{"id":628,"date":"2026-08-26T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/26\/a-lot-of-it-is-first-takes-and-demos-because-of-what-had-happened-to-neil-we-didnt-want-to-re-record-the-songs-felt-too-precious-rush-fans-had-to-wait-11-years-f\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T20:00:00","slug":"a-lot-of-it-is-first-takes-and-demos-because-of-what-had-happened-to-neil-we-didnt-want-to-re-record-the-songs-felt-too-precious-rush-fans-had-to-wait-11-years-f","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/26\/a-lot-of-it-is-first-takes-and-demos-because-of-what-had-happened-to-neil-we-didnt-want-to-re-record-the-songs-felt-too-precious-rush-fans-had-to-wait-11-years-f\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cA lot of it is first takes and demos. Because of what had happened to Neil we didn\u2019t want to re-record \u2013 the songs felt too precious\u201d: Rush fans had to wait 11 years for Vapor Trails to become the album it deserved to be"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The personal tragedies that befell Neil Peart<\/a> in 1997 looked likely to end Rush<\/a>\u2019s career. He lost his daughter in a car crash; then, just 10 months later, he lost his wife to cancer. Knowing she\u2019d died of a broken heart, the drummer took off on his bike. He wrote a song and a book about his travels; then, finally returned to the Rush fold with Geddy Lee<\/a> and Alex Lifeson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The result was 2002\u2019s Vapor Trails<\/em> \u2013 and while fans were delighted to welcome their heroes back, they were perhaps less delighted with the album. In 2010 guitarist Lifeson told Prog<\/em> about the trio\u2019s feelings on their work at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure what kind of band we would have been if we hadn\u2019t taken that time off. Who can tell? It was four years. but we certainly didn\u2019t stop. I produced and did TV stuff \u2013 it was just that playing in Rush at that point wasn\u2019t an option.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, when we did reconvene for Vapor Trails<\/em>, it became this most emotional and powerful record. We think very highly of that record, but there are things wrong with it. The way it sounds\u2026 it could have been better recorded. We would have done things in a different way. But I suppose we weren\u2019t thinking straight \u2013 no, not that; it was just very raw, very visceral, you know?<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of that stuff on there is first takes and demos, but because of what had happened and how we felt, we didn\u2019t want to re-record. They felt too precious in a way. We were very protective of those songs at that time; we were all feeling very tender about it.<\/p>\n

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\u201cRich Chycki, my engineer, re-remixed One Little Victory<\/em> and Earthshine<\/em> for Retrospective III<\/em> (2009) and they sounded just great. I\u2019m not a big fan of those compilations, to be honest. They come and go; they\u2019re contractual obligation things.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019d all been feeling the same way about the sound of Vapor Trails<\/em>. We\u2019ve talked about revising the sound \u2013 we\u2019ve talked about it a lot. I guess enough time\u2019s passed now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re more curious than anything to see how it would sound. Now having heard what Rich has done with some of those songs too, it\u2019s really made us think about it a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rumors continued to circulate until Rush confirmed the release of an updated Vapor Trails<\/em> in 2013, remixed and remastered by David Bottrill. That year Prog<\/em> declared the results to be \u201cdeeply satisfying\u201d and worth the long wait.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now get an album with more definition (How It Is<\/em>, The Stars Look Down<\/em> and Sweet Miracle <\/em>all reveal greater detail and warmth), with noticeably less clipping or distortion on the guitars (listening to heavyweight opener One Little Victory<\/em> ceases to be an endurance test) and greater dynamic contrast on almost every track \u2013 less noise and more room for the music to breathe. <\/p>\n

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\u201cDuring the instrumental breaks towards the end of Ceiling Unlimited<\/em>, Rush came across as an ill-disciplined bar band, raucously battling each other to be heard. Now everything has its own space and suddenly what sounds suspiciously like a guitar solo appears, hopelessly submerged or completely missing formerly, adding an extra welcome bonus.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaken on its own merits, and in the context with their back catalogue\u2026 Vapor Trails<\/em> emerges as a more nuanced and, fittingly, more human album than Rush fans may remember.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The personal tragedies that befell Neil Peart in 1997 looked likely to end Rush\u2019s career. He lost his daughter in a car crash; then, just 10 months later, he lost his wife to cancer. Knowing she\u2019d died of a broken heart, the drummer took off on his bike. He wrote a song and a book […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}