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Interview with Neil Peart By Malcolm Dome
[ Taken from Metal Hammer -- April 25th 1988 ]
How do you think people perceive you as a person and as a musician?
I regard that question as irrelevant to my position as a musician. Maybe you
should ask me if I care?
OK. How do you think people look upon Rush as a band?
It's so difficult to generalise about something like that. Even if you accept
that there are about a million people who would be considered fans of the
band, they probably have a variety of reasons for liking us and it's beyond
my presumption to question their positive attitude towards us. As for the
rest of the world and the reasons they don't like us... again it's an
impossibility to state what these are.
You are a band who've changed considerably over the years, yet have retained
the faith of most of your original audience. Does that surprise you?
The fact that we've developed and changed so much yet held onto our audience
isn't that remarkable if you consider that what we've done has been an honest
response to situations around us. We started out as fans of the late Sixties
style of music, which was dominated by the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Cream --
musicians. I was personally inspired by the Who, they were the first band to
make me wanna play drums and write songs. At that time it was really the music
that mattered and the idea of formulae for making music, record companies
running things, or radio stations 'formatting' was totally alien. Such things
were never considered back then. Sure, you realised that if you were in a band
that didn't play Top 40 music then you might not get so many gigs... but then
you were going to school at that point anyway! You just played the music you
liked and let it go at that.
That's where our musical values were forged, but because we stayed interested
in music and our music stayed open as a band we were able to respond in the
late Seventies as fans when the idea of minimalism came to the fore. Thus,
when the best emerged from the dross, the likes of Talking Heads and the
Police, we were able to take its influence into our format. And the same
occurred again, when the second generation of this movement such as U2 and
Simple Minds came along -- as genuine listeners we had to be influenced by
them. In many ways we are a big musical sponge, reacting to the times in a
genuinely interested fashion. We are not bandwagon jumpers like so many
others. Even in the Sixties there were loads of acts who would happily jump
from bandwagon to bandwagon; the Beatles certainly did this from time to time.
They'd be at a loss, and then look around at what was happening; I reckon
they'd say something like, "Hey, that sound's good, let's get into that!"
Where do your lyrical influences emanate from?
My influences are very nebulous. They come from growing up, it's kinda like my
musical stylistic evolution. I started out, of course, with a lot of fantasy
and because I was a post-adolescent this reflected my interest and
sensibilities at the time. Everything was dressed up in a lot of ornate
imagery. From there I moved onto allegory and symbolism, dressing up big
themes in symbolic characters, none of which I have any use for these days. I
believe that I've grown out of such a style both as a person and a writer.
I grew from this into modern fiction, dealing more with reality and using a
clear, concise language. Not a lot of this has anything to do with verse, it's
more prose form, especially North American writers. These days I read a lot
less fiction. I'm much more into non-fiction, particularly history and
sociology, geography and the world around me. If I had to define that part of
fiction which has had the most profound influence on me, though, it would
definitely be the 1920's and 1930's American writers, people such as William
Faulkener, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Their whole ethic was
dealing with reality and the world in which they found themselves rather than
gothic romances, sci-fi or fantasy. At the same time, they had a very romantic
sensibility and tackled the world with a sense of love. Even when there was
cynicism involved, the darkness was still presented in a stylistically
beautiful manner. It became a sort of romantic realism to me.
Where did you draw your lyrical themes for the lates Rush LP ('Hold Your
Fire') from?
Well, firstly let me say that I care about anything I go to the trouble of
writing about. I get a lot of response about our most recent album from people
who regard the lyrics as highly personal, which is a compliment but totally
untrue in many respects. I deal on the record with a lot of emotions and
intimate things and a lot of relationship ideas, but they're all taken from
other people. If I chose to write them from the perspective of the 'first
person singular' then it was because that was the most effective way of
transmitting my thoughts.
OK, in general terms where do you find the inspiration for songs?
My subject matter is drawn from other people, although it's nice to find a
personal parallel if something upsets me. Anger is always a big motivation,
and outrage gets me all fired up. But one thing I particularly hate is
confessional lyrics, the one where people reach down inside their tormented
souls and tell me how much they hurt -- that's really selfish and petty! If
you have all that pain, by all means express it but be a little self absorbed
about it and look around you at other people, because everyone has pain and
frustration and you can find parallels if you look for them. For example, the
song 'Distant Early Warning' (from the 'Power Windows' LP) contains the line
'The world weighs on my shoulders,' which is an expression of worldly
compassion that any sensitive person feels occasionally. You feel so rotten,
because the world is such a mess, so many people are starving and unhappy.
