“Everyone wants a friend like this guy!” Embark on rock’s most unlikely encounter – and their greatest friendship | Pop and rock

TThe two men on the couch, Rush’s Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, have known each other for 60 years. “When we first met in middle school, we sat next to each other and laughed,” says Lee, who is a month older. “He’s the funniest person I’ve ever known, and I make him laugh too.” Lifeson, who had been staring happily at his friend, nodded vigorously. “Yes!” The two were caressing each other so sweetly, and speaking of each other with such happy admiration, that I felt warm from the first. “Everyone wants to have a friend like this guy!” he tells me at one point, beaming.

It’s only because they love each other so much that they are in this luxury hotel suite in London. Lifeson came to Europe for some health checks, and Lee decided to come with him. Once here, they also decided to talk to some journalists about Rush’s upcoming R50 reunion tour, and the decision to add 24 European and South American shows to the 58 arena dates they’ve already announced for North America (they’ll play the UK in March 2027). The interviews were supposed to be separate, but they decided it would be fun to talk together. Honestly, if you want to see a model of male friendship, spend some time with Rush and feel the catharsis.

Their friendship is Rush’s reason for being again. The duo announced they were calling it quits following the death of drummer Neil Peart in January 2020, bringing an end to the band that created a unique blend of prog and hard rock in the 1970s and continued to evolve for decades, achieving 14 platinum-selling albums in the US without ever dropping its principles. They reformed not because they missed Rush, but because they missed playing together as friends. “It goes back to before the origins of the band,” says Lifeson. “When we were in middle school, we would get together and play. Music was what made us want to be buddies.”

Lee says the decision to turn to Rush again came out of confusion. “We got off track and started playing Rush songs. When one of the songs faded out, one of us said, ‘Why don’t we play this song?’ Can we remember it?” So we did. And…we couldn’t.

“We were very bad,” adds Lifeson.

Playing two concerts to honor late Foo Fighters drummer, Taylor Hawkins, in 2022 has given them a shot of adrenaline, and they make tentative plans before Lifeson backs out. When Rush’s idea came up again, he told me, “I said to Al, ‘Look, we either do this or we don’t. I can’t talk about it every two years. Because time goes by and I don’t know how much time we have. So if we’re going to do it, we do it now. If we don’t, let’s talk about it.'”

Lifeson: “True story.”

One problem remained: the drum chair. Peart wasn’t just an outstanding drummer; He was perhaps the most distinguished and technically skilled rock drummer of his and most other generations. He was many fans’ favorite member of Rush. He wrote the lyrics. Lee and Levison nodded when I suggested that replacing him was a bit like telling a young ballplayer he’s playing for Babe Ruth.

“Get out there and swing it, kid!” Lifeson says with a laugh.

The drummer they chose is Annika Niels, 42, from Germany. She was recommended by Lee’s bass tech, having worked the Jeff Beck tour she played on. After a video call, she came to Canada last March to audition for a week.

Usually, when a band recruits a new member, they talk excitedly about the new feeling the group has, and how this has enabled them to change the songs. Did Rush want someone to do it, or someone to play versions of Peart’s parts?

“It has to start there,” says Lifeson. “They have to be true to the arrangements, because that is the fans’ expectation. But we don’t put any restrictions on them. When they are comfortable and confident in the arrangements, they are free to enhance them with their own spirit.”

“And you will do it,” he says to me. “But I don’t think we knew when she arrived what our expectations were, to be honest. “When we started playing with her, we felt something was wrong. And I was of course: “This won’t work.” Those seemingly impossible packing ups were no problem for her at all. What was difficult was understanding the relationship between the snare, drum, and hi-hat, which was different from her training.

“The first four days were up and down, she was nervous, she was affected by jet lag, and we weren’t sure. We had a little chat before the last day — ‘I don’t know, Al, is this going to work?’” We talked about all the things we loved about her, about her work ethic, the nice personality and deep knowledge, deep technical ability. So there’s a lot of positives. So let’s not rush it. And we went into that final day and she nailed it.

“She suddenly understood what we’d been talking about all week, not about the technical side, but about the stuff in between the big stuff, which Neil was great at and those internal dynamics that only another drummer could understand, and it resonated with her,” Lifeson says.

She may have all the abilities in the world, but she still has to try to fit in with friends who have known each other since childhood. Until the end, Lee and Levison referred to Peart, who joined Rush in 1974, as “the new guy.”

“Yes, we’ve excluded Neil that way for years – but he wanted it, he wanted to prove to us that he could be as goofy as the rest of us, and he was very funny. He forced his way into our friendship, and it worked. And Anika is very calm, and she slides into our friendship.”

