Skunk Anansie guitarist Ace struggled to master Rush’s technique as a youth, but the band still left a profound effect on him – and also on his bandmates, as he told Prog.
“I was about 12 or 13 when NWOBHM came along and I started learning guitar, and Rush’s Moving Pictures came out about then. I bought it, and I instantly fell in love with Tom Sawyer; then I got into Limelight, but I really loved the whole album.
It was a departure for them – they’d gone into their Police-influenced stage. So I thought, ‘What else is there?’ I went to A Farewell To Kings, which is amazing because it’s got Xanadu on it; a classic piece of work.
Then I bought Fly By Night, which I absolutely loved. My favourite song on that is In The End. It’s a very raw album. From there I went to 2112, which was the epic; the opus that everyone was listening to.
Then it was All The World’s A Stage, which might have been the first live album that I bought. After checking out their first album and Caress Of Steel, it was the turn of Exit… Stage Left, which was the good-sounding live album. That was my golden era for Rush.
When I was learning to play guitar, Rush were just too hard, so I started learning from Black Sabbath, AC/DC and Motörhead. But Rush did teach me about songwriting and storytelling. And because the songs on Moving Pictures weren’t too long, I think I took that on in my psyche as a musician – catchy stuff with amazing sounds, really well recorded and really well played.
Those kind of lessons really made an impression on me. I had a denim jacket then and my brother’s girlfriend’s sister embroidered the Rush star logo – it took up the whole of the back of the jacket!
The rest of Skunk Anansie didn’t know anything about them until the documentary Beyond The Lighted Stage came out while we were on tour. I said, ‘If you want to watch a great film, watch this!’
We watched it together on the tour bus and everybody loved it – we had a collective Rush moment, and our singer, Skin, went out and bought their entire back catalogue!
“I don’t like all of their albums, but I certainly don’t dislike any.”
