Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson of Rush paid tribute to producer Peter Collins, who died at 73 quickly right after a vocation-spanning 5 numerous years.

The British studio mastermind’s credits include Rush’s Ability Home windows, Bon Jovi’s These Times, Queensryche’s Procedure: Mindcrime, Alice Cooper’s Hey Stoopid, Gary Moore’s Immediately right after the War and more than 50 other information and facts.

Collins briefly became a pop musician and then a jingle author prior to his production profession started in the U.K. with ‘80s pop artists collectively with Nik Kershaw and Tracey Ullman. He moved to the U.S. exactly where by he helmed albums for artists from several genres, from Jewel to Suicidal Tendencies.

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“So unhappy to listen to of the passing of Peter Collins,” Lee wrote on social media. “A pricey, dear close friend and producer of 4 unique Rush albums. During periods in the ‘80s and ‘90s, we had some amazing musical adventures with each other, in a variety of studios across the world.

“He genuinely was our Mr. Huge with his ever-existing cigar and consistent excellent humor. Immediately after hitting the report button, I can nonetheless hear him say, ‘OK, boys, from the topping … no stopping!’”

Lifeson said, “Peter Collins will permanently reside in my memory as Mr. Large, sitting down at his command centre beside a recording console with his ubiquitous tools: a authorized pad, an ashtray and a Monte Cristo No. 2.”

Desire Theater drummer Mike Portnoy wrote that he “experienced the honor of operating with Peter generating the first Traveling Shades album back in 2011. … He was an absolute satisfaction to get the job done with and gave us so quite a few terrific reminiscences, and hilarious expressions and rates that we even now reference to this day.”

“I have a quite good British pop sensibility,” Collins talked about in a 2011 job interview with Performing Songwriter. “When I grew to become a rock producer that was really an asset for the reason that I was equipped to bring some pop things to the new music subversively, with out the listener realizing it.”

Questioned about the pursuit of perfection in the studio, he explained, “Unless there’s a blemish on a monitor which the listener would uncover distracting … it need to be remaining on there. What’s wrong with a keep track of dashing up or slowing down? I like that simply because it’s purely natural.”

He added in the 2011 interview that “it’s genuinely only in rock music in which precision equals power, in any case. With bands like Hurry and Queensryche, the tighter the tunes was, the far more powerful it sounded, so I can see the merit in that for these genres. But, in common, no, I really don’t purpose for perfection. I just get great players, enable them play and permit it be human.”