In a brand new interview with Mike Gaube and Shaggy of 94.9 and 104.5 The Choose and Mike Gaube’s Headbangers, MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson spoke about how he first found RUSH‘s music. He mentioned (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I grew up within the Midwest the place, satirically, most of my favourite bands from the ’70s who obtained me into my love of arduous rock after which ultimately steel, after which my skilled profession began in ’83 after we began MEGADETH. However rising up within the Midwest, a lot of the bands that I listened to — from KISS, Ted Nugent, RUSH, STYX, REO SPEEDWAGON, CHEAP TRICK, that complete type of arduous rock contingent — they stunning a lot lower their eye tooth on gigging and touring by the Midwest. And so I assume for me, KISS was type of the primary huge love affair of arduous rock music for me. Every little thing about it — the fantasy, all that stuff. After which, as soon as I type of obtained over that, then it was VAN HALEN, BOSTON, then RUSH, CHEAP TRICK and all the remainder of the stuff, Ted Nugent, and all the things that got here after that. However for me, RUSH, I used to see that ‘All The World’s A Stage’ album cowl. There was a neighborhood drug retailer the place I used to purchase, like a pharmacy on most important avenue in Jackson, Minnesota, that is the place I used to purchase numerous my data. After which lastly a document retailer opened. However ‘All The World’s A Stage’ simply beckoned to me. It simply referred to as to me — Marshalls, a killer drum equipment, the Ampeg amps. And most significantly, that they had carpet on the stage. I used to be, like, how fucking steel is that, to have carpet in your stage? After which I would have a look at it and eventually in the future I purchased it. I feel in all probability probably the most hanging factor for me was [RUSH bassist/vocalist] Geddy‘s [Lee] voice — that basically excessive, screeching, shrilling voice was so totally different, so distinctive to all the things, however, in fact, as a bass participant myself, as a younger musician, listening to Geddy and [RUSH drummer] Neil Peart‘s, their drum mixture, bass-and-drum factor, was simply unbelievable, However all of them seemed cool, they sounded cool. And to me, that was what rock and roll was for me rising up. It was this fantasy. Some folks play fantasy soccer. If I had a fantasy gang to go be a part of, it will be a band. So I feel that is what my tribe did… What’s my fantasy band that I may in all probability be in? And I feel that was, and it nonetheless is, my life pursuit, is to, like, ‘The place is that fantasy band?’ I am nonetheless placing one collectively, and I have been in a gazillion of them. And that is simply what it’s. Even when we’re in bands which are profitable, you type of go, folks would ask us in interviews, ‘Who’s that one particular person you continue to have not performed with but?’ So there’s at all times type of this bucket record. So, that, to me, is type of my overarching kind of profession take care of music and RUSH has at all times been part of that for me.”
Requested what’s extra difficult, Lee‘s bass components or Peart‘s drumming components, Ellefson replied: “It is attention-grabbing as a result of if you’re rising up, you hear all this proggy stuff and you do not actually know what it’s. However then, as you get within the studios, you are working with professionals, and at first, we’re at all times working with everyone who’s far forward of us and superior — and never simply the musicians, however the producers and the engineers… In order a 15-year-old in my basement in Minnesota, I am going, ‘Oh my God. I’ve no body of reference. I am in jazz band and I am studying all these items.’ However now I hear it and I am going, ‘All proper, it is not that onerous,’ ‘trigger it is pentatonic riffs. So all the things’s type of in these pentatonic bins. And I feel for all of us, everytime you’re enjoying another person’s music or studying their components, or perhaps as I’ve carried out, you are filling in for anyone well-known, you discover… The place’s type of the middle of what they do? I watch guitar gamers. You possibly can inform they’ve listened to Michael Schenker. For me, Geddy… Geezer Butler from BLACK SABBATH, Steve Harris from IRON MAIDEN, Geddy Lee from RUSH, they’re type of on this pentatonic field. And when you type of work out what that’s, it is like statistics. The place’s the means and the mode and the deviation? There’s the middle of it. So there’s the middle. And I feel for me, that is type of how I… hastily it is such as you unlock the Geddy field, like, ‘Ah, that is what he is doing. Okay.’ After which on each track, you are, ‘Ah, there it’s once more.’ And possibly how I play as nicely. You type of discover the middle of the place I reside in my components on the fingerboard and that, and then you definitely type of go, ‘Oh, that is how he performs.’ So then it is simpler to determine somebody’s components. That, for me, is type of the important thing to learning somebody’s enjoying.”
This previous February, Ellefson praised Lee‘s memoir, “My Effin’ Life”, calling it “one of many best books ever written”.
Launched in November 2023 by way of HarperCollins, “My Effin’ Life” explores not solely Geddy‘s a long time with RUSH, however rising up because the son of two Holocaust survivors. Within the ebook, Lee charts his story from his humble beginnings outdoors Toronto within the Fifties and Nineteen Sixties to reaching worldwide success with one of many greatest rock bands of all time.
On February 13, 2024, Ellefson shared a few pictures of him holding a replica of “My Effin’ Life”, and he wrote in an accompanying message: “What an amazing effing ebook !!!!!
“Not solely is that this a implausible memoir from one among my all-time favourite Bass influences, Mr. Geddy Lee, but additionally a harrowing element of World Battle II and his household’s archival information & historical past inside it. And naturally, the within scoop of one of many best rock bands of all time… RUSH!
“Geddy so precisely describes that second, when throughout our most awkward childhood rising up, many people uncover that a-ha second when our instrument of selection (the bass!) comes into our lives and adjustments all the things we do, and the way we view the world from that time onward….discovering objective and that means to all of it by our love of music.
“I do not know if it is a Bass participant factor or what, however Geddy you might have penned one of many best books ever written! Thanks for sharing your life’s story, and your life’s work with us!”
Upon its launch, “My Effin’ Life” was No. 1 within the Canadian bestselling books record and had spent 5 weeks on the New York Occasions non-fiction greatest sellers.