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June 13, 2008
A soft-spoken rock 'n' roll star
Geddy Lee talks about music, family and growing up as a child of Holocaust survivors.
MARCIE SOMERS
Geddy Lee, the legendary frontman of Canadian band Rush, has long been hailed as one of the greatest bass players in rock 'n' roll history. An award-winning musician, Lee's style, technique and skill on the bass guitar, along with his trademark vocal style, have left a lasting impression with music fans around the world.
In person, Lee is extremely soft spoken; so much so, that at times his voice is barely above a whisper. Humble and modest, when asked about being called one of the greatest bass players in the world, he quipped, "That's because there aren't many of us." After a moment's laughter, he continued. "Maybe it's typical of Jewish kids. There are a lot of Jewish catchers in major league baseball and I often joke it's because no one wants to be a catcher, so it's the quickest route to being in the major leagues. Maybe being a bass player was my route to being in the 'major leagues.' "
Born and raised in Toronto, Lee's foray into the music industry began as "a typical suburban story."
"My friends and I were into music, so a few of us got together and started playing. No one wanted to be the bass player, so they pointed at me and said, 'You play bass' and I went 'OK' and that was the big decision."
Apparently, it was the right decision as, over the past 30 years, Lee and his bandmates, Neil Peart and Alex Lifeson, have released 24 albums; 23 of which have gone gold. They have also had 14 platinum (three multi-platinum) records, making them one of the best-selling rock bands in history, placing them fifth behind the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Kiss and Aerosmith for the most consecutive gold and platinum albums by a rock band.
Although Lee played only bass in the early years, as he matured as a musician, he become a more active participant and more involved with principal songwriter Peart's lyrics. A song that came from this focus was one of Lee's first and it was near and dear to his heart: "Red Sector A." The song comes directly from a story his mother, a Holocaust survivor, told him about the day she was liberated.
"She didn't believe that liberation was possible. When she first saw the British soldiers, she didn't understand that they were there to liberate her. She didn't believe that, if there was a civilization outside of the camps, that they would allow what happened to her and her people. In her starving mindset, she believed that most of humanity had perished and that they were the last survivors. It was the only explanation she had as to why no one came to her aid. Her feeling and recognition that the rest of the world was intact and what she experienced that day is the scenario behind 'Red Sector A.' "
Growing up, Lee himself was often subjected to anti-Semitism. "Although my neighborhood was Jewish, the area at that time was surrounded by farmland. Every morning, I would be bused into school, where these farmers' kids would wait at the top of the road to beat my friends and I up. We weren't exactly a powerful group, so every day, I would be verbally and physically abused." Despite the torment, the young Lee did not tell his parents about his daily experiences. Perhaps it had to do with his family background.
Born Gary Lee Weinrib, anti-Semitism was not new to his household. His parents, Mary and Morris Weinrib, were both Holocaust survivors. They immigrated to Toronto in 1947, where they opened a discount variety store in Newmarket, Ont.
Lee loves to recount the story of how his parents met: "It's a beautiful story, especially considering the context of how they met." Interned together in 1941, in a labor camp in their hometown of Staracohwice (about an hour south of Warsaw), Poland, somehow in the darkness of despair, the two fell in love. From Staracohwice, they were sent to Auschwitz. Although separated into men's and women's camps, Lee's dad would arrange little presents for his mother. He would bribe guards to give her letters and shoes. "When I think about the fact that they had a teenage crush in the most horrible of places, it makes me smile. I like to think about that," said Lee. Eventually, his father was sent to Dachau, in southern Germany, and his mother to Bergen-Belsen, in northern Germany.
Despite their separation, their love remained strong. After being liberated from Dachau, Lee's father went looking for his mother, whom he eventually found in Bergen-Belsen, which had been turned into a displaced persons camp. "One day, out of the blue, in walked my father – like a knight in shining armor," said Lee. They were married in the camps and eventually made their way to Canada, along with Lee's grandmother, who had also survived the war.
Unlike most Holocaust survivors, Lee's parents did not hide their experiences from their children. Lee began hearing the horror stories from as young as eight. "My mother was always very forthright about her wartime experiences," he said. "She used to tell me stories of what she went through. They haunted me as a child and her stories are still with me."
Lee feels the impact of the Holocaust in his daily life. "When you grow up ... in a household of people that experienced the worst kind of anti-Semitism in the history of mankind, it's always visible to you and you can see it from far away." Because of this fact, Lee recently donated $100,000 to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR). Currently on tour supporting his latest album, Snakes and Arrows, the band is selling special CMHR T-shirts at shows in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver and donating the proceeds to the museum.
At the end of the day, what keeps this rock icon motivated is his fans. "I love my fans. I feel incredibly honored and overwhelmed by the amount of fans I have from my bass playing," said Lee. "The biggest compliment for me is when they tell me that they love my playing. To me, that is the honor of all honors. It blows my mind and that's what keeps me going."
Marcie Somers is a freelance writer based in Toronto.
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