It's an extreme that represents a feeling most people have from time to time.
Yet I certainly wasn't going to put it in terms like 'Oh, I'm so depressed.' I
wanted to get across the point of world-weariness and sadness rather than
self-pity.
Personally, I remain essentially an idealist and haven't been totally
disillusioned. As soon as I started to realise that it wasn't a perfect world,
I decided to try and make at least a part of it perfect. Yet that does become
such a painful and one-sided, fruitless crusade after a while. The rest of the
world is sceptical at best and usually cynical, so there has to be a meeting
ground if I want any improvements and this stretches from musical morality to
environmental consciousness. The song 'Second Nature' from 'HYF' expresses
such a belief, because to me it seems so obvious that we should wish our
cities to be as nice as our forests and that people should behave in a humane
fashion -- yet this is also clearly a naive and laughable assumption. I want a
perfect world and can be bothered to do something about it, yet I can't do it
on my own. So, even if you don't want the things that I do, at least let's
make a deal and go for some improvement at least. But you shouldn't just
scream about it in a song. If you really care about a cause then get involved
with people who are doing something about it, people who are self-actuating
and are actively working to improve things. That's what I do in my own time,
without any clarion call for publicity. I go out into the dirty world.
On the subject of music and charities, what's your opinion on the preponderance
of charity concerts across the world?
I get so impatient with the pop side of causes, the whole sensibility of,
"Let's get together and change things" because these people just do not know
what they're talking about and don't take the trouble to find out how they can
really change something. It's a Sixties mentality -- it had no action then,
and has no action now. It's just sound and fury. And, let's be honest, how
many of these people are only lending their names as a career move?!
Geddy was involved with the 'Northern Lights' charity record here in Canada,
although Rush weren't invited to participate in the 'Live Aid' event -- mainly
because if you look at the guest list, it was very much and 'in-crowd'
situation. We didn't refuse to take part because of any principles. Mind you,
I wouldn't have been happy being part of this scenario. Those stars should
have shut up and just given over their money if they were genuine. I recall
that 'Tears For Fears,' who made a musical and artistic decision to pull out
of the concert, were subsequently accused of killing children in Africa --
what a shockingly irresponsible and stupid attitude to take towards the band.
But I have nothing bad whatsoever to say about Bob Geldof; he sacrificed his
health, his career, everything for something he believed in. But others around
him got involved for their own reasons. Some of those involved in 'Northern
Lights' were actually quoted as saying that their managers told them to get
down to the recording sessions because it would be a good career move! What a
farce!
I don't believe that all this ballyhoo changed anything. Even now, trucks full
of food are blasting through Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, trying to get to the
Sudan and Ethiopia and they're being robbed and shot at and turned back. I was
in East Africa last Autumn, so I got a first-hand insight into what's going
on and whilst I was there no less than 55 trucks laden with food were stuck in
Uganda, with no was through because of the political situation. It's not a
lack of food, nor a drought that's causing the problems, but civil war!
People are starving others deliberately and how do you change that via a rock
concert?! I don't decry charity causes, but if someone were to ask me to do a
concert in aid of Ethiopia I'd say NO! I would quite happily donate some money
or do anything else that might help, but I believe you have to get involved
far more then just giving money to salve your conscience... even that type of
charity is so negative because it's self-serving and shallow.
You seem to shun the usual excesses of rock stardom...
Well, I never wanted to be famous and people just don't seem to understand
that. All I wanted was to be a musician, to be good at playing my chosen
instrument. You read a lot of interviews with musicians who claim that what
inspired them to get into bands in the first place was seeing the Beatles
playing on the 'Ed Sullivan' American TV show back in the early Sixties. And I
can't understand people who saw someone on TV and then decided they wanted to
play music! That's so far removed from any of my responses to what I wanted
to do or where I wanted to be. And my first glimmers of fame really just left
me feeling that it was a weird scene. It always makes me very uncomfortable.
When I first joined the band (1974) I was totally unknown because I hadn't
played on the first album ('Rush' which featured John Rutsey on drums), but
there was already a fan base building so a few kids would turn up at the
backstage door waiting for Geddy and Alex, and even though they weren't
jumping on me because they didn't know who I was, nonetheless I felt very
strange. Fame is the sort of thing imposed by the music industry because back
in the Fifties they didn't know how to sell rock'n'roll music. They just
looked at the way the movie industry had sold personalities by creating
larger-than-life screen gods and godesses, glamorous beings who were sold
to the public as something better than they were. The same thing happened
with music, and the sad thing is that the musicians went along with it.
