Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson were childhood friends, and Lee joined Rush at Lifeson’s request to replace the original bassist and frontman Jeff Jones. During their high school years, the two became best friends because they both felt alienated from the rest of the class. After discovering they had similar music tastes, Lee and Lifeson began jamming together.
After Lee’s addition, Neil Peart also joined Rush in 1974. The band then rapidly rose to prominence with its classic power trio lineup. Sadly, Neil Peart passed away on January 7, 2020, which ended Rush’s career. Lee and Lifeson continued to make collaborative musical efforts, the most recent being their reunion show for South Park’s 25th anniversary.
Neil Peart, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart have played together for over four decades. Together, they made rock classics that still influence various artists today. However, Geddy Lee once argued that there was an issue causing them to have arguments during most of their recordings.
Geddy Lee Revealed What Constantly Caused Arguments In Rush
Geddy Lee published his book ‘Big Beautiful Book Of Bass‘ in 2018. After publishing it, he embarked on a tour to promote the book and held book signing events. During one of those events in June 2019, Philip Wilding and Lee had a Q&A session and answered some of the fan questions.
While talking about the recording process with Rush, Geddy Lee said that his sound has lots of ‘guitarishness.’ According to Lee, it wasn’t easy to mix Rush songs because his and Lifeson’s guitar playing were both top-end. Besides, Neil Peart’s heavy cymbal use was also not helping. The guitarist then admitted they had arguments and fights while mixing the songs because they wanted to get it ‘right.’
During the Q&A session at Dancehouse Theatre, Geddy Lee said the following:
“You know, my sound is usually pretty bright; it’s got a lot of ‘guitarishness’ in it. It always is difficult to mix Rush because my sound has a lot of top-end, Alex’s obviously guitar has a lot of top-end, and Neil plays a lot of cymbal-y things. And there’s a real argument going on in mid-branch. So, it’s a bit of a fight to get the mix just right.”
Although Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson have been playing together for years, it seems like they had some disagreements and clashing opinions during the mixing process of Rush songs. As Lee and Lifeson both had a top-end guitar sound, and Peart’s cymbal use was dominant, it was pretty challenging for them to decide how to mix the sound to get the perfect recording.