Rush, as the world knew him, arrived when Peart replaced John Rutsey as drummer and took over the lyrics. On their first appearance, with Rutsey, they were a Led Zeppelin-type heavy rock band. But Lee and Levison had become obsessed with emulating their heroes Yes and Genesis, and they needed a drummer who could match their aspirations: that was Peart.

“We wanted to play like those people,” Lee says. “We wanted to be as precise, as grandiose as they were, or as conceptual as they were. We were carried away by those records, and we wanted that.” And so came the great series of recordings – Embrace of Steel, the career-defining 2112, Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres – filled with multi-part suites and lyrics straight from the library’s imaginative shelves (“By-Tor and the Snow Dog was a joke!” Lee persists in suggesting that their sense of humor did not appear in their music.) They were the band that inspired legions of 14-year-old boys to buy Ayn Rand’s books, and for whom no solo could have been too complicated: their instrument La Villa Strangiato was too complex for them to play live in the studio. (Its subtitle: An Exercise in Self-Indulgence.)

As the 1970s rolled into the 1980s, synths and smoother textures entered their music – at Lee’s urging – and Peart’s lyrics moved away from the mythical to the personal and human, in songs like the hit single “Subdivisions”, about the loneliness of a suburban teenager. Has it become easier for Lee to relate to words because they have become more human?

“Yes and no. There were times when it was very personal and uncomfortable for me – I was the guy pushing for the universality of his words. After we got back with Vapor Trails [Rush’s first album following the deaths of Peart’s daughter and then his wife in 1997 and 1998]There were moments that were very confessional. It was very intimate for me, and I had to be the audience there and say, “Look, I don’t want to change what you’re trying to say.” But let me talk a little bit so it’s not just about your experience. That was a difficult conversation.”

Friendship allowed Rush to weather ups and downs that other bands couldn’t endure. By the end of the 1980s, Lifeson had grown quite tired of the declining role of guitarist in the band. The answer was simple: suck it up. Go back to being a guitar band, never mind that it meant the end of Lee’s favorite era of the band and entry into his least favorite.

In the mid-2000s, Peart decided to completely reinvent his style, taking lessons from jazz drummer Freddie Gruber: it was what he wanted, so they adapted. “It was uncomfortable at first, because we wanted him to flip the sticks and start hitting,” Lee says. “And he was firm that he wasn’t going to change. So we had to adjust the feeling a little bit. For me, it was interesting as a bass player, because he had a rounded swing to his playing. And I think that’s part of what our band has always been: open. So for us, not being open to that change would be jarring.”

This in turn created new problems, because when they next toured, Peart had one set of songs to play in the new way, and another set that required a completely different technique. “I think that’s what ultimately made him such an amazing drummer,” Lee says. “He was more aggressive and at the same time he could swing on a dime.”

When they talk about Bert, it’s not through misty eyes. Sometimes, Lee, in particular, refers to him in the present tense (“How Neil plays…”). But the loss is profound. “I just miss him,” he tells me. “I don’t know if there’s one thing I miss about him.”

“His laugh,” Lifeson says.

“And when he says, ‘Oh,’ Come here!“And it calls your bluff,” he tells me. “He was a mentor to me in so many ways. He was a very motivating person to be around.” Then he laughs and looks at Lifeson. “And I love the way Neil punches for him Very hard in the shoulder. Or he would look at me and say: “Hit him!”

In the end, it all comes down to love. Not just the directors’ love for each other, but their audiences’ love for them. They noted that after the 2010 documentary Rush: Beyond the Lit Stage, there was an increase in affection towards them. Lifeson believes people respect their work ethic; Lee admires Rush’s unapologetic intelligence.

I suggest it’s simpler: people found their friendship very moving. Lifeson nodded along. “I know when I post on Instagram and talk about him, or he talks about me, the response is crazy,” Lee says. “They just love it.”

The biggest point of difference between them is the way they express emotions.

“It’s really emotional,” Lee says.

“I am,” Lifeson nodded. “Very emotional.”

“He can go from zero to 100 on a seemingly innocent remark. ‘Al, calm down. This is not what we’re talking about.'”

“This helps.”

“He can really explode. He’s a true Serb. [Lifeson’s parents, Nenad and Melanija Živojinović, came to Canada from the former Yugoslavia.] The only thing that calms him down is going to eat a pig somewhere. And maybe I’m too controlling of it.

“Yes.”

“And very rational.”

“Yes yes.”

However, 60 years later, if they and their wives of 50 years were invited to dinner, the hosts had better not sit Lee and Levison down together, because it wouldn’t interest anyone else. They will sit with their heads together, immersed in their own party. Lee turns to Lifeson. “We did it one of the nights Tim was over. They planned this amazing dinner party, and we kept them away from us.”

Lifeson nodded like a big, happy Labrador. “This happens a lot!”