Speaking with Classic Rock, Rush frontman Geddy Lee looked back and commented on 10 of the band's greatest albums. Following is an excerpt from the rundown.

Rush (1974)

Geddy Lee: “This was us trying to find a sound, thinking we wanted to be a hard rock band and emulating those bands we thought were cool. I can hear Led Zeppelin in there, and a bit of Humble Pie. I wish I could hear more than just those influences, but I can’t. John Rutsey was very much a Simon Kirke kind of drummer – just hold down the backbeat and let’s rock out. So that’s how the songs came out.

We recorded the album with a producer named David Stock, but it sounded so shitty we had to redo it with Terry Brown, who became our regular producer. With the second version we added a few more songs, and one of those was 'Finding My Way', which ended up being one of the most important tracks on the album – a real rocker. And the song that really got us noticed was 'Working Man'. There was still radio in America at that time that wasn’t overly programmed, and DJs had the licence to play longer tracks. 'Working Man' was seven minutes long, and the airplay it got led to us signing with Mercury Records. That one song had an incredible impact.”

Moving Pictures (1981)

Geddy Lee: “Moving Pictures was such a huge record for us. That level of success was like nothing we had ever experienced before. But we had a lot of ‘moments’ with that record – it was a tough one to finish.

Two songs came together pretty smoothly: 'Limelight' and 'Red Barchetta', which was such a great thing to play live, off the floor. 'Tom Sawyer' was the opposite, a late bloomer. We had so much trouble getting the guitar solos down, and balancing the bottom end. But after a lot of struggling, we nailed it and it was so powerful. We were going, ‘Shit, where did that come from?’

We had such fun with 'Witch Hunt' [part three of ‘Fear’]. Although it was a dark song, it involved some stupid stuff. Recording the mob shouts, the three of us went out into the studio parking lot in the freezing cold of winter. But on the night we mixed that song, we got the news that John Lennon had been shot. We were all so shocked, so sad. That’s something I will never forget.”

Clockwork Angels (2012)

Geddy Lee: “It never entered our minds that this might be our last album – we were just so excited to be doing an overt concept record again. But we were careful not to make it too overly proggy. We wanted to keep it modern: very diverse, full of music and strong melodies, but something that still rocked out.

The story that Neil wrote for Clockwork Angels is wonderful. Essentially, it’s a story about naivety – a young man going out into the world, as we all do. He’s duped and bamboozled, but finally he comes to the realisation that regardless of all the foolish things he’s done in his life, he’d do it all again, and it was worth it.

We didn’t want the music to be a slave to the story. We wanted the songs to be seamlessly connected to each other, but also for every song to have its own life outside of the concept. That was the hardest thing. But in the end we pulled it off. It’s one of the best pieces of music we’ve ever put together.”

Read the complete rundown here.