The History Of Rush by Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson: The Early Years

TeamRock.Com has just posted a new, exclusive interview with both Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson in celebration of Rush's unofficial 50th anniversary. The two bandmaters actually met back in 1966, though their first gig together wouldn't take place until two years later:

1968: The First Gig
Alex Lifeson: It was cool to be young and be in ‘a band’. I had a friend named John Rutsey who played drums, and we had a little basement band called The Projection. The guy that lived next door to me, Gary Cooper, was the bass player. He was older than us and he was the only one who had a car. That was a very important friend to have. That band never really gigged. We just played at a party maybe once every six weeks during the summer. It was mostly about getting together and playing the three or four songs that we knew. And Gary Cooper didn’t stick around for long. But out of The Projection came the first gig as Rush. John’s brother Bill had said, ‘You need a better name for the band – how about Rush?’ And we liked it. We were offered this gig at a drop-in centre, so I called this guy I’d been jamming with, Jeff Jones, who played bass and sang. We did that gig. Twenty people showed up. The following week we were offered another gig at the same place, but Jeff said he couldn’t do it – he was already in another band at the time. So that’s when I called Geddy.

Check out Part 1 of the interview at this LINK.

Part 2 of the interview, titled from 2112 to stardom is available HERE.

Part 3 of the interview, titled Moving Pictures and the 1980s is available HERE.

Thanks to Arthur R. Spear for the news.

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