The Rush song that turned Neil Peart into a “punk drummer”
Throughout their history, Rush was never afraid to toy with the sounds that made them famous. Although the progressive rock trio was looking to expand their creative palette through long, stretched-out songs, there were just as many projects where they began to go beyond what made them so special in the first place, bringing the sounds of classic rock and eventually synthesisers into the equation. Even though punk was considered the polar opposite of Rush, Neil Peart did take a few cues from the new wave of artists.
When looking at both genres back to back, though, Rush seems like the last band that should be trying their hand at making a punk rock statement. Since the group’s back catalogue has always been about throwing as many new ideas into the mix as possible, how did they adapt to the sounds of a genre that favours stripping away everything from the mix?
Considering where they had been for the past few years, though, Rush was already looking to leave some of their instrumental fluff behind. Although Hemispheres marked another bold step forward, they knew it would be unrealistic to try and equal it any time soon, with the live shows becoming more of a challenge trying to play every single part simultaneously.
Compared to the sounds of lavish arrangements, ‘The Spirit of Radio’ was the first time in ages that the group had written something suited for radio. Celebrating the concept of what the airwaves brought to them as kids, Neil Peart wrote a gripping tale about what music means to people, as well as the flaccid attempts made by artists to sell their souls to whoever happens to be listening.
Once the band started to lay down the basic track, Peart would also say that he responded to the punk movement by approaching the drum part. When speaking about the different patterns in the song, Peart would say that he loved the way the song moved into various musical styles, telling CBC, “The song itself, musically, is switching between radio stations, with a reggae section at the end, the second verse is new waves, I’m playing like a punk drummer there, and that was all intentional.”
Although Peart may have had punk as an inspiration, it was a much different flavour of punk than what got the ball rolling back in the late 1970s. Rather than the sharp sounds of The Clash or Sex Pistols, Peart was more of a fan of what The Police were doing around the same time, featuring Stewart Copeland teaching a clinic on how to serve the song on every one of their tracks.
When talking about their approach to the record, Geddy Lee would also say that there were many exciting bands on the scene they were pulling from, recounting in Beyond the Lighted Stage, “Some of the bands have gone back to basics, but those are the bands that can’t do anything but play basics. But all the more interesting bands seem to be developing and progressing into more interesting styles”.
That kind of reggae-influenced feel would also go on to inform the band’s following record, Moving Pictures, featuring bits and pieces of accessible prog rock sprinkled in amongst episodic songs like ‘The Camera Eye’. Rush may have a certain sweet spot for most fans, but their mentality was always about testing the limits of where three people could take traditional rock.
