The week's round of Geddy and Alex radio interviews is finally winding down. I managed to get my hands on 7 of the interviews which you can listen to yourself using the above player. Of all the interviews, the consensus seems to be that the WMMR interview with Geddy is by far the best and I tend to agree. I thought I'd give a summary of the more interesting bits of information gleaned from the interviews. Then I'll end off the post with some very cool Rush rumors regarding the album courtesy Power Windows! Here's my radio interview summary:
- There was a lot of praise for Nick Raskulinecz all around. Both Geddy and Alex echoed the sentiment that Nick pushed them and that Snakes & Arrows is among their best work.
- Alex confirmed that they were considering Bob Rock and Brian Eno as producers.
- Geddy confirms that every song on the new album has its own cover and we can expect another great stage show with new videos.
- Geddy did not deny the fact that the DVD album will be a limited edition of 25,000 copies. He also confirms that the DVD will contain a 45-minute making of documentary put together by Andrew MacNaughtan and that Andrew was there when they recorded the instrumental Malignant Narcissism.
- Geddy convinced Alex to record a piece where he plays acoustic guitar which became the 2-minute instrumental Hope.
- Far Cry came out of a quick jam session between Geddy and Alex.
- Other subjects touched upon: baseball, golf, Rock Hall of Fame, Alex's Ritz-Carlton incident, Rush fans, etc.
- Alex mentions that the new album has bits of the band's whole history in it and certain parts hearken back to early Rush.
- There's a lot of acoustic guitar on the album and much of the album was written on acoustic.
Now for the rumors ... Apparently Power Windows had a telephone conversation with someone yesterday who had heard the album and had some interesting tidbits to share. Here are the tidbits:
- Before the band interviewed Nick R, included on the shortlist of producers to be interviewed was Terry Brown.
- Nick R told the boyz when he signed on that they had to bring back keyboards and Taurus pedals, to reclaim their previous sound...the band had to rent the Taurus pedals from the company they had GIVEN them to so many years before.
- More details of the Malnar story Neil alluded to in his essay...Nick R asked Geddy if he had ever tried a fretless bass...Geddy hadn't so Nick got him one. Geddy was jamming away between takes, and Nick was amazed at how well he was playing as he had never owned a fretless bass, and hit "record" in the sound booth. He loved the result so much, that he brought in Neil and then Alex as well, and what resulted from the jam was Malignant Narcissism. My friend described it as "YYZ junior".
- The Main Monkey Business is one of their most complicated instrumentals ever. Alex reportedly joked "I can't play it, there's too many notes".
- WEA's A&R men are having trouble getting Far Cry played in some markets, as "classic rock" stations say it is "too hard". Accordingly, in those markets the A&R guys are pushing a track which starts off with acoustic guitar that builds and builds...basically more radio friendly (I can't remember the track title). So keep your ears out for a radio track other than Far Cry.
- The band is already talking about recording another album with Nick R soon. On a related note, they are even considering playing in festivals in Summer 2008, something they have heretofore avoided.
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