Geddy Lee on Unreleased Rush Material

Rush: Geddy Lee, Neil Peart and Alex Lifeson

Rush bassist and singer Geddy Lee recently spoke with Rolling Stone in an interview that marks one year since drummer Neil Peart’s passing. Lee paid homage to his fallen bandmate by recounting their 40 years of playing together.

“I’ve never met a musician like him. He was a monster drummer of the highest magnitude,” Lee said. “I’ve met some great musicians but I had the pleasure to watch him every night onstage and watch him improvise, as he got older, through his solos. When he became determined to add improvisation as part of his drum solo every night, that’s a bold, brave step for him and the level of complexity that he functioned at. I don’t know many other musicians that can function at that level.”

He also shed light on another aspect of Rush pertaining to the release of B-sides and demo material. Since the band effectively ended in 2018, all that is left to hear is unreleased material. However, when asked about a studio archive, Lee says there is nothing to release.

“No, there’s nothing. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing left” he said. “There might be half-finished demos somewhere where we got halfway through and went, ‘Oh, this song sucks.’ And it never got made…. You’d know when you’re working on a song if you’re beating a dead horse. If that song wasn’t really coming together — and especially with me as I got older — I had less patience for staying with a song that obviously wasn’t working.”

Luckily, we still have hours and hours of music and concert footage to enjoy.

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  1. Smeg

    Nothing that the band hasn’t been saying for decades. If they recorded it, they used it.

  2. Rush really is one of those bands that will stand the test of time. Neil Peart was one of my favorite drummers and biggest influences, and we as fans can take solace that Rush produce such a large amount of material to enjoy and revel in.