Rush's Geddy Lee's Effin' life in his words.

"THIS IS WHO I AM"
"Ahead of the publication of his revealing autobiography, Geddy Lee, talks about some of the events and people who have helped to shape his life as a person and as a musician."
Words: Paul Elliot
Portrait: Mick Hutson

Narration and comments by PJ Pat.

Geddy Lee, the iconic frontman of the legendary rock band Rush, is a virtuoso bassist and vocalist known for his distinctively high-pitched voice and masterful musicianship. As the driving force behind Rush, Lee's intricate bass lines and soaring vocals have been instrumental in shaping the band's progressive rock sound. With his signature stage presence and unparalleled skill, Geddy Lee stands as a rock icon, leaving an indelible mark on the world of music.

Transcript

Alright, folks, so welcome to the It's One letter Podcast, where I myself, PJ Pat, share my love and passion for rock and roll with you all by reading rock and Guitar magazine articles, bringing you some more information about the artists you love. And today is no different. We're going to be talking about Getty Lee.

Yes, Getty Lee, the bass player of Rush, a band healing from my home country, Canada. Getty, I believe, still lives in Ottawa to this day. So let's get right into it. It

Reading glasses on.

Let's get it.

The article is called this is who I am. Of the publication of his revealing autobiography, getty Lee talks about some of the events and people who have helped to shape his life as a person and as a musician. Words. Paul Elliott portrait. Mick Hudson.

Getty Lee was writing his autobiography, he thought of giving it the title My Life in Comedy. His publisher, however, felt that a little too self deprecating for the memoir of a man famed for his virtuoso skills as multitasking bassist, singer and keyboard player with legendary rock group Rush.

Lee proposed an alternative title, again with Tongue in Cheek. And this one stuck my effing life. I do have a tendency to drop F bombs during any conversation, he explains, so effing is a word I use a lot. Lee is talking to classic rock on a beautiful end of summer day in London, where he is on holiday with his wife Nancy. Dressed all in black, his long hair pulled back and peering from behind tinted glasses, he's looking good for a man who recently celebrated his 70th birthday. Wow. Happy birthday, Getty. 70th. That's dating a sneeze at. He's also in relaxed mood as he begins with some small talk about baseball and his grandchildren. Within the first few minutes of an hour long conversation, his mood suddenly shifts as he reveals the reason for putting his extraordinary life story on record. I originally had no interest in writing a memoir, he says. I just felt like my life is unfinished. A couple of things happened that profoundly changed my point of view.

January 2020, Neil Pert, Russia's drummer and lyricist, died at the age of 67. May he rest in peace. Neil Pert, one of the greatest drummers ever.

The following year, Lee's mother, Mary, a Holocaust survivor, passed away aged 95. I had the sadness of watching my mother slowly being affected by the ravages of dementia, he says. It was heartbreaking to see that she could no longer remember stories she had told me in the past, and she didn't know who I was at times, which freaked me out.

So it got me thinking about memory and how fragile our memory banks actually are. The other thing was that Neil had finally succumbed after a three and a half year battle with brain cancer glioblastoma. And during that time, I witnessed kind of the same things I'd seen happen to my mother.

Neil had a remarkable memory right up until the end. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes his power of recall were staggeringly accurate, even when he was suffering the most. You know, I started thinking, what if I forget? Holy crap. What if all the experience of my life suddenly disappeared into the dust? There are plenty of good memories in My effing life, mostly relating to all the great music Lee made with Rush and all the high times shared over 40 years with Neil Pert and guitarist Alex Lifeson. In the course of this interview, when Lee recalls the hard times and the losses, there are moments when he takes lengthy pauses as he struggles to find the right words to keep his emotions in check.

There is a remarkable degree of raw honesty and self awareness in My effing life. As Lee puts it, what is the point of a memoir other than to give you some sort of explanation into the human that's writing it? Okay, first question. In the early part of the book, you trace the history of your parents and the horrors they experienced as Polish Jews in Nazi concentration camps.

Was that a way of honoring your mother who first told you those stories when you were a child?

Getty responds, that's true. I am trying to honor her. In 1995, when I took my mother back to Germany with my brother and my sister, I recorded what she said for a family history, Generations need to know what happened, and I wanted to tell the right story. I wanted to check the facts and find out exactly what happened as best I could. And that was a pretty deep dive. So I began to cross reference what I had on tape from her with other stories from family members.

