Rush “Vapor Trails”
Loser Van Halen. That’s who Rush was to me. Not that I was a Winner — far from it. But in 1984, the year of “1984,” I had zero doubt that Van Halen were the Winners and that Rush were not. Had I been born five years earlier, I might have felt differently. But as a ten year old coming of age during the time of “Jump,” “Panama” and “Hot for Teacher,” it was not even up for discussion. Van Halen were like Dr. J and Christie Brinkley made a baby and that baby was a Rock and Roll band. Rush, meanwhile, were extra math homework for the guys who hung out exclusively with other guys at Guitar Center.
Being of a certain age, I’d obviously heard and did not hate “Tom Sawyer” and “Working Man.” But being of a very specific certain age, those failed to imprint on me the way “1984” did. Little did I know that Van Halen’s platinum-selling opus stood on the shoulders of Rush. That the woofer-busting keyboards and the eight-armed drumming was just “Moving Pictures” dressed up and dumbed down. Ten year old me drew comparisons — Van Halen cool, Rush not. But they were naturally ill informed. I was a kid — one whose guitar teacher had quit on for what was described to my mom as “a general lack of talent and interest.” And so, I understood almost nothing of either band’s skyscraping virtuosity — their olympic basses, atomic guitars, heroic synths and time traveling drums. I did not know that “Jump” was basically “Tom Sawyer” for kids at the mall. I could only barelty hear their formal similarities. But, with the help of MTV, I understood their functional differences: Van Halen = Winners. Rush = Not Winners.
And yet, many decades later, the influence of Rush on Van Halen seems so obvious. Van Halen soared thanks to the hours, days, months and years of study that Rush put in. They were born of similar genetic material, but became polar opposites. Both had ridiculous hair — Van Halen’s absurdly cool sprayed and bleached locks trumping Rush’s acutely Canadian mullets. Both had atypical lead singers — David Lee Roth, the attention-starved carnival barker and Geddy Lee, the spectacled wizard who’d swallowed a flute that sounded just like Robert Plant. Both were famously obsessed with virtuosity and volume. Ultimately, though, Rush and Van Halen were not so much inversions as they were divergent. Whereas Van Halen were a quartet that never got along, Rush were a trio of dear friends who spent four decades in radical solidarity.
In a just world, Rush might have been the champs and Van Halen the comet. But, by 1983, Rush’s popularity had begun to curdle. All that work to get to “Moving Pictures” — album after album, two hundred shows a year, opening for Kiss, studying Yes, practicing in hotel rooms while the headliners were getting action — eventually landed them hits and sold out arenas. But it also meant that — just a couple years after “Moving Pictures,” when Michael and Prince and Madonna ruled the world — many of their fair weather fans left for sunnier skies. Skies where Michael moonwalked, Prince partied and Madonna celebrated. But, mostly, where EVH erupted and DLR jumped.
Rush had been many things — a power blues trio, a Prog band, an Arena Rock band, an Art Rock band, an almost Metal band, but never, ever — not even for a single moment in their career — were they cool. Which is why, once Van Halen figured out how to make Rush sound cool, the actual Rush were left to soldier on with their cult of men from Canada and the Heartland of America, who cared deeply about pedals and time signatures. Fortunately for Rush, they were always more comfortable with Sam Ash crowd than the kids in the mall. Rush was fine being popular but not famous. In fact, they were fine being as unpopular as they were popular.
Because I never worshipped Rush, I never really left them. But because I never really understood them, I could also never appreciate their virtues. I simply grew up assuming they were not for me. I disliked them more than I hated them. But, I did soon learn that there was a large and vocal contingent who were less measured with their disdain. Hordes of people who were physically allergic to the sound of Geddy Lee’s voice. Critics who disdained what they believed to be the band’s obsession with innovation at the expense of connection. For whom Geddy’s double bass and bass pedals and synthesizers looked more like Calculus than it sounded like Rock and Roll. And for whom Neil Peart’s acrobatic mastery resembled martial arts more than like Rhythm and Blues, or even Jazz. And because I was more the mall going MTV kid than a Guitar Center Guy, I simply, fully did not abide.