Inevitably, it led to a whole host of casualties, people like Hendrix and
Keith Moon who were killed by fame because as insecure people they couldn't
deal with it! All that alienation and artificial reality set up between them
and the real world is frightening. Once you lose contact with reality, how on
earth do you get it back? There are those whose only source of self-esteem
comes from others... and then one day they look down inside themselves and
it's no longer there. They've been depending on various escapes for too long
and suddenly they have to face their own alienation, and with someone like
Hendrix who lived a larger-than-life existence, that can be enormous. Of
course, some do survive, which is fortunate, and even under the influence of
drugs and alchohol and so forth they are brilliant enough to make good music,
like for example Pete Townshend. But these people are rare.
In the late Seventies, the demand for us was getting ever greater and we
hadn't yet learnt to say 'no' and there was a period when we had no days off
to breathe. We did show after show on the 'Farewell To Kings' tour, driving
ourselves everywhere; in fact we renamed it the 'Drive Till You Die Tour.'
We'd play a date, drive 300 miles with no chance to rest and do another gig.
From the U.S. we came straight to Britain, did some more shows and then went
into Rockfield Studios (Wales) to record 'Hemispheres!' That was the turning
point, we felt so much like machines, and all of us were crippled by that. In
some ways the scars are still visible. The more fame we got, the more
uncomfortable I became, until I had to overreact and refuse to have pictures
taken or have anything to do with the machinery because it was taking over.
As a musician all you want to do is remain intact, but as a writer I needed to
maintain objectivity, contact and anonymity. As a listener you learn a lot
more than as a talker, yet if you're sitting with a group of people, you can't
just sit back and soak up the vibes if you're the center of attention. Fame
was just a negative factor on me as a person and as a professional and I had
to push it all away.
I guess there is an exhibitionist aspect of me; you have to have this element
to appear onstage and it comes out of me for the two hours or so that I play
each night. Basically on the road, the day builds up to this and then winds
down from it. Our working day is really so regular and normal in that it's
and eight hour day in spite of the fact that it's not a 9 to 5 job. Still, we
go into work at 4 pm and finish at midnight. To me, it seems so natural. I
get up to go to work, do my job and then go home. But when barriers start
getting thrown up around you and you start having security to keep people
from getting too close then you no longer have freedom of action. You then
begin to feel imprisoned against your will and feel as if you're in a fish
bowl. It all begins to get a little predatory and you are the prey! Yet try to
explain all these things rationally to people is impossible, because it's so
far outside their experience. I don't feel I deserve all this adulation, I
just do a job of work, and if you enjoy it then that's great. It's an
exchange; if I enjoy doing it and you enjoy the results then that should be
then end of it. You don't owe me a living, I'm not owed a loyal audience. But
then the reverse is also true! Humphrey Bogart once said that the only thing
he owes the audience is a good performance, but that always sounds so hard.
It's fruitless to try and explain. Most of the world doesn't and can't
understand.
Rush are one of the bands who do seem to command loyalty. Your audience is
prepared to give you a chance with new ideas. Does this feeling take the
pressure off slightly?
I think the pressure went off slightly after the success of '2112,' which was
the first of our records to pay for itself. Directly prior to this release we
were beginning to get a lot of presure and thumbs were starting to come down
on us trying to alter how we did things. I know that Polygram had already
written off '2112' as a failure before it came out and our management were
saying that we had to discuss with them the material we were using. Obviously,
we were still fighting back and that album was a statement of our rebellion,
but if it hadn't done well then we wouldn't have gone on.
But I think we believe that every album is gonna be the one that's gonna die
on us. Something like 'Power Windows' was an especial risk because we used
Peter Collins to produce it and also adopted quite a different set of
aesthetics than previously. We threw open a lot of barriers and over-produced
it like crazy. It could have died. Even 'Hold Your Fire' wasn't something we
felt sure about, because you can so easily get disappointed. For instance, I
thought that 'Grace Under Pressure' was the right album at the right time. It
was a time of crisis in the world and I was looking around and seeing my
friends unemployed and having a very bad time. Inflation was rampant
everywhere and people were basically in trouble. The world looked dark. That
album to me was a tremendous statement of compassion and empathy with the
world and I thought because of this it would have a similar accessability
as '2112' or 'Moving Pictures' in their own eras. But it didn't have the
desired impact because people do not wanna hear about sadness when reality is
so gloomy. In the 1930's people didn't clamour for sad stories but absolute
escapism and I realised that having the right feelings at the right time isn't
necessarily going to be the best way of dealing with something, particularly
in the so-called 'entertainment arts!'
