This coming Friday, March 21st Rush will be releasing a Rush 50 Super Deluxe Box Set compilation anthology in celebration of the band's 50th anniversary. Alex Lifeson was recently interviewed for Guitar Player magazine to discuss the box set and Rush's early career. Here he is talking about the band's disappointment around the lackluster response to their Caress of Steel album:
... Unfortunately, the musical growth wasn't always successful. The extended arrangements on tracks like "The Fountain of Lamneth" and "The Necromancer" were "something very new to us," Lifeson remembers. "It was, 'How do we put that together?' We were really feeling ourselves out. We were young and just trying to find the direction with that record." Not everybody liked it at the time, however. Reviews were mixed, and radio stations who had warmed to Fly by Night didn't find Caress of Steel as accessible. "That record didn't do very well," Lifeson acknowledges. Rush even called its subsequent road trek the Down the Tubes Tour because of the album's commercial failure. "People didn't respond to it. I remember playing Caress for Paul Stanley when we were touring with Kiss," Lifeson says. "We played it, and he had such a look on his face, like 'What the hell is this?' He started smiling and nodding, 'this is great guys...,' then nodding and quickly leaving. "We were quite disappointed with that, because we thought we'd made something really, really special." But their frustration with Steel's failure pushed them harder on their next album, 1976's 2112. ...
He then closed the interview with these remarks:
... "I go over to Geddy's house quite often," Lifeson says. "We're just gonna jam and cuck around. We wind up sitting on the couch and drinking coffee and laughing. That's our relationship, best buds. We'll always play together. We'll always do something musical together, I think. It doesn't matter whether people hear it or not."
You can read the entire interview online here. Rush 50 will be available in five distinct configurations, including the (1) Super Deluxe Edition ($374.98), (2) Rush Store Exclusive Super Deluxe Edition, (3) 7-LP Deluxe Edition ($249.98), (4) 4-CD Deluxe Edition ($99.98), and (5) Digital Edition ($26.49). The Rush Backstage Store exclusive edition includes an additional four bonus lithos showcasing Rush through time, newly illustrated by FANTOONS from the characters created for the graphic novel depicting the band in the '70s, '80s, '90s and 2000s. As mentioned above, Rush 50 will be officially released in 3 days on March 21st, and it can ordered via Amazon and other retailers. You can view all the details regarding the different configurations and what they include, along with the full tracklist at Rush.com.
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[Rush 50th anniversary Super Deluxe Box Set details, pricing info and release date]
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