Obviously many people did abide. And for good reasons. Rush were a band who worked tirelessly to get better. They were a band whose members loved each other as simply and deeply as any bandmates ever have. At their peak, they refined Prog into something that was closer to Prog Pop or Prog Rock than simply “Prog.” They were always open to new ideas. They toured relentlessly. And they were, of course, among the best in the world at their instruments. Rush achieved much of what The Dead and Phish have, but without all the paraphernalia. They did it through craft and work and kindness.
But, by the mid-Eighties, Rush were on the downside of the mountain. Rush 1.0 evolved from Power Trio to Prog Icons. Rush 2.0 was the lead up to “Moving Pictures” — a distillation of their ideas alongside the assimilation of Pop. By 1984, however, they were morphing into their third incarnation, a version that was harder to pin down. Rush 3.0 had less guitar and (much) more keyboards. Electronic drums. Reggae. Polyrhythms. In 1987, they even let Aimee Mann sing on a song. They were a band stretching out in a safe place more than they were experimenting for perfection — and there was something charming about that. But instead of Platinum or Multi-Platinum, their records were certified Gold. If you were part of the core for 1.0 and 2.0, you weren’t going anywhere. But if, like me, you’d just discovered Rush, you probably weren’t about to sign on.
In time, this legendary band that was very present in my youth — a staple of Classic Rock, a logo that adorned posters at record stores and friend’s older brother’s bedroom walls — went from Loser Van Halen to something I simply did not care for to something I very rarely thought about. I don’t know whether it was a physical response or confirmation bias, but, when Rush would come on the radio, I’d turn the dial. When acquaintances would extol their virtues I’d casually roll my eyes. But because most everything (save for The Chucks — Eddy and Klosterman) I read about Rush was written by people who were in the bag for Punk or Indie or Pop, and who abhorred the pomposity of Prog, there were no real consequences for my avoidance. In truth, privately, I could not comprehend Rush. But publicly I held a firm line: no thank you.
By the time I reached my forties, though, that polite refusal settled into a wizened indifference. And since I was not a subscriber to Guitar World or Drummerworld magazines, many years would go by without me hearing a peep about Rush. Until, one day, I started hearing whispers about “Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage,” a documentary that was generating buzz on the festival circuit. Early reviews indicated that the movie was not merely for Rats (fans of Rush), but for casual fans, and even resistors like me. That buzz swelled, culminating with an award at the Tribeca Film Festival, which begot a short theatrical run, which is where, in the summer of 2010, I was confronted with the most unfathomable of questions: What if the band I liked the least was the one I loved the most?
That's almost exactly what I asked myself two hours after I sat down for “Beyond the Lighted Stage.” It’s not as though the film compelled me to sing along to “Necromancer” or air drum to “Fountain of Lamneth.” And it was not their skill or rigor that moved me. It wasn’t even the Modern Rock coronation parade, led by Billy Corgan, that shifted my perspective. No, it was their humanity. Geddy, Alex and Neil — these were the most decent, thoughtful Rock and Roll men I’d ever seen. Under the mullets and kimonos, and behind all the pedals and gear, were three impossibly likable Canadians.
Yes, Geddy’s voice teeters on shrill. Yes, his glasses are goofy. But he’s soft-spoken, unpretentious and self-aware. Famously (though unknown to me), both of his parents were Holocaust survivors who fell in love in the concentration camps and who reunited and married years later in camps for displaced survivors. The Weinrib’s perseverance, however, was eclipsed perhaps only by their tribulation. Geddy’s father, Morris, died in his forties, leaving Geddy’s mother, Mary, to raise him and his two siblings alone. Everything about Geddy Lee — his high tenor, his supernatural skill, his Druidic style, his very existence — is a miracle
Neil’s origin story was less far-fetched — the son of mostly Irish parents who moved from rural Canada to St. Catherines in the Fifties, where they built a life for themselves and their family. Peart was the latecomer to the band, joining Geddy and Alex several years after Rush formed. Neil is supremely erudite and introverted, burying himself in literature and avoiding fanfare at almost all costs. But because of his prodigious skill — many very informed people consider him to be the greatest Rock drummer to have ever lived — I had always mistaken his shyness for arrogance. His alleged fascination with Ayn Rand’s Objectivism — an interest that passed through him the way a lot of college level material passes through the lives of studious young adults — only served to confirm my naive assumption. But my assumptions were wrong. Like Lee, Peart was modest and introspective. He loved his work and he loved his band. But, at the same time, he could barely tolerate the trappings of fame.
