The most important guitarist in shaping the sound of Rush
There is something chaotically beautiful about Rush‘s music. When you turn on a song for the first time, you don’t know what angle they will go for and what kind of journey they will take you on. Be it a ten-minute-long masterclass in prog-rock or something a bit slicker and radio-friendly, the band have an affinity for good music and instrumental excellence.
It’s hard to listen to them and pinpoint one specific inspiration behind the band’s music. Of course, Geddy Lee has always been a big fan of Cream, to the point that their first gig together was pretty much just him, Neil Peart and Alex Lifeson performing Cream covers.
“Cream sort of changed my life,” said Lee when talking about his influences, “They blew my mind, and I remember they were coming to Toronto. I couldn’t get any of my friends interested to go see them; they were playing at Massey Hall, and I went down and bought a ticket, and I went by myself.”
There is a lot more to Rush’s sound than just the psychedelic rock inspiration of Cream, though. Subsequently, one of the biggest influences for Alex Lifeson was bands that were able to take a lot of experimental sounds but continue to create something cohesive. To work this out, he turned towards The Who and widely credits Pete Townshend as the guitarist who shaped the sound of Rush.
“Rush was a very active rhythm section,” he said, “Geddy and Neil were very active players, and a lot of times the guitar had to hold the fort down, which was a sort of an opposite reaction to what normally happens.”
When discussing Townshend specifically, Lifeson said, “Pete Townshend is one of my greatest influences… More than any other guitarist, he taught me how to play rhythm guitar and demonstrated its importance, particularly in a three-piece band.”
Interestingly, Geddy Lee said the same thing about John Paul Jones when discussing what he thought made Led Zeppelin so successful. He highlighted the active nature of the likes of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Bonham while praising John Paul Jones’ ability to hold the sound together in an exciting way that is imperative to the band’s overall sound.
“The thing that held the whole thing down was John Paul Jones bass playing,” said Lee, mimicking the sentiment of Lifeson when talking about Pete Townshend, “So if you listen to ‘How Many More Times’, I mean, no matter how wild that song gets at times, there’s John Paul Jones just holding it all down in such a fluid way.”
It’s all well and good having experimental musicians who want to push the boundaries of sound, but with instrumentalists available who could keep everything together, that experimental sound wouldn’t be groundbreaking and instead would be borderline incomprehensible.