I got down to what I think is the most accurate telling of what they lived through, and I felt it essential for my own story, not only to honor my mother, but to explain. I also write with a degree of humor about what it is to be Jewish. Sometimes, it reads a little like Woody Allen. Absolutely, he says. Humor was a big part of how these survivors dealt with what they'd witnessed. I like to think that the culture I was born into wasn't just based on religion. It was a culture about attitude and humor and brown food and overcooked meats. A lot to make fun of and a lot of joy I get from being a part of that culture. I'm an atheist. I don't believe in God,

I do love being a Jew for all those reasons. You're able to laugh at yourself, for example, when you're remembering The Fountain of Lambith, one of the more pretentious early Rush tracks. Back then, in the heat of the moment, the Fountain of Lamnith seemed like a good idea. This was our 1st 20 minutes conceptual track and we were deadly serious about it. But you also have to bear in mind that we were pretty fucking high when we were making it,

And there's the first F bomb. Like a lot of musicians at that time. On a subject of drugs, there's a rather sad story from the early 80s where you hung out with a female fan who had some cocaine but abruptly dispensed with her company as soon as the last line had been snorted. It was a really low point in my life, I have to be honest. I remember it so clearly, going back to my hotel room and looking at myself in the mirror, thinking, what the fuck is wrong with you? You can try blaming it on drugs, but it's you taking the drug. I realized what I had allowed myself to turn into and it shocked the hell out of me. That moment was the end for me with cocaine. I guess you could call it a cautionary tale. I also admit that the rock and roll lifestyle, all the long months on tour and in recording studios put a strain on your relationship with your wife, Nancy. Did you consult her about making this public in the book? I felt that I had to write the full story. This is who I am and how I lived. If there's no room for that in a memoir, then really you're just kind of telling tales. Nancy still hasn't read the book. She's a very reserved person, so when she finally reads it in full, I'll be very curious to see how she reacts to me.

You write very movingly about the tragic events of the late 90s, when Neil Pert suffered the losses of his daughter Selena in a road accident and his wife Jacqueline to cancer. But in later years, after Neil had found happiness again with his second wife Carrie and their daughter Olivia, he insisted on shorter tours with Rush to allow more time with his family. Was a choice you understood but still resented. One part of your head is saying that Neil deserves his time with his new family. What he's been through. He's had the shit kicked out of his life and he still walks around with demons from that terrible time.

Never really heal from that. Learn to cope, but you never fully recover. So who the fuck am I to deny him that opportunity? You got that on one hand. On the other hand, you're going, Fuck, man, this show is so great. I want to take it to more people. Just ten more gigs, mate. You take the good with the bad. And honestly, I didn't think he'd ever come back after he lost Jackie and Selena, but he did. So everything since then really was bonus time. From 2001 all the way to 2015.

R 40 tour turned out to be Rush's last ending at the La forum on August 1, 2015, after just 35 dates. What was your state of mind at that time? I was frustrated. I had some anger. And then a year later, Neil sent an email where he announced he was sick, and in a heartbeat, all that resentment and frustration was gone.

Wow. Guess Neil was suffering in silence. I'm not sure how much he divulged to his Rush brothers, but like from what Getty Lee is saying, I don't think he knew too much. That's crazy how one discussion or one sentence can completely change how you think, right? Okay. Want to pause here and just say something about the last Rush tour, r 40. I bought that DVD and watched the hell out of that, and it was so awesome just to reminisce back on Rush's illustrious career.

But I think they as a band did it right in terms of their career and saying goodbye to the fans. In pure Canadian form. They didn't have a lot of fanfare about it. They just toured
just went out there and played their hearts out. There are a lot of big bands out there, mutley crew, Chris, that dick us around, really, that say, hey, this is our last tour ever. Come check us out. They do this whole big marketing push about it. Fans buy the tickets that are overpriced anyways, go see this band.

And then shortly after, not too long after, it could be even like a couple of years after, there they go. There they go, touring again for either another farewell tour or just like just a normal tour. Off the fans one more time and in pure Rush form, they didn't do that. They didn't stoop to that marketing ploy. They just went out there, play their house out, and bam, curtains closed. And I think a lot of the fans really respect them for it. That's why they have such a huge, loyal following, even to this day. Even after the band disbanded, the music lives on.

Did you know, after the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, rush is the top selling band of all time? They're number three. Number three. Can you imagine the type of music they do?

rock and their number three bestselling band of all time? That's just incredible to me. And that's just an attestment of the fans and their loyalty and ove that they have of this band. There's so many Rush fan clubs around the world out there that gather even to this day, year after year, to celebrate this band and celebrate their music and their legacy. That's how important this band is.

I'm not just biased because I'm Canadian, by the way.

Back to the article.

