LET’S GET MYTHICAL

More than 40 years have passed by since the release of Rush’s Hemispheres album. Not only is it one of their most widely beloved records, it’s also arguably the one that most thrillingly encapsulates the progressive abandon of the Canadian trio’s first decade together.

One of the most vociferously debated and lauded albums in Rush’s vast catalogue, its 36 minutes of pioneering prog is notorious for having pushed the three musicians to the limit of their abilities. Hemispheres is also often cited as the album that nearly broke Rush for good. Bassist/vocalist/keyboard player Geddy Lee takes us back to the trials, tribulations and, ultimately, triumph of the making of it.

In the spring of 1978, after finishing a gruelling world tour in support of the hugely successful A Farewell To Kings, Rush were too full of ideas to contemplate taking a rest.

“What surprises me to this day is that so many fans come up to me and say that they think Hemispheres is the ultimate Rush album.”
Geddy Lee

“I think we were tired after the touring but at the same time we were also feeling pretty good,” Lee says. “Our range was expanding and we were feeling pretty ambitious at that time, which is evidenced in the crazy record that we made in Wales. We’d had a good experience working at Rockfield Studios before, and that left a good taste about the whole idea of recording in Britain again. When we arrived in Wales we were psyched, we were excited, but at the same time we were not super-well prepared. Although we had a lot of ideas, we hadn’t really hammered them out. So we found ourselves in a new situation, in a house not far from Rockfield. We’d planned to be there for a short time, and it turned into a much longer time, as everything to do with that album did. I’d say we were excited and a little bit nervous about the lack of preparation, but we were ready to dig in.”

’ reputation as a difficult album to make is probably well founded. With nothing concrete to lay down on tape, Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer/lyricist Neil Peart were under considerable pressure to conjure an album’s worth of material within a few short weeks. It is perhaps’ grandiloquent opener, , the sequel to previous album ’ grand conceptual closer .