“Then tragedy struck”: The one musician that tore Geddy Lee away from Rush
When Rush were at their peak, it truly felt like a band of brothers.
Even though Neil Peart was still being considered the new guy after four decades of being in the band, they were always happy to present themselves as the Three Musketeers that happened to create some of the most ambitious progressive rock ever made. But for someone who was as in love with performing as Lee was, there were a few moments where he felt like he needed to take a break from his old buddies.
But it’s not like the band ever had too many creative differences. They were all on the same page half the time, and even when they weren’t, and Alex Lifeson put his foot down about getting his guitar more prominent in the mix, Lee and Peart were willing to listen to what he was saying. And when the band did have a few ventures outside of the band, it’s not like they were planning on staying away for too long.
There weren’t any overt ‘no side projects’ rules or anything, but if you look at the songs that Lee had played on before, he wasn’t going to join another band or anything. Say what you want to about his greatest moments outside of his main gig, but Bob and Doug McKenzie weren’t intended to be permanent fixtures of Lee’s musical diet or anything when he sang on the song ‘Take Off’. In fact, the only thing that could separate them from each other would hit a lot closer to the bone.
After the tour for Test For Echo, Peart’s entire world was shattered when his daughter passed away in a car accident. Anything having to do with the band ended for a few years as Peart also dealt with watching his wife pass away from cancer, but even if Lee could respect his bandmate sorting himself out, he didn’t want to sit on his hands for the rest of his life, wondering when he was going to come back.
Like any musician, Lee never stopped creating for a second, but it wasn’t until he started woodshedding songs by himself that he thought he had a proper album behind him. He still had some reservations about going out on his own without his buddies, but session musician Ben Mink was the one who officially made him go solo. Mink had already played on songs like ‘Losing It’ from Signals, and since Lee needed some time away, he figured that he needed someone to push him towards his own record.
So once he started talking with Mink about the songs he was doing, he felt that he had the confidence to get back into the studio, saying, “A lot of that was Ben Mink. We used to jam at my house, and we started writing together. Then tragedy struck with Neil, and he took off for London because he couldn’t really bear to be in Toronto surrounded by all the memories of his daughter. During that time I started looking at doing a solo record. I decided it was the best thing to throw myself into work.”
And to Lee’s credit, there are some pieces of My Favourite Headache that end up going in a completely different direction from what Rush had done. Matt Cameron doesn’t nearly have the same kind of punch that Peart did, but for songs that have a different angle than what Rush was known for, it was probably the right approach to have a more alternative-leaning band behind him, especially with the same producer who helped engineer records like Temple of the Dog and Pearl Jam’s Ten.
Lee wasn’t going to become a global superstar or anything, but the least he could do was hash out his own feelings while he waited for Peart to find his way back down to Earth. There was no way of splitting up the Canadian icons, but getting some songs off his chest was Lee’s way of getting some of his innermost feelings out.
