Geddy Lee: Hi-Tech Bassist and Synthesist with ... - Cygnus-X1.Net

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always seemed to return to a trio format; itfelt most comfortable.What kind ofbass were you using then?By then I had a 1969 Fender Precision. Infact, before we started playing the bars Itraded my Hagstrom for it. I used that Precisionfor years and years-I still have it.What kind ofstrings did you use?I was using laBella flat-wounds for a fewyears. Then around 1972 there was a bigturning point for my sound when I discoveredRotosound round-wounds. It was likewow-high end! And at the same time, I gotinterested in Sunn amplification; JohnEntwistle [GP, Nov. '75] was using Sunns,and I really loved the sound that he used toget. So I got a 2000-S tube head and twocabinets with two 15s in each. I didn't carefor the speakers that were originally included,so I eventually took those out andput SRO speakers in. My Sunn had muchbetter transient response than my Traynoritwas really a live-sounding amp. I had it upuntil about two years ago.Was the band becoming more popular?Yeah. All ofa sudden we had a followingthat would come out to every bar we played.Eventually, our manager started takingnotice of the fact that we were attractingquite a following. They were trying to getrecord people interested in us, and time andtime again they'd say, "Well you can do asingle or something." And it would alwaysfall through. We'd really get our hopes upand say "Hey, it's going to happen and get usout of the bars," then we'd be disappointed.So around 1972 or '73 we were getting reallyfrustrated because all these record companieswere turning us down left and right.And our management was gettingfrustrated,too, because they started to really believethat the band couldn't make it. So theytalked about forming their own recordlabel-which they did in 1974. It was calledMoon Records. And they fronted somemoney for us to go in and do an album, butwe had to record under the worst of conditions.Were you still playing in bars?Yes. We'd start playing at nine and finishplaying at one in the morning; we playedthree or four sets a night. Afterwards, we'dtake all our gear out of the bar and move itinto an 8-track studio. We'd set up, and thenrecord from 2:30 to 8:00 in the morning. Inaddition, the producer didn't know what hewas doing. It was just crazy.Did any ofyou have a nervous breakdown?Very close to it! Fortunately, we werereally young. We were so fired up that it wasfinally happening that we didn't care whathours we had to work. It eventually turnedout to be our first album, but it went througha lot of changes along the way. After wefinally heard the original mixes, we went,"Wow! There's something wrong with this.h doesn't sound good." You know, itsounded really dinky and wimpy. And wewere disappointed. So we figured that theguy in charge of the production just didn'tknow what he was doing. He was a goodengineer. I guess, but he was no producer. Sowe were freaked out, and our managers werefreaked out because we'd spent all thismoney and it didn't sound right. So one ofour managers knew an engineer/producernamed Terry Brown who'd come over fromEngland; he had his own studio in Toronto.We took the tapes to him, and after listeningto them he couldn't believe how poorly recordedthe stuff was. So we made a deal thatwe'd work 48 hours straight in this studio inCominuedUSE RUBBERS . ..OR IT MIGHT FALL OFF• No moving parts • Will not scratch guitar • Nomodifications • Will work on most electric andacoustic guitars (Gibson. Fender. Guild. Gretsch.Marlin. Aria. Oval ion. J.C. Rich. Elc.) • Etlective• Highest quality material • Simple to install.Custom Printed Rubbers are available with your nameSlore. band or brand name One time looling charge of$100 Four week lead lime on custom orders $1.00 ea.Order yours now Send check money order or CODAdd $ 50 for poslage and handling 6' sales lax for CalifreSIdents 10 day money back guaranleeRUBBERS. P.O. Box 223, Mill Valley, CA 94941ROCHE·THOMAS • 714·864·1033P.o. Box 643 • 6921 Palm Ave.• Highland, CA 92346Made In USA (Dealer & Wholesaler Inquiries) Pat Pend• A comprehensive 64 pg. color guide to allCarvin Pro·Line equipment'including illustrations,technical information and specificationswith Special Direct Prices.• Carvin's new products for the 80's include;double neck guitars, modular power amps upto 700w RMS. Recording and road mixingboards, JBL Pro speakers, bi-channel tubeguitar amps, Parts, plus much, much more.• As we introduce you to the finest Pro Equipmentavailable, you'll appreciate Carvin'spolicy of selling Direct for exceptional values.Write: CARVIN Dept. GP80, 1155 Industrial Ave.,Escondido, CA92025. Phone: (714) 747-1710----CARViN FREECATALOG----Name_AddressCitySlaleZip__GPBOJUNE 1980lGUITAR PLAYER 81
