Yesterday I let you know that Rush is the subject of a 7-page cover feature in the July, 2012 issue of Classic Rock magazine. The cover (seen here) shows a great picture of the band with the tagline RUSH: Steampunks, Musical Scientists, Goofballs - The Rise and Rise of the World's Biggest Cult Band. John over at Cygnus-X1.net has transcribed the entire article and made it available online at this location. The article contains interviews with all three band members along with Rush documentary filmmaker Sam Dunn and producer Nick Raskulinecz. It mostly discusses the new album but they also touch on other various other subjects including the untimely passing of Rush photographer Andrew MacNaughtan, the Rush documentary Beyond The Lighted Stage, Alex's acting side projects and the band's future. Geddy recently re-watched the Rush documentary and had the following comments:

... I started seeing things in it that I hadn't noticed the first time," says Geddy, "listening to things a little differently, because when I saw it the first time I really didn't want to - it was hard to watch. Watching yourself talk about your life, it's not for me. But, my god, how strange to see your life up there on a television show in the middle of the night and I thought about all the different people that can't sleep and are having the same experience I am, but they're watching about my life. It's just so bizarre.

"Billy Corgan, he blew my mind. The things he was saying about his relationship with his mother and what Entre Nous meant to him, and even Trent Reznor - those things meant a lot to me. You don't start doing this for any other reasons but your own and, of course, 40 years later, you never expected that you'd still be doing it. And then to hear other people describe your work in such a serious light just makes you feel like you've lived a life and that's such a nice feeling." ...

Here's Neil on the passing of his friend Andrew MacNaughtan:

... "We were very close to him, Carrie and I, to him and his partner, Alex," says Peart. "It was devastating, but more disbelief really. Shocked. It's still setting in. Anyone who's lost someone will know that you keep seeing them. 'Wait, there's Andrew,' you know? I remember he and I attended the South Park Halloween party. This was back in '98. He was an SAS officer and I was Mandy, the English biker chick, a leather-clad, foam-enhanced drag queen. I stood seven-feet tall under a gigantic blonde bouffant. It's weird, I just passed the store the other day. We went to get foam at this place at the bottom of La Brea. Andrew and I went there to buy the padding, then up to Hollywood to get the wig." ...

Neil Peart reveals that the nod to Bastille Day in Headlong Flight was deliberate:

... Long-term fans of the band will find much to love: the thundering Headlong Flight recalls, in part, Bastille Day, while the expansive, multi-layered and intricate title track is as good as anything the band has ever recorded.

Peart says he hopes that song will be in their live show forever. "What was it that Oscar Wilde said: self-plagiarism is style?" says Peart. "We certainly do a few tongue-in-cheek nods to Bastille Day in Headlong Flight - that's deliberate. ...

And the article closes with these words from Geddy:

... "When we were living at the London Hotel here, while we're mixing the first time around before Andrew passed, right around two or three in the morning I'd be just drifting off to sleep and I'd hear this acoustic guitar playing and I'd be, 'I know that sound.' And Big Al would be out on his balcony, which was right underneath mine - he'd had some refreshment, apparently - and he'd be playing to LA. He plays all the time.

"And I would just lie there in the darkness and look up at the ceiling with this huge smile on my face every night even if he had just woken me up. I knew the headspace he was in and I knew what he was doing - he was being Al and he was playing to LA. Those moments are forever - so sweet, so funny."

The magazine also contains a sidebar discussing Alex Lifeson's role of Dr. Fig in Toronto filmmaker Rob Heydon's indie film Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy. And there's a glowing review of the Clockwork Angels album which reviewer Dave Everley gives a 9 out of 10. You can read the entire article at this link.

NOTE: Posts over 10 years old are partially archived. All comments, images and other embedded media have been removed.