Rush cofounders Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson have been extremely supportive of Primus's 'Tribute to Kings' Rush show since square one, according to Les Claypool.
Claypool spoke about the ongoing tribute tour in a recent conversation with Bass Player magazine.
The bassists are longtime friends, going back to when Primus and Rush toured together in the early-'90s. As Primus got serious about putting on a Rush tribute show, circa 2019, Claypool reached out to Lee to get his thoughts.
"I actually asked [Geddy] about it quite a while ago... When we originally talked about doing it, Neil Peart was still on the planet," Claypool recalled. "I just texted [Geddy] and said, 'Hey, we're thinking about doing this. What do you think?' He said, 'Oh, that would be great.' He was stoked on the idea."
Claypool counts Rush as one of his formative musical influences, so he also used the tour as an excuse to squeeze a few bass lessons out of Lee. He says Larry LaLonde did the same with his counterpart, Lifeson.
"Alex has been very supportive too. Ler will call him and say, 'What the hell chord are you playing in this one section?' Alex has been very helpful with that, and he loaned him some guitars as well."
Asked why Primus chose the 1977 A Farewell to Kings album to cover on tour, Claypool explained that it was a combination of practicality and his personal connection to that album.
The band's first choice was actually 1978's Hemispheres, but the trio of Rush superfans had misgivings about performing the first side of Hemispheres — "Cygnus X-1 Book II" — without having first delivered a rendition of "Cygnus X-1 Book I: The Voyage," which appears on the second side of A Farewell to Kings.
Claypool continued, noting that doing Rush's most-beloved '70s album, 2112, in its entirety seemed "a little too obvious." Plus, he's still not very comfortable playing keyboards, and there are a lot of keys on 2112.
"It was a pretty easy decision to make, you know," he said. "A big factor was the damn keyboards. I play keyboards on this thing, and I have a couple of Moogs that are completely covered with different-colored pieces of tape, so I know where to put my fingers. You know, I'm a bass player!"
Lee and Lifeson recently attended Primus's 'Tribute to Kings' show in Toronto and applauded the band's handling of their repertoire. "They did us proud and we thank them deeply for the tribute and the lasting friendship," wrote Lee after the fact.
Primus has tour dates announced in the U.S., U.K. and Europe through October. Get all the dates here.