The Canadian Music and Broadcast Industry Awards (CMBIAs) were held on April 20th at The Grand Ballroom at the Sheraton Hotel in Toronto, ON. Rush members Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson were honoured at the event with the 2017 Allan Slaight Humanitarian Spirit Award in recognition of the band's significant contribution to a wide variety of worthy causes since the early 1970s.

As the recipients of the Allan Slaight Humanitarian Spirit Award, Rush received $40,000, which the band unanimously decided to contribute and match with their own money for Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie's Gord Downie Fund for Brain Cancer Research at Sunnybrook hospital.

In an exclusive interview with Samaritanmag, Lee and Lifeson sat down to talk about the award, why they selected Gord Downie’s fund, why they prefer to keep their charitable giving mostly quiet and what’s next. An excerpt follows:

Q: You have kept your philanthropy relatively quiet. Sure the organizations promote it, but would you have done things differently, knowing now the impact that you have on encouraging fans to follow suit?  Look at what Gord Downie has done since starting the Gord Downie and Chanie Wenjack Fund. Now the whole country knows about reconciliation and residential school horrors. Would you have done it differently and been more public?

Lee: “An impossible question to answer really. Everybody acts in accordance with their own temperament and their own personality. Gord is an amazing guy and he’s doing things the way he sees it and we’ve done things the way we see it. We’re very reticent humans in the public sector. So if it all happened all over again, I can’t see us behaving much differently [laughs].”

Lifeson: “No, no. I think it would be exactly the same.”

Lee: “If one of us finds an idea that’s worthy, and then we all go, ‘Yeah, I agree,’ we do it, and that’s really what it’s about.”

Q: Samaritanmag was started as an anti-tabloid, an antithesis to the gossipy news of a TMZ and Perez Hilton and we’ve discovered pretty much every musician we interview has a cause. They might not have a foundation, but something is important to them. People are becoming more open to discussing it, but you’re not the only ones who keep quiet. Bryan Adams is another. There is something uncomfortable about talking about giving, right? Is it viewed as bragging?

Lee: “I don’t think that publicity about giving, