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“I’ll manage you, mate!”: How Paul McCartney tried to convince Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson to tour as Rush again
“Alex said something like, ‘I’ll do it, if you’ll be our manager,’” Lee recalls.
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Geddy Lee has spoken about the time Paul McCartney tried to convince him and Rush bandmate Alex Lifeson to tour again.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, Lee reveals that the conversation took place last September during the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert in London.
Recalling how Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl had introduced them to the Beatle, Lee says, “Dave was so sweet. He comes up to us at rehearsal and he goes, ‘Paul McCartney’s up next to rehearse, and he’s outside, and he said to me, ‘Dave, I’ve never met anyone from Rush before.’”
“And I said, ‘I’ve never met him! Bring him in, please.’ And he came in. He’s just a very lovely man. A very positive person.”
Asked if he got the sense that McCartney knew Rush music, Lee replies: “No, but I got the sense he knew who we were and had heard about us.”
“He had never listened to us. So at the show, he was there. He watched the set. I think he was really curious because people probably had mentioned us to him.”
The bassist also praised Macca for being “incredible” after the show, saying, “He was so warm and embracing and positive. He came and sat and drank with us. We all got plastered together.”
“And he was very emphatic, talking about, ‘You know what Ringo [Starr] always says: ‘It’s what we do.’’ And I said, ‘Talk to Al, because he’s the stubborn one.’ And so he was lecturing Al about how great it is to tour. ‘You have to do it, man. You have to get back out there, man.’ And Alex said something like, ‘I’ll do it, if you’ll be our manager.’ ‘I’ll manage you, mate!’”
“It was really fun, really funny, but he had a point,” Lee continues. “That’s the way he looks at life. He’s ageless because he really, truly believes he was born to do this. That’s what you do. And you just do it. You don’t question it. And I think we all sometimes forget that.”
While Rush previously said that the band will not be continuing after the death of longtime drummer Neil Peart, Lee has recently expressed his willingness to perform with Lifeson under the Rush name again. In a new interview with The Washington Post, the musician shared that it was the Foo Fighters Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts that relit the Rush fire within him.