The September edition of warehouse club Costco's Costco Connection magazine contains a short interview with Geddy Lee. You can read it online at this link. Here's a transcription of the interview:

Costco Connection: You're Rush's main vocalist and bass player, but you also play keyboards, control sequences and work bass pedals with your feet. Given the technical mastery all those duties require and the sheer difficulty of it all, have you ever thougt about bringing in other musicians to share some of your workload?

Geddy Lee: Oh yeah [laughs], I used to bring it up at the beginning of every tour because there were times when it felt quite daunting to have to deal with all the electronic appartatus when I really just wanted to sing and play bass. So, yeah, I've had to wrestle with that question quite often. But, in the end, we're quite a tight unit, the three of us. And we just kind of figure that our fans would rather see us up there with our technology rather than see us fill up the stage with sidemen. We opted to go the difficult route. But I did get them [guitaris Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart] to share some of the sequencing responsibilities. So that helps a bit.

Costco Connection: Even just singing and playing bass is very difficult for most musicians. Was that a trick for you in the beginning?

Geddy Lee: Yeah, especially on some of our songs. Sometimes you write a song that has a really cool riff, and then you write the melody later, and record it separately. Then when you go to rehearse it, you go, "How do I do this?" because one part has very little in common with the other part. It's hard to get your brain synchronized ... you kind of split your brain in two, and, if you practice it enough, it starts to come naturally. Sometimes you have to compromise a bass part a tiny bit to let it fit more comfortably into your brain pattern, but generally I've found it's like Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000-hour rule [Author Malcolm Gladwell says that the best way to achieve success in any field is to spend 10,000 hours honing your craft]. Just keep playing it, [and you will] eventually get it.

They are also running a contest where you can win a Fender Geddy Lee jazz bass or a signed 2011 Moving Pictures limited edition lithograph. For a chance to win just email your name, address and daytime phone number with a subject line of either Fender Geddy Lee Bass or Moving Pictures Litho respectively to giveaway@costco.com. For contest details just refer to the right sidebar on this page. Thanks to Power Windows for the heads up.

NOTE: Posts over 10 years old are partially archived. All comments, images and other embedded media have been removed.