Monkey51
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Registered: 02-2006
Location: hanging from the ceiling
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Dear Superstar: Geddy Lee - warning a couple of large pics
Geddy Lee has just returned home from rehab. Tomorrow, he’ll go to rehab again. At 55, Rush’s singer and bassist is recovering slowly from surgery on his knee, which he injured playing tennis, and he needs daily rehabilitation, probably provided free of charge by Canada’s notoriously charitable government health care.
Rush are middle-aged gentlemen: Lee is a wine collector who often plays tennis at a Toronto club with guitarist Alex Lifeson (who is also part-owner of a golf course), and Lee recently saw a photo of Neil Peart that made it clear the drummer had put on some kingly pounds since the trio’s Snakes & Arrows tour ended last July. But oddly, 35 years after their first album, this is Rush’s moment.
They were always an easy punch line, because of Lee’s high-pitched, scared-schoolgirl vocals, Peart’s epically endless drum solos, the band’s 20-minute science-fiction suites and their preeminent popularity among virgin males. More and more, cool culture has deemed Rush cool: Beastie Boys and Foo Fighters have declared their admiration, South Park gave a shout-out and the Mars Volta and Coheed and Cambria emulate Rush’s twisting hard-rock concertos. In July, they played live on The Colbert Report, and long before the band had a walk-on as the heroes of the recent I Love You, Man, they were saluted in the B-movie Orgazmo: “Geddy Lee. Best bass player ever.” Plenty of people believe that’s true, and not all of them ice-skate to work and eat doughnuts for dinner.
Today’s high temperature in Toronto is -5 Celsius, and snow falls relentlessly. As Lee’s teenage daughter heads out to rehearse for her high school’s production of Fiddler on the Roof, her dad limps around a well-appointed modern living room, passing a piano and a shelf of empty wine bottles with the kind of faded printing not found on Two Buck Chuck. Rush fans have submitted some very wacky questions for Lee to answer. “And you picked out the wackiest ones,” Geddy quickly realizes.
How is it being the greatest musician of all time, playing in the greatest band in the history of man?
What drugs are you taking, Stale? And are they over the counter or under the counter? (laughs)
Sometimes I listen to my voice when I was really young and it makes me laugh, because I was so cartoony. It’s like looking at an old photograph: Holy !@#$, what was I thinking? Why was I wearing a ponytailthat made me look like I was wearing a beaver skin cap? You’re supposed to be crappy when you make your first three or four records. But even in our middle period, we did this song called “Tai Shan,” using a poem Neil wrote about climbing a mountain in China, and when I listen to that it’s like, Bzzt. Error. We should have known better.
What about the voice of Geddy Lee? How did it get so high? That’s a lyric from a Pavement song [“Stereo”]. I’ve always had a high voice—the one year I was in the school choir, I was a soprano. Rush was modeled around bands like Blue Cheer, the Who, Led Zeppelin and Humble Pie—they all had screeching vocalists. People always tell me they’re shocked by my speaking voice. How weird is that? [In falsetto] What do you expect? I couldn’t talk like that 24 hours a day. Only Mickey Mouse can.
What Rush song has the highest vocal note?
Oh God. There are moments of Hemispheres that are pretty high. We tried to rehearse “A Farewell To Kings” on the last tour and I couldn’t successfully sing that without hurting myself, so we gave up. So yeah, there are moments of the past I cannot sing anymore. We play “2112” one semi-tone down, to keep me from burning my throat out.
You’re Canadian, and you’re Jewish. What are the most Canadian things about you, and what are the most Jewish?
The two most Canadian things about me are my soft-spoken nature and my pale complexion. The two most Jewish things about me are my nose and my sense of humor. I’m kind of a Jewish atheist: I bathe in the racial beauty of Judaism, but I don’t really see what that has to do with a belief in God. The only time I pray is on the tennis court.
I think I saw you in the Baltimore airport a year ago, but I’m not sure. How can I know if it was really you?
I look exactly like Geddy Lee. Although I get mistaken for Bono a lot—sorry about that, Bono. And Latino people always think I’m Ozzy Osbourne. “Hey man, thank you for ‘Iron Man.’” I guess it’s the glasses and the hair.
You rapped on the title song to 1991’s Roll the Bones. On a scale of Vanilla Ice to Lil Wayne, how would you rate yourself as a rapper?
I don’t know Lil Wayne at all. We didn’t think of it as rap—we thought of it as comedy. We wanted to have John Cleese [of Monty Python] do that part, but he wasn’t available. Being the Jewish guy in the band, and therefore the funkiest guy in a band of white Canadians, I was the obvious choice.
Is it true that you were a bare-knuckle boxing champion? That’s the rumor I read online.
No, that’s a rumor we started. We had it on our Website in a fake list of accomplishments. Whenever there’s an opportunity to be goofy, we employ that, but it’s only in recent years that we’ve become more overt with our comedy, bringing it onstage and to our films. Our new motto is: “Less music, more comedy.” We got mail about the Colbert appearance: Fans were outraged that he interrupted the guitar solo by running onstage and doing comedy.
In “Cygnus X-1 Book II,” is Cygnus really the force of balance between Apollo and Dionysus, or is Cygnus just secretly Dionysus in disguise?
I can’t even remember. God, that was a long time ago.
What do you say at the very end of “I Think I’m Going Bald”? It sounds like “Go to hell, John Cougar.”
