By: Rick Landers
Rush
, a group of legendary proportions both individually and collectively have gathered up fans who have proven themselves to be loyal, sometimes fanatic, drawn powerfully to storied lyrics, clever melodic twists, and turbocharged riffs and hooks.
Serious Rush fans become knowledgeable aficionados of the group as a whole, the members as professional artists and performers, and have their own stories to tell of concerts, detailed accounts of Rush albums and songs, but more often than not, they listen and become immersed in the emotional heft of Rush music.
Few, dig deeper working to pull a drawstring around a group’s work, their touring schedules and experiences, and after nearly a decade, releasing a huge book of such import that it’s as much a tribute, as it’s a research study.
And so here we are, with a book of both physical and inspirational weight by authors, Skip Daly and Eric Hansen – Rush: Wandering the Face of the Earth (The Official Touring History 1968 -2015.
The first tip I got that a book was being considered was during a dinner I had with Skip Daly who had an idea that he wanted to write a book about his favorite group, Rush, and that it was an ambitious endeavor that he thought would most respectfully be done if he could get the group to give the concept an official thumbs’ up.
Later conversations suggested nailing it down as a Rush “blessed” tome, was challenging in that Rush members were hard at work on other projects, touring, family lives and all matters of being world-class musicians, and business men.
Step by step, Skip and Eric did the heavy lifting that such a major task demands. Skip and I’d talked about getting together to catch up on his and Eric’s book and my Guitar International magazine, of which Skip had offered up some excellent interviews during the course of our friendship. We continued to touch base periodically, but never managed to get our paths to cross to chat and chew to catch up on the book and how our lives were moving along.
When Skip let me know Rush: Wandering the Face of the Earth was a reality and it was soon to be released, I was surprised that he and Eric made it to the finish line, and more than that, it had been nine years since Skip and I’d first talked about a book about the Holy Triumvirate of Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee and Neil Peart.
So, here we are with a major new work in the world of rock and roll, that’s well-researched and detailed, as well as a wonderful good read! Skip Daly and Eric Hansen have laid down the gauntlet for future authors to attempt such a formidable piece of work on Rush or any other major artist or group for that matter. Magnificent lads…well done.
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Rick Landers: I recall talking with you several years ago, when your concept for this book seemed to be a dream that you were developing into a plan. How did that come about and when you first heard Rush, did their music grab you immediately or did it grow on you?
Skip Daly: Well, to answer those in reverse, I recall first hearing Rush sometime around 1982. It would have been around fifth grade for me, at a friend’s (William Salb) house. But it didn’t really resonate with me until some years later, after I was in high school and had developed an interest in popular music.
1988 was when Rush really “hit” me, and I have been a big fan ever since. As to the other question about how a plan developed, this project was conceived back in mid-2010, after the documentary film, Beyond The Lighted Stage, came out. That was when Eric (Hansen) and I started talking seriously about doing a book to document the group’s touring history.
From there, we had to write a first draft, develop our pitch, and then it took a solid 1-2 years for us to get approval from the band’s management team to actually work on it as a sanctioned thing, which led to our being able to interview crew members, etcetera.
It was all quite a process, and an incredible learning experience as well.
Rush on stage March 11, 1977 in Upper Darby, PA. – Photo credit: Paul Toz
Eric Hansen: On my website Power Windows, I used to maintain an extensive Tour Archive where I curated Rush’s known tour dates and set lists going back to what I dubbed “The Early Days”.
Prior to the release of the documentary, Beyond The Lighted Stage, the “Early Days” was a relatively short list. Near the beginning of that film, we are shown flashes of clippings of then unknown tour dates that had never been shared online – and Skip and I noticed.
We started talking about those dates, investigating the shows and venues, and knew that we weren’t the only fans that had an interest in Rush’s tour history. That’s when we first started talking about putting this book together.
As far as getting into Rush, no it didn’t grab me immediately. I had a friend who was kind enough to dupe his Rush collection onto cassette for me, including my favorite dupe of Permanent Waves (side a)/Moving Pictures (side b). But, it wasn’t until 1987 that I became a true fanatic in every sense of the word with the release of Hold Your Fire. I bought it on its release day, and within weeks had worked backward through the rest of the catalog.
Rick: Have you always been writers in some fashion and what kinds of disciplines do you think it takes to not only write, but to create an assembly of ideas, plans and actions that must become exciting, yet kind of grueling to take a book as ambitious as yours to the finish line?
