The Game of Snakes and Arrows
Exclusive documentary on the making of the album, from the Snakes & Arrows MVI Edition, June 26, 2007, transcribed by Anonymotron42
Webmaster Note: MVI (Music Video Interactive) was a DVD-based means of packing audio, video and interactive visual content onto one disk, developed by Warner Electra Atlantic as a means to combat the mp3 download market by presenting an album digitally with exclusive additional content. The Snakes & Arrows MVI Edition includes the full album in 96kHz/24 bit hi-resolution stereo as well as 5.1 surround sound; the album bio written by Neil Peart; the lyrics and digital booklet; the ability to create your own mobile ringtones of all the tracks on the MVI; other digital extras including a photo gallery, wallpapers, IM icons, and poster, and finally, "Rush: The Game of Snakes and Arrows" 45-minute documentary transcribed here.
[Onscreen introductory text appears over the opening instrumental section of "We Hold On":]
In February 2006, the band Rush - Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Nell Peart - began sharing the earliest ideas for their 19th studio album together.
By the fall of that year, they had eleven new songs ready to record. The twelfth and thirteenth tracks would be created during the final recording at Allaire Studios, an isolated retreat high in the Catskill Mountains of New York.
In November 2006, with the production team of co-producer Nick Raskulinecz and engineer Richard Chycki, Rush began the recording of Snakes and Arrows. This is a brief look into the making of that album.
[Opening shots of Allaire Studios and the surrounding regions, interspersed with Neil's interview, including a glimpse of a Test for Echo style Inukashuk on an overlook]
Neil: Allaire Studios was originally built in 1920, and it was the family that owned the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. And it was their Adirondack mansion, built at the top of a mountain on a huge scale of stone and wood. And then it kind of fell into disuse, and was parceled up among the family for years until it became a recording studio. And now, in fact, it contains two complete recording studios within the facilities. And just, an extraordinary setting to look out upon the Hudson Valley, and all those glaciated mountains around you, and the forest and everything. Just, the ultimate beauty on Earth, so I was more than happy to spend the time there, and to be working there and, again, such a great place to come together and create something.
[Neil plays percussion with his drum setup]
Geddy: This project we wanted to make sure that we had the best drum sound we could possibly get. And, sadly, in Toronto there are not a great many options for that. And so we said "okay, we'll go there and we'll do drums, but as soon as the drums are done we're coming back to Toronto, and carrying on in our typical manner."
Alex: The funny thing is we went there for twelve days. We booked twelve days, and the idea was to get all the drum tracks and whatever bass trucks we could get, and we hoped to get about half the bass tracks done in those twelve days. Come back to Toronto, finish up, start at my studio to do guitars. And it was slotted 'til the end of January to do guitars, and then we were gonna do vocals in February. That was our original plan. We ended up staying for five weeks rather than the two weeks, and managed to get everything except two songs vocally done while we were there. So that put us, you know, eight weeks ahead of schedule which is unheard of for us. I don't think we've recorded a record this fast since A Farewell to Kings in '76, or '77, or whenever that was. So, it's great to be in this position. It also gives us a little breathing space before the tour starts.
[Alex plays guitar on "Far Cry"]
Neil: But the last few years we had recorded in Toronto, which for Geddy and Alex is home. I was also interested in the idea of the three of us just going away somewhere as we used to do at Le Studio in Quebec or in British Studios in the '70s and early '80s, and just have that time together. Not only to be just doing the work, but to be hanging out together, and the necessary flux that surrounds that - of just being around each other all the time. Sure enough, once we had made the decision to go to Allaire, we found the first two nights we were there we were having jam sessions after work, and watching movies together, and having that kind of interplay among the three of us that did contribute so much - so much to the atmosphere of the project - that we ended up staying there, and doing all of the recording there because that atmosphere, and that environment, was so conducive to good times, and good work [chuckles].
[Alex plays acoustic guitar to a click track for "The Way the Wind Blows"]
Geddy: We haven't done that kind of residential thing in many years, so we said "oh, what the hell, let's try it again." It was great. We got so much done, and because it'd been so long since we did that, it was kind of a new experience again, so we rediscovered the advantage of that, and it worked out for the benefit of the album, I think.
