The Tapes Archive

Neil Peart: It’s Neil Peart calling from Rush.

Marc Allan:  Hi, how you doin’?

Neil Peart: Not bad, how ’bout you?

MA: Real good, where are you today?

Neil Peart: I am at the bottom of an arena in Hamilton, Ontario.

Marc Allan: A-ha.

Neil Peart: Pre-tour rehearsal.

Marc Allan: Okay, when does the tour start?

Neil Peart: Friday night.

Marc Allan: Last time we talked, you seemed a little bit hesitant about goin’ out on the road again, and now you’re right back out on the road,

Neil Peart: Yeah.

Marc Allan: Which kinda surprised me.

Neil Peart: It’s one of those true dilemmas. Better to do it or not to do it, you know? And last time my decision was very pragmatic in a sense that I felt, well, if the band is going to be vital we’ve gotta be playing live, so if I’m gonna be in the band, I’ve gotta be playing live, where this time it is more of a sense of excitement about it all. We’re really psyched on the record, and we were keen to get out touring and give it the best shot possible, because of our media situation. You know it is really the only thing we can count on as far as exposure, or even letting people know we even have a record so that’s a big part of it. But the vitality part I think still is very relevant. I think for a band to be growing, and for them to be truly a band, you gotta be out playin’ live, like it or not. So that’s part of it too.

Marc Allan: What do you mean, your media situation?

Neil Peart: Well, just the fact that we can never count on airplay or certainly video play, or even a level of acceptance is something we don’t take for granted. So we never take it for granted that we’ll put out a record if so many hundred thousand people will buy it. We kinda figure well, maybe nobody will. So our plans are always based upon that.

Marc Allan: Well, why do you suppose that is? I mean, you guys have been around for a long time. You obviously have a good fan base, and–

Neil Peart: It’s a good, healthy attitude to have though, I think. And plus it’s a lesson that you learn very early on, you know, in the first few records. And we’d be so excited about them when we finished them and, “Oh, we can’t wait till the world hears this. “The universe is gonna change in it.” And you have such high hopes for it and everything, and when they aren’t realized I think you just learn that kind of hesitancy to take anything for granted. Like I say, I think it’s a good lesson to learn. But unfortunately, it comes out about at the expense of disillusionment at that time.

Marc Allan: Yeah, I would think that it kind of gives you a us against the world kind of feeling, no?

Neil Peart: You know, it’s more just pure apprehension rather than thinking, oh. There’s no adversary about it, really, unless the adversary is us, I suppose.

Marc Allan: Oh, okay.

Neil Peart: But I think there are plenty of examples of bands who have had certainly one great-selling record and then after that not so much, or people who have been away too long and they suddenly disappear from people’s interest. So you see those things happen with other bands, and even in cases with people that I like, suddenly they’re just not popular and trying to explain it is pretty difficult really. Obviously no one knows those things, or there’d be a lot more formulaic music.

Marc Allan: So you really think about this stuff ? I’m just surprised.

Neil Peart: Yeah, it’s interesting. I think, again, just it’s not a big issue at all, but just there’s a kind that apprehension when the record is released, like is anybody gonna wanna hear it? And then when the tour comes along is anybody going to wanna see us, you know? I think you have to carry that question inside yourself, but it’s a defense mechanism, so therefore it isn’t something I lay awake nights worrying about by any means, but it’s just a reality that I think I am always aware of. And then, but there’s a positive side to that because when the record did come out and did well this time, for instance, I was really pleased, and but the concert sales so far have been really strong so I got very excited about that because I hadn’t taken it for granted. So when it did happen it was a source of joy.

Marc Allan: But it’s never been a case where you’ve put out a record and nobody’s bought it or it–

Neil Peart: Well the first one, like I said, it’s an early lesson that you learn, I think, as a young musician even before that in garage band level when somebody’s tellin’ you, “Oh, I got you a gig next week,” and then it doesn’t materialize. And then your manager says, “Oh, I think I got you a recording contract,” and then it doesn’t materialize. It’s what I went through when I was first asked to join this band. The manager told me, “Oh yes, they’ve got a U.S. recording contract “and they’re doing a tour.” I didn’t believe a word of it. You know, I’d heard it all before, so that’s an example, again of, I just said, “Okay, I’ll come along “and play with the guys and see how it goes, “but I don’t believe any of that stuff.” And I think, like I said, a lesson learned so early, you remain disillusioned forever. So, it’s okay. Like I say, in our case, it’s much more positive that way than it would be in the other case. And our first few records, we had some disappointments where the world didn’t react quite as strongly as we had felt they would. Like I say, you just can’t predict it, so you dare not take it for granted I suppose.