GEDDY LEEan effort to fix up the tapes-that's all themoney we could afford. SO'in that 48 hours,we redid three songs from top to bottom,and fixed up all the other tracks as best wecould. and then remixed them. It made quitea difference-it's still a real raw-soundingalbum. but at least it has some balls to it.Did you plug your Precision right intothe mix board, or did you use an amp?I tried both. At that time I didn't knowanything about recording basses; I was stilljust learning about what kind of sound Iwanted to have. Actually, for the first fewalbums, that was the basic modus operandi:just experiment and try to get a half-decentsound on tape.82 GUITAR PLAYER/JUNE 1980Did you double-track any bass parts?No. We mainly did that with guitars.Since we were a trio we had a basic way ofrecording: Put the rhythm section down, geta meaty guitar sound, and double it. Thenwe'd stick the lead guitar and the vocal on.Sometimes we doubled the vocals, too. Butother than that, it was all really simple, withno fancy production techniques, except anoccasional repeating echo. That was as fancyas we could afford to get. And soon afll:r.Rush was released in Canada, on MoonRecords.How did you happen to end up UllMercury Records?Someone sent a copy of the Moon albumto a radio station in Cleveland; they played itas an import, and found that they weregetting tremendous response from listeners.We were all freaked out. So we started gettingphone calls from record companies then. Wegot a real nice offer from Mercury, andsigned with them. That was really the beginningof our professional phase. We officiallybecame a concert band. We said goodbye tobars and started playing local Toronto concerts.Then we got on a tour of the UnitedStates, and that was our big chance. But atthat time, we were having some problemswith our original drummer, John Rutsey,who'd been with us for five years-in the barsand through all the other work. Just when wewere getting our first big break, he was becomingdisinterested, so we decided to go ourseparate ways. And we were sitting there aweek before our first American tour withouta drummer. We were going out ofour minds.So we held auditions, and we listened toabout six drummers; then Neil Peart walkedin and blew us away with his playing. Wesaid, "Okay, you're in; let's go." We rehearsedfor a week, and bing, we were off tothe States. We hardly even knew him, and wewere off on our first tour, backing UriahHeep. We were the first act of a three-actshow, and we had exactly 26 minutes toplay-it was a little tight.Were you still using your Precision then?No. When we got our first advance, thefirst thing I did was run out and buy a Rickenbacker400 I. I was a big fan of ChrisSquire [GP, Oct. '73] back then, and he wasusing one. He and John Entwistle, to me, hadthe most innovative bass sounds, althoughthey were very different. I always admiredthat, so I figured if I wanted to try for the typeofsound that Squire had, I'd have to get thatkind of bass.Did you still have your Sunn amp?Yes. And I decided to go stereo onstage,so I bought an extra bass setup: 2 Ampeg V4B bottoms, and an SVT head. For my lowend. I would run the bass pickup through theAmpegs, and the treble went to the Sunn. Iwould always keep everything full up on mybasses-I still do-and just crank up thetreble on the amps. I have my low end directlyfed into the PA, while the speakers for myhigh end are miked.Do you use any effects then at all?On the first tour I was still using juststraight licks. Seeing as we only had a halfhour at the most to play onstage, I justwanted to get a good bass sound that I couldset up quickly.As the band's leading vocalist, do youfind any problems trying 10 balance yourconcentration between singing and playingbass?Well, I have always been a singer. I justhappened to be the only one that could singin every band I was in, even before Rush. InRush I became more adept at both singingand playing bass at the same time. And asour material became more complicated, itwas naturally a little more difficult for me toget it together. But with practice, it allworked out. On our later albums, we'd startContinued
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