[Neil plays percussion on his setup again]
Neil: You can see in the pictures of the way my drum set is set up in the room, it does sound beautiful just in that room. But, when you have the close mics around all the time, I think they have forty-seven mics on the drum set or something, just to catch everything individually. And the problem is when you have all of that in the middle of a big open room that whole room goes into every microphone. So I called it Stonehenge of these baffles they put up around the kit, was just to isolate it for those microphones so that the room mics are still picking up the whole room and the ambience of the room, of course, is feeding back to the drum set and when I hit something, you are hearing not only that drum, but the room it's contained within. So, it was a bit of a challenge even when you do have a big great sounding room, you're still dealing with a big room, and with a lot of acoustic information flashing around in there. So, I thought it was very inventive the way they combined isolating it a little bit with those baffles, but without destroying the effect of being in such a beautiful big room.
[Establishing shots of the second studio]
Geddy: It also had another studio on the premises in another gorgeous location, which is built in the old dining room that was a family dining room for that studio. And it has this grand cathedral ceiling, and beautiful stone fireplace, and giant picture windows with an amazing view of this valley. And at all times where they set my vocal mic up, at all times, I could see that view.
Alex: The writing process was a little different this time around. Ged and I really wanted to take this very casual approach to writing this record. So we worked three days a week for about five or six hours a day, kind of like noon 'til five. And Neil had sent some lyrics. He was busy doing some other things, but he had written some things that we could start with. And Ged and I were just anxious to get back into playing, so we would start playing, and then go to the lyrics and see if anything fit some of the stuff that we were doing. So it was really nice and easy and casual, and then in May we got together with Neil, and spent a month, and we had about five songs written at the time. We continued writing in May. We really spent a lot of time rehearsing, and getting to know the songs rather than just writing, recording, and that's it. You know, we lived with these songs. We lived with the arrangements, and we had an opportunity to come back a couple of times and update everything.
[Alex plays acoustic guitar]
Neil: Most times, the difficulty of writing a song is technical more than anything. You know, you're always inspired by emotions or I wouldn't have been bothered to write them down. You know, I always say that that's a given fact: if I wasn't too lazy to get up and find my notepad, or wake up and write it down, or remember it if I'm on my motorcycle, and think of something. "Okay, remember that." There are times I had written it on the map at the side of the road. Just not to forget some little inkling or some phrase that I hear that I'll remember that phrase, like "Far Cry" would be that kind of thing. Think about later, you know, that's a great couple of little words. So these are the kind of things that happened, and that's inspiration, and then the discipline is to write them down, and then for me the next stage is craft. I've been collecting material for a year, or for years in some cases. I've been collecting the stuff that I need. The material in a very big sense of what the material is to make something out of, so I can sit down and start shuffling through those, and then find the links that will draw them together. So emotion is implicit in all that, again, I wouldn't have been bothered if I didn't care, but craft is the tool that can allow that to flow over you, so that if someone doesn't care about all that, they don't have to hear it, they're just hearing a rock song, you know, and hopefully the images will have a pleasing effect on someone just sensually. That might be enough. And that's great, that's the kind of cinematic thing, and if that's all people carry away, I worked on that too, that's fine. That's great, you know, I'm happy if that's all people carry away is the images, because that's why I put 'em there.
