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 2112, made by young, well let's not beat about the
00:09bush here, the album that saved your career, I think it's fair to say, a great statement,
00:13a really defiant statement as well, as you've said before, if we're going to go to the
00:17flames, they were our flames. Did it really feel that defiant when you did it, when you
00:21made the album? No, we didn't feel defiant making it, we just figured it was kind of
00:27going to be our last hurrah. And we didn't really have any instinctive sense that it
00:35was any, would do any better than Crest of Steel had done before it. Of course, every
00:41record you make you think is better than the one before, 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 never tell me your music, because your music just goes
01:04out into the world and it does what it does? Yeah, I mean it's hard to really know, because
01:10you can't be on both sides of the thing, but my sense is that there was a lot of passion
01:15in that record, there was a lot of ferocity in that record, and it cut through. And it
01:21had a sound that was really pretty different than anything else going on at that time.
01:29And I think it just cut through, you know, cut through the static of all the music that
01:37was out there and it reached people. I think especially to our kind of fans, they heard
01:43a sound that seemed 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 was quite visceral, wasn't it, as well? And in terms of rock music, it's quite intellectual
02:09and there's a lot of thought there, there's a lot of process. I mean, I know you wrote
02:12a lot about acoustic guitars, which now is mental and dazzling that you actually listen
02:16to it. I mean, was that just a necessity that you would go on tour so you would just
02:20learn acoustic guitars?
02:21Yeah, I mean, it was a handy thing. You didn't need an amp. You could do it in a holiday
02:25in-room. You could write in the back of the station wagon we were traveling around in
02:29or the van or whatever we happened to be with. And as long as you strum an acoustic hard,
02:35it sounds heavy. So if you write the part on it, you can imagine what it's going to
02:41sound like through electric guitars and amps. So it's not a big stretch, really, to write
02:47that way. We wrote Snakes and Arrows that way, too.
02:51Was it an easy album to write? Or was it very difficult? Was it just another rush album?
02:57It just kind of flowed. That record, my memory of that record is one song flowed out of the
03:02other. The lyrics, we didn't really change. Neil had written these lyrics. They kind of
03:09worked. 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.
03:25Did it sell quickly? Did it start selling? Or did it take ages to actually get going
03:29as an album, sales-wise?
03:32It took a while, but there was a buzz as soon as it came out. It didn't sell a lot immediately.
03:39But it was steady. And it kept building. And as we toured it, it kept building and building.
03:44And really, over the next three years, it never really slowed down.
03:47Wow. And of course, it gave birth, as it were, to All Walls of Stage. Because it was the
03:522112 tour, wasn't it?
03:53Yeah.
03:54You were saying earlier about the documentation of the tour and things. But did it feel it
03:58was absolutely the right time then to do a live album? Because the album itself had so
04:01much momentum. Is that what happened?
04:04Yes and no. The thing is that management and record company wanted us to exploit the success
04:14of 2112 and keep it going. And live albums were kind of the thing du jour. Do you know
04:23what I mean? Like the Humble Pie live album had come out and had done really well. And
04:28Kiss were doing a live album. All these people started dropping live albums. So they said,
04:33you guys have to do a live album as well. We hadn't really thought about it until that
04:38point. And then, because we were playing three nights at Massey Hall in Toronto, based on
04:44the success of 2112, we thought, okay, that makes sense. Let's record our homecoming,
04:49so to speak.
04:50Yeah. And again, it just added to the company. You became one of the live album bands then
04:55almost accidentally.
04:57Well, yeah. I mean, it just became a thing that we were going to do every three or four
05:02records. Let's make a live album. And of course, now DVDs are the thing.
05:08Do you remember it changing you as a band in terms of like you actually had some money
05:11in your pocket? Because obviously up until then, you were massively in debt, weren't
05:14you?
05:15Yeah. We were still in debt, but we were paying it off. And 2112 was helping us pay it off.
05:22How long did that take on them? A couple of years?
05:24Yeah. It was a couple of years. A lot of shows.
05:27Do you look back on it? Because obviously you didn't get to play it fully live, did
05:31you, in its entirety until many years later?
05:34Yeah. We played a big chunk of it originally, and then we revisited it in various forms
05:40through the years. I guess we did play it on the R30 tour in its entirety.
05:52So, I've got to ask you, this is quite an important question to me to go on that album.
05:55When they asked you to do the photo shoot, who suggested you all wear kimonos?
05:59Ah, kimonos. That's what they were.
06:02They were. They were smish.
06:05You know, management, people kept saying, you needed an image. We were not very image
06:14oriented. So, I remember we were in San Francisco, and we were staying at the Miyako Hotel, which
06:21is in the Japanese part of San Francisco. And we said, okay, let's go buy some stage
06:30clothes and get an image happening. And we just walked around the Chinese area, and we
06:36found these kind of colorful robes and said, okay, let's try this. And that's what we did.
06:45But nobody told Alex to bring that hat with him. That was all his idea.
06:53I think he liked it. I think he was shooting it.
06:55Yeah, yeah.
06:56No, it's a good look. I mean, it's hard to come back to myself.
06:59It's not a good look.
07:00No, it's not a terrible look.
07:01It's not a good look.
07:02But I still enjoy those photos. There's quite a bit of luge going on as well, especially on Alex.
07:07Was it a difficult album to record? Because you recorded Short Burst as well, didn't you?
07:12No, it wasn't. It wasn't really difficult to record. It just kind of happened, that record.
07:17Yeah. Does that happen often? Have you got another album that's compatible? Or was that the one that really
07:22flowed?
07:23No, I don't remember it being much of a struggle. I remember it being a pretty positive experience.
07:30I think we'd actually spent the most time we'd ever had to make a record, which is almost four weeks,
07:37I think, to make that record.
07:39Yeah.
07:42Permanent Waves was like that. It was a kind of a record that just happened, just flew up.
07:50Will there be another Gosha 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 and I have talked
08:01about getting together to write. Whether that will become a Rush album or whether it will become something
08:08else, I don't know. That's kind of up to Neil, I guess.