respect the classics

Geddy Lee Will Release a Memoir in 2112 … No, Sorry, 2022

Photo: Ryan Emberley/Getty Images for Artists for Peace and Justice

If we don’t get an entire chapter dedicated to the infamous Colbert Report interview, well … who are we kidding, we’ll be devouring it with a bunch of honeydew regardless. Rush co-founder and bass deity Geddy Lee will release his first memoir in fall 2022, he announced on social media, which came together from a mix of pandemic boredom and wanting to properly grieve the death of his bandmate Neil Peart. Lee, who previously wrote the wonderfully informative coffee-table book Big Beautiful Book of Bass, said a friend and collaborator “saw how I was struggling in the aftermath of Neil’s passing, and tried coaxing me out of my blues with some funny tales from his youth, daring me to share my own in return.” Lee promises an “epic-length account” of Rush and his personal life:

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.

HarperCollins has already purchased Lee’s memoir, which he says will also encompass “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.” What we are obsessing over now: “Ricky” being short for “Rickenbacker.”

Geddy Lee Will Release a Memoir in 2112 … No, Sorry, 2022