The Art Of Rush
Hugh Syme is, not for the first time, lost in a reverie. We are, essentially, talking about the updated version of his 2015 book, Art Of Rush: Serving A Life Sentence. The latest edition comes complete with the work he’s done for the anniversary reissues of 2112, A Farewell To Kings, Hemispheres, Permanent Waves and the forthcoming Moving Pictures. Or we were. Talk turns to the work he did on the latter-day revamp of 2112, but within minutes we’re back in the 1970s and the initial meeting for the record and the matter of some accidental iconography.
“There was definitely a conversation,” says Syme, off on a tangent, “where I was told the arc of that epic story about defiance and individualistic artists and someone who was determined to express himself, despite the autocratic red star, the so-called Federation. Those that demand freedom of expression and those who tried to quash that. When I heard it was a red star and an individual striving to escape the clutches of oppression, then the Starman was born,