[A lyric sheet for "Spindrift" is shown]
Geddy: When Neil gives me a sheet of lyrics, he gives me complete license to use what I respond to, or not to use it. And a lot of the songs on records, not all of them, some of them he'll deliver, and I just think are brilliant beginning-to-end, and I'll have very little tweaks to do to it. But some, you know, he might write a page and I'll only like four lines in the page, and I'll take those four lines, and I'll be able to use them and make them meaningful. And it's not always that I don't like them. It's just what I can bring. I can bring something to them. What I feel I can use. So it has to be lyrics I strongly respond to. So I can take those four lines, and I'll put them in a song, and then I'll give him the song, and then he'll rewrite a whole other song around those four lines, so the final draft isn't gonna happen immediately. You know, there is such a thing as a rough draft. He also has great sympathy for me as a writer - as a melody writer - and as a vocalist, and he realizes that certain ways that he may be able to express a thought will not translate vocally, comfortably. So that's how the process works back-and-forth. Sometimes he'll give me a song beginning-to-end, and I just love it. You know, I'm just moved by it, and so that's easy. That's a dream for me. I wish that was like that all the time, but songwriting is difficult. And the marriage of his thoughts and my feelings as a singer...I have to feel...I have to interpret those so I have to believe them, and I have to believe them as if they were my thoughts. And sometimes I might get a completely different meaning from it than he intended, and I'll sit down and say to him "I love that part and I'm really happy to make that into a verse, and I'm glad that it's about this," and he'll go "well, it hadn't occurred to me that it's about that." In his mind it was about something else, you know what I mean. So, I love when that happens because it shows you the real magic of lyrics. The song says something to you, you know, your favorite songs say something to you, and they don't necessarily have to be the same thing that the writer intended, as long as there's all that possibility. And to me that just makes a song more interesting when there is...when it can be interpreted in many more ways.
[Richard Chycki and Nick Raskulinecz are introduced via intertitles]
Alex: We were kind of leaning towards maybe producing the record ourselves, and working with Rich Chycki who engineered the record, and out of the blue, we got a call from Nick's manager saying that he had heard that we were thinking about making a record, and he was very, very keen to talk to us. We met with him and he played some stuff for us. We played a few songs for him, and we just felt he was the right guy.
[Nick and Geddy in the studio]
Nick [to Geddy]: If you could play with those last couple fills he does and the end...he kind of did...that would be great.
Alex [to interviewer]: A producer should make suggestions. Whether you accept them or not, or whether you think they're right or not is a different matter. But I think that's the job of a producer: to try to expand what you're working on in any and all directions, and see if it works.
Neil: We were totally taken with his enthusiasm and his character to begin with, but then his ideas completely sold us. So when you combine the enthusiasm, and the inspiration, and the challenge that he brought to us, it turned out to be the perfect guy to take this whole thing to a much higher level.
Geddy: His attitude was clearly "music first" attitude. It was just a lot of things about him that were different for us and fresh, and we thought "this is good. This is new. This is all new experience." When you got a band that's been around for a thousand years like we have [chuckles], it's nice to have these, you know, new experiences.
[Nick and Geddy confer at a mixing console]
Nick [to Geddy]: Alright, you ready?
Geddy [to Nick]: Yep. Make it happen.
["Faithless" intertitle appears onscreen as Nick and Geddy listen to the song's mix]
Geddy [to interviewer]: "Faithless" is a song about belief systems, and what it takes for a person to get through the day, kind of. You know, it's a personal statement from Neil in that sense.
Neil: The song "Faithless" is one of the ones that came out of a lot of the thinking that I did during the writing of Roadshow [Roadshow: Landscape with Drums (2006)], and after being exposed to so much of the evangelical Christianity of the southern and central United States. After traveling through all the back roads and the small towns of it on my motorcycle, I'm just trying to grapple with that, and deal with it, and come to some kind of terms with it, I guess you'd say. It seemed almost too overwhelming to protest against, and to fight, and to make enemies over it too, that's a big part of it. And I came down to trying to grapple, too, of what you need this for, and I mentioned with "Armor and Sword" that to me there were two kinds of faith: there was a good kind that could be protective and help people, and there was a bad kind that was militant and wanted to kill people. In the song "Faithless," I wanted to express, first of all, that you don't need that kind of faith to have a moral belief and to have - I've described as a moral compass and a spirit level - are the two metaphors that I looked at there. I thought "well, I have those things, and a strong sense of right and wrong, and a sense of compassion, and a sense of charity," and all those weren't contingent upon being punished for them or rewarded for them.