Skip Daly: I’ve always enjoyed writing, and – as you’re well aware – there’s this great web site called GuitarInternational.com that I have contributed articles and reviews to over the years [Laughs]. I think those exercises helped me develop a writing style and hone some chops. It’s just something that I enjoy doing, as a preferred method of expression.
I’m the guy at work who everyone complains about, because my emails tend toward being “long” [Laughs]. But writing really appeals to me as a form of expression. I like being able to organize my thoughts, and then lay out what I want to say, as opposed to, say, verbal expression…where you can’t revise – or take things back!
I’ve always wanted to write a book, but this is my first time as a published author. I hope to have the opportunity to publish another book at some point. As to other required disciplines, that’s an interesting question, and this book is really a different thing. By that, I mean that it has a narrative component, but the date listings and all the details we have crammed in there – that’s the culmination of thousands of hours of research and I might even be low-balling that!.
So, it required a huge amount of patience, attention to detail, and the determination to make sure we got things correct. Side note on that: With any project this vast, there are bound to be a few mistakes that slip in, and each one of those guts me when it comes to light – but we are tracking them for correction in the Second Printing!.
Rush on stage in Rush on stage March 11, 1977 in Upper Darby, PA. – Photo credit: Paul Toz
To your point about requisite “disciplines,” a project of this nature also requires a high degree of organizational skills. It’s a lot of data to keep track of, and it all has to fit together in the correct timeline.
I don’t know if this is a “discipline” per se, but persistence was also critical. We had to hang in there and keep plugging away for many years, including through times where it seemed as though the whole thing might die on the vine.
It took years to get the initial approval and then, near the end, it took years to get the band’s sign-off for publication. We used the time and kept working, but there was a lot of quiet persistence required. As they say, “when you’re going through Hell – keep going!”
Eric Hansen: I’m an avid reader, but never dreamed of writing a book, certainly not something this expansive. When gathering data for our book, I would try to read information and scan for key thoughts and ideas we could distill down, and feel I am very good at organizing and cataloging. This is especially true when it came to collecting interviews, previously published concert reviews, and the like. Perhaps the hardest part was starting the narrative sections.
I remember the first chapter I started writing, I was afraid to begin, as I was concerned that what I actually wrote wouldn’t be worthy. After discussing it with Skip he encouraged me to just brainstorm my thoughts onto paper, and edit later. Once that process started, it was hard to stop.
Rick: Being a fan of a rock group is one thing, but migrating to becoming more of an associate with people you’ve, maybe idolized over the years, allows opportunities to gain more personal insights into them, for better or worse, I suppose. Was there much collaboration with the members of Rush, and have you found a deeper appreciation of them as people, artists and business people?
Skip Daly: I obviously feel that Rush is an incredibly special band, otherwise I would have spent nine years of my life doing something else!. There has been so much written and stated about the music itself, how great they are as players, their longevity and success, etcetera, and all of that is true, but aside from what they did, the thing I always come back to is how they went about it.
They had integrity, good humor, and loyalty to their team. We’re talking about normal, hard-working, middle-class guys who ended up going to the top and staying there for over 40 years. It’s fairly anomalous in the rock and roll world to operate the way they operated, and to treat people the way they treated them.
We didn’t interact with the band themselves, so I can’t claim to know them as people or say they are associates in any way – I would never be so presumptuous. Our interactions were with the crew guys and the folks in the band’s management team – and I will say that I truly consider many of those people to be friends at this point, so that has been a joyous side effect of the project.
Alex Lifeson on stage in Philadelphia, PA (1986) – Photo credit: Laura Wright
We have always respected the band’s desire to remain detached from the project – they lived this for so long, and I have to imagine they’re likely tired of telling stories over and over. We wish them all the best in their well-earned retirement.
The important thing for us was knowing that we had their support and that we had the participation of their team, so that we could get the story right. That support gave us access to interview the crew, draw from never-before-published photographs, and things like that.
To your point about gaining a deeper appreciation, I will say that the interviews repeatedly reinforced that narrative of the band being “Grade A” human beings. I won’t say I was surprised by that, in and of itself, but the amount of positive stories and the degree to which that perception was constantly reinforced with every new person we spoke with … that surprised even me. At the end of the day, we hope we did right by the band. I think we did.
Eric Hansen: As Skip said, we didn’t have any interaction with the band themselves, but we did have the support of their management team from the beginning, which opened the doors to working with their touring crews from the last 45 years. A common thought we heard from multiple crew members, both past and near-present, is how genuine the members of Rush truly are. Skip and I worked hard to put together a book that we feel is worthy of the band and the reputation they exude.
