What every Rush album needs, according to Geddy Lee: “Like recess for us”
Make no mistake, when you listen to the work of Rush, it has the power to stun listeners for how complex it manages to be despite there only ever being three members producing that sound together.
One of the most impressive things about the band was how they successfully managed to play off each other’s strengths and produce a sound so massive that it seemed as though only a much larger act could reasonably pull it off. However, such was the brilliance of Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart, this trio of masterful musicians was all they ever needed to succeed, and propel themselves to the upper echelons of the prog canon.
What’s even more impressive is that Lee managed to play bass in the intricate way that he did while also singing equally convoluted vocal melodies over the top, possessing a voice that was just as powerful as the songs that were being composed around it. It’s rare for a bassist to also be the vocalist in a band, given how being required to play a rhythmic instrument often involves using a different metre to how vocals are enunciated, so for Lee to do what he did only adds to his credibility as a marvellous player.
The thing is, as much as his falsetto was seen as being an integral part of their sound, and how distinctive it could make the band when compared to their peers, it wasn’t always seen as being a necessary ingredient to make the band work. They were just as adept at making songs stand out when he wasn’t singing, and on some occasions, their instrumentals stood out on their own without the addition of words to grab the listener’s attention.
Take for example one of their best-known tracks, ‘YYZ’, which is easily recognisable as a Rush track for how the melodic bass playing bounces off the complicated rhythms that Peart is playing in a 5/4 time signature, and how Lifeson’s lead guitar soars over the top. This is arguably one of the highlights of their stellar Moving Pictures album, and one that the band continues to bring out at live shows to rapturous response.
Lee would later go on to explain in a 1993 interview with Bass Player Magazine how having an instrumental track on every Rush record was something that they enjoyed doing, and would actively search for an opportunity to include. “We get more and more people responding to our instrumentals, but I don’t think so-we always have to be shooting off our mouths about something,” he argued. “The instrumentals are great fun to do, though, and they’re easy; recording them is like recess for us. We always try to save one slot per album for an instrumental; the one on Counterparts, ‘Leave That Thing Alone,’ turned out particularly well.”
Perhaps they wouldn’t ever want to ditch the vocal tracks for the entirety of an album, but there’s always room for an instrumental on every release of theirs, and it always has the power to blow audiences away. Lee’s vocals would be sorely missed if they were absent for a whole record, but when removed temporarily, it has always managed to produce gold.
