Geddy Lee: Clockwork Angel

Posted On Sep 11, 2019 By admin With Comments Off

For more than 40 times, Geddy Lee’s inimitable articulation, athletic bass guitar, and even occasional synthesizer run were the sonic cornerstones of prog-rock trio, Rush. The Canadian radical was both the highest profile and most influential prog band of its generation, and truly integral to the writing of prog-rock’s second section. Despite crafting music that was uncompromisingly academic, musically complex, and in many ways, downright nerdy, Rush became a massive success and fostered a deeply obsessive and heartfelt fanbase. For the uninitiated, we highly recommend checking out the documentary Beyond the Lighted Stage for an entertaining and enlightening primer on the band, terminated with testaments from remarkable Rush superfans like Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and the Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan.

Rush recently had what is presumed to be its final curtain call as resident drum deity and lyricist, Neil Peart, has retired from drumming absolutely. Citing increasing rigor in performing Rush’s adroit music as he ages and trouble recovering from the rigors of touring, Peart has decided he’d instead hang’ em up than play-act those songs at a position that fails to meet his immensely high personal standard.

While this has unhappily effectively intention Rush, it has afforded Lee the opportunity to both invest some quality term with his beloved Norwich Terriers and indulge in the passions that fall outside of the spotlight — namely collecting.

Geddy Lee and his Heuer” Jo Siffert” Autavia- photo approval: Richard Sibbald

Over the years, Lee’s developed into a noted connoisseur of wines, a fanatic trawler of baseball ephemera, and even recently released a brilliantly well-crafted coffee table diary cataloging his incredible collection of over 250 vintage bass guitars — competently designation Geddy Lee’s Big Beautiful Book of Bass. As it turns out, Lee’s collector’s muse is also very much taken with penalty vintage wristwatches.

The melodic icon has amassed an eclectic collect of some 40 bits that includes Canadian-market exclusive Rolexes and Tudors, classic Heuers, intriguing early examples from Longines, and even the strange dress watch. Lee has absolutely propelled himself into a self-education on the minutia, quirks, and overall biography of wristwatches, ascribing the Instagram watch community as a major source of fuel for his ever-growing fascination with watches.

In the following conversation, Worn& Wound converses with Lee about some favourites from his collect, his admittance into the watch compiling diversion, his ongoing education as a self-described watch geek, and even glean a bit of collector’s advice from a restless person that’s exerted such sense to the pursuit of a great many things.

” I like watches that derive you in rather than shout at you — things that possess a glamour and an grandeur and intricacy, but don’t scream from your wrist .”

Worn& Wound: What was your gateway into watch collecting?

Geddy Lee: I didn’t have a whole lot of interest in collecting watches, but I always admired specific old watches. I imagine the very first old-time watch that I ever owned was a Rolex a person in England sold me times and year ago. It wasn’t anything impressive or especially collectible, but it was from the’ 30 s and I only thought it was a cool watch. It was a couple hundred bucks and I still have it.

Rolex made some stuff alone for the Canadian marketplace through the years, and one of them was this Tudor Oyster Regent, and I picked that up. I thought it had a cool shape to it and I adoration the sort of Art Deco vibe of those watches. So, I had a few cool watches over the years and enjoyed them, but I didn’t take collecting severely or anything.

A few Patek Philippe Calatravas- photo approval: Richard Sibbald

However, I was in Switzerland many years ago and I happened upon this cool watch shop, and a great conversation with a very nice chap there contributed significantly to my bequeath with a pitch-black bezel Rolex GMT from 1968, and that was really my gateway watch. I preserved that watch for many years. Over the years, I’d received a few great watches as endows, including a solid gold Universal Geneve Compax. Later I are caught up a’ 68 Jaeger LeCoultre Speedbeat, and it was then that I started warning those who are interested certainly rallying watches.

I’d always demanded a neat Patek Calatrava and about three years ago my partner bought me a beautiful older one. Then I found another one that I fell in love with while researching them, and it started a little of a chain reaction. I actually adore the ones from the’ 40 s- ’6 0s, and I’ve never been much of a modern watch guy. I’d say after those Pateks came into my life, I genuinely got the bug in a bad way. I had about 5 or 6 watches at that point and never genuinely was just thinking about them as something I wanted to keep buying, but after going that second Patek, I went kind of mental. I think it also coincided with the sort of watch lover’s revolution that’s happened on Instagram.

Instagram has completely revolutionized the pastime and how we all interact. How has it impacted your own collecting?

Lee: I picture Instagram has been the single biggest boon to watch collecting in forever because it’s the excellent medium for it! Someone can show off a watch that was shot beautifully and you immediately get a big case of the “wantsies, ” and then you research through it. Most watch fans know that 98% of the public will pay no attention to what watch they’re wearing. Exclusively other watch parties certainly notice or know what they’re looking at. The world’s watch lovers ought to have brought together through Instagram and what the fuck is formerly lead unnoticed now has this great community and talk to go with it. You post a watch and other collectors run, “wow, that’s cool! ” or “do you like this ref? ” or “look at the dial” or” ardour the patina on that! ” The conversation that’s happening is really great. Obviously traders and sellers let us recognize the new public and it’s all contributed to the price rise, but likewise to the fanaticism so many of us feel about collecting watches now.