Again, I don’t remember. But I guarantee you it’s not “Go to hell, John Cougar.” We wrote that as a piss take on the title of a KISS song, “Goin’ Blind.” That was our idiotic sense of humor.
We toured with KISS on our first tour of America, back in 1974, when nobody knew up from bupke. It was a good experience because they worked really hard at putting on a show and we learned by watching that. We were three very green Canadians, very shy, and it was quite eye-opening to watch the goings-on backstage for those guys.
You were made an officer of the Order of Canada in the ’90s. To what does that entitle you?
I can arrest you for asking that question. (laughs) It’s like a good-citizenship award— they give you two medals, a big one and a little one. It entitles me to respect, which is why I wear it around the house. And in the bedroom at night. It’s important to get respect there, so I wear the big one.
Your parents are both Holocaust survivors. How did they meet?
When the Nazis came into the Polish town where my mother lived, they kept the Jews in a ghetto and then marched them to a labor camp. My father was from a different village, but was at the same work camp. They were 12 or 13, and then they were both sent to Auschwitz. My father would bribe the guards to give her shoes or food, little signs of affection. They fell in love in that horrible environment. Then she was transferred to Bergen-Belsen, and after the war she assumed he hadn’t survived. My dad made a point of finding her.
We grew up very aware of the Holocaust. My mother’s 83, and she freaks out if I leave a door unlocked. Holocaust survivors don’t ever really feel secure. They’re always waiting for those soldiers to come back. I was lucky that I had my dad for 12 years, and my mom’s still going strong at 83.
Will global warming have any detrimental effect on the habitat of the Snow Dog?
As you can see, global warming is bullshit. Look out my window. I’m lodging a lawsuit against Al Gore.
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Hamels started toward the dugout after what he thought was a strike. Lincecum didn't get the call & buzzed ump Dana DeMuth w. a fastball that slammed off the backstop & then froze Hamels w. another 3rd strike. 4/28/10 Timmy the ump killer.
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5/27/2009, 11:10 pm
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Monkey51
Bullpen Catcher
Registered: 02-2006
Location: hanging from the ceiling
Posts: 7581
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Re: Dear Superstar: Geddy Lee - warning a couple of large pics
I saw you on ESPN talking about winning your league’s fantasy baseball league four years in a row. What is the name of your fantasy team?
I don’t want to say, because I don’t want a hacker to find my Web site. That’s personal information. We can talk about the Holocaust, but we can’t talk about my fantasy baseball team! I’m really into my hobbies. I sometimes have trouble falling asleep because I’m worried about my fantasy team. But I know it’s not the real world. I mean, if there were a choice between saving the baby or answering the phone to make a fantasy baseball trade, I think I would make the right decision: Answer the phone!
How do you kill time during Neil’s drum solos?
I make a quick run to the washroom, and on my way back I stop and check the baseball scores on my computer. And I always have his drum solo on in my earphones, so I don’t forget to get back onstage.
First it was washers and dryers, then it was a rotating food machine, then the henhouse. What’s next?
That’s a question about my amps onstage. One year, Alex had this massive bank of amps and I had this small amp. I said, “There’s an opportunity for a joke here, to make fun of Alex’s amps.” I wanted to play in front of something large and eventually settled on these goofy old ‘50s-style fridges. The next year it was dryers—the old kind you can see inside of. Every year, I try to find something new.
Do you think the band will ever play “The Fountain of Lamneth” again live, in its entirety?
No, I don’t think we will. It’s obscure and our fans love the obscure things. That was our first attempt at a big concept that covered a whole side and we didn’t think we really nailed it. I don’t think it stands up very well. But I’ve said that before about older songs and then we’ve tried them and found a way to revive them or improve them.
I never hear you mention Californian or Oregon wines. You’ve got to have some in your cellar, right?
Yes, I do. I’m largely a European-wine lover: French wines, German and Austrian Rieslings, Northern Italian wines. The best wine I’ve ever had was a 1945 Musigny from Compte de Vogüé—a friend served it at a tasting. It was spectacular. In fact, I stole the bottle.
Where were you when Joe Carter hit the walk-off home run to win the ’93 World Series for the Blue Jays?
I was sitting in my seats at the Sky Dome, with my brother or my son, and I was screaming my head off like I was supposed to. I was exactly where I should have been.
That ranks pretty high, not in the serious moments of my life, but in the category of hobbies. Not as high as the birth of my children, no. I’m not that stupid. And I’m not that lost.
Who’d win in a pushup contest: Alex, Neil or you?
Neil is one strong !@#$. Mind you, I saw a photo of him recently— he’s enjoying the time off. So I might win right now.
Blender named Neil Peart the second worst lyricist of all time. On behalf of Rush fans, will you beat up someone from Blender?
I admire the sentiment of that letter. And I would beat up someone from Blender if I weren’t a nonviolent person. Is Neil Peart a non-violent person? I can’t guarantee it.
Sell me on Canada.
Not today I won’t. It’s really farkin’ cold. Toronto is a fabulous city if you like ideas and culture and don’t care about weather. It’s very flat and we have a history of terrible architecture. We’re not encumbered by beauty here.
How can I get Rush to perform at my next birthday party?
You can’t. (laughs) But happy birthday!
source - blender's dear superstar
enjoyed the baseball related part
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Hamels started toward the dugout after what he thought was a strike. Lincecum didn't get the call & buzzed ump Dana DeMuth w. a fastball that slammed off the backstop & then froze Hamels w. another 3rd strike. 4/28/10 Timmy the ump killer.
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5/27/2009, 11:11 pm
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