Interview with Geddy Lee, Canadian musician, best known as the lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for the rock group Rush.
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00:00So it's the 40th anniversary of 2012, made by young men, well, let's not beat about the
00:09busher, the album that saved your career. I think it's fair to say. Fair to say. A great
00:13statement, a really defining statement as well, as you've said before, you know, if we're going to
00:17know the flames, they were our flames. Did it really feel that defiant when you did it, when
00:20you made the album? No, we didn't feel defiant making it. We just figured it was kind of going
00:27to be our last hurrah. And we didn't really have any instinctive sense that it would do
00:36any better than Crest of Steel had done before it. Of course, every record you make, you think
00:42is better than the one before. Oh, you hope, yeah. But you're easily fooled by yourself
00:47because you can't really be that objective. But I think we had the feeling that it was
00:53a good record and we were proud that we were going out on a good record. But we had no
00:58idea that it would connect with people the way it did. Why do you think it did connect?
01:01Do you have any idea? Or did you ever tell me your music? Because your music just goes out
01:04of the world and it does what it does. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to really know, because you
01:10can't be on both sides of the thing. But my sense is that there was a lot of passion in that
01:16record. There was a lot of ferocity in that record. And it cut through. And it had a sound
01:23that was really pretty different than anything else going on at that time. And I think it
01:29just cut through, you know, cut through the static of all the music that was out there and
01:38it reached people. And I think especially to our kind of fans, they heard a sound that
01:45seemed like a new sound for them. I've had a lot of people, you know, some accomplished
01:51musicians come up to me, you know, many times since then and say, you know, that record
01:58really reached me. There was something about it that was so different about it.
02:02It's quite visceral, wasn't it, as well? Yeah. And in terms of rock music, it's quite
02:08intellectual and there's a lot of thought there, a lot of the process. I mean, I know you've
02:12heard a lot about acoustic guitars, which now is mental and dazzling if you actually listen
02:16to it. I mean, was that actually a necessity that you would be on tour, so you would just
02:20like an acoustic guitar? Yeah, I mean, it was a handy thing. You didn't need an amp. You
02:23could do it in a holiday inn room. You could write in the back of the station wagon we were
02:28traveling around in or the van or whatever we happened to be with. And as long as you just
02:33strum an acoustic hard, it sounds heavy. Yeah. So if you write the part on it, you can imagine
02:41what it's going to sound like through electric guitars and amps. So it's not a big stretch
02:47really to write that way. We wrote Snakes and Arrows that way, too.
02:51Was it an easy album to write? Or was it very difficult? Or was it just another Blush album?
02:56It wasn't. It just kind of flowed. That record, my memory of that record is this one song flowed
03:02out of the other. The lyrics, we didn't really change. Neil had written these lyrics. They kind
03:08of worked. They inspired us to put the music together. Alex and I had some very definite
03:16ideas of the kind of music we wanted to write, even before we saw the lyrics. And the thing
03:23just came together. It just started to happen. Did it sell quickly? Did it start selling or
03:27did it take ages to actually get going as an album, sales wise? It took a while, but there
03:34was a buzz as soon as it came out. It didn't sell a lot immediately, but it was steady and
03:41it kept building. And as we toured it, it kept building and building. And really, over
03:45the next three years, it never really slowed down. Wow. And also, of course, it gave birth,
03:50as it were, to all of the stage. Because it was the 21-12 tour, wasn't it? Yeah. And you
03:54were saying earlier about the documentation of two of the things. But did it feel it was absolutely
03:58the right time then to do a live album, because the album itself had so much momentum. Is
04:02that what happened? Yes and no. The thing is that management and record company wanted
04:12us to exploit the success of 21-12 and keep it going. And live albums were kind of the
04:21thing du jour. Do you know what I mean? Like the Humble Pie live album had come out and it
04:26went really well. And Kiss were doing a live album. All these people started dropping live
04:32albums. So they said, you guys have to do a live album as well. We hadn't really thought
04:37about it until that point. And then, because we were playing three nights at Massey Hall in
04:42Toronto, based on the success of 21-12, we thought, okay, that makes sense. Let's record
04:48our homecoming, so to speak. Yeah. And again, it just added to the candidate. You became one of the
04:54kind of live album bands then almost accidentally. Well, yeah, I mean, it just became a thing that
05:01we were going to do every three or four records, let's make a live album. And of course, now
05:06DVDs are the other thing. Do you remember it changing you as a band in terms of like you
05:10actually had some money in your pocket? Because obviously up until then, you were massively in
05:14debt, weren't you? Yeah. We were still in debt. But we were paying it off. Yeah. And 21-12 was
05:20helping us pay it off. How long did that tour go on then? For a couple of years? Yeah, it
05:25was a couple of years. A lot of shows. Do I mean, do you look by far, because obviously you
05:30didn't get to play fully live, did you, in its entirety, until many years later? Yeah, we
05:35played a big chunk of it originally, and then we revisited it in various forms through the
05:41years. And I don't think we've, well, we did, you know, I guess we did play it on the R-30
05:48tour. Yeah, yeah. In its entirety, yeah. And so, I've got to ask you, this is quite an
05:53important question to me to go on that album. When they actually do the photo shoot, who
05:57suggested you all wear kimonos? Ah, kimonos. That's what they were. They were, they were
06:02swish. You know, people kept, management, people kept saying, you needed an image. We
06:12were not very image-oriented. So, I remember we were in San Francisco, and we were staying
06:19at the Miyako Hotel, which is in the Japanese part of San Francisco. And we said, okay, let's
06:28go buy some stage clothes, and get an image happening. And we just walked around the Chinese
06:35area, and we found these kind of colorful robes, and said, okay, let's try this. And that's
06:43what we did. But nobody told Alex to bring that hat with him. That was all his idea. I
06:53think he liked it. I think he was shooting him. Yeah, yeah. No, it's a good look. I mean,
06:58and then, shall we come back to my job? It's not a good look. No, it's not a terrible look.
07:01It's not a good look. But I still enjoy those photos. There's quite a bit of
07:04luge going on as well. Especially on Alex. Was it a difficult album to record, or was it,
07:10because you recorded short bursts as well, didn't you, especially then? No, it wasn't.
07:14It wasn't really difficult to record. It just kind of happened, that record. Yeah. Yeah.
07:18Does that happen often? Have you got another album that's compatible, or was that the one
07:23that really flowed? No, I don't remember it being much of a struggle. I remember it
07:27coming, being a pretty positive experience. I think we'd already, we'd actually spent the
07:34most time we'd ever had to make a record, which is almost four weeks, I think, to make
07:38that record. Yeah. Yeah.
07:42Permanent Waves was like that. It was a kind of a record that just happened, just flew
07:49out, flew out, right? Will there be another Rush album?
07:52I don't know. I hope so. I don't see why not, but I can't really say. I know that Alex
08:01and I have talked about getting together to write. Whether that will become a Rush album,
08:06or whether it will become something else, I don't know. That's kind of up to Neil, I guess.
08:12You get that.
08:15Do you like this, aren't you guys?
08:16Yeah.
08:17Do you like your music?
08:18Yeah.
08:27You're like, I'm like, I don't know.
08:34Go.
08:35What's the name of the song?
08:37Yes.