[Geddy plays bass on a "Faithless" take]
Geddy: If you look at the chorus, which to me is the most important part of the song, it talks about life. It talks about life when you're not a very religious person, when you're not a church goer, when you're just a person. I mean, you can call it being an atheist, you can call it whatever you wanna call it, but there's many people that don't identify with a practice of a particular religion, and there are many people that find their own road, that find their own spirituality in themselves, and find things to believe in that relate to the way they live. And that's what the song is really about. You know, believing in hope, believing in love, those are two things you can count on believing in, and there are not many other things you really can count on in this world. Others find great it comfort to find religion and to get their strength from that, and that's fine, and many people don't, and I think that song is about the ones that don't.
[Geddy records a "Faithless" vocal take]
Nick [to interviewer]: "Faithless" is done. It just needs a mix.
["Far Cry" intertitle appears onscreen after an external shot transitions to Nick and Alex in the studio]
Alex [to Nick]: Why don't I...why don't we do that chord again? Let me start it earlier.
Nick [to Alex]: Yeah, so we get more of the...
Alex [to Nick]: Yeah. Exactly, and I'll just let it ring out.
Nick [to Alex]: Okay.
[Alex plays to "Far Cry" with a click track]
Nick [to Alex]: Whoa, that's badass man!
[Back to interview]
Interviewer: So the opening chord of "Far Cry."
Alex: Well, it's not the opening chord.
Interviewer: I'm sorry.
Alex: But it's in there, in the earlier part, and it's the final chord. Which I own...that suspended F chord, or F sharp, rather.
Interviewer: What is it?
Alex: It's the chord from "Hemispheres." It's the same chord from "Hemispheres," so it was kind of fun to incorporate that in that song.
Interviewer: What made you think to try that?
Alex: You know, it became a bridge for getting out of that key, into the key that we wanted to get into, where we'd written the song. That opening piece was a riff that Geddy and I wrote, but it was in a key that was difficult to work in for the rest of the song that we already had pieces for it. So it was a transition point; you played that chord, and it's suspended, and then you could go anywhere you wanted after that because you had that little moment. And then we just got so into it, and then of course ending the song with that chord made it that much more special.
[Alex recording a take for the end of "Far Cry"]
Geddy: "Far Cry" was a really good day. That was written in one day. We had a great day. We'd just taken a break. I guess we'd taken a break for the summer, for the most part. We got back together in the fall, and Al and I were fired up to get back together and start writing again, and so we just got in the studio, and we just started jamming and we had this awesome jam. I mean, it was just...we were just roasting on this jam. It was so much fun. And then Alex took his normal position on the couch, and went to sleep, [laughs] and I just played with the bits and pieces. And at the same time, Neil had dropped off this lyric that we just loved. I mean, it was just one of those songs that was meant to be.
[Geddy records a vocal take for "Far Cry"]
Geddy: We loved the lyrics. They were just so right. We loved the sentiments in them, and they seemed to match perfectly with this jam we had just done. So, I sat down with the lyrics, and the bits and pieces of this jam, and constructed this song, and it just all worked. And played it for Al and he loved it, and there we were, and the song was on its way. It really was one of those magical songs; it just came together. I had a blast, putting it together.
[Alex plays an acoustic guitar part for "Far Cry"]
Alex: It was almost like we already knew the song when we wrote the song. We just played it. And that was really cool. That doesn't happen very often that you get a song like that. And then Ged started messing with the lyrics, and it all worked and came together and, you know, we were high fiving and the whole thing. 'Cause it's a relief when something like that happens, for sure. And it was also written late in the whole process of all the songs. It's one of the last few songs that we wrote.
[Alex plays guitar on "Far Cry" with a click track]
Geddy: My friend Ben Mink has his phrase when you're writing. He said "what you're looking for...all you really need is a good six minutes," and that jam was an example of a good six minutes.
[Alex plays the end of "Far Cry" with a click track]
Alex [to Nick]: I think I got it that time [laughing].
Nick [to Alex]: That's awesome, man!
["Good News First" intertitle appears onscreen after an external shot transitions to Alex being interviewed.]