Rick: So, how did you incorporate work on the book with your work life and family life, to keep it all balanced? Did you struggle or find it came natural for you to keep everything in perspective?
Skip Daly: It was definitely a struggle at times, and my wife deserves a massive amount of credit for being patient and allowing me the time to do this. I have four kids, so my house is on the edge of chaos most of the time. [Laughs]. But, I tried to do most of the work late at night, after people had gone off to bed.
I would suffer a bit the next morning, getting up for work and such, but I tried, as much as I could, to limit the amount of time that the project took away from my family. As long as I was the only one suffering, I could live with that.
I distinctly remember a conversation with my cousin, Pat, shortly after we started working on this, and his response to my “grand announcement” was “How are you going to do this? You have four kids!” I’m pleased to say that he is now enjoying the hell out of the book. A Win!
Geddy on stage in Philadelphia, PA (1986) – Photo credit: Laura Wright
Eric Hansen: Yeah this was lots of late nights after the kids went to bed. I have two daughters and when I started one was starting middle school while the other was starting high school. They are now both out of the house, so ironically I have more free time now to allocate to the next writing project!
Rick: At some point, I’d guess the development of such a voluminous book becomes a team effort. How would you describe how others were drawn into the mix?
Skip Daly: Absolutely! Nothing this vast happens in a vacuum, and it really “takes a village,” as they say. We had massive support from other fans, and folks would constantly be sending us new information, helping with research, etcetera. “Hey, do you guys have this old tour date?” – that kind of thing.
There was a central core of a few fanatics, and one guy in particular not only voluntarily assisted with some background research and proofreading, but also allowed us to use un-published interviews that he had conducted back in the 1980s with people who we couldn’t speak with. This was essential toward the goal of presenting a complete story. I mean, if I could have interviewed John Rutsey, I would have leapt at that opportunity, but sadly he passed away in 2008.
So, through this guy, we had access to an extensive, unpublished interview that was conducted with John in 1984, and things like that were key in filling in gaps.
I’m eternally grateful to the generosity of the fans who helped us make this into the book we wanted it to be.
Rush in Toronto (1976) – Photo credit: Donald Gadziola
Eric Hansen: Besides friends who were specifically helping with our research, the online Rush community loves to share, and I’m old friends with many of the other Rush webmasters and Rush Facebook groups. So, in addition to our own research, there was a constant awareness of new information which appeared online, and we frequently received details of any unearthed tour dates and rare photos, either through my website or one of the other sites on the web.
Rick: Tell us about your first Rush concert and any impact it had on you.
Skip Daly: May 5, 1990, on the “Presto” tour, at the old Cap Centre (R.I.P.) in Maryland. I was 18 and what can I say – I was blown away. I went with one of my best friends, Andy Yarrish, and we had “okay” seats, up in the 200s I think, on the side. It was a blast. I mean, Rush was the band – Geddy in particular – that turned me into a bass player, which, I’m happy to say, I still very much enjoy as a part of my life to this very day. I went on to see them at least once on every subsequent tour, for a total of 26 shows. It was always something to look forward to – the new album, the next tour. I miss that.
Eric Hansen: I became a fanatic when Hold Your Fire was released, but Rush didn’t bring that tour to my hometown of Denver. I had to wait until June 22, 1990, on the Presto tour. It was Rush’s first performance at Denver’s Fiddler’s Green Amphitheater. Making up for lost time, I saw every Rush concert they ever played there, as well as every show they ever played at both Red Rocks and eventually the Pepsi Center.
Rick: Writing a book that entails a lot of collaboration, dealing with others’ priorities and busy schedules, must have tested your mettle at times. Did you find it important, maybe critical to set the project aside to take a breather or was it a matter of keeping your head to the grindstone all those years? Ever think of giving it up?
Skip Daly: Very true. I definitely had to take breaks from it, but those happened somewhat organically, when we would find ourselves in a period of “hurry up and wait.” I tended to let the flow be dictated by whether or not there was something I needed to do at a given point in time.
I mean, we had three additional tours happen after we began work on the project, so those had to be documented too! I don’t know that I ever seriously thought of quitting, so much as there were definitely times when I thought it wasn’t going to come to fruition.
It took quite a while to get a final sign-off from the band, after we were done, and that was after we had already been asked to re-write the thing into a different format! There were times when I thought “Okay, we’re done!” and we weren’t. And then once we had the sign-off, there was the question of “Who will publish this thing?!”
Mark Irwin at Insight Editions was absolutely critical to this project. It would not have happened without him, and if anything had happened it would just be a shadow of what you have in your hands. He is a true fan and really got the project, and he protected it throughout the final editing, design, and layout process.
