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 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. Yeah. And we didn't really have any instinctive sense that it was

00:35any, would do any better than Crest of Steel had done before it. Yeah. Of course, every

00:41record you make, you think is better than the one before. Oh, you hope, yeah. But you're

00:46easily fooled by yourself because you can't really be that objective. But I think we had

00:51the feeling that it was a good record and we were proud that we were going out on a good

00:56record. But we had no idea that it would connect with people the way it did. Why do you think

01:01it did connect? Do you have any idea? Or did you ever tell me your music? Because your music

01:04just goes out to the world and it does what it does. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to really

01:08know because you can't be on both sides of the thing. But my sense is that there was a

01:15lot of passion in that record. There was a lot of ferocity in that record and it cut

01:20through. And it had a sound that was really pretty different than anything else going

01:26on at that time. And I think it just cut through, you know, cut through the static of all the

01:36music that was out there and it reached people. And I think especially to our kind of fans,

01:43they heard a sound that seemed like a new sound for them. I've had a lot of people, you know,

01:50some accomplished musicians come up to me, you know, many times since then and say, you

01:56know, that record really reached me. There was something about it that was so different

02:01about it. It's quite visceral, wasn't it, as well? And in terms of rock music, it's quite

02:08intellectual and there's a lot of thought there as well, a lot of the process. I mean, I know

02:12you wrote 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

02:20write an acoustic guitar? Yeah, I mean, it was a handy thing. You

02:23didn't need an amp. You could do it in a holiday inn room. You could write in the back of the

02:27station wagon we were traveling around in or the van or whatever we happened to be with.

02:32And as long as you just strum an acoustic hard, it sounds heavy. So if you write the part on

02:39it, you can imagine what it's going to sound like through electric guitars and amps. It's

02:46not a big stretch, really, 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 a... It just kind of flowed. That record, my memory of that record is 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.

03:41And it 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

03:54singly, but the documentation of, you know, two of the things. But did it feel it was absolutely

03:58the best time then to do a live album, because the album itself had so much momentum. Is

04:01that what happened? Yes and no. The thing is that management and record company wanted us

04:12to exploit the success of 21-12 and keep it going. And live albums were kind of the thing

04:21du jour. Do you know what I mean? Like the Humble Pie live album had come out and done really

04:26well. And, you know, KISS were doing a live album. All these people started dropping live

04:31albums. 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

04:48homecoming, so to speak. And again, it just added to the candidate. You

04:53became one of the kind of live album bands then almost accidentally. Well, yeah, I mean,

04:58it just became a thing that we were going to do. Every three or four records, let's make

05:02a live album. And of course, now DVDs are the other thing. Do you remember it changing you

05:08as a band in terms of, like, you actually had some money in your pockets? Because obviously

05:11up until then, you were massively in debt, weren't you? Yeah. We were still in debt. But we

05:16were paying it off. Yeah. And 21-12 was helping us pay it off. How long did that

05:22took on, then, for a couple of years? Yeah, it was a couple of years. A lot of shows.

05:27Do I mean, do you look by far, because also you didn't get to play fully live, did you,

05:31in its entirety, until many years later? Yeah, we played a big chunk of it originally, and

05:37then we revisited it in various forms through the years. And I don't think we've, well,

05:45we did, yeah, I guess we did play it on the R-30 tour. Yeah, yeah. In its entirety, yeah.

05:51And so I've got to ask you, this is quite an important question to me to go on that album.

05:54When they asked you to do the photo shoot, who suggested you all wear kimonos?

05:58Ah, kimonos. That's what they were. They were, they were smish.

06:05You know, people kept, management people kept saying, you needed an image. We were not very

06:12image-oriented. So, I remember we were in San Francisco, and we were staying at the Miyako

06:20Hotel, which is in the Japanese part of San Francisco. And we said, okay, let's go buy

06:28some stage clothes and get an image happening. Yeah.

06:32And we just walked around the Chinese area, and we found these kind of colorful robes,

06:40and said, okay, let's try this. Yeah. And that's what we did. And, but nobody told Alex

06:47to bring that hat with him. That was all his idea.

06:52I think he liked it. I think he assumed it. Yeah, yeah.

06:55No, it's a good look. I mean, and then, so I'll come back to myself.

06:58It's not a good look. No, it's not a terrible look.

07:00It's not a good look. But I still enjoy those photos. There's quite a bit of

07:03doosh going on as well. Especially on Alex. Was it a difficult album to record?

07:08Or was it, because you recorded short bursts as well, didn't you, especially then?

07:11No, it wasn't. It wasn't really difficult to record. It just kind of happened, that record.

07:16Yeah. Yeah.

07:17Does that happen often? Have you got another album that's compatible, or was that the one that

07:21really flowed? No, I don't remember it being much of a struggle. I remember it coming, being

07:27a pretty positive experience. I think we'd already, we'd actually spent the most time

07:34we'd ever had to make a record, which is almost four weeks, I think, to make that record.

07:38Yeah.

07:39Permanent Waves was like that. It was a kind of a record that just happened, just flew

07:48out, flew out, right?

07:49Will there be another Rush album?

07:51I don't know. I hope so. I don't see why not. But I can't really say. I know that Alex

08:00and I have talked about getting together to write. Whether that will become a Rush album,

08:05or whether it will become something else, I don't know. That's kind of up to Neil, I guess.

08:10That's a good deal, I guess.

Geddy Lee - The 2112 Interview

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