Alex [to interviewer]: "Good News First" really developed; it came a long way. For me, when we first wrote that song, it was probably one of - I don't want to say "weaker songs" - but in terms of strength, it was sort of down at the bottom, for me when we first wrote it. And, I always thought, you know, we'll do something to it, to bring life to it, and take it a little bit out of the ordinary place that it's occupying at the moment. As the song progressed, you know, we started trimming and we took a different approach. It was strongly acoustic, that song, all the way through in the original version, and it really benefited from electric. It really needed the drive of the electric guitars. So as much as you want to use your imagination, until you actually do it, you're not really quite sure. Well, that song, once we got into recording it, the whole verse sections really started growing. The middle eight...there's a beautiful change of scenery when you get to the middle eight. It goes from driving electrics and a very rhythmic, kinda spooky verse section, into this glorious middle eight of acoustics, and beautiful melodies, and a passionate vocal. Now, that song is probably one of my favorites on the record, and that's really cool, when it's a sleeper like that, you know? It's like the runt of the litter, and ends up being one of the prize dogs. Not that I want to call it a dog [chuckles].
[Geddy plays bass on "Good News First"]
Neil: The song "Good News First," I had another device that was kind of new to me in the lyrical approach this time. I had the notion that I wanted to write songs that weren't really about me and one other person, but me and a whole bunch of other people. So "Good News First" is an example of that where I kind of couched the lyrics in the traditional relationship song of a quarrel between two people. But, again it's, in fact, me arguing with these whole masses of people who just happen to disagree with me. And another element of that, too, is it's a common thing you hear: "Well, I have some good news, and some bad news." And I always say "give me the good news first," you know, that's to me self-evident, of course. You know, give me the ice cream then give me the medicine, not the other way around. So, that was a kind of a humorous twist that I wanted to get across in there on top of that, and address a certain mentality that I was quarreling with in there. And then the whole idea in the middle eight of that song: "some would say they never fear a thing" and, first I get kind of tired of that because it's such empty bravado to say you're not afraid of anything. If you're not, you have no imagination. That's the way I put it. If you have any...unfortunately, you can have too much imagination and be too afraid, but there's a line you can walk in there where you're sensibly afraid of things. So I took it to the other extreme in there, and said "some would say they never fear a thing." Well, I do. I'm afraid of enough for both me and you, you know? There's a sense of self-revelation in there, but it's really a much larger sense of the individual against a mass of people, too.
[Geddy performs a vocal take for "Good News First"]
Geddy: To me, that song came together in different parts, and a lot of the melodies I just sketched out using kind of an "Ahhh" [modulating his voice with different "Ahhh" notes], structuring that basic melody line, which remains through almost most of the writing process and recording process, until we got to Allaire where we decided to replace that vocal line with the Mellotron. What's interesting about that song is it was our first opportunity to bring that old beast back into the soundscape. I don't think we've used a Mellotron since, God, maybe 2112. On the song "Tears," Hugh Syme played Mellotron on that song. I loved the idea of using a Mellotron because it's such an archaic and unique sounding instrument. And that was...I think it brought the song to life. I mean, I just love that element. It just gives it a kind of a magical ambience, atmosphere.
[Geddy plays the Mellotron with a click track for "Good News First"]
["Malignant Narcissism" intertitle appears onscreen]
Alex: I had to go away for a couple of days and then, when I got back, Geddy was still at the studio doing vocals. When Ged does vocals, he's always got something to fiddle around with 'cause you know it's like "hurry up and wait." You sing for a bit and then it's some editing and you sit there, and you wait for 15 minutes, and then you sing another line and then you wait. So he's always got something, like a bongo drum or his computer. In this case he just got a guitar from Fender, a Jaco Pastorius re-issue.
Geddy: When it arrived, I pulled it out and it's one of the most glorious basses that I've ever played. I mean honestly, and it plays...just it's such a joy to play.
[Geddy plays on the fretless Jaco Pastorius]
Geddy [to Nick]: It's just jammin', man.
Nick [to Geddy]: That's cool as shit!
Geddy [to Nick]: We'll jam to it later.
Nick [to Geddy]: Yeah.
Geddy [to Nick]: We'll get the big guy on drums.
