Geddy Lee - The 2112 Interview - video Dailymotion

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Interview with Geddy Lee, Canadian musician, best known as the lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for the rock group Rush.

Transcript

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.

Geddy Lee - The 2112 Interview

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