Whereas Lee’s existence was born from tragedy, Peart’s middle-age was torn apart by it. In 1997, during her first day of college, his daughter, Selena, was killed in a car crash. And then, a year later, while still reeling, his wife Jacqueline died of cancer. Peart’s suffering was beyond Greek tragedy — beyond Shakespearian. It was the sort of thing that nobody could talk about because nobody wanted to think about it. It was the kind of sadness that people are unable to process and generally don’t recover from. Which is why, soon after “Test for Echo,” Rush’s sixteenth studio album, it appeared certain that the band was done. There was no way that Peart would return from the abyss. And, even if he somehow did, surely he— somebody so intensely private — would not return to the public stage.
In between Geddy and Neil stood Alex — affable and, more so, amendable. The guy who would have been — by some distance — the best player in any band other than Rush and the exact right guitarist to stand between two historic perfectionists. Individually, the members of Rush were more than a little odd. But together they were a stable unit. And it turns out that their fans love them for all the reasons I observed and admired — their generosity, their kindness, their curiosity, their friendship — as well as for the features that I could not at all relate to. Namely, that Rush represented the peak of technical proficiency. As neither a musician myself nor somebody who correlates musical skill with aesthetic pleasure, I am only mildly interested in formal mastery. But, unsurprisingly, their fans — and especially their famous musician fans — feel differently. For them, Rush represents the thing to strive for. Rush is the apex. “Stairway to Heaven” is for undergrads. “2112” is for masters. If you can play Rush, you can play anything.
I heard Billy Corgan say it. And Kirk Hammett. And Vinnie Paul. And Zakk Wylde. And Les Claypool. They all agreed — Rush is perfection. Intuitively, I probably assumed something similar. But to hear those guys say it — to understand what Rush represented to them and to learn that Rush was the opposite of pompous — that changed things for me. Minimally, it gifted me a reserve of empathy for a band who, until that screening that day in 2010, was kinda, sorta, still Loser Van Halen in my mind.
If empathy suggests an opening up, it does not, necessarily, equate to much more. And so while I was curious to the point of being affectionate about the story of Rush — the idea of Rush — it’s not like I immediately plugged in my headphones and hit play on “Hemispheres.” I’d progressed, but apparently only so much. Turns out, I simply was not prepared for the twenty minute, four part songs with time signatures that looked like math riddles. So that eliminated a whole bunch of albums. Meanwhile, returning to “Moving Pictures” or “Permanent Waves” or, even “Signals,” felt like cheating — too familiar, too popular. As did the lighter fare from the late Eighties and early Nineties — like I wasn’t really eating the dog food. Like I was eating mozzarella when I should have been trying the stinky, blue stuff.
All of which led me to “Vapor Trails” — the album that fans feared might never come, the album that Rush assumed would never come, and the album that, even today, is actually hard to listen to. Rush’s seventeenth studio album arrived in 2002, six years after its predecessor, five years after Selena Peart died, four years after Jacqueline Peart died, and barely a year after Neal Peart finished his fifty-five thousand mile, ghost rider tour of North America. For most of that interim, Geddy and Alex operated under the assumption that Rush was in the past tense. Peart, meanwhile, drove through every corner of the continent, trying to find meaning in the open road and while also attempting to escape the glare of sympathy. Along the way, he chronicled his journey, fell in love again and, finally, returned home, where his bandmates were waiting with open arms.
