“Smash my fingers”: The musician Geddy Lee always wanted to play like
There’s no discounting how much any great rock and roll band relies on chemistry. It’s easy for someone to think that things will click if everyone can play their instruments really well, but if they don’t gel within the first few songs, it will be incredibly hard for them to make beautiful music together on a whim. But despite Geddy Lee carrying a heavy load when fronting Rush, he did have some aspirations to follow in many other bassists’ footsteps throughout his career.
Looking through Rush’s discography, though, it’s not like Lee didn’t already have his hands full. Being a singing bass player is always a big job due to him carrying both the melodies and the rhythm section, but since the power trio sound wasn’t enough, Lee would eventually get promoted to the keyboard player and operator of the bass pedals, which he would play along with his bass every single night that the group performed. No matter how much people slave away on tour, that’s one notch below being a musical circus performer in some respects.
But Lee figured that carrying that responsibility was almost expected from any rock and roll band. He wasn’t in the business to play a handful of chords and sing simple little tunes like everyone else, and considering that he followed in the footsteps of prog legends like Pink Floyd and Genesis, he was willing to throw as many strange U-turns into his catalogue, even if it meant the audience trying and failing to clap along to an odd time signature.
There was one big difference between Rush and the rest of the prog scene, though: they played much louder than everyone else. You have to remember that they had followed in the footsteps of bands like Blue Cheer in the late 1960s and were diehard fans of Led Zeppelin, so if you wanted to hear something with the complexity of classical music and the hard edge of Tony Iommi, albums like 2112 were for you.
Even by bass player standards, though, Lee never claimed to be one of the greatest in the world. He was already playing the four-string like a lead instrument half the time to fill out the sound underneath Alex Lifeson’s guitar, but he was always interested in artists who used their instrument to sing a bit more, which meant going into the world of the session scene.
“Jeff [Berlin] especially makes me want to pick up my instrument and smash my fingers. When I listen to Jeff Berlin play ‘Dixie’, I wish that were me. That’s an inspired piece.”
Geddy Lee
While people like Jaco Pastorius hold a certain place in every bass player’s heart, Lee remembered that Jeff Berlin was the kind of artist he would have gladly traded places with if he had the opportunity, saying, “I love to listen to and imagine myself playing well. It’s like I used to be with bass playing, and still am, when I hear guys like Jaco Pastorius and Jeff Berlin. Jeff especially makes me want to pick up my instrument and smash my fingers. When I listen to Jeff Berlin play ‘Dixie’, I wish that were me. That’s an inspired piece.”
Lee isn’t exactly wrong in looking at how Berlin plays, but he might also be selling himself a little bit short. Berlin might have his complex side and an ability make his instrument cry out in pain, but Lee’s lead breaks also have a certain singable quality about them, like the different bass breaks in the middle of ‘YYZ’ or the ending of ‘Limelight’ when he does a gradual ritardando as everything winds down.
Even though Lee has covered most of the territory that most bass players try to hit during their lifetime, it’s never about him crossing a certain threshold and quitting while he’s ahead. Getting into music is a lifelong effort, and that normally means constantly trying to improve one’s craft and listening to the wisdom that other players have to impart.
