‘It was cool that I made six bucks from my first gig’

Jewish Telegraph, June 2012

ROCK legend Geddy Lee finds it hard to believe that Rush are still together after 44 years. The singer and bassist joined the Canadian band in 1968 when he was just 15.
His childhood friend Alex Lifeson, who played guitar, had formed the group in Toronto with bassist Jeff Jones and drummer John Rutsey.
But did Geddy take it seriously back then?
“Think back to being 16 or 17 and think how much of your life was serious,” he told me earlier this month in London.
“Of course it was serious because there weren’t many things that I could do that I was good at. Playing bass was one of them. It was serious, but fun.
“I was okay at the bass. I was better than the other options they had in their small circle of friends.”
Geddy added: “They had a bass player who sang, but he didn’t show up for a gig. So Alex called and asked me to fill in. It was a gig at local coffee house.
“I learned a few songs in the afternoon and played the same ones over and over again in the evening.
“I made six bucks that night, bought a snack at local deli. I liked the camaraderie of playing a gig, then the three of us going out for cokes and French fries. That was kind of cool.
“I lived in the suburbs so it was a very dull existence. The gig was the most exciting thing I’d done all week and I was keen to do it again the next week.
“I never thought I’d be hanging around with the same guys 40+ years later.”
Geddy, the son of Holocaust survivors Manya and Morris Weinrib, wasn’t fazed by having to take on lead vocals as well as bass playing.
“I sung at school in the choir, so I knew I could sing,” he said.
Rush released their self-titled debut album in 1974, but were forced to change their line-up when Rutsey quit through ill-health.
He was replaced by Neil Peart, who became the group’s main lyricist.
Many of Peart’s early lyrics were influenced by the writings of Russian-Jewish philosopher Ayn Rand (Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum).
The classic Rush sound developed with the albums 2112, A Farewell to Kings, Hemispheres, Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures.
Rush’s future looked in serious doubt after Peart was hit by a double tragedy in the late 1990s.
First his 19-year-old daughter Selena died in a car accident in August 1998 and 10 months later his wife Jacqueline died from cancer.
“I thought it was over,” Geddy told me, “and I would have accepted it. It was hard to think in any a terms of practicalities at that stage and it was such a devastating thing. We were just worried about him making it through.”
With Rush on hiatus, Geddy decided to make a solo album, My Favorite Headache, in 2000.
“I was curious to write on my own,” he said. “My friend Ben Mink, a really talented musician, and I had talked about doing something together for a long time.
“We had planned that right around the time that Neil’s life took a sad turn. And so it gave me something to focus on during that time period. It turned out to be very therapeutic for me, even though that isn’t how it started.”
Peart spent the years covering 55,000 miles on his motorbike across north America. He wrote the book Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road about the journey, where he revealed that he had told Geddy and Lifeson at Selena’s funeral, “consider me retired”.
But in 2002, Rush stormed back with the album Vapor Trails.
Another sign of Rush’s undying popularity came with the 2009 film I Love You, Man.
The ‘bromance’, directed by John Hamburg, saw Jason Segel and Paul Rudd bond over their love of Rush. The rock trio also make a cameo in the film performing the track Limelight.
“I Love You, Man was really complimentary and fun to be involved with,” Geddy said. “It was fun to watch it being filmed.
“Our original instinct was just to say no to it, but we were going through a period at the time where we decided to say yes to all things we’d normally say no to.
“Once we had met John Hamburg, we knew he would do a good job. He’s a very smart guy, very serious minded guy, very fun guy. It’s a lovely story of friendship too and very funny.”
Geddy says he loves to see the new generation of fans coming to see Rush perform.
“I love my vantage point from the stage where I can see the crowd,” he told me. “I see all the different faces, and generations and families. Parents who handed Rush down to their kids like they do with favourite sports teams.
“I see little ones come to the show with big ear muffs on, but still air drumming. It’s wonderful to see.”
On their last tour where they performed the classic album Moving Pictures in its entirety, shows would last more than three hours.
Geddy revealed that at present, the setlist for the Clockwork Angels tour stood at around four hours — “we plan to whittle it down to about three”.
But with 20 studio albums — with sales above 50 million copies — how do they choose the setlist?
“We try to create variety,” he replied. “We play songs we’ve not played for a while and songs we never play.”
Geddy admits that with his advancing years, the lengthy shows do take their toll.
He said: “I have a trainer and I work out. I watch what I eat, especially when a tour is approaching. I have a strict regime to get me in shape.
“Even with that I still get knocked down at least once or twice during the tour. My voice lets me know when I’m out of gas.”
The Clockwork Angels tour arrives in the UK next year, started at the Manchester Arena on May 22 and also taking in London O2 Arena (May 24), Birmingham LG Arena (May 26), Sheffield Motorpoint Arena (May 28) and Glasgow SECC (May 30).
Early in their careers, Rush were releasing two albums a year, while also performing hundreds of shows. But the last three albums Vapor Trails, Snakes & Arrows and Clockwork Angels have had five year gaps between them — although an EP of covers, called Feedback, was released between the first two albums.
“We can’t replicate how it used to be,” Geddy said. “ We couldn’t carry on with the schedule of an album every six month.”
He added with a laugh: “I’m happy the way it is now.”
In the 70s and 80s, the release of a Rush album was a major event. Great artwork in a gatefold sleeve. But the advent of CDs took away some of the magic of the vinyl copy.
“The invention of CD trivialised album artwork,” Geddy said. “I just got my vinyl copy of Clockwork Angels and it is really nice to see it so big and it’s a two record set.
“We still produce the vinyl and that’s reassuring in a way. It has lost something as it has shrunk.”
With illegal downloading affecting music sales, could Rush have survived if they were just starting out?
“It’s very hard for young musicians to be discovered now, but at the same time they have the ability to kind of draw attention to themselves on the internet which we didn’t have,” he said.
“The end game is now different because it’s harder to sell records. It’s easier to get seen, but harder to actually support yourself.”
Away from music, Geddy has a number of passions which help him relax.
“I love sports, food, travel, wines,” he said. “My wife Nancy and I do a lot of travelling together and ride bikes.
“I try to enjoy what’s in front of me and concentrate on not getting run over.”
In 2011, a charitable foundation he supports, Grapes for Humanity, created the Geddy Lee Scholarship for students of winemaking at Niagara College.
As for ambitions, Geddy — who rates Fleet Foxes as one of his favourite new bands has a “few things yet to do on this planet”. He said: “I want to get involved in film production; a big goal is to see if I can get a film produced.”
Geddy, a huge baseball fan, had optioned the film and TV rights to Dave Bidini’s 2005 book Baseballissimo.
The film, due for release in 2014, is being written by Jay Baruchel and Jesse Chabot.