RUSH's GEDDY LEE Talks About 'R30' CD/DVD, Upcoming Studio Album

October 12, 2005

Greg Prato of Billboard.com recently spoke to RUSH singer/bassist Geddy Lee about the group's upcoming CD/DVD "R30 Live in Frankurt". Recorded at RUSH's Sept. 24, 2004, stop in Frankfurt, Germany, the project is due Nov. 22 via Rounder in the United States and Anthem in Canada; Sanctuary Visual Entertainment will issue it Nov. 28 in Europe.

"Well, basically nobody was in a big hurry to do another live project, because we've got about 60,000 of them out there," Lee told Billboard.com. "But when we were touring Europe on the last tour, we hadn't been to those countries in 10 years — some of them 20 years. And there was such an exuberant response from the crowd; it just seemed like a unique opportunity to capture the band in that kind of environment."

"The venue is very old," Lee continued. "We've played there a couple of times. It's always a strange atmosphere for North Americans to come over there and play in one of these buildings that Hitler used to do speeches in and so forth. So it's always got kind of an ominous vibe for us. But the crowd is always great and a lot of fans hadn't seen us in a long time."

With regards to the vintage footage included on the set, Lee attributes the discovery of some it to his brother, who works in the film business. "He took it upon himself to get involved in our vault and see what the hell was lying around down there, and he discovered some of these old things that we had forgotten about," Lee said, adding that some of the clips "are kind of painful to watch [laughs]! Bad hair, bad glasses. You just kind of look in wonderment like, 'Is that really me?' And you really feel how much you've changed since that time."

Meanwhile, RUSH are gearing up for a new album, the follow-up to 2002's "Vapor Trails". "We're just at the stage now where we're getting ourselves ready to do some writing," Lee revealed. So that will take place over the next six to eight months probably, and we'll gather some material together into a record."

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