The artist that got Geddy Lee back to music: “You’ve got to rejoin life”
Many bands that have been around for decades have found themselves on musical life support a time or two. There are only so many avenues one can take, but when the group reaches an impasse, it can feel impossible to get back on the same page half the time. Just when Rush seemed to be on the verge of breaking up, Geddy Lee credited Robert Plant with helping them out of their collective funk in the late 1990s.
Because, really, there was no reason for Rush to call it a day. They had already earned their reputation as one of the premiere prog rock acts still going by the 1990s, and even if their albums weren’t bound to hit number one any time soon, their legions of fans all over the world had pushed them into legendary territory without them even knowing it when working on albums like Test for Echo.
While their sound was still intact, drummer Neil Peart got the shock of his life right after the tour for Test for Echo. Right as his daughter Selena attended her first day of college, she lost her life in a car accident, and just when they started to make sense of everything, his wife, Jackie, passed away from cancer.
Now left completely alone, all Peart could do was get on his motorcycle and drive wherever the road took him. As much as Lee and Alex Lifeson wanted to help him, they knew that the road to healing for him would only happen over time. They weren’t going to spend time sitting on their hands, though, and after turning up at a gig of Page and Plant, Lee remembered ‘Percy’ wanting to meet with him to discuss his future.
For Lee, this may as well have been meeting with some wise sage. If you listen to any of Rush’s early recordings, that worshipped at the alter of Zeppelin, but upon meeting the ‘Golden God’, Lee found the help that he didn’t know he needed.
While Peart was still finding himself on the road, Lee said Plant helped him and Alex Lifeson get back into the world of music, telling Louder, “He understood what was going on with the band. I remember him saying: ‘You’ve got to re-join life, and sooner is better than later. So get your ass down here.’ So I called Alex up and said we’re going to see Page & Plant. There’s nothing better than meeting someone you admire for so many years and so many reasons and finding out they’re true gents.”
Two-thirds of the lineup was still there, but the real struggle had just started. Right as Peart rejoined the group, it became a slow process of building themselves back up before finally landing on the album Vapor Trails in the 2000s, which signalled the new phase of Rush’s career as the phoenix that rose from the ashes of tragedy.
And it’s not like ol’ Uncle Robert didn’t come in to help later on, either, eventually getting in touch with Lee and Lifeson once Peart passed away in 2020. Many people have said that it’s dangerous to meet your heroes, but in the case of Led Zeppelin, Lee had met someone who had genuinely understood what is was like trying to hold a band together.
