What Rush’s Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson learned touring with Kiss

At the beginning of their career Rush opened for Kiss back in 1975 across United States. In an interview with CBC’s The Hour back in 2010 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage), Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee recalled what they learned with the American band at the time.

What Rush’s Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson learned touring with Kiss

The first one to talk about the tour with Kiss was guitarist Alex Lifeson who recalled that the American group was terrific and great to work with from the start: “We toured with them on their first headlining tour in 1975. They were terrific, they were great to work with. We became very close on that tour.”

“We hung out a lot together. It was like one big family. We had a very small crew, obviously. It was an early time for us. We’ve got to see how hard they worked. I know Geddy said quite often that there’s not harder working band then Kiss. They really showed, we learned a lot from those guys.”

Geddy Lee recalled that Rush thought they would never have the chance to tour again

In the same interview Geddy Lee recalled that the trio thought that they would never would have the chance to tour again in so many cities like they were with Kiss: “They were struggling too. It was their first headline tour. But it were small gigs, we were playing a lot of theatres. For us it was a dream because we were working regularly, which was awesome and travelling all around America probably for the first time and in our minds we were like ‘well we may never get back to half of these cities.”

“So we would keep  the hotel keys and the things from the Holiday Inn, you know. So we’ve learned a lot about how hard you need to work to put on a show. That’s one thing they had as Alex said, such a great work ethic. Regardless of what you think of them musically you have to respect them in therms of their work ethic.”

Rush

Rush was a Canadian rock band formed in Toronto in 1968, consisting of Geddy Lee (bass, vocals, keyboards, composer), Alex Lifeson (guitars, composer), and Neil Peart (drums, percussion, lyricist). After its formation in 1968, the band went through several configurations before arriving at its classic power trio lineup with the addition of Peart in 1974, who replaced original drummer John Rutsey right after the release of their eponymous debut album, which contained their first highly-regarded song, “Working Man”.