Geddy Lee

Certainly my personality, my sense of humor, my outlook on life was informed by the experiences of my parents and the stories they shared with me.

I can't remember the first song I learned to play on bass, but the first song I learned to play on guitar was 'For Your Love' by the Yardbirds. That kind of was the beginning for me. I thought it was a great song and I loved the open chord progression at the beginning of that song.

The first song that made me interested in music was 'Oh, Pretty Woman' by Roy Orbison. It was the guitar intro, that riff, that I really liked and made me listen in a different way.

If I start mining for opinions on hundreds of websites that have fan forums, I'll be totally distorted in my view of myself. I'll lose myself in all that.

Back in the day, fans wrote letters to groups - you'd get them, although it could take a while. Now, artists can go online and there's discussions about what you should and shouldn't be doing. The minute you announce that you're recording an album, thousands of people are telling you what that album should be.

I think you just have to cross your fingers that there's enough artists out there that keep producing interesting work, and eventually it will form a kind of wave that will force people to pay attention to it.

Well, I've been lucky. I've never gotten a voice polyp. I've never gotten nodes. But I do get sick, usually every tour, and to varying degrees. Sometimes it's a sinusitis.

I worry about my voice 24/7 when I'm on tour. It's like a pitcher and his arm. It's constantly the thing that my whole life revolves around.

Live records of mine are very painful to listen to because you always think you can do it better. I don't think I have a single favorite one.

Live albums are very important for Rush, and they became sort of a closing chapter for us.

You spend most of your life working and trying to hone your craft, working on your chops, working on your writing, and you don't really think about accolades. Then you get a bit older and they start coming your way. It's a nice pat on the back.

When I usually go to my studio to work, I start with something that is going to take two minutes just to put some idea down and the next thing I know, ten hours have gone by and my family is screaming at me because they want me to come up to have dinner with them.

When I do a take, I very often try things that I haven't planned to try to see if I can pull it off.

Then, once I have lyrics, being able to shape them around a song is nothing new for me, I've been doing that for 25 years. The soul searching part of it, the spontaneous part of it, that was, and remains, a really terrific process.

So, I don't know what is going to happen when the CD comes out, how well it will sell, etc. But, from a personal point of view, it was a very worthwhile endeavor.

Music is all about wanting to be better at it.

It's hard for me to just practice without writing something.

If you have some magical chemistry that actually find the music you make compelling, that is a big bonus.

I would like to shift more into writing for and producing people.

I love to write. It's my first love.