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“We turned into these f**king grotesque prog creatures”: Geddy Lee recalls how Rush abandoned personal grooming to make one of their biggest hits
“Hemispheres was the record that wouldn’t end. Everything about making that record was exceedingly difficult.”
Credit: Fin Costello/Redferns/Getty Images
Despite the band’s name, every Rush record wasn’t written in a hurry. The Canadians took their time crafting their prog anthems – even if that meant isolating themselves from the world entirely.
Speaking to Classic Rock in 2020, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson reflected on the making of 1978’s Hemispheres. The record saw Rush locked away in a farmhouse studio in Wales, where they slowly lost touch with reality. “We were like these monks,” Lee explained. “At one point during that album we stopped shaving. We sort of turned into these fucking grotesque prog creatures in this farmhouse, working all night, sleeping all day.”
Despite only being four tracks long, Hemispheres was near-impossible to finish. “Hemispheres was the record that wouldn’t end,” Lee said. “Everything about making that record was exceedingly difficult.”
“We were in Wales for far too long,” he continued. “I don’t remember more than three moments where we actually left the farm in over three months. We were very happy with the record, but it felt like we lost a chunk of ourselves in it.”
The effort paid off, however. Opening track Cygnus X-1, Book II: Hemispheres, an 18-minute long epic, feels like a band coming into their own. The winding track tussles with notions of God, the soul, love and reason, carving out Rush as heavy metal pseudo-philosophers. With this much existentialism at play, it’s no wonder they lost themselves in the writing process.
The record also boasts one of Rush’s most iconic tracks: La Villa Strangiato. The magnum opus is divided into 12 separate instrumental acts, closing off Hemispheres and serving as a triumphant curtain call on Rush’s prog period.
La Villa Strangiato was initially deemed too difficult to perform live, with Geddy Lee telling The Guardian in 2018 that the song’s ideas “exceeded [Rush’s] ability to play them.”
“We thought: ‘We’re going to write this long piece and then we’ll just record it live off the floor and boom!’” he said. “But it was really difficult. It was beyond us… [but the fans] just love it when we go into that crazy mode. Yes, it is an indulgence, but it seemed to be a pivotal moment for us in creating a fanbase that wanted us to be that way.”
While Hemispheres offers up some of Rush’s finest prog moments, the writing process was quite the ordeal. Rush made a point of changing their approach for their following record, 1980’s Permanent Waves.
Rather than becoming bearded hermits, Rush opted for quiet cottage in Muskoka in Canada. “We’d write all day and record our ideas on a cassette player while Neil [Peart] worked on lyrics in his room,” Lifeson explained to Classic Rock. “After dinner we would get together in the basement, with Neil’s drums taking up most of the space, and we would work on the arrangements as a band.”
It was nicer to still have some grip on reality. “We were more connected to our families,” Lee said. “They were just hours away, not across the ocean. And we were in this beautiful, natural environment. The house we lived in was walking distance to the studio, through the forest every day. It was a more invigorating vibe. It was more spontaneous, and the album does reflect that energy.”
“At times, Hemispheres was soul crushing,” Lifeson adds. “On the other hand, Permanent Waves was so positive and fun. We had come some way as a touring band, playing to larger and more supportive audiences, and all the touring made us better players. Individually we were all in a good space, and it showed in the way we treated each other and those around us. Life was fun and exciting.”