It’s likewise brought out a real interest in the details that drive a watch or make a watch really special; things like dial items and nuances that take a watch from perhaps being a great watch from a great year, to something watch collectors can really get excited about, like double- or triple-signed phones, red Subs, or rhythms first. All of these little variants that aim absolutely nothing to your average person, but are the whole game to a real watch geek!

John Mayer recently said in an interview that there’s a stage as a watch collector where you really start focusing on finding as numerous asterisks as possible next to a watch to make it different. Has that been your experience?

Lee: You can equate collecting watches to anything, genuinely. For me, I “re going to have to” liken it to collecting bass guitars, and I’m ever looking for stuff from the golden era — for Fenders, the pre-CBS period. You do come to a moment where you’re looking for that dye no one can find or something really special. God knows it’s majestic enough to have a’ 62 Fender Jazz Bass, but to find one in seafoam light-green or another unique plant complexion makes it the holy grail, and I think it’s the same thing with dial discrepancies or pushes. One would like to think the more desirable the movement, the better watch — and that’s principally genuine — but add an bizarre subtlety to it, like an inverted 6, and you crave it all the more.

How gigantic has your collect been increasing since that second Patek cracked the ice?

Lee: I try not to count them because then I have to admit to myself the amount of money I’ve depleted, but I’d say I have around 35 -4 0 slice now.

Geddy’s Heuers- photo recognition: Richard Sibbald

It sounds like you’re passionate about a reasonably gigantic range of brands and modes. I know you’re a Heuer guy from our previous speeches; are Heuers something you’re still hunting and what have you got from that world-wide that you’re specially proud of?

Lee: I still desire Heuers and I see the Carrera is just about the perfect sized watch for my wrist. I have vast, vast respect for Carreras — I just adoration them. I like a lot of the different stuff Heuer put out over the years and I enjoy Autavias; I have a Jo Siffert Autavia which is one of my favorite watches.

I too adoration Rolexes from the early’ 60 s, and I’m really into steel tool watches. I like chronographs a good deal, very, but I too admire and like a really elegant dress watch. It’s hard to beat the feeling of wearing a really great Patek Philippe or a Vacheron Constantin. I have great respect for some of the early Longines stuff, very, but you can’t start going down that street without starting to learn about them in a deep way.

And on that road, you learn about what watches dres your wrist, what looks good on you, and what nonsense you can wear and what stuff you can’t wear. I cherish the look of Panerais, but I can’t wear them because they just search prodigious on my wrist. It’s unquestionably a live-and-learn thing. I have some Tissots from the late’ 40 s/ early’ 50 s that are maybe 33 mm or something like that, and while they’re smaller, they’re really beautifully-made watches and I find those are great to wear daily. I have been previously been coming into the Universal Geneve stuff, so it’s all kind of endless, right?

A closeup of some of those Heuer Carreras- photo recognition: Richard Sibbald

The hobby is certainly capable of offer infinite depth and an infinite hunt, if you want that.

Lee: Anything is open to insanity! I believed to be learn pretty quickly how far you want to go when you first start collecting anything, apparently depending on what kind of collector you’re naturally inclined to be. I’m a completist by nature, so I is my finding that I demand a wide array of watches from individual producers that I like, but you really have to learn your flavor and what you can wear. I have a Rolex Daytona that I affection, but sometimes when I’m wearing it, I feel like it attracts too much attention and there’s something I don’t been fucking loving that.

” You have to go through this as a collector; you have to buy some of the wrong watches to know what’s the liberty watch for you .”

I think what you’re talking about is one of the things I love about a Heuer Siffert. You have to know what you’re looking at to really appreciate it, but to the average person, it’s only an old-fashioned( handsome) chronograph.

Lee: Or what makes a Rolex 1016 Explorer the almost perfect watch in a way. It’s got a super elegant dial and it’s super functional, but it’s classic and classy seem. It’s the liberty immensity and that dial is just so beautiful to my heart. Most beings won’t consequently notice it, but by god, watch beings sure do!

Geddy’s Rolex Explorer 1016 and Canadian-market Explorer

Last time we chatted about obtaining, it was about your bass guitars and you had said that part of your reason as a collector is an attraction to the human ingenuity that goes into these things. I find most people that muster watches often glamorize either the technological place of wristwatches or the historical significance of them — whether it be motorsports, aviation, military service. Is that true-blue of you and do you find yourself pulled to one side of the collecting silver?

Lee: To me, watches are openings into biography and an opportunity to learn. When I started going interested in Heuer, I started reading about them and that’s when I learned about the connection to race driving and the people involved. I’m not a motorsports fan or anything like that. I didn’t know who Jo Siffert was before I bought the watch. There’s so many of these athletic watches that are connected to race drivers and then you learn about them and learn substance like what an “Evil Nina” is and who it refers to[ Universal Geneve 885103/01, the black-dialed variant of the watch often identified on the wrist of Nina Rindt, widow of the late Formula 1 move Jochen Rindt ]. I’ve always been a biography admirer and these things are artifacts of a period and a place, and I think that’s why I stay away from modern watches and prefer to have things from specified period of time, because a big part of it is how suggestive those periods are for me.

