Here's what rushes to Geddy Lee's mind

By Rob Palladino
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Thursday, April 17, 2008

It's been 14 years since Canadian rock legends Rush played Austin. The band stops Wednesday at the Erwin Center on their "Snakes & Arrows" tour and we talked with bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee last month about why the long time between Austin shows, the band's new record ... and baseball.

American-Statesman: You guys haven't come to Austin for 14 years. How come?

Geddy Lee:Well, we can't play every city. We play that area of Texas every tour, usually San Antonio. We just play as many shows as we can in the time that we have. Part of the reason we're doing this tour is to hit places we haven't in awhile, but we have no bias against playing Austin, I can assure you. (Laughs.)

Rush has a new live album coming out ('Snakes & Arrows Live' was released Tuesday). Wasn't that originally meant to be a DVD?

I think it's still the plan. We're editing all the footage now and hopefully by Christmas time we'll be putting out a DVD. With the live album, we figured if we could get some stuff released before the tour that would be a bonus, and we pulled that off.

Any major changes to the set list this time out?

Yeah, we're going to change about three or four songs, bring back some more of the classics, or what people consider to be classics (laughs); bring back some stuff from "2112." things like that.

Rush isn't known for long tours, so why is there a second leg? Is it your last tour?

We've never said it's our last tour, and we've never even guessed when it would be our last tour. These are just rumors that people start. We felt we owed it to "Snakes & Arrows," which we feel is one of our better records in a long time, to go back out and try to play to more people and, seeing as we're enjoying it too, why not keep enjoying it for a few more months. (Laughs). We pace our tours in a very civilized way, we have enough days off, plus we've found that there was this influx of new people coming to see us, younger people, and that was gratifying and really encouraging.

You're a huge baseball fan. Predictions for '08?

Well, I'm thinking the Mets in their division this year; I think Johan Santana will make the difference. I think the Cubbies look strong in their division. I like the Tigers, although you can't write off the Red Sox.

The Astros?

I don't think the Astros are improved from last year. They still have some great players, but I don't know if they have enough to compete.

Who do you like for the World Series?

Well, if I had to hazard a guess this far out, I would have to say Mets/Tigers; let's be bold! The only thing that would prevent the Tigers is that their bullpen isn't looking so strong right now.

Aren't we supposed to be talking about Rush, not baseball?

Baseball's more fun anyway.

More from Geddy Lee

On the intro filmed by former 'Great White North' comedy duo of Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas for the song 'The Larger Bowl':

They were up in Toronto filming a special for the CBC called the '2-4 Anniversary' (a 2-4 is what we Canadians call a case of beer). So they did this crazy special and they called me up and asked me if I would do a little cameo on the show. ... I've known Rick since I was a kid and I hadn't seen him in awhile and it was a blast doing this little segment with them. Then after we finished taping, I was leaving the building and I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great for them to do an intro to one of our songs?'... They said that they'd love to, so I sent them some titles of our songs and that's the one they chose.

On playing (with Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson) as the guests of the Foo Fighters recently in Toronto:

(Foo Fighters' management) told us that Taylor (Hawkins, Foo's drummer), whom we've met a couple of times and is a big fan of ours, would like to play 'YYZ' with us ('YYZ' is a Rush instrumental track from years ago). We happened to be in town starting our own rehearsals anyway and we love that band ... and we share the same producer (Nick Raskulinescz, who produced 'Snakes & Arrows'), so we have this kind of in-house connection, so we said sure.

Where was Neil (Peart, Rush drummer and lyricist)?

Unfortunately Neil wasn't in town, because they were going to get him to play one of their songs, and he would've been up for it ... so that didn't work out, but it turned out to be a total hoot.

'YYZ' isn't the easiest song to play ...

(Laughs) Yeah, it's not exactly 12-bar blues, but Taylor went for it, nailed it and had a big grin on his face for the whole performance. It was quite lovely to see, and Alex and I were really complimented by the whole thing.

The Austin show

Rush plays at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Erwin Center, 1701 Red River St. Tickets are $45-$95. 471-7744, www.uterwin

center.com.