Neil had always been so protective of his private life. Were you concerned that you might reveal too much when you wrote about his final years? He responds yes, of course. And also Carrie and Olivia are going to read it, so I didn't want to betray any confidence, but at the same time, I think it was appropriate to describe the difficulty of that three and a half year period. It was difficult for me, and I was just his friend. I wasn't part of his family, it was a nightmare for them. Alex and I would visit him every few months, all that time we were keeping a secret, which was very fucking hard because you're basically lying to your friends all the time. Some of the people I lied to, they knew the truth, but they never pushed back. I just accepted that what I was doing was out of loyalty. In the end, I also felt that there was a way to write about his last years that doesn't embarrass him, but instead shows a nobility he maintained throughout those horrible years of fighting with that disease, he remained himself. Though it was sometimes difficult for him to get all the words out, he still maintained his sense of humor and a very sharp attitude about his music and life right to the very end. He was an exceptional thinker, a very moral, upstanding guy. In the last conversation we ever had together, I was still in awe of this man. So I thought the world should know that, wow, that's such a beautiful thing for a friend and a brother, a bandmate to write.

You mentioned a sense of humor that Neil had and how it was a key part of his long relationship with you and Alex. When I interviewed Neil in 2012, I was surprised by how funny he could be when he was talking about his love of bird watching or some of his early lyrics in songs like by Tor and the Snowdog.

Yeah, so if it doesn't come across right now in the article, neil was a very reserved person. He would really shy away from fans, or not that he didn't appreciate the fans, but I've read that Neil would freak out a lot of the times whenever a fan would approach him and just geek out over him.

Neil felt really uncomfortable with that stuff, and he really appreciated the fans, but didn't appreciate that part of it. The idolatry that the fans put on him and put him on a pedestal, he really felt uncomfortable with that.

So Getty responds, that was the thing that most people were surprised about when they met him, because they had this image of him as a serious guy, very intense, when in reality, he was kind of a goof. We had so much fun together, and most of our fun was totally nonsensical.

I know that it's hard for fans to see him as this nonsensical dude, but he sure was. I think it helps that you have a character like Alex lifeson with you at all times because he's the funniest human being on Earth.

Neil adored Alex because of the way he was able to loosen him up even in those last couple of years. The conversations during our visits were tough at times because he didn't want to keep talking about the disease and what he was going through. So I always reverted to making fun of al, and it always made laugh. Always. Always. So even when Alex wasn't being intentionally funny, brought joy to Neil in those last years. The late Taylor Hawkins. Rest in peace. Taylor, a huge fan of Neil's, and when the Foo Fighters staged two tribute concerts for Taylor in 2022 at Wembley Stadium and the La Forum, you and Alex were part of the All Star lineup. Rush songs with Dave Grohl, Chad Smith, Danny Carey and Omar hakeem taking turns on drums. Your book, you say that this brought a sense of closure for you and Alex, where you could move on from grief to remembrance, which is a beautiful way of putting it.

Those two shows are really unusual for very different reasons. The show in London was perhaps the most joyous celebration of loss that I could ever imagine. I've never seen so many musicians in one place, and the atmosphere backstage was profoundly positive. For five or six days before the show, we were all holed up at a hotel with every other musician and all their friends and families.

Every night you'd be in a bar with these folks, and there was no backbiting, no cynicism, no one man upship. You could feel the spirit of Taylor and the love coming from the Foo Fighters family. That was really touching. And Dave Grohl is one of the most remarkable human beings I've ever had the pleasure to meet and work with.

here we were, Alex and I, having not played together in years, feeling pretty nervous about who's going to play the drum parts, but it all came together, and in some ways, it was maybe the greatest gig of my life. The whole atmosphere was like nothing I'd ever experienced. But when we got to La for the second show, things were a little different because of what that venue symbolizes to me being back at the Forum where my band had played for the last time.

It felt like I was returning to the scene of the crime,

I tried to be as joyous as I was in London, but I couldn't find that same headspace.

was much more withdrawn backstage at that show, thinking about things,

I walked away from it feeling that at least we had done justice to Taylor and, in a small way, justice to Neil. Classic Rock Asks. Have you ever considered doing something similar in memory of Neil? Celebration of Rush with perhaps Dave grohl and other drummers that Neil admired? We did. We were planning to do a memorial in Toronto, but then a pandemic hit, by the time we come out of it, a couple of years had passed. We feel like we were robbed of the moment, You never know. We still talk about it. If we can get our shit together, we might be able to pull something off. Wow, man. If they do that, it would be absolutely fantastic. Wow. Especially in Toronto, my hometown. I'm definitely going. That's it. I'm definitely going. Come on. on, getty, alex, let's do this.

You working on new music? I have ideas. Getty says, I found a couple of tracks that were written for my solo album. Parenthesis, my favorite, Headache, released in 2000. Co writer for that record, Ben Mink, discovered these demos, and when I listened to them, I was not embarrassed at all, which was a good sign. I thought, maybe if I can clean up these demos a little bit, we could add them to the audiobook of my f in life, they can make for interesting listening as historic relics. While working on these tracks, it was really interesting the way they made me feel. It made me want to write again.

It made me want to get back on a horse, so to speak. So I think that bodes well for the future. Oh, man. Awesome. Getty, keep on riding that horse, buddy. Keep it going. Let's go. Let me what you think.