Geddy’s Universal Geneve Tri-Compax- photo ascribe: Richard Sibbald

Have you been gravitating towards something specific for your daily wear now that you’re off tour?

Lee: I try to wear a different watch everyday or every got a couple of periods. Right now it’s an early’ 70 s Heuer Carrera ref. 73653 with a off-color dial — really, really beautiful watch. But it’s been acting funny lately, and I think that’s because it hasn’t been frayed enough, so I’m wearing it to make it happy again. I tend to wear Heuers pretty regularly these days since I’m really crushing on them right now.

I don’t wear my Pateks at all unless I’m going out for the evening or something that requires me get dressed in fine clothing. I’ve got a really lovely Rolex Datejust with a off-color dial that’s a standby for daily wear. I’m a sucker for a blue-blooded dial.

I recently noticed a Canadian-market-exclusive Rolex Explorer that was never exported, and while they were called an Explorer, they kind of where the predecessor of the 5500 — truly more like an Air King than an Explorer. But it says Explorer on the dial and that’s a really lovely watch that I could wear every day.

The only new watch I’ve bought recently is a Longines Avigation BigEye because it’s such a great travel watch. If I’m traveling far afield, like becoming hiking in the Andes or something like that and carting all my paraphernalium around, I don’t want to worry about scratching a watch. Too, if I’m waking up at different times of daylight, I like having a watch with a really big dial that’s radiant so that if I’m jet lagged out-of-my-mind, I can look at my wrist and immediately know where the blaze I am and what time it is.

photo ascribe: Richard Sibbald

I’ve ever seen you wear a watch on-stage.

Lee: Nope, I think it feels strange and sounds weird up there. It’s about as beneficial as a year space on a Submariner, and it ever struck me as a silly thing.

” Buy what you love. I think that’s the way to collect and feel better about your collecting .”

Is there anything you’re not into at all as a watch collector?

Lee: It’s funny, but the majority of members of my watches are fairly simple. I don’t have a lot of watches with huge complications, but I have a friend who is preoccupied with complications and we text each other what we’re wearing on a daily basis. He’s got a lot of A. Lange& Sohne and Memovoxes, and a great deal of moonphase watches, and that’s been a working education for me.

For instance, I recently wanted to understand the whole story of Glashutte because I’d seen this elegant Glashutte watch from the’ 60 s. I realized I didn’t know anything about that company or that region, so I started reading about it. It was all just so fascinating to me. Through that, I started reading about tourbillons and the stories of those and why they’re important, and why they’re so respected. I also learned that most chronographs were driven by practicality — reached for doctors or captains! These are instruments that people’s lives depended on, so they only form-follows-function in the purest impression, and I have great respect for that. I affection predicting floors about the beginnings of these things and the craftsman that exhaust countless hours tinkering apart at them and perfecting them.

Live and without a watch- photo approval: Andrew MacNaughtan

I have a couple of military watches and though I realise they’re not my thing, I was so fascinated by them and their purposes. You have to go through this as a collector; you have to buy some of the inaccurate watches to know what’s the freedom watch for you. I still have a few armed watches and I like the ones that relate to my home and native land. I have an older Breitling single pusher that was became for the RCAF, so the first time I discovered that advertised, I had to have it as a Canadian. But I spotted myself not wearing it very often and sometimes with that you need to pass it on to another collector that it’ll mean more to. I think that’s an important part of being a collector. Buy what you love. I think that’s the way to collect and feel good about your collecting. There’s a million things you could accumulate out there, but ask yourself if “youve been” adoration it and if it’s you.

Have you be associated with other musicians that muster since catching the bug in earnest?

Lee: The only other musician that I know who compiles is Matt Scannell from Vertical Horizon. The last term I looked him we spoke watches for a good extent of occasion because he had just gotten a uncommon Seiko and I was really excited about a Rolex 1016 with a moderately flawless dial I had just bought. So he’s the only musician I personally know who’s a watch geek, but I’m sure there are a ton of other ones out there. I started going emails and themes on Instagram after a photograph was affixed of myself and Alex[ Lifeson, Rush guitarist ], and in it I was wearing my Tudor Sub. All of the abrupt, I had all of these watch guys messaging me about the watch.

Geddy with an exceptional Rolex GMT, a Hofner Bass, and two Norwich Terriers- photo credit: Richard Sibbald

Is there anything you’re hunting solely right now?

Lee: Right now, I’m looking for that early Longines Compressor I has been mentioned. And I’m looking for a really nice 5513 Rolex Submariner with a silky gilt dial — I adore the silky phones. I have a pepsi bezel GMT from the’ 60 s with a silky dial and I simply admire that watch and I’d love to have the Sub version of it. I’d too desire a Nina Rindt Universal Geneve. So, that’s what’s on my hitlist right now. I also have a Heuer 2447 switch panda, which is one of my top three all-time favorite watches and I’d love to find the panda version, which seems more elusive.

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