‘Vapor Trails’: the album that saved Rush
For the longest time, it felt as though Rush were going to be making records forever. Ever since the massive success of 2112, the Canadian trio had seen it fit to expand their horizons however they could, knowing that their core fanbase would always embrace their wild new directions. Rush could have easily kept experimenting until the end of their days, but circumstances always change things slightly.
After coming off the tour for the album Test for Echo, the band planned to take a few weeks off before thinking about working on a new record. Only a few days into their break, though, Neil Peart was dealt every parent’s worst nightmare when taking his daughter to college. On her first day, she was involved in a tragic car accident and was killed instantly. After the memorials for his daughter, Peart thought it would be best to move out of Toronto to get away from all the reminders.
Just a few months after her death, though, Peart’s wife Jackie was diagnosed with cancer and passed away only a few months after her diagnosis. Instead of coming back to the band, Peart got on his motorcycle and proceeded to drive around North America, going on a sort of spiritual journey to find out what route he was taking in life.
In the documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, Alex Lifeson talked about how desensitising the experience was for the whole band, recalling: “Everything about the band ended at that moment. For the next few years, to tell you the truth, I hardly thought about music. I hardly played or even listened to music”. Although Rush were still icons in the rock community, any chance they played music together again was down to whether Peart felt up to it or not.
By the time he finally stopped riding, Peart talked about finding time to recover, meeting his second wife during the grieving process and returning to the band. When the trio sat in a room, though, it was still anyone’s guess whether they would make new music. While they set aside time at a studio to record a new album, Peart mentioned an anxiety that came with returning to the fold, saying, “There was an uncertainty. Can I write rock lyrics like it’s the most important thing in the world? Can I slave over and over on a drum part? I don’t know”.
What came out of those few months in the studio was a tale of recovery. Across Vapor Trails, Peart’s lyrics were much more open-hearted, writing songs like ‘One Little Victory’ and ‘How It Is’ about the nature of life and learning how to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The main deciding factor was playing live, though, with the band having jittery nerves during their first night together, with Geddy Lee recalling, “I think that was the first time we ever had a group hug. It wasn’t lost on us that getting to that point was almost impossible”. And while Peart might have been the most hesitant member to get things back on track, he was rejuvenated when he finally returned to his drum throne, saying to manager Ray Danniels after the first gig back, “It would have been a real shame if that never happened again”.
