Now considered to be one of the greatest Rock bands to ever exist (partly because of their impressive longevity, and also seen as three of the greatest musicians to ever play their respective instruments), Rush was formed around the year 1968 by two high school friends Geddy Lee (bass), and Alex Lifeson (guitar). They bonded over their love of hard, heavy music such as The Yardbirds, Cream, The Who and Led Zeppelin. Over the next few years, there would be some line up changes, but by 1974 they had there first steady line up which consisted of Lee, Lifeson and drummer John Rutsey. Their first album came out that year and contained rock and roll hits like “In the Mood”, as well as the hard rocking jam “Working Man”.
Record companies in Canada didn’t pay any real interest in the band, but a radio station in Cleveland, Ohio happened to play Working Man as a “bathroom break song”. The phones lit up, and people loved the song. Cleveland was a working man’s town at the time and back then, and people felt the song was speaking about them. The band was signed to a record deal soon after.
During touring, some tension built up between Lee, Lifeson and Rutsey. John was more into straight forward rock like Bad Comapny, whereas Alex and Geddy wanted to explore more complex areas of music like Genesis or Yes. This is however, not the reason John left the band; he was a diabetic, and was not taking care of himself on tour. The band and their management thought it was best for John’s health to leave.
Then came Neil Peart. Heavily influenced by John Bonham, and Keith Moon as well as Yes and Genesis, the three bonded instantly. He also took over the lyric writings for the next album as Geddy didn’t like to, and figured Neil was “a smart guy”. They released their sophomore album Fly by Night in 1975. It included the radio hit “Fly by Night”, as well as prog rock influenced “Anthem”, and mini-epic “By-tor and the Snow Dog”. Containing odd-time signatures and thematic lyrics, the band would divulge more into Prog rock on their next album Caress of Steel (also in 1975).
Thought to be the bands break-through album, Caress of Steel was a critical and commercial flop. Hard rocker “Bastille Day”, was over shadowed by the 12 minute fantasy inspired “The Necromancer” and the dis-jointed side-long (20 minute) epic “The Fountain of Lamneth”. The ensuing tour was joked as “the down the tubes tour” among the crew members. There was pressure from the label for the band to produce a commercially acceptable straight forward rock album next, but the band had other plans. They figured that if this was going to be their last album, they’d go in and do it their way...
Songs from this era:
- Spoiler: show
