From Geddy Lee interview with Rolling Stone:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/n...-a-break-from-the-road-20130923#ixzz2foaOXtsF
"It's kind of a long story, but there are essential building blocks to what lead to a remix. You have to put yourself back to that period of time. We had just gone through a very sad and dark four or five years after Neil's family was so tragically taken from him. When he reached out to us and said he wanted to come back and attempt to work together, we wanted to do it in an environment that was as comfortable to him as possible with as little pressure as possible.
At that time, we had talked to various producers and one of them was David Bottrill. In the end, Alex and I looked at each other and said, "I don't think it's fair to Neil to bring a stranger in the room when he's kind of in a delicate state." We said, "Let's get Paul Northfield. He's not only worked on many of our albums, but is a very close friend, so Neil is comfortable from the get go."
Neil had to learn how to play the drums again, how to get his confidence back. It was a lot of slow baby steps to getting back to us at our peak. The writing process took a really long time. Alex and I would work all day in the control room and Neil would practice and write lyrics. We kind of blocked out a small studio in Toronto and we were there for 14 months making this record. It was a long and emotional and stressful time to the end, because we were close to the finish but we had spent so much time on it. We were way too close to it.
Had we been wise, we would have said, "Okay, we're taking a two-month break and then bring someone in to mix it when we all have fresh ears." We figured, "The show must go on! People are expecting the record now." The record company had been waiting and waiting for it. So we just pushed through and got it mixed. We went through two different people to mix it because we were so unhappy with it. We just believed in the record, but in the end we were just fried.
Everybody went their own way. I took the record to New York to master it. By the time I had a couple of weeks off to hear it clearly, I realized we had kind of over-cooked the record. The mixes were really loud and brash. The mastering job was harsh and distorted, but by then, it was out of my hands. It was already out.
It's a terrible feeling that, due to lack of objectivity, you let an imperfect piece of work get out there. But the songs are very strong and people really responded to the record and people were welcoming us back. The sonic defects of it got lost in the excitement of the bands return to functionality. It's always been a bee in my bonnet. We had various people attempt to remix it and remaster it over the years, and it still didn't satisfy.
After a while, it was hard to get people onboard. "Why are you obsessing over this one record? You have 20 records. Why the **** do you care about this one record?" I just felt it was so pivotal that the songs required some justice. We gave it one last kick of the can, and Andy from our management suggested that David Bottrill have a go at it. I thought it was kind of strange/full circle that the guy we almost used in the first place is trying to save it. We were on tour and Neil didn't want to have too much to do with it. The album has a lot of very painful memories for him. We said, "Don't worry. We're going to let David just follow his instincts and he'll do it while we're touring."
David just got the record right away and started sending us mixes. Of course, we'd have comments here or there, but generally he understood what it should sound like. So, I'm very pleased with the end result. I think he's finally brought some completion and some justice to some of those songs we'd put so much of our heart and soul into."
