[NEWS, WEATHER, and SPORTS - April 26, 2006]
UPDATE - 5/22@3:12PM: In a May 2006 interview with entertainment newspaper More Sugar, Geddy Lee stated that he anticipates a new album by early 2007 and a tour shortly after.
Neil Peart has updated the "News" section of his website for the first time since January. He writes about meeting with Geddy and Alex in the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec in early March to discuss the next album. Back in February, a lucky fan ran into Alex at The Orbit Room and learned from Alex that they had 6 songs sketched out already at that point. Apparently Alex brought a CD with the song sketches on them with him to the meeting with Neil and Geddy. Here's what Neil had to say about the songs:
... We gathered before the fire in the living room and started listening. As the songs played out, the response we all shared was a sense of clarity - for Alex and Geddy, playing the songs for me that first time threw their strengths and weaknesses into sharp contrast, and they kept saying things like, "I know what we have to do here." Same for me, lyrically - I was very gratified to hear parts that worked, saying "Yeah" when I heard Geddy sing a line just perfectly, while also knowing right away what I could improve upon.
There were five song sketches - guitar, vocals, and drum machine - and I liked them all. I also noticed those songs already seemed to have a sort of unity, a stylistic approach of chord structures, rhythms, and vocal delivery that I could only describe as "spiritual." I'll say no more about that aspect until we get farther into it, but it was wonderful that after thirty years of working together, we could still find different paths to explore together. ...
Neil only mentions 5 songs so perhaps one was dropped or is still a work in progress. He sounds very pumped - which is a good thing. What I thought was really interesting was his description of the stylistic unity of the songs as "spiritual". He then had this to say as to how the recording process will proceed. It looks like they'll be in the studio in May:
... So now I'm going to spend the month of May in Toronto, where we have rented a small studio. It will be great to have the opportunity to work together on those songs, and hopefully some new ones, too. For me, after spending more than a year working on my book, Roadshow, it will be nice to take off the "author" hat (BMW Motorcycles baseball cap) and put on my "lyricist" hat (the old cowboy special, given to me by a fan in Dallas, that I always think helps keep my versifying down-to-earth) and my "drummer" hat (African prayer cap).
I like all of those hats, and all of those jobs, but it's especially the drumming I'm looking forward to right now. Lately I've been getting all inspired about "hitting things with sticks," driving around listening to Steve Smith's recorded work (to keep me humble) and enjoying a couple of sessions of "drum duets" with my friends Chris Stankee and Gregg Bissonette (another humbling, but inspiring experience). ...
This is all very good news.
Related Posts:
[Close encounters of the Alex Lifeson kind ... and new album news]
[New album, tour and book: NeilPeart.net News Update!]
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