Marc Allan: With the new record, and it sounds to me like lyrically, like you feel that you’ve caught on to some greater truth.

Neil Peart: Hmm, I’m not sure about that. I think I’ve become comfortable with a random universe, really, which was of course the basic theme of the whole record, is trying to deal with that and take the futility out of it, and try to analyze again some of the things we’ve just been talking about. Why do really good records not become successful? Why do certain musicians not have more successful careers, and why are some people born into a starvation camp? You know, all those questions, yes, you have to ask. I don’t think I’ve grabbed any enormous truth except perhaps that some of the questions are wrong. And one of the things in the song “Roll the Bones” where I address the ultimate question, why are we here, it seems to me to be the wrong question. In every case, it’s not why we’re here. What can we do about it is the important thing. So to me the answer, we’re here because of the process of evolution and et cetera has brought it up to you and me being born. There’s no sense questioning that as far as I’m concerned. I’m quite happy to accept that as being the outcome of a random universe, just the chances of the primal ooze, and from that time forward, have carried us up to now. But the question is with you and I being born and the society in which we’re in, what can be done about it, you know? Or the other question in that song is why did it happen, when I’m talking about these children that are born that way, or children born with AIDS. It’s a reality in the world that I have to think about, and faith isn’t enough of an answer for me. So I have to say, “Well, it just happens. “It’s the evolution of the world and everything .” In “The Hitchhiker at the End of the Universe” sense. But like I say, I just think that’s the wrong question. Again, why does it happen isn’t the right question either. It’s what can we do about it? How can we help?

Marc Allan: Yeah, the message that I was getting was one that basically, try hard, do your best and make the most of what you have.

Neil Peart: Mm-hmm, yeah that’s something I’ve been touting for a long time now, I think, has always been the strength of will and the strength of the individual. But again, those aren’t laws either, and one of the things that I had to address. And if you read the little bio piece that I did–

Marc Allan: Oh yeah.

Neil Peart: I was saying in there that yes, these things are tendencies in life, that if you work hard you can create the conditions for a good opportunity to happen and carry you into success, but obviously that doesn’t always happen. And there are just chances of you driving along and you get in a car accident or somebody runs over you. And one of the songs says the line about a drunk in a stolen car. That kind of random occurrence can happen to anyone at any time. So again, the randomness of it all can be frightening. And part of the frontier of modern science now is getting into chaos and fractals, and the whole idea that beneath the seeming order of the universe as we’ve tried to define it, it’s really just chaos. And it’s frightening to try to form yourself a modus vivendi in the middle of seeming chaos. So I think you have to just juggle with those things and say, “Well, I’ll improve my odds the best I can, “and also live to the point “that if every day has to be my last one, “I could be satisfied with that.” You spent your life up till now as well as you could, so there’s really no regrets except that you don’t get any more.

Marc Allan: I think the reason numbers were created was to make some order out of all the chaos that’s around, you know?

Neil Peart: That’s an essential human need, I think, for order. It’s part of the reason why there is organized politics, why there’s organized education, why there’s religion, certainly, is the earliest one where out on the savanna people tried to convey some, tried to create some sense of order and say that “those stars up there, “there must be a reason “and they must have an effect on us.” And they measured their lives by the stars so therefore the stars probably became the first god. And then the animals around them in nature became a force that had to be dealt with so they could impose an order on it and say, “Well my wife didn’t get eaten by that dinosaur “out of randomness. “It was the great evil god of dinosaurs.” And they could make themselves feel better, I suppose. So all of that thinking kind of went into it, but in an unspoken way. It was just all the process of analysis I had to go through in order to refine down the few words that I get to speak my piece.

Marc Allan: I don’t know if you get a lot of mail over the lyrics that you write, but I have a feeling you’ll get probably more from this album than you have from anything that I can think of–

Neil Peart: I’m having some good arguments with my friends, I can tell you that.

Marc Allan: Yeah, what do they say?

