April 11, 2023
You gotta think the wait will be worthwhile. Rush bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee’s memoir, “My Effin’ Life”, was supposed to be released in the fall of ’22. It now has a release date of November 14, 2023. The memoir, which was edited Noah Eaker, is 512 pages and will be available as a hardcover or as an e-book.
Lee broke the memoir news on Instagram in September 2021, writing, “So, how did I kill time during the pandemic? Little did I know that as of March 2020 I’d be locked down for over a year and a half—the longest time I’d spent in Toronto since I was nineteen and hit the Northern Ontario bar circuit with Rush.
“Although [my wife] Nancy and I had to cancel a bunch of adventures we’d been planning, there were some shiny silver linings to be found at home: teaching my grandson the finer points of baseball and birdwatching, tending to my pups (one of whom was quite ill) and spending the evenings with my lovely better half, glass of Armagnac in hand, as we watched every European mystery show ever produced. Oh, and another thing: I began to write. Words, that is.
“My friend and collaborator on the ‘Big Beautiful Book Of Bass’, Daniel Richler, saw how I was struggling in the aftermath of [Rush drummer] Neil’s [Peart] passing, and tried coaxing me out of my blues with some funny tales from his youth, daring me to share my own in return. So I did—reluctantly at first, but then remembering, oh yeah, I like wrestling with words. It’s a less physical version of arguing with musical notes, without a Ricky doubleneck breaking my back! And soon my baby-step stories were becoming grownup chapters. Being the nuclear obsessive that I am, I’d write and re-write them, reassessing perspectives in the narrative not just by scouring my memory banks but my diaries and piles of photo albums too. I was piecing together a mystery of a different kind.
“I’d then send these improved and even illustrated stories to Daniel, who’d clean up some of the grammar and remove a lot of the swearing (I love to fucking swear),and presto! In a voice that sounded, well, just like me, a presentable, epic-length account of my life on and off the stage was taking shape: my childhood, my family, the story of my parents’ survival, my travels and all sorts of nonsense I’ve spent too much time obsessing over. And Daniel said, ‘I think you’re writing a book. An actual memoir, in fact.’ To which I replied, ‘Hmm… I guess I am.’
Last September, Lee and Rush co-founder Alex Lifeson, joined Dave Grohl, Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith and Tool’s Danny Carey onstage at the Kia Forum in L.A. to pay tribute to late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.
What’s your favourite rock read? Make some recommendations.
Written by Todd Hancock
