Is it a metaphor for God and life? Coming from atheist Peart, probably not. That of a watchmaker controlling the life of a central protagonist, and in itself telling the life of that central character. But I think we’ve achieved that with this album. I felt that we’d reached a happy medium in telling a story in a rock-opera style, and that’s a dangerous place to go, but telling it in a rock framework. It’s hard to look at it objectively for me. Trying to make it a bit more interesting. Trying to be interesting within our hard-rock framework. Being progressive is what we’ve dedicated our lives to. ‘Prog’ used as a derogatory, backward-looking musical term could quite rightly have been applied to Rush in the 70s, but in the last 20 years, surely people have come to view Rush as the epitome of progressive music, music that always moves on? (Image credit: Jason Merritt/Getty Images) It’s a kind of sticky wicket, as you guys would say, and we wanted to make sure, by working all the way through with Neil on these lyrics, that there was a freshness and a vitality running through it. I was so conscious of wanting to move forward. I was so sensitive to going out there and be seen as being rooted in the past. Not really… The concept of doing a concept album is an anxious one. But this idea struck Neil and we all went, “Fuck it, let’s do another one.”Īre you aware, as a band, of the enormous sense of excitement the very fact that Rush are recording a concept album in 2012 instils in a large part of your fan base? We’ve always tried to keep ourselves open and we’ve never tried to pre-plan our destiny, rather to see where we are at any given time. And again, we never set out trying to do a concept record, but this idea came to Neil and it was the idea that turned into a concept instead of looking for a concept. Sooner or later I guess it starts to resonate with you. I think about 350,000 other people had also asked that question along the way.
Neither of you seemed too keen on the idea at the time! On the R30 tour, you and Alex were asked by our writer Philip Wilding how much it would cost for you to make another concept piece. But there is a significant difference in that we wanted these songs not to feel like a concept album but feel like a song in itself.
#Rush clockwork angels full
We have done concept pieces but never a full album. We did 2112 as a side, and Hemispheres has a side that almost began with the last song on the previous album. Although conceptuality and Rush seem to have forever been linked, this is your first whole concept album, isn’t it? Mention of ‘the story’ brings us to the fact that this is a concept album. And then take that just for a moment before jumping headlong off in another direction. So we looked back at some things we’d done musically in the past and put a new twist on that. For example Headlong Flight is the story of our protagonist looking back over his life, so it seemed a pros pro, to do that in musical terms as well. There are nods to our past but specifically when it suits the story.
There are nods to your past on Clockwork Angels, but they’re carried out with a delightful musical freshness. It’s nice when all those things work out that way. That we’ve been able to maintain a successful career through all that is very gratifying. We’ve developed in this one step forward, two steps back, one step sideways, two steps forwards kind of way. It’s not lost on us that we’ve been able to have an unusual career path. Your career longevity seems to talk for itself as well. We’re still pretty happy, we love what we do and we’re very, very fortunate that there’s a number of people around the world who seem to like our jagged history.įrankly, I haven't played the record to many people, so I'm very curious to see how people react to it." Geddy Lee And the strange evolution of our music is fine with me.
#Rush clockwork angels professional
Coulda, woulda, shoulda I think applies to all of us in our lives, but I’m not unhappy with the circuitous route our professional lives have taken. In my career maybe I’ve had some small regrets, but no giant regrets. I’m not certain that’s an entirely fair question, asking someone if they’d live their life a different way. If you had the option of remaining like that, a polarising entity, or having been widely accepted by the mainstream, if only for a few years, what route do you think you would have chosen? There have always been people with this fanatical reaction to Rush and people who just don’t get it at all. It’s always been part of the reaction to Rush. Given that Rush have been such a single-minded musical entity throughout their career, was that specific polarising trait something you ever set out to do, or at least attempt to do, even subconsciously?
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