Creativity Quote by Geddy Lee

There’s a sly kind of humility baked into Geddy Lee’s “I really don’t consider myself a fabulous keyboard player,” the kind that only lands because it’s coming from someone whose reputation could easily afford swagger. In rock, virtuosity is often marketed as destiny: the chosen one, the guitar god, the effortless genius. Lee flips that script with a line that’s almost aggressively plain. It’s not false modesty so much as an artist’s refusal to let a single skill become a shrine.

The subtext is practical: Rush’s keyboards were never the point in isolation. They were a tool in a larger architectural project, one more load-bearing beam in a band obsessed with structure, dynamics, and precision. By downplaying “fabulous,” Lee redirects attention from technique-as-spectacle to technique-as-service. It’s a statement about function over flash, about arranging sound to solve a song rather than winning a contest.

Context matters, too. Lee wasn’t introduced to audiences as a keyboardist; he became one as Rush evolved, especially when the band’s palette expanded in the late '70s and '80s. That evolution can invite gatekeeping: the idea that you’re only “real” if you began there, if you’re formally sanctioned. Lee’s line preempts that critique and, more interestingly, punctures rock’s ego economy. He’s telling you the work is what counts, not the mythology.