“Volume and fury”: Geddy Lee on the first-ever metal band
The late 1960s was a time of more experimentation than at any other point in history, at least when it came to music. From The Beatles and The Rolling Stones to The Beach Boys and Bob Dylan, many of the world’s most influential artists emerged during that decade and set the scene for all that was to come. During this eruption of popular culture, the youth were treated to absolute gold across the board, and one wide-eyed longhair who was soaking it all up was Gary Weinrib, better known to everyone outside his family as Geddy Lee.
He might not have known it then, but the latter few years of the decade would prove essential for Lee. A big fan of Paul McCartney’s locomoting bass work in The Beatles – such as the heavy innovation of ‘Helter Skelter’ – he was also an ardent follower of James Jamerson’s funky four-string work that gave Motown its beating heart, as well as the general fire of newcomers Led Zeppelin, who had burst onto the scene out of the ashes of The Yardbirds and were putting genuine heaviness into rock.
He would witness Zeppelin live in Toronto just after their self-titled 1969 debut arrived, and it opened his mind to the possibilities that rock now offered. As he had joined Rush the previous year and was still finding his feet musically, this proved to be an instrumental moment in pointing him in the direction of the hard rock, metal and prog fusion that Rush would perfect in the not-too-distant future.
As his love of Zeppelin might suggest, Lee became deeply ensconced in the heavier side of guitar music, or what became known as early metal, during the late 1960s. He was such a fan during that formative period when other groups such as Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Steppenwolf and Iron Butterfly were popping up, that he has retrospectively explained why he does not think Led Zeppelin qualifies as a metal band, a big call eschewing the widely held belief that they were one of the genre’s founding triumvirate alongside Purple and Sabbath. To Lee, Zeppelin’s constantly evolving and surprising sound meant they were so much more than just metal. It wasn’t all about the devil.
The discussion of how metal originated during the late 1960s is multifaceted, as an array of groups outside of the three leading British groups also contributed to its development; it’s just that many are lesser known and, in some instances, had much more fleeting careers than the genre’s most prominent early names. For example, names like Iron Butterfly, Mountain, and Vanilla Fudge are more obscure to listeners today who weren’t around then.
While looking for the metal progenitors might be best seen through the eyes of the desert and stoner rock lens of the 1980s and 1990s due to the fact they were heavily influenced by obscure late 1960s guitar music, mainstream figures like Lee also have their own views on who was the first. For him, the first metal band was Californian rock band Blue Cheer, who are best known for their 1968 cover of Eddie Cochran’s ‘Summertime Blues’, and are one of the first groups to have featured a de-tuned guitar thanks to guitarist Randy Holden’s obsession with minor chords and surf rock.
In the Metal Evolution series, Lee said of Blue Cheer: “In many ways, they were the first metal band, but they didn’t think in terms of metal. It was volume that they were all about, and fury.”
That’s an interesting point, as, despite the incredible volume and stacks of Marshall amps, straight-up metal always had an affected element, with the fury or furious performances utilised as part of the general stylistic slant. This can be seen across its early timeline, whether it be the wailing vocals of Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan, the purposeful creepy atmosphere of Black Sabbath, or even, regarding Rush, the fantasy-laden lyrics Neil Peart penned.
This means that following Lee’s definition of Blue Cheer, their naturally furious slant places them as more pioneers of punk than metal, as the former is a more visceral genre in the closest definition of the word. Either way, though, Blue Cheer are a strange case in that they had a massive impact on their time but are rarely discussed today. It’s most likely because, like so many of the first heavy bands, they came and went quickly.