There has never been a record like “Vapor Trails” — a comeback album, a quasi-reunion album, a mourning album, but also a healing album. It was a true labor of love, a coming together of old, dear friends and a straddling of the abyss between celebration and devastation. The agony of its origins are matched by the pain of its gestation — “Vapor Trails” took fourteen months to produce, from rehearsals to release. And even when it was done, it was not really done. The band was never happy with the final mix and so, in 2013, the entire album was remixed and re-released as “Vapor Trails Remixed.” The original version, which can still be found in CD bargain bins at dustier record stores, has been altogether removed from streaming services.
Having searched and located a copy at one of those dusty shops and having also spent time with the streaming remix, I can confirm the difference. The original version is bracingly loud. Speaker-rattling loud. It’s a sound created on the heels of Tool and Korn. And while “Vapor Trails” never goes full Nu Metal, the guitars are occasionally shrill, the bass sometimes sounds like bongwater and the distortion is plainly aggressive. If its volume was an intentional experiment — which I believe it was — it was a failed experiment.
Graciously, “Vapor Trails Remixed” is more balanced. Which is not to say that it’s an easy listen — it is not. After a long dalliance with keyboards, electric drums and textures, Rush returned to their Power Trio ethos on this album. Their return was, quite literally, a return to form — songs made with guitars and drums, full stop. And while it’s not Prog in the English sense — in the way that early Genesis or King Crimson were Prog — it is absolutely a Progressive Hard Rock album. It’s aware of Dream Theater, Tool and Queens of the Stone Age. It’s aware of the tragedies that have transpired. And, most of all, it’s aware of the insignificance of human existence.
In fairness, “Vapor Trails” is not a total downer. The mere gesture of Neil, Geddy and Alex reuniting implies purpose and hope. “One Little Victory,” which opens the record like a buzzsaw shooting off sparks, is a testament to putting one foot in front of another and minding small joys in the face of galactic doubt. And the closer, “Out of the Cradle,” sports a gentler melody and an unmitigated awe at the miracle of life. Neil — through the gilded throat of Geddy Lee — goes so far as to connect the flailing spasms of human existence with his band’s commitment to “endlessly rocking.” And while I might not call it optimistic, the wry pun works in rescuing us from a doomed ending.
In between those bookends, there’s a lot of humility that — understandably — borders on existential malaise. The album’s ostensible theme is in the neighborhood of: while the universe is infinite and the stars and sky are gigantic and while the road goes on forever, we — human beings — are tiny and meaningless. I can confirm that Neil’s words present as more philosophical and scientific than gothic, but I’d be lying if I implied that this was an uplifting record. What’s odd is not the deep thoughts from a deep thinking man who’d just lost the two people he loved most in the world. What’s odd is the tension between those sentiments and the grinding of the guitar, the racing of the bass and the non-stop pummeling of the drums. “Vapor Trails” does not exactly sound like a sad album. It occasionally sounds like an angry album. But — if you ignore the lyrics — it mostly sounds like a blood-pumping live album, recorded in a confined space, among the closest of friends.
For as much as the record makes a great deal of sense to me, I still struggle to enjoy it. I can empathize with the wandering hermit, carrying his invisible baggage on “Ghost Rider.” I can choke up at the eulogy of “Vapor Trail.” I can even nod my head to the libertarianism of “Peaceful Kingdom.” And I can certainly appreciate the extraordinary skill of the playing. Neil sounds like he’s two octopuses on speed channeling Buddy Rich. Geddy sounds like he has four extra fingers. And just when you think Alex has been backed into a corner by his bandmates, he pulls a riff out his hat. Trust me — this is an album I wanted very much to like. A favorable response would have provided me with a sense of redemption — proof that we can open up and change. But, that’s simply not the case. At least not in this case. I tried. And I tried. But I did not enjoy “Vapor Trails.” I almost certainly liked it, in the sense that I admired it. But apparently, I like my Rock and Roll much simpler. Or, alternately, in leopard print spandex in proximity to teachers who might also be swimsuit models. I wish I were a better man.