You can never take anything for granted. Our third album 'Caress Of Steel,'
was another one that was so close to our hearts, yet the public never shared
our enthusiasm. So, with every new album we have a certain wariness about
public reaction. The same also holds true with songs. When a track doesn't
reach people it's really your fault and we've had that experience on almost
every album. I think you have to say that if a song doesn't connect with
people then the fault of accessability lies with communication. 'Emotion
Detector' is an example off 'Power Windows' and 'Kid Gloves' on 'Grace Under
Pressure.' We did our best but didn't achieve what we wanted. You pay a price
in that the song is lost and it leaves a little pang of sadness. But if I
couldn't look back at songs which were unsuccessful in certain terms then
perhaps there wouldn't be any chains of development of progression to other,
later numbers. 'Force Ten' on 'Hold...' is an amalgamation of ideas that goes
back to the last three or four albums, which at the time weren't necessarily
successful. 'Digital Man' on 'Signals' was our first attempt at juggling
totally disparate stylistic influences -- ska, synth-pop and hard rock and
at the time we ended up with three pieces of one song held together by Crazy
Glue. But we learnt from it and subsequently did 'Force Ten.' 'Countdown' is
another example of a song that didn't work at the time but led us forward. It
was our first attempt at a documentary, taking real life and putting it into a
song. It didn't work, but led us to 'Manhatten Project' on 'NYF' which has
[I think this should be 'Power Windows'] the correct balance between the
music, the lyrics and the theme.
Can you ever see yourself publishing a book of verse, or even a novel?
I would like to write a book one day, but it would probably be along the lines
of a travel book, influenced by the new wave of travel writers. Because with
something like that you can throw in anything you want. If you want to write a
poem then that can be stuck in. If you want to write an essay, a diatribe or a
vitriolic defamation of character, then they can fit in as well. This kind of
amorphous style makes me feel a lot more comfortable than slots do. Sometimes
even fiction can be a narrow constraint in the fact that you have to carry the
plot forward. And as with music, you can get stuck in a certain style with
fiction. Robert Ludlow had better never attempt an historical romance, nor
Stephen King a serious work of literature! The same applies of course with
most music. That's why Rush has been fortunate. Form our beginnings we decided
to remain amorphous. We were lucky in some respects, because every time we
felt confined by being only a three-piece technology has come along and opened
fresh avenues for us. Time-wise we've spanned a very fortunate era in
music -- although one definition of good fortune is when opportunity meets
preparation. That, I believe, certainly applies to us.
There is something strangely English about your music...
Well, our roots are fundamentally English, and as I said it was the
progressive era that first got me into music -- English musicians who could
play and weren't afraid to show it. In Britain the carrot-on-the-stick aspect
isn't as strong as in America. For most of the latter bands it's too tempting
to sell out. Even if they only play Top 40 covers in bars they make a good
living. Over in the U.K. the same criteria don't apply because most acts have
the attitude that they won't get anywhere anyway, so they might as well do
what they want and to hell with it. Most of the adventurism that I admire in
English music doesn't come from courage so much as default. Groups have
nothing to lose from being as crazy as possible, of being themselves, because
all they'll end up with anyway is a couple of pub gigs and perhaps get to
make a demo. So many English outfits are doomed to obscurity because they
have no outlets. Musically, it can lead to exciting developments, whereas
sociologically it's clearly very sad.
A final question. Each year the Rush name is initially associated with the
Castle Donington Festival. Would you ever consider playing it?
Well, it seems that our name is announced as a rumour every year and only then
do the organisers come to us and ask if we'd be interested. The plain truth
is that we'd never consider playing such an event. I've been in the audience
at stadium shows and they're awful. They're also a big rip-off, with no
humanity about them. It's like a mass, a mob and all they do is provide the
opportunity for a lot of people to make a lot of money. One of our roadcrew
freelanced for a band at Donington last year and he was telling us about the
screens erected to stop missiles being hurled onstage. Why put yourself
through that? We are happiest in arenas, that's our forte. Theatres are great,
but only if you wanna turn around and say, "I know that 12000 people wanna
see us, but the band only wants to play for 3000 kids." Who are you serving
with that attitude? Who are you doing it for? All the people who won't be
able to see you? For those people in the industry or with contacts to get
tickets? No, we know where we are at our best and that's in arenas, where we
intend to stay!
Interview transcribed by Andrew Brooks (arb@sat.dundee.ac.uk).
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