Geddy Lee says his first real bass amp was a dream come true — until he and Alex Lifeson realized they had no idea how they were going to get the massive thing home.
Long before he was playing arenas and writing progressive-rock epics with the power trio Rush, Lee was a teenager with big ideas about the sound he wanted as a bass guitar player. Those ambitions led him to a hulking Traynor tube head with a twin 15-inch cabinet.
“When I could afford enough, I could afford a Traynor amp,” Lee tells Rick Beato in a new interview.
Made in Canada, Traynor built amps using circuitry inspired by Marshall and Fender designs, but at a lower price point, making them accessible to young players like Lee.
We were not laughing. We were freezing. And we were pushing this fucking amp three blocks to my house.”
— Geddy Lee
“I was probably 15 or 16,” Lee says. “I was working in my mother’s discount variety store on the weekends, and she advanced me a few Saturdays’ worth of money.
“I went down to a local shop in Toronto on a cold winter night with my best pal at the time, Alex Živojinović” — better known today as Alex Lifeson — “and I bought this Traynor head that had a twin 15-inch cabinet.”
But once the deal was done, reality set in: they had no plan for how to get it home.
“We kind of looked at each other,” Lee chuckles. “It was like, ‘How the fuck are we going to get this home?!’ We never even thought of that. We had to take the subway and the bus. It was quite a scene.”
The situation didn’t get any easier when they reached their stop.
“We got off at the bus stop, and it was really icy. And thank goodness it was icy because we pushed the amp — and the head.”
“How much were you guys laughing?” Beato interjects.
“We were not laughing,” Lee replies. “We were freezing. And we were pushing this fucking amp three blocks to my house.”
When they finally got it home, Lee set the amp up in his bedroom and discovered a different kind of excitement — the sound and smell of real gear coming to life.
“I remember the fantastic aroma when you turn on an amp for the first time, as the tubes heat up,” he says. “I couldn't sleep all night. I was so excited just looking at the light on the amp.”
At the time, Lee was playing a Fender Precision Bass and chasing the tone of his early heroes, including Chris Squire of Yes, as well as Jack Bruce and John Entwistle.
I always dreamed of being able to play like Chris Squire. There was something about his playing that just moved me and made me want that sound.”
— Geddy Lee
“I always dreamed of being able to play like Chris Squire,” Lee says. “He was one of my first bass heroes. But there was something about his playing — his facility, his tone — that just moved me and made me want that sound.”
Like many young players, Lee tried to copy his heroes at first. Eventually he realized the process doesn’t quite work that way.
“I never got his tone,” he says. “Only he sounds like Chris Squire. But I did my approximation of it. And when you add your version of your hero's sound, your experience, your particular idiosyncratic style of play and your heart, hopefully you end up with your own sound. I think that’s how a musician becomes themselves.”
Lee would later modify that original Precision Bass into his famous “Space Bass,” reshaping it into the distinctive teardrop-style instrument that became one of his trademarks onstage.
“I kinda destroyed the P Bass,” he says with a smile, “but it's still with us.”
Lee and Lifeson are currently preparing to return to the road with Rush for the first time since the death of drummer Neil Peart, with Anika Nilles on drums and Loren Gold on keyboards. The tour opens June 7 at the Kia Forum, the same venue where the band made what appeared to be its final bow in 2015. The band has not ruled out new music once the tour is completed.
