Anyone who knows me can tell you I'm huge Rush fan. I fell in love with their sound the first time I heard "Tom Sawyer" when I was just a lad of 10, and I've seen them in concert 12 times since then.
As you can imagine, it's hard for me to fathom then that the band is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. And, because of that anniversary, the band releasing their first true box set, "R40." It's a six Blu-ray disc compendium compiling of all of their live concert films from the past few years. There's 2003's "Rush in Rio", 2005's "R30," 2008's "Snakes and Arrows Live," "Time Machine 2011: Live in Cleveland" and last year's "Clockwork Angels Tour."
The box set also includes the complete eight-song set recorded at the Laura Secord Secondary School in Ontario in 1974, featuring their original drummer, the late John Rutsey. That set included "I've Been Runnin'" and another "lost" Rush original "The Loser." Neither of those songs ever made it to an album.
Radio.com ahad the opportunity to speak with Rush guitarist, Alex Lifeson, who talked a bit about the band's time with Rutsey, and the never been played and/or released previously, "I've Been Runnin.'"
On Rutsey: "He [John] had a very witty sense of humor, and he had such balls. He would talk to the audience and say stuff; sometimes, I thought he'd get us killed. He was comfortable talking to people, and being that guy, whereas Geddy really wasn't, and I'm not even sure he is that comfortable with it today. But John, he would tell stories, and tell jokes, he would pick someone from the audience and do running jokes with that person all night. He was really great at that. It was fun: those days were really fun with him. We were with him for six years. You know, John sang one or two songs... I think. He really didn't have a singing voice, it was like a Bob Dylan-ish monotone. But there were a couple of songs that he sang, and he and I also did some backing vocals. His on-stage mic wasn't just reserved for talking."
On the rediscovery of this the "lost" track "I've Been Runnin'": "John wrote the lyrics back then. Geddy and I would generally write the music. Sometimes we would have band rehearsals and it would be all three of us, but it was always difficult to work out songs like that. It was easier for us to work on the music together and then teach it to John and go from there. We still do that with Neil [Peart], in fact. John did write the lyrics in those days for the most part. It was so weird when he didn't want us to use his lyrics on the first album when we started to record it. It was a very strange time for us, just before he left the band. But to be honest with you, I'd totally forgotten about 'I've Been Runnin'' until I saw it come up for this box set. That one was really lost to me. But it was a shuffle-y, Delta bluesy kind of song that we were inspired by via Led Zeppelin."
The "R40" box set will be released on November 11 with a retail price of $140.
You can watch Radio.com's debut of "I've Been Runnin'" here.
