RUSH's GEDDY LEE: 'Snakes & Arrows' Is 'Some Of The Best Work We've Ever Done'

April 15, 2008

National Post recently conducted an interview with RUSH bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

National Post: "Snakes & Arrows Live" is the third multi-disc live album you've released this decade. Why so many?

Lee: "We like fans to have a souvenir of every tour, particularly DVDs. I think our fans really like to have a visual version of what every tour was about. So this is just a precursor to (a DVD),which hopefully will be edited by the fall."

National Post: The received wisdom about RUSH seems to be that it's this love-or-hate band that critics mostly hate. But I did some digging and most of the reviews for 'Snakes & Arrows', and 'Vapor Trails' before it, were positive. Was there really a time when critics hated RUSH?

Lee: "I think that reputation is an old hangover from our early days. We were not very well-liked the first 10 years of our recording life. Time has worn on; that has changed."

National Post: Do you think fans connect as intimately with the new songs as they do with the '70s and '80s stuff?

Lee: "It's hard to know. Certainly looking at the first bunch of rows that my poor eyes will allow me to see, they seem as enthusiastic with the new material as the old stuff in some cases, with the younger fans, more enthusiastic. I do have a great fondness for [2007's] 'Snakes & Arrows' and I think it's some of the best work we've ever done along with 'Power Windows' [1985], 'Moving Pictures' [1981] and probably '2112' [1976]. Those are probably my four favourite RUSH albums."

National Post: You've said many times that you feel like there's a great song in you that you haven't written yet. How will you know when you've created it?

Lee: "I don't know if you know that. Maybe that's just a fool's errand. Maybe you never really know when you're doing your best; never really know when you've peaked. I just still believe that there's some great music out there that I can channel in some way into a RUSH song."

Read the entire interview at National Post.

Find more on

Prev More News Next

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).