Nick [to interviewer]: And he was just kind of noodling on a riff, and I was secretly recording him through his vocal mic.
[Geddy plays and Nick plays the bass line back from the console]
Geddy [to interviewer]: And he was all freaking out, saying "that's a great part. That's a great part. We gotta make a song around that part."
Nick [to Geddy]: Would it be bad if we had two instrumentals on the record?
Geddy [to Nick]: Huh?
Nick [to Geddy]: Would it be bad if we had two instrumentals?
Geddy [to Nick]: No. No, it would be a first.
Nick [to interviewer]: Like, I was like "what if we recorded another song?" And it kinda turned into last minute "let's record something on the fly" kinda song. And it turned out really cool.
Geddy: Neil happened to be there. He'd come back after finishing his drums. He'd come back for a few days, and his main drum kit was gone, and he just left this little four-piece kit set up.
Neil: So I said "okay, that'd be fun." If Geddy's going to play it on a fretless bass, which is a difficult kind of limitation, then I'll play it on a four-drum set up, which will be another kind of limitation for me. And Alex happened to be away for a couple days at that time, so we roughed out two different parts, and Geddy and I discussed back-and-forth of making it a bit of a bass-drum showpiece, and we had a little bass solo, and little drum solos in it, and so on.
[Neil plays on the four-piece setup while Geddy plays bass]
Alex: After I returned to the studio from being away for a few days and this song had been written, I needed to spend some time with it and get a feel for it, basically learn the song. Geddy and Nick were in the other studio doing vocals, so I just had a little set up in my room with my computer and Pro-Tools in my computer, and basically just, kinda, got to learn the song, got comfortable with the key changes, where the song was going. It's quick; it's fun, but I needed to feel a sense of where it was going. It was a nice way to work, just in my room by the window, focusing on that. And then, of course, once I got downstairs, having the benefit of spending a little bit of time on my own, it made everything come that much quicker.
Nick: I think it took him a day or so to get his head around it, you know, because it's kind of a crazy little jam, and it's very rhythmic and drum-and-bass orientated. So, really had to find a cool space for him to put the guitar in but, you know, as always he came up with just the greatest...the perfect guitar part to complement this insane rhythm section jam, basically [laughs].
["Malignant Narcissism" plays over Neil and Geddy rehearsing, then fast-motion establishing shots of the surroundings transition to the band doing an outdoor photo shoot]
Photographer: Okay right about there guys. Actually, can Al and Ged trade places please? Actually, Neil, move back a little bit, and that's better.
Alex: Does Dirk look like Heidi Klum?
Photographer: Thanks. A little more chin, Neil. There you go, there you go, that's better. Okay, that's good. Stop there. Neil, come up just a bit. Stop.
Alex: There we go. [Alex stares down the photographer]
[All laughing]
Neil: Aye caramba!
Alex: I got 'em locked down. Nothing's getting in there. Click away!
Photographer: Stop there actually.
Geddy: Here, let's...guys, can we do the album shot now? Okay ready?
[Geddy takes a selife with Neil and Alex]
Someone offscreen: Yeah, it's perfect right there.
Geddy: Oh my God, it's totally...
[All laughing]
Alex: It's the best picture. That is the best picture. Yeah, yeah, you know you're right. I forgot about that.
Neil: Now I'm crying.
["The Way the Wind Blows" intertitle appears onscreen as an external shot transitions to Neil being interviewed.]
Neil: The song "The Way the Wind Blows" is also a reflection of the same kind of thought of a community. And, again, I keep coming back to children being brought up in this environment. They can only grow the way the wind blows. In Canada we see, along the Great Lakes or in the western coast of Newfoundland, these trees that are just completely trained to the way the wind blows. If the wind blows this way [gestures to his left] all the trees grow this way. And I thought of that, again, as a larger metaphor that all of us grow up in a certain environment where the wind's blowing a certain direction, and inevitably we get bent that way. So if you want to be different, and if you want to try to survive against that very militant wind, then it's, again, the stone in the river. You might have to roll a bit, and you might get some rough edges brushed off. And the trees, you know, in the wind they have to learn to bend a little bit. And flowers in the desert, they're in such a hostile environment that they can only bloom at night, 'cause it's the only time it's safe. These are the kind of ways that I thought "that's how you can still be you," and still not have to be hypocritical, but at the same time, not have to stand up with your little pencil against an army of swords.
