic percussion that would otherwise consume far too much stage area, such as a marimba, harp, temple blocks, triangles, glockenspiel, orchestra bells, tubular bells, and vibraslap, as well as other, more esoteric percussion.
One prominent feature of Rush's concerts were props on stage, at one point called "diversions". These props have included washing machines, vintage popcorn poppers, animations, and inflatable rabbits emerging from giant hats behind the band.[234] Starting in the mid-'90s, the props often took up Lee's side of the stage (stage left) as a way to balance out the amp stacks on Lifeson's side (stage right) when Lee opted to use a venue's house system instead of amps.
Philanthropy[edit]
Rush actively participated in philanthropic causes. The band were one of several hometown favourites to play Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto, also dubbed SARStock, at Downsview Park in Toronto on July 30, 2003, with an attendance of over half a million people. The concert benefited the Toronto economy after the SARS outbreaks earlier in the year.[235] The band has also sustained an interest in promoting human rights. They donated $100,000 to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights after a concert they held in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on May 24, 2008.[236][237]
On July 24, 2013, Rush performed a benefit concert in Red Deer, Alberta, at the ENMAX Centrium, with all proceeds going to the Canadian Red Cross to help victims of the 2013 flooding that devastated many regions of southern Alberta. The original venue for the show, the Scotiabank Saddledome, was heavily damaged from the flooding and was unavailable for the concert date as originally planned.[238]
The individual members of Rush have also been a part of philanthropic causes. Hughes & Kettner zenTera[239] and TriAmp[240] electronics have been endorsed and used by Lifeson for many years. A custom signature amplifier was engineered by Lifeson and released in April 2005 with the stipulation that UNICEF receive a $50 donation for every Alex Lifeson Signature TriAmp sold.[241] Lee, a longtime fan of baseball, donated 200 baseballs signed by famous Negro league players, including Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Josh Gibson, to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in June 2008.[242] In late 2009, Lee and Lifeson launched an auction for their initiative "Grapes Under Pressure", in support of the cause "Grapes for Humanity". The auction consisted of items from the band such as autographed guitars, cymbals and basses. There were also autographs by band members from Depeche Mode, Tool, the Fray, Judas Priest, Pearl Jam and more, as well as signatures from Ricky, Julian and Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys on a rare Epiphone guitar.[243]
The band is featured on the album Songs for Tibet, appearing with other celebrities as an initiative to support Tibet and the current Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso. The album, made downloadable on August 5, 2008, via iTunes, was released commercially on August 12, 2008.[244]
Rush have also been big supporters of Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit that works to restore and revitalize music education programs in disadvantaged US public schools. They teamed up with Musician's Friend and Sabian to help Little Kids Rock provide percussion to public schools nationwide. They donated $500 of the proceeds from every Neil Peart Paragon Cymbal Pack sold, each of which came with a free splash cymbal personalized, autographed, and dated by Peart. The cause-based marketing initiative raised over $50,000 for Little Kids Rock.[245]
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