Geddy Lee reveals he held “resentment” toward Neil Peart following Rush’s final show
Rush bassist Geddy Lee has admitted to holding a “resentment” toward Neil Peart for his decision to step back from the group in 2015, leading to their retirement.
Although their final set of tour dates were never billed as a farewell, the band knew they wouldn’t perform again after they had fulfilled their obligations. Peart wanted to spend more time with his family, and the other two members of the group had to work hard to persuade him to participate in their 40th-anniversary tour.
Peart passed away in 2020, which validated his decision to step back from the road. However, Lee has opened up about how they drifted apart during their final run of dates.
At a recent tour date to promote his memoir, My Effin’ Life, Lee said: “By the time that tour got towards the end, our relationship was strained. With every successive gig, he was closer to the end, [Neil] was getting happier, and Alex [Lifeson] and I were getting, uh, less happy”.
He recalled: “The last gig was odd. We played our guts out, we played our hearts out in L.A. at that show. I asked [Peart], I said, ‘Well, would you come out and take a bow? Maybe it’ll be our last gig.’ He said, ‘No, I don’t do that. No, I don’t cross that invisible line.’ We said, ‘Okay.’ But, he did anyway, because he couldn’t resist it. He snuck out. He gave us a hug, and we took a bow together.”
“After that show, it was really weird, because we didn’t talk about it,” Lee continued. “He went to sort of his dressing room, which was ebullient and celebratory, and we went to see all our chums, and we pretended we were ebullient and celebratory. But we went home in a very sad frame of mind.”
Lee admitted: “I had resentment, I’ll be honest. I was resentful because I loved that tour and I wanted to bring it around the world, and [Peart] only had agreed to so many gigs and he wouldn’t bend.”
Although a Rush reunion is unforeseeable due to the loss of Peart, Lee recently revealed his plans to record music with former bandmate Alex Lifeson. In an interview with CTV Morning Live, Lee commented, “If I say anything about working with Alex, people run to the conclusion that Rush is starting up again”.
“That is not the case,” he added. “Yes, Alex and I like each other a lot, still. We hang around with each other a lot. And we both have a desire to try and write songs together. It’s been eight years since the last Rush gig. To start the whole thing up again takes an incredible amount of koyech. Would I do it again? It’s possible. Will I do something else musically? It’s possible”.
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