The American radio station that helped launch Rush
There has never been a band that seemed like commercial poison more than Rush.
That’s not to take away from any of the members’ talent, but when looking at how the band worked out all of their parts and stretched their songs to massive lengths, it’s not like any of them were willing to compromise when their record label asked them to start thinking about some singles. They were going to do things their way, but even if the rest of the world wasn’t paying attention, all they needed was the right people in their corner.
But it’s not like the band was fated for success from the first time they jammed together. The Canadian power trio didn’t even have Neil Peart in the band yet, and while John Rutsey was a perfectly serviceable drummer for his time, the idea of him being the band’s percussionist for the rest of their days would have been one of the most glorious mistakes in the history of rock and roll.
Still, it’s not like Rutsey didn’t have a few upsides whenever he played. He had a decent sense of groove when they started performing, and he was the one holding court as Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee primarily stood to the side, but this isn’t exactly a version of the band that anyone would ever see again once they got out of their old stomping grounds and started taking a few more risks.
Because, friends, Rush’s debut album is a fascinating listen, knowing what we know now about the band. They were clearly talented enough for primetime on their first record, but since they were still pretty heavily influenced by the likes of Led Zeppelin and Humble Pie, they are wearing a lot of their influences on their sleeves far too much, to the point where you’d be forgiven for thinking that Lee was trying on his best Robert Plant impression on tunes like ‘Finding My Way’.
This version of the band probably wouldn’t have turned into one of the greatest prog bands in the world, but they did have one saviour outside of the Great White North. They were already gaining a tiny bit of traction off the single ‘Working Man’, but when Donna Halper first heard the song while flipping through new material at WMMS in Cleveland, she realised that she had potentially found one of the greatest bands no one had heard of.
As any Spinal Tap fan knows, Cleveland is a rock and roll town, and when Halper played ‘Working Man’ for the first time, the phone lines lit up, recalling, “We were always looking for bathroom songs, meaning if you needed to answer the call of nature, the record wouldn’t run out. I get something from Canada and think ‘This is a perfect record for Cleveland.’ Back then, it was a factory town. The song ‘Working Man’, every single person felt like that. I put it on, the phone lines light up: ‘When’s the new Led Zeppelin album coming out?’ Nope, not a new Led Zeppelin album. [It’s a] Canadian band, Rush.”
While that helped the band get their foot in the door, they were still in for an uphill battle once they hit the touring circuit. Playing to giant crowds opening for the likes of Kiss and Uriah Heep was going to be more than a little bit of a culture shock, but even when they were making the most out-there songs on Caress of Steel, they were willing to go down swinging with whatever crazy idea popped into their head next.
But even for as progressive as they would get, it’s all thanks to Halper that ‘Working Man’ remained one of their concert staples all the way up to the very end of their time together. It wasn’t the kind of progressive rock they would do later, but it was the kind of concert staple that made everyone hear how much power could come out of just three people.
