Rush

An hour with and about Rush, one of the most successful -- and unique -- rock bands of all time. And of course they're all Canadian!
Early Days
In March 1974, a music fan rushed into his basement rec room. This person was likely a young teenage male who had just purchased an album from his local record store. The cover featured the band's four-letter name in bright pink letters. He opened it up, took the disc out, put it on his turntable and what he heard changed popular music. It was the debut album from Rush, the Canadian power rock trio. Over the past thirty-eight years, Rush has released 14 platinum records, 24 gold records and sold over 40-million albums worldwide. In April the band is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Lee, Lifeson and Rutsey
When Rush recorded its debut album in Toronto, the band was made up of Geddy Lee on vocals and bass, Alex Lifeson on guitar and John Rutsey on drums. Rutsey and Lifeson were childhood friends. The pair met Geddy Lee in high school. Of course back then Geddy Lee was Gary Lee Weinrib and Alex Lifeson was Alexander Zivojinovich. Starting in the late sixties, they played church basements, local bars and high school dances with names like Judd, Hadron and finally Rush.

But by 1974, they discovered that no record company was interested in their brand of hard rock. So they formed their own record label and called it Moon Records. The song that introduced the world to Rush was kind of a Led Zeppelin version on the Buddy Holly song "Not Fade Away." The band pressed a thousand copies of the 45. It's a rarity; it goes for about fifteen hundred bucks on ebay. But back in 1974, they couldn't even give it away. The single went nowhere. That's right, Not Fade Away just faded away.

Tenacity
The group was anything if not tenacious. Later in 1974 the trio released its debut album. And it was at that point that they got their archetypal big break. Donna Halper, a DJ working at a Cleveland Radio Station, added a song called Working Man to her playlist. She felt the song would make a connection with her working-class listeners. It did. Rush was off and running. The band was signed to Mercury Records. Neil Peart replaced drummer Alex Rutsey. And the legendary trio had begun its rise to rock and roll stardom.

Climbing the Stairs to Rock Heaven
While Rush was climbing the stairs to rock heaven, the CBC wasn't exactly following the band's every move. Perhaps you haven't noticed but the prog-rock scene has never been top priority for Canada's national broadcaster. Nonetheless Rush eventually became too big to ignore. In 1979, Geddy Lee showed up on CBC Radio's pop music show, 90 Minutes with a Bullet. Rush had just released its 6th album. It was called Hemispheres and it had been released on red vimyl as a follow up to the successful Farewell to Kings. Finally, the band had shattered the CBC Radio barrier.

Millions of Followers
Rush's unique sound has won them millions of followers around the world. Back in 2002, they played for over 60,000 fans in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Touring has always been a big part of the band's success, particularly in the early days when they had trouble finding play on mainstream radio.

Our next piece of tape found the band in St. Louis, Missouri. It was again from the show 90 Minutes with a Bullet and featured an echoey backstage interview with drummer Neil Peart.

Neil Peart on Morningside
In those early days, CBC Radio was slow to warm to Rush. But by the 90's, Canada's broadcaster had fully embraced the band. So much so, that drummer Neil Peart became something of a regular on Peter Gzowski's Morningside. He was first invited to talk about the music of Buddy Rich, the great jazz drummer. He then returned semi-regularly as a kind of musical taste-maker, bringing in his favourite CD's to share with Peter and the audience. Neil showed himself an extremely knowledgeable and open-minded lover of music across all genres. In 1992 - a long way from that backstage interview in St. Louis- Neal Peart talked about The Gipsy Kings.

Accolades
Rush has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Canada's Walk of Fame, the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame, and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. Do all those temples of fame even exist? They do! And Rush is in every one of them. In 2010, Rush was welcomed into the Canadian Songwriters' Hall of Fame. Gregory Charles did the honours at a ceremony in Ottawa.

In 2012 Rush was back in Ottawa to pick up another honour: the Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award from Canada's governor-general. While in the nation's capital, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson did a little bit of sightseeing.

And in the spring of 2013 they were welcomed into the grand cahuna of them all: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Still Rockin'
The band has been together over 40 years, an incredible achievement by any standard. But it's even more remarkable in light of the challenges the band has had to endure. In 1996, Neil Peart's 19-year-old daughter was killed in a car accident while on her way to her first year in college. Ten months later, his wife died of cancer, which Neil characterized as death by way of a broken heart. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson talked to Jian Ghomeshi about that time.

That interview marked the release of Rush's 20th studio album, Clockwork Angels. It debuted at No 1 in Canada and No 2 in the United States.

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