[Neil with Nick in the studio]
Nick [to Neil]: I got a couple ideas for you.
Neil [to Nick]: Mmm-hmm?
[Nick laughs]
Nick [to interviewer]: We completed the whole track. The drum track was done. It was comped. We listened down to it, you know, maybe three or four times. Something about it just...there was just an energy that was missing from it still, and it just felt like it was in the drums. It was more of a slower, pounding type of drum thing.
Neil [to interviewer]: We had been working on it through preproduction among ourselves, and then when Nick was up there. And then suddenly when we got into the studio, we started to record it, and I was playing the parts that I had worked out and Nick said "curious to hear..."
Nick [to Neil]: I'm real curious about hearing the verse played a different way. And, I'm not sure what yet. But I kinda feel like...it's too down. It's too slow. It's too drag...it feels like it's dragging really hard with the intensity and the bigness of the guitars and the bass.
Neil [to interviewer]: And just started talking about the verses. And there are four verses in that, each of which I had given a different treatment, in my version, but he didn't think they were intense enough. So again he started with his "Bap a da boom da bap a da boom do boom bap boo booujze" description of what I should play. And I'm sitting there like "I'm gonna come up with four complete verses, each of them different, right now, while we're recording the song." So, this is a headache of massive proportions, especially for a drummer like I am, who tends to be more compositional than improvisational when it comes to recording. I like to combine the two, but I lean towards composition and add a little improvisation, is really my chosen balance of that chemistry. So, of course, I want to please him and he's given me a challenge and, again, he's saying "well, I wouldn't ask if I didn't think you could do it."
Nick [in the studio]: If anybody can do it...[points to Neil with a drum stick] he can!
Nick [to interviewer]: It was done. You know, the guy had been playing drums for three hours already. It was finished, you know, but still at this stage of the game, and making records and everything, it was nothing for him to go back in and say "okay, you're right, it can be better." Let's see what else...let's see what else we got; what else can we do?
Neil [to Nick]: So, just four new verses, then?
Nick [to Neil]: Yeah, that's all.
Neil [to Nick]: Fucker!
[Laughing]
Neil [to interviewer]: So I racked my brain, thought, and went out there and just started flailing my way through it, and with his encouragement: "Yeah, almost there, almost there." And, again, this is on the day, after working on the song for months, and having some kind of a picture in my mind of how it's going to be. But it's undeniably transformed it into something of an incredibly greater elevation of intensity, and excitement. And much more - more to the point - much more of what those verses should have been.
[Neil does a drum take for "The Way the Wind Blows"]
Geddy [to Nick]: He's just killin' it now. [Claps and pumps his fist] Woo!
Nick [to Geddy]: That's gonna be great, man!
Neil [to interviewer]: People are sometimes amused to find out the idea that drumming is actually painful. But the fact is that you're hitting something as hard as you can, and that thing is not moving. So, yeah, full body motion, I mean, I swim all the time, cross-country ski, bicycling, all those things. I mean, they hurt in a nice sort of way all over your body, but it's the impact of smacking things hour after hour and especially recording, where every note counts. In order to get drums to speak the way I like them to, it's pretty much full force to get the full volume and tonality out of each drum, especially with fills in that. You can't "brrr" [imitates rapid fill] across things, because no one's going to hear that, and it doesn't make any statement musically. So even like a fill [mimes drumming] as hard as you can hit everything across it over and over again. And your foot, too, is going down onto a steel pedal into the floor, you know, and then into a plastic drum head. And the same thing, with your drumsticks hitting a metal rim and then this plastic drum head, and the drum bolted to the floor. So you're hitting an unyielding object as hard as you can, again and again and again. So it's the impact that goes up through all of your joints and everything. That's the pain, it's not the physical activity.
