The band that Neil Peart considered a rock “corporation”
From day one, Rush were never in music for the business side of things. Throughout their time together, the Canadian power trio were known for pushing their sound into whatever genre they could think of, all for the love of hearing what they could do outside of the typical meat-and-potatoes rock and roll. While Neil Peart may have been responsible for upping the ante when he joined the group, he admitted that touring with one legend made him see the corporate side of life.
When the trio began playing, it looked like they were bound to follow in the footsteps of their idols like The Who and Led Zeppelin. While their debut album showcased their penchant for blues rock in the vein of the 1960s British blues acts, Peart joining on Fly By Night marked a change of the guard, writing the lyrics and coming up with intricate sections that set them on the path to progressive giants.
Even though the band were slowly on the rise, most artists never wanted to take them out on the road with them. While Rush were still honing their craft and trying to make ends meet on the road, another group out of New York was building their audience one show at a time, clad in lavish stage makeup.
A few years Rush’s senior, Kiss were making a name for themselves as one of the most incredible live acts in the world at the time, turning their show into a massive circus whenever they played. Even though Rush’s progressive tendencies had little in common with the standard rock and roll of the hard rockers, Gene Simmons was the first to see a spark in them, telling his manager that he wanted the band to open on every leg of their Canadian tour.
While Rush had been local heroes until then, this would be one of the first times playing for arenas of people, fitting their complex takes on rock and roll into stadiums worldwide. Although Peart thought highly of Kiss for giving them a shot and had fond memories of working with drummer Peter Criss and guitarist Ace Frehley, he often said they worked better as a business than a band.
When discussing the group’s salad days, Peart said that both Simmons and frontman Paul Stanley had a more clinical approach to their music, saying, “Kiss always were a perfectly focused corporation and in those days I saw Gene Simmons, his notebook of all the costumes for Kiss from their high school days. Him and Paul knew exactly what they were doing and how they were gonna do it. For the soft-hearted ones like Ace and Peter, you know, they couldn’t play that role with that same cynicism, and they became damaged by it in a tragic way.”
As Rush began to spread out even more, there were moments when their friends started to doubt their career, with Stanley not understanding where they were going on Caress of Steel. For all of their experimentation, though, Rush would eventually find their niche audience one album after another, with 2112 becoming one of the high watermarks of their career.
Peart even found some time to poke fun at their famous friends, writing ‘The Spirit of Radio’ when dissecting the cookie-cutter banter Stanley would say at every show, representing the “sound of salesmen”. Kiss may have been looking to get the audience’s attention at all costs, but Rush knew that by playing to the best of their ability and testing their limits, their audience would come along for the ride with them.