Getty, Lee, and Alex get back to writing together want to release new music. Obviously, another drummer, do you think they should call themselves Rush, or is that such an untouchable band with Neil that they would have to call themselves another name? Would love to know your thoughts. Please let me know in the comments. Or you can reach out to me on social media at Pjpatloves rock and we can exchange messages about this very subject. Cool.

Classic Rock asks why didn't those two songs make the cut for my favorite headache Because we had enough for the record we were recording in Seattle with Matt Cameron. Pearl Jam drummer. We kept pulling out song after song for him to play. Finally I said to Ben, let's have mercy on poor Matt. Those two songs stayed in the can. were other reasons at the time. Wow. I didn't know Matt Cameron actually drummed for them on his album. Now I'm definitely gonna have to check it out.

Meaning that of them was written right after Neil's daughter Selena had passed away. The song is called Gone. A song about loss. And even though it's not exactly about Selena, reverberates because it's about all those losses what you feel when someone in your life is suddenly gone. You're left with these feelings that you can't make sense of. So at that time, out of respect for Neil, I thought, I can't put this one on a record, it's too raw. the other song?

You are? And again, it's a very personal song about what I was going through relationship wise. How tough it can be when you're in the middle of an argument with your loved one or your band. Whatever it is, it's a beautiful song. I think both of these songs are good pieces of writing,

I'm happy that they will finally see the light of day. I stated unequivocally that with Neil's passing there is no more rush. Have you thought about making music again with Alex? And I have been in very different headspaces for a few years and our timing has not been good. Mainly because I keep writing these effing books. I also wrote Getty Lee's Big Beautiful Books of Bass. Oh yeah, I remember that one. It takes me away from having time to spend doing my proper gig. We talk about it. I see Alex all the time. We're still as close as two pals can be.

it's not beyond the realm of possibility that we would do some writing. Please make it happen. Make it happen!

Alex read my effing life? Yes, he loved it and he wrote me the most beautiful letter afterwards. He couldn't have been more effusive, but, you know, he's a Serbian guy, he's very emotional, so let's just leave it at that. been emotional for you too, of course, to write this book and to talk about it now.

if we can end on a positive note. Is there one memory you have from all the years in Rush that makes you think how fortunate you have been? There are so many of those moments. I want to laugh. I think about how we used to live when we traveled together on a bus in the late seventy s and early 80s after a gig. It was kind of the best time. You'd leave the gig and pile onto the bus, and you had that post gig energy still going on. I really needed to calm down. You'd have a few drinks and maybe you'd take a Valium and you'd watch some stupid movie together.

it was just jokes until you passed out or went to your little bunk bed on a shelf to sleep. There were moments when it was just the three of us and the few guys on our crew that we traveled with. You can't replicate those moments. I could do another gig and Alex and I with other people, but all those times we share when it was just the three of us, you can't get that back. Wow,

Incredible.

So my F in Life is actually already out now in bookstores, so you can go get it published by Harper Collins. Getty Lee's UK book tour runs from December 10 to December 18, so those of you in the UK go check them out. Definitely

Wow, what a life these three brothers have lived through, eh? Oh, there goes my Canadiana. I must have been quite something, Touring the world, those three guys, just having fun with each other and getting closer and closer by the years. Obviously, they're brothers, so they must have had tons of fights as well. Like Getty Lee says, I think the older you get, the more you really appreciate those moments, which is clearly what Getty Lee is doing in his book in this interview.

Remember reading this article. I think it was Nikki Six from the crew that said that back in the 80s, when all the partying was really amped up and all the girls in the hotels and storming and breaking rooms and throwing TVs out the windows, that was all happening in the Russia Tour with these bands.

And while all the other bands, all the other hair metal bands or glam metal bands, or whatever you want to call them, were doing that at the hotel room, you could find Rush, those three guys, in their hotel room, away from all that action and just chilling together and just watching a movie or something like that. That sums up Rush right there, in the sense that it was all about the art, it was all about the music, and just bonding with those three brothers, right? Not about the partying, not about all the fluffy stuff. All about the music. And I think that comes through in their music.

Obviously, I could tell they put a lot of thought into it and just want to hone their craft after album. And I think the fans really do appreciate that. They really do. And that's one thing I love about that band. I mean, to have a band like Rush be the third top selling band of all time says something about the art and how much their fans respect them.

Good on you, Rush. I am so grateful to have lived through the bulk of Rush's career as a teen to now, and just love them to death. So thank you, Rush, for music. So grateful I'm sure a lot of you feel the same way. Let's go out there, crank it up one louder and enjoy Rush.

Yeah.

Rock fan, thanks so much for making it this far. I really appreciate your loyalty. If you want to connect with me on social media, reach out to me at pjpatloves rock and we'll connect there. Thank you.