Geddy Lee’s opinion on Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Progressive Rock bands such as Rush are known not only for their incredible albums and the huge influence they had on countless artists, but also for the virtuosity of Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and the late Neil Peart on their instruments.

When the Canadian group was releasing its early records, many of the British bands that had pioneered the movement were putting out some of their greatest albums. Geddy always paid close attention to what those bands were doing and over the years he shared his opinions on them, including the supergroup Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

What is Geddy Lee’s opinion on Emerson, Lake & Palmer

The legendary British trio is one of Geddy Lee’s favorite bands of all time and the late bassist and singer Greg Lake was a huge inspiration to him. In the year Lake and his bandmate Keith Emerson passed away, Geddy paid tribute to them, saying: “We’ve lost yet another great artist and talented bassist (Greg). What a devastating year 2016 has been. Emerson, Lake & Palmer were one of my faves. First Keith Emerson and now Greg Lake. R.I.P. boys and thanks for the music,” he said.

To Geddy, it was The Who’s bass player John Entwistle who was responsible for inspiring a talented generation of bass players, including Greg Lake. The Rush frontman said Entwistle was one of his biggest influences. “He gave birth to a whole new generation of English bass players like Chris Squire, people of that ilk, who brought that tone. You know, Greg Lake, (he) had a really great deep bottom end and a real nice piano string top end. Chris Squire to me had the perfect combination to me of bottom and grunty twangy mid-range. So those guys were a huge, huge influence on my sound,” Geddy Lee said in an interview.

Although he is a big fan of the British supergroup, Geddy didn’t like all their albums. He loved their first six albums, which included Tarkus (1971), Trilogy (1972) and Brain Salad Surgery (1973). But their final album before breaking up, Love Beach (1978), really disappointed him as a fan. “Emerson, Lake & Palmer had a famously disappointing album, ‘Love Beach’. I was a huge ELP fan. But that one really furrowed my brow,” Geddy Lee told Prog in 2023 after being asked to list his biggest disappointment as a music fan.

Geddy Lee said he was a joke on keyboards compared to someone like Keith Emerson

Geddy is regarded as one of the greatest bass players of his generation and also as a great singer. However, his third role in Rush was as the keyboardist, a position in which he believed he wasn’t as skilled as real keyboard players. “I’m still very much in the dabbling stage. Put me beside any real keyboard player and it’s a joking matter. And I don’t really pretend that I can play. I can write solo lines and melodies, and play basic chord patterns, which is really all I need. But I certainly don’t have any illusions about being a Keith Emerson or anything like that,” Geddy Lee said in an interview with Steve Gett for the book “Success Under Pressure”.

Emerson, Lake & Palmer was one of Rush’s main inspirations as they tried to find their own sound. The band initially started with a style more similar to Led Zeppelin and Humble Pie. Then with the addition of the legendary drummer and lyricist Neil Peart, Rush began experimenting. Then went to create some truly Progressive Rock albums and eventually combine both Prog and Hard Rock.

Geddy once said that their goal was to combine the techniques of bands from both genres. It was something he believed they had achieved by the time the band released Moving Pictures in 1981. “A long time ago, we decided that was the place we’d like to be. We wanted to combine their techniques. That’s what our original goal was. I think we’ve achieved that,” he told Millwaukee Sentinel in 1981.

Geddy said that whenever he listened to ELP he would want to hear something like “Tarkus”

The biggest challenge a band faces after achieving great success and critical acclaim with an album is to top it or at least deliver something equally strong. However, when fans and critics become attached to a particular part of a band’s discography, it becomes harder for them to accept something different. As a result, when a band changes its influences or ideas, that work is often met with resistance. Geddy addressed this when asked about fans wanting Rush to return to their “2112” sound. He mentioned Emerson, Lake & Palmer and their acclaimed album “Tarkus” (1971) as an example.

“Some people never grow up! No, to a certain extent I can sympathise with those people. It’s the same for me. If I listen to Emerson, Lake & Palmer, I want what I hear to sound like ‘Tarkus’. Or Jethro Tull to sound like ‘Aqualung’. It’s only natural for an audience to associate a band with a certain sound. But that’s not being progressive – it’s regressive. If we had just kept on making the same style of music, I have no doubt that Rush would no longer exist,” Geddy Lee told Classic Rock in 1999.

A few decades after that interview, most of the incredible Prog artists who influenced Geddy, Lifeson and Peart are gone. Especially in the last decade, many of them passed away, which was a big blow for the Canadian frontman. “It was also bittersweet (playing with Yes at the Rock Hall). Because Chris Squire passing so early in his life left a huge, gaping hole in my world.”

He continued:

“Between Chris, Jack Bruce, Greg Lake and John Wetton all being gone, we’ve lost a lot of amazing bass players in the last 10 years. It’s really sad. Playing with Yes was a reminder that Chris wasn’t there to enjoy that moment himself,” he told Premier Guitar. Rush has been part of the Rock Hall since 2013 but ELP are still not part of it. Geddy recently said that Jethro Tull and King Crimson are bands that should have been there a long time ago, but are still left out too.

Although Lake and Emerson passed away, drummer Carl Palmer continues to carry the band’s legacy, touring as ELP. He incorporates rare footage of both of them during performances, accompanied by other musicians.