Neil [at his drum set]: I think I quit. [Laughs as he takes off his headphones and kufi] Ugh! [exhales and towels his head off]
["The Main Monkey Business" intertitle appears onscreen]
Geddy: When we recorded "The Main Monkey Business" was one of those examples where we wanted to all get on the floor. The song was feeling a little stiff anyway. We thought it would be great if we just got out there and played it with Neil. And it fires him up to have me standing close to him, and Alex bashing away. So I think it was a definite positive influence on that song, having us play live. Sometimes you forget how important the visual contact is, you know, like me being in proximity with Neil, it pumps him up. It's like, and I'm fired up to play with him, and I can see his hands. So if he's improvising on some little moment, and he's gonna go to hit that drum at that time, I can go there with him. And sometimes you get a great spontaneous, you know, boost to that part of the song. So the visual thing is something that we sometimes take for granted, and we forget about, but it can be a really important part of the recording process.
[Neil, Geddy, and Alex play "The Main Monkey Business" together]
Alex: When we decided to work at Allaire, one of the reasons that we wanted to work there was we wanted to work in the room together, and record some stuff off the floor together at the same time. And that's not something that we typically do, and haven't, really, for a very long time. And we ran it down, I don't know how many times...a bunch of times, until we got a take that was, you know, something that we felt was quite natural, and had all that feel of the live performance. The whole idea was to capture that performance, and build on that performance.
[The band continues playing "The Main Monkey Business"]
Geddy: That was something we wanted to do on this record, and it's something Nick wanted us to do when we came into it.
Nick: Getting them to do "The Main Monkey Business" together in the room live was, you know, we saved it for the end. It was the last song we did. It was just, again, it was about just to get the energy and the feel of the three of them, you know, just doing it together out there. It was cool. It was really cool to watch. They got off on it; I think they had a blast doing it.
Alex: It was a lot of fun, a lot of fun. But, you know, that's what we do live in rehearsals. It's just exactly that: we get together, and learn the songs, and play them together. And then you get set for the tour and the live performance of the tour. And then that becomes a whole other evolution of the songs. That's another pretty cool thing. You know what, that's really what we wanted to get: that kind of feel for this record. That feel that we've rehearsed the songs, we've learned the songs, they weren't just recorded, and that's what you get. These are songs that have had a chance to live and to grow.
[The band continues playing "The Main Monkey Business" together, then there are slow motion shots, then a transition to everyone listening to the final mix in the studio]
Nick: [Laughing while giving Neil a fist bump] Oh, that's good!
Neil: Making me happy.
Nick: Good stuff.
Neil: Start the clock.
Geddy: The final pen mark.
Someone offscreen: ...playing with the fucking computer.
Geddy: Here it goes.
Neil: I'm gonna put it in the row right across there, like that!
[Neil puts the final checkmark on the whiteboard over "The Main Monkey Business"]
Interviewer: What's that mean?
Neil: Finito.
[Clapping]
Nick: Round of applause, man. Very fucking great, man. Very, very inspiring.
Neil: Nation, I am having a cocktail.
[Onscreen End Credits appear over "The Main Monkey Business"]
Filmed & Directed by Andrew MacNaughtan
Executive Producers: David Burrier and Pegi Cecconi
Editor: Andrew Adolphus
Producer: Andrew MacNaughtan
Interview Producer: Cristina Anderlini
Additional Photography: Max Gutierrez, Brennan Maxwell, and Lorne Wheaton
Sound: Jay Verkamp
Online: Fini Films, Toronto
Onscreen Titles & Graphics: Hugh Syme
Special Thanks to: Lorne Wheaton, Andy Curran, Nick Raskulinecz, Richard Chycki, Matt Snedecor, Allaire Studios, Andrew Alekel, Grandmaster Recorders Ltd., and Marc Bachli
All songs Lee/Lifeson/Peart except:
The Main Monkey Business (Lee/Lifeson)
Hope (Lifeson)
Malignant Narcissism (Lee/Lifeson)
© 2007 Anthem Entertainment / Atlantic Recording Corporation. All Rights Reserved.