Neil Peart: Oh, just raising philosophical questions. A circle of friends who are also interested in the same kind of things I am. So one friend of mine, for instance, remarked on the “Why are we here, “because we’re here” line that it bothered him a bit because it sounded like something his father would say, like if he asked, “Well, why can’t I do that?” “Because I said so .” You know, or, “Why is that like that?” “Because it is.” Sounded like a simple answer that way when in fact to me it was again a whole process of thought refined down into a simple answer that was meant to deflect it to another question. Also the question of existentialism was raised too. Is this just an existential thing, where we’re just here and it doesn’t make any sense and there’s no reason, and there’s no reality and all that, which I do reject. I think there is an objective reality and I believe in an evolutionary chain of events, but I don’t believe in a divine force controlling those events. So you know, like I say, it makes for some dizzying conversations because all you end up with at the end, of course, is a headache, just, for thousands of years like them, I’ve been chewing over these questions too. But it doesn’t make them boring to me.

Marc Allan: No, and in a world full of love songs and sex songs and nonsense songs, it’s nice to actually have something that will spur some discussion.

Neil Peart: It’s an angle that I’ve been trying to get more at with lyrics, is getting away from preaching and getting more into raising questions and saying, “Well, here’s what I’ve been thinking about,” and allow a point of access for the listener, to inviting them, “Well what do you think about it,” and trying to be much less didactic and much more just intriguing, if you like, just trying to bring up the intrigue of the question and play with it myself, but always leave room for someone else’s thoughts.

Marc Allan: I think my favorite line is, “I was lined up for glory, “but the tickets sold out.”

Neil Peart: Yeah, yeah I always liked metaphors that are drawn, of course, from our profession.

Marc Allan: Right, right, that seems to happen to a lotta people, you know? They just think that they’re all ready for it and it’s not there when they go to look for it. I see that in a lot of local bands and things like that, people who just, they’re just waiting. They’re kind of like, I guess the metaphor would be sitting at the drugstore, Schwab’s, waiting to be discovered or something like that.

Neil Peart: And the reaction to that is what’s important too, because so often it’s somebody else’s fault. And that’s a thing I raised in the first verse of the song “Roll the Bones,” where if people get lucky and are successful, it’s not because of luck. But if they get unlucky and aren’t successful, it is because of luck. You know, that’s another common dichotomy in human nature, too, that really interests me, because those same sayings that people, someone who’s been successful, someone we’re calling lucky, say “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” Again it’s a tendency, but it’s certainly not a law. And on the converse of that is someone who’s had a difficult time for whatever reason, and usually character-oriented in my opinion. But at the same time, to them it’s always well, they didn’t get the break.

Marc Allan: I could almost accept that except in that sense, how do you explain Vanilla Ice, you know ?

Neil Peart: Yeah, luck.

Marc Allan: Yeah, he was lucky.

Neil Peart: But he wouldn’t say that.

Marc Allan: No, no, I’m sure he would say he worked hard, but–

Neil Peart: Yeah, well that’s, again I tried to use that dichotomy in the song that winners take the praise of saying that they worked hard for it, but losers never take that blame. Right place at the right time. That explains so many of them, Milli Vanilli, how do you justify any of them? And I get even more annoyed at the calculated ones with pretense. I mean, to me, Vanilla Ice isn’t so offensive because he’s not pretending to be anything else. It’s the ones that are just as formulaic but pretend to be rebels and pretend to be rock and roll outlaws with leather jackets and everything. But at the same time they’re at least as formulaic as Vanilla Ice ever is, so they tend to annoy me much more than true pop group. That doesn’t offend me, because it is, it’s just what it is.

Marc Allan: Do you have anybody in mind there?

Neil Peart: Well, I mean the whole light metal syndrome, the Metal Moose, you know, that was all very calculated to create an image of rebellion, when at the same time the record company was pulling the strings and telling them what songs to record and how to record them. And the whole thing was just a complete factory, but it was given the guise of being rebellion. And George Michael’s another example, too. He’s not content with just being a pop star. He has to pretend to be something more.

Marc Allan: Light metal, are we talking like Poison, Warrant, stuff like that, or?

Neil Peart: Yeah, Bon Jovi I think is a pretty good example.

