Geddy Lee explains how KISS helped Rush learn how to put on a show
Although they are now defunct, Canadian trio Rush remain one of the most lauded groups of the prog rock genre. Together, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and the late Neil Peart created cerebral yet otherworldly music that helped save millions from everyday life’s struggles and propel them into a fantasy land boasting the absence of the many tribulations of human existence. From ‘Spirit of the Radio’ to ‘Roll the Bones’, there’s a reason that Rush’s fanbase is so strong.
Rush’s career is the stuff of legend, and the trio experienced many incredible times together. For frontman Geddy Lee, their 1975 US tour with hard rockers KISS is one of the highlights, and during an interview the band gave with CBS in 2010, they recalled the tour and the great lessons they learnt from KISS, which Lee revealed to include how to put on a proper show.
Guitarist Alex Lifeson first mentioned the tour with KISS, remembering how great KISS were to work with: “We toured with them on their first headlining tour in 1975. They were terrific, they were great to work with. We became very close on that tour.”
“We hung out a lot together. It was like one big family. We had a very small crew, obviously. It was an early time for us. We’ve got to see how hard they worked. I know Geddy said quite often that there’s not a harder working band than KISS. They really showed, we learned a lot from those guys,” Lifeson continued.
Following this, Geddy Lee revealed that Rush thought they might never get to tour the country in such an extensive way as on the KISS tour, so they took it all in their stead: “They were struggling too. It was their first headline tour. But it were small gigs, we were playing a lot of theatres. For us it was a dream because we were working regularly, which was awesome and travelling all around America probably for the first time, and in our minds we were like, ‘Well, we may never get back to half of these cities.'”
He then explained what they learnt from KISS was how to put on a real show, which all stems from a “great work ethic”. Detailing further, he said: “So we would keep the hotel keys and the things from the Holiday Inn, you know. So we’ve learned a lot about how hard you need to work to put on a show. That’s one thing they had, as Alex said, such a great work ethic. Regardless of what you think of them musically you have to respect them in terms of their work ethic.”
