Hospitality Financial Leadership – Owed to Canadian Rock Legends – RUSH

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For most people we all have our song of life, that special time and genre, and maybe even a band or artist that really captures the essence of who we were then, and it marked a turning point in our younger lives. For me it was definitely Rush! I can vividly remember when I first heard the song from the same album titled 2112, and I have never really been the same since. If you have never heard it, stop right now and get on YouTube or Spotify and give yourself a treat.

Rush was a big part of my youthful ongoing development. Their music was and still is bar none the most impactful musical experience I have ever had. That’s a big statement and I want to back that up with my why and point to an indisputable comparison to the hotel business. Yes, that’s right I’m going to compare the magic of a Rock music legend Rush to the second oldest business in the world, hotels.

For many of you I know you probably don’t know much about the band Rush, so here is an overview.

Rush was originally formed in 1968 in Toronto/Hamilton Canada. They had one line-up change in their early career with the replacement of their drummer in 1974 with the late Neil Peart. The band produced 19 studio albums and several live albums, plus a plethora of compilations, videos and singles. Their music can be best described as “progressive rock” which is a big step one way or the other from mainstream popular music.

One aspect of the band that in some meaningful ways held them back was the lack of any top 40 hits or what we would refer to as popular music. Nonetheless they stuck to their unique sound and evolved within that medium to sell over 40 million records worldwide, including 24 gold and 14 platinum records.

All of that is outstanding and impressive but that’s not what really got me. It was their inseparability, and that’s the comparison to the hotel business and, in fact, to your hospitality career. Let me explain.

Rush was a power trio. What that means is they played loud and powerful music and there were only three of them in the band: Alex Lifeson on guitar, Geddy Lee on bass and Neil Peart on the drums. Power trios are rare to begin with, but what really sets these guys apart is their individual roles in the band and how that created their inseparability. They were inseparable because of their individual roles and duties in the band. Kind of like a great hotel. Let me explain.

When a band produces a song, they typically need three things to happen that allows that piece of art to come alive. One, they need a person to write the tune, the music that forms the base of the song. On top of that, you need to compose the lyrics, aka the words, or as some would say the story of the song. Finally you need someone to sign the song to make it come alive.

For most bands this is an “up for grabs” exercise that allows the members to all contribute something from each of the three disciplines and in many instances it’s a combination and harmonization of these functions that forms the fabric of their musical identity.

But not Rush. They had very specific roles that tied them together making them truly entwined, attached, and connected. Here is how it worked. All the music was written by their guitarist, Alex Lifeson. All the lyrics were written by Neil Peart and all the vocals were performed by Geddy Lee. So not only did they play their traditional roles as musicians in the band with their instruments, they were molded together by their creative and performance formula. I can’t think of any similar comparisons in the rock world. Saying that, I’m sure there probably are other similar examples, I just don’t know of any.

So how may you ask does this inseparability, this uniqueness, this interwoven dependency reflect and parallel itself to the hotel business? Well, for me and my experience in the last 40 years, it’s an understanding that we can’t master and deliver on our three disciplines without each other.

Service, engagement, and the money.

We all need each other in our world to pull off our performance. What stands us apart and together with Rush is knowing that each part of our nucleus functions best with our collective but individual efforts.