Marc Allan: Yeah, I definitely agree . And one of the, obviously the new areas you’re exploring on the record is rap.

Neil Peart: Mm .

Marc Allan: How’s that goin’ over?

Neil Peart: Well, as you’ll understand, I think from a writing point of view I want to do it because it’s so much fun. I was hearing some of the better rap music and I was thinking that, you know, when it is creative it’s a lotta fun to do. So I actually gave the song to the guys without that section and then later came to them, “I have this little thing, you know. “Maybe this is crazy, “but tell me what you think about it.” And fortunately they were open enough to be experimental with it. So it got used. But we weren’t sure how to handle it, really. We liked the idea of it and we were interested in doing it, but we thought, well, should we get a real rapper to do it? We even experimented with using a female voice just to give a different slant on it. Because we didn’t want it to be satire, but at the same time we didn’t want it to be a hokey imitation. And then in the final analysis through all the experiments we had the treated version of Geddy’s voice, seemed to have the right persona of a very cool, laid back person just delivering this little speech. And it seemed to work the best. Also, sonically, where if you just listened to the song go by, it was more pleasing to listen to.

Marc Allan: Yeah, I wondered if that was his voice. It’s hard to tell.

Neil Peart: Yeah, well, it’s beautifully treated and it’s harmonized but it’s not slowed down so the phrasing remains the same rhythmically. So it’s quite sophisticated technologically, how it was done. And in the final analysis, too, when he was delivering it, he was hearing the affected voice, so he tended to adopt the persona of that voice. So it seemed to be the most successful way to put it across.

Marc Allan: Let’s talk about “Heresy” for a minute. I thought that was a real interesting approach to what has happened in Eastern Europe

Neil Peart: Right.

Marc Allan: Over the past few years. It seems to me that, I’m wondering, you raise a lotta questions there. Like you said, you’re raising questions more these days. I’m wondering, should anybody pay, can anybody pay?

Neil Peart: No and that’s the sad part of it. Whenever a huge mistake has been perpetrated like that on the human race, or certainly the events in Europe of the late ’30s were another example, where war crime trials and all that are one thing. But it doesn’t really correct the problem. It doesn’t, all those people’s lives are not improved or returned to them. And that was the aspect of it that bothered me. And the question that I had to raise was, do we have to be forgiving? I suppose we do, because there’s nothing else to do. Although forgiveness is not really the right response, because it’s, the enormity of the crime against so many lives to me is mind-boggling. Although that seemed to be completely ignored in the euphoria of the moment. People were glad, obviously, and so they should be. They were glad to be free, free at last was the phrase. At the same time I couldn’t help looking at the last 80 years and four generations of people in Eastern Europe and throughout Soviet Russia whose lives had been unnecessarily made worse or in some cases ended, just because of a bad idea, you know? It seems so ludicrous, but that’s what it was.

Marc Allan: Are there any plans to tour over there, ’cause I would be very interested to hear how they react to a song–

Neil Peart: Yeah, we’re very keen to get Berlin on the tour this time, just because we’ve never been there. But as far as touring in Eastern Europe, we could really keep ourselves so busy just in North America that, for us, we get over to Western Europe every second tour basically. And we probably will be there next spring, but I don’t think we’ll try to play explorers and head off to Romania and Bulgaria and stuff. I’ve traveled through some of those places on my own and would certainly do so again, but working in a place is no way to see it, for one thing, and for another thing, if we have to work I’d rather work under the best possible circumstances rather than make do. So I will, I’ll travel under horrible circumstances but I’d rather work under close to perfect.

Marc Allan: Good plan, a couple other things. I’ll let you go.

Neil Peart: Sure.

Marc Allan: Last time we talked you were exploring art museums

Neil Peart: Yeah.

Marc Allan: Of the U.S. How did that go?

Neil Peart: Oh, very well. Actually I plan to continue that facet of my education on this tour, too. So it gave me something really interesting to do on the last tour that also gave me a sense of accomplishment at the end of it, which touring doesn’t always lend to me these days. So I did learn a lot about American painting and visited a lot of great museums. And like I say, I plan to continue that.

Marc Allan: Was there anything special that sticks out in your mind, that you saw?

Neil Peart: So much, I mean nearly every day I was at the local city’s art museum. But just a real love for American painting that I hadn’t been exposed to before. I’d seen a lot of Canadian and a lot of European, and it was just kind of a hole in my art education. So as far as, do you mean particular people or eras?