Rush in Toronto (1976) – Photo by: Donald Gadziola
Eric Hansen: The narrative parts of the book were finished fairly early on, whereas the tour date listing was constantly evolving. We naively hoped at one time that our book would be published in 2013, possibly to coincide with the Clockwork Angels Live tour video. The research never really stopped, however.
Rick: How about telling us about your own roads becoming professional musicians.
Skip Daly: Well, I’m not a professional musician – more a serious hobbyist. I’ve played bass for about 30 years. In my younger days, I played in local, original bands, and did a couple records, none of which anyone would have heard of. But I love to play, compose, and record.
In recent years, I’ve been playing in a local cover band (LateNightUnderground.com). Not to tie all things back to Rush, because I do enjoy quite a lot of other music, but one of the things I love about the recent interviews Geddy has done in conjunction with his own excellent Big Beautiful Book of Bass is how he speaks of “weekend warriors”, that is, folks who are not professional musicians, doing it for a living, but rather people who just genuinely love playing. Indeed, we’re talking about people who need that outlet and would go a little crazy without it. That’s me!
At the risk of sounding trite or cliché, playing music is a really powerful thing, and it’s a blessing to have it in your life, be it playing in front of 10,000 people, 10 people, or even just on your own in the basement. This is a good thing.
Eric Hansen: I used to play drums in high school, but never aspired to be in a band. Much later I took up the guitar, but I haven’t been able to dedicate the time required to become good enough to play in public.
Rick: Any funny moments along the way, writing the book or working with Rush during the course of nearly a decade?
Skip Daly: There have definitely been some, but many of them are just the stories that we were told by people along the way – many of which are in the book itself. More recently, there’s the story of Eric realizing 24 hours before our Toronto launch event that his passport had expired! Thankfully, he got that fixed in time! [Laughs]
Eric Hansen: [Laughs] Yes, our publisher, Mark Irwin, with Insight Editions confirmed the date of our book launch in Toronto about a month before it took place. Two nights before my flight out, I set to packing and discovered my passport had expired last year. I think I’ve lost a few more hairs, but I’m here to tell you it is possible to get your passport renewed in just eight hours.
Neil Peart at Philadelphia, PA (1986) – Photo by: Laura Wright
Rick: How did you feel when you received and unboxed your book on your favorite group?
Skip Daly: My wife actually shot a video of this…[Laughs]. It felt really good. Aside from the indescribable satisfaction of holding something tangible, after nine years of work, there was also a sense of relief that it had actually come to fruition.
After so many moments along the way where we were waiting for the next roadblock or the next crisis, you sort of have to protect yourself and not assume too much. I found that I had gone into a mode of “I’ll believe it when it’s in my hands!” So, when it actually was in my hands, it felt great!
Eric Hansen: I felt complete validation, relief, and satisfaction for the years put into the research – it was so worth it. Also, my wife and kids now know I’m not the only fanatic out there…if you write it, they will come.
Rick: I’ve got to say, as a friend and fellow writer, I’m proud of you lad, this project must have been exciting and maybe even mind bending at times. You made it to the finish line with an amazing book that Rush fans and other music enthusiasts are going to love.
Skip Daly: Thanks so much, Rick! That means a lot, and I appreciate it.
Rick: What other music ambitions or projects are percolating that you’d like to take on?
Skip Daly: In terms of music, I’m enjoying the band I’m in, and I’m hoping to do some more writing and recording in that context as time goes by.
As far as writing goes, it’s too early to say, but I would definitely like to do something else, once I decide on a follow-up topic that would sufficiently excite me. One of the key things that I learned from this is that it’s important to be working on something that fires you up, because that’s the fuel that keeps you going through the tough times.
It was interesting with this project how, even though it was about Rush, when we really went down the rabbit hole with the research – trying to find lost tour dates or whatever – it really became more like solving a puzzle, and the actual topic didn’t matter as much. The puzzle became an end unto itself – piecing together the missing info.
So, I just need to figure out what my next puzzle should be, or potentially even go in a completely different direction and try something more narrative. I’m not sure yet, but I do still love to write – and maybe I learned enough from this first foray to allow me to finish the next one in something less than nine years!
Eric Hansen: When the editors at Insight were sifting through our mountains of pages, they were forced to edit it down to under 500 pages, by focusing strictly on the tours. Unfortunately, many great crew stories were left on the cutting room floor, and I hope that someday Skip and I are able to find a way to publish those stories. It’s definitely something we have discussed.
