You may assume that rockers do not have much of a challenge while singing their original materials, but there might have been times when they go, ‘Well, that one’s going to be a tough one,’ after checking their setlist.
At least, this was the case whenever Geddy Lee had to perform one particular Rush song. The singer was quite vocal about his struggle with the track while being interviewed by Bass Player in 1992. The song in question was difficult to perform and especially a nightmare to sing at live shows as Lee struggled to keep the vocals and his bass riffs.
Geddy was asked if there had been a time when he wrote a song and thought it to be great, but he knew immediately that it would be a challenge to sing.
“Many times,” joked Lee as he answered. “Even ‘Roll the Bones’ has accents that totally go against the vocal part, although the bass line isn’t complicated. That’s one of the most difficult songs for me to do because it’s hard to get into those bass-and-drum punches and keep the vocal line from getting her-jerky.”
Geddy Lee struggled to sing ‘Roll the Bones’ as he had trouble keeping the vocals and an interesting bass line simultaneously. Yet, his bandmates always tried to encourage him to take things a bit easy to prevent the song from being a nightmare during the rehearsals and live performances.
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