Marc Allan: Particular, the paintings or people or museums or anything like that.

Neil Peart: Yeah, gee, so many great ones and unexpected places. Richmond, Virginia for instance has a fabulous art museum that I wouldn’t have expected. Columbus has a really nice one too. I really like the ’20s and ’30s sort of Post-Impressionist style of painting. So I think going to the Chicago Art Institute and seeing the, Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks.”

Marc Allan: Yeah.

Neil Peart: That’s one that I really love, so seeing it for real was a real treat.

Marc Allan: You don’t happen to know where you went when you were at Indianapolis, do you?

Neil Peart: I don’t think I had time. Actually the last museum I went to in Indianapolis was the Indy 500 one .

Marc Allan: Oh , I see, so another part of your education.

Neil Peart: Yeah.

Marc Allan: And you had mentioned that you had been writing a lot of prose at the time. Are you still working on prose?

Neil Peart: Yes, in fact that was one of the things I had to sacrifice for the sake of this tour. This fall one of my projects was going to be another prose project, but yeah, I mentioned I do a lot of traveling around the world, and most of it by bicycle. So I tend to collect my impressions while I’m on a trip like that, and then put it into prose afterward, just for friends and fellow travelers, but with a view toward learning how to do it and learning the craft. So again, I’m happy with the time spent. I feel that I’ve learned a lot about it, so I’m happy to do it on my own, really, and not in the public eye. But it’s one good comparison with lyrics, is that I did all my growing up in public, so to speak. All my lyrics from when, to my mind, I was a little kid, all those songs are still out there. Where prose even from a couple years ago, it makes me wince now, just as early lyrics do. So I’m really glad that the prose, I can do on my own and hopefully work up to a level that I will feel that I can share it.

Marc Allan: Finally, I’m not sure if we talked about this last time. Are you married?

Neil Peart: Yeah.

Marc Allan: What kind of music did you have played at your wedding? I know this is a goofy question.

Neil Peart: Oh, I never had a wedding.

Marc Allan: Oh, you didn’t have a wedding?

Neil Peart: No.

Marc Allan: Okay, all right .

Neil Peart: Just part of the individualist ethics, you know, that you’re not allowed to have anybody else tell you you’re married. So we stayed away from church and state .

Marc Allan: Uh-huh, oh okay . So it’s common-law more than anything?

Neil Peart: Yeah.

Marc Allan: Oh, I see. I have a habit of just asking people, ’cause I always think, if you have a wedding, if professional musicians have a wedding, what kind of music

Neil Peart: Yeah.

Marc Allan: Do they play that would possibly be entertaining or interesting enough for them to wanna hear?

Neil Peart: Yeah, and really there isn’t a lotta choice. “Oh, we had the Carpenters .”

Marc Allan: Anything else you wanna tell people about the tour or the album or what you’re up to?

Neil Peart: Jesus, there’s so much to say when a question like that comes up. I hardly know where to begin. I consider myself a pawn in the hands of the interviewer. The tour has been very much restructured. In the visual sense it’s completely new, which pleases us. And musically also it’s, a lot of old and new things have been woven into it. And we have the mother of all medleys in our show now, that we’ve taken bits and pieces of songs that we haven’t played for years and years. And we take the parts that we still like or some songs that we had to drop this time to make room for new ones, if there was a part of it that we liked, we’d keep it and throw it in this monster medley. So we have a medley now that’s longer than some bands’ set I think.

Marc Allan: And are you still doing “Red Barchetta?”

Neil Peart: No actually, that was one of the unfortunate sacrifices, but we kept part of it.

Marc Allan: Oh, okay, so that’ll make it in the medley?

Neil Peart: Yeah.

Marc Allan: Oh, all right.

Neil Peart: Yeah, and even songs from the first and second album that we haven’t played for literally 10 years, we scavenged some bits and pieces of, so we’ve created a real monster but it gives us a lotta pleasure, so I think it might the audience too.

Marc Allan: Okay, well, I appreciate your time. Always fun to talk to you and I’ll see you when you’re here, I guess.

Neil Peart: Okay, thanks a lot, Marc.

Marc Allan: Take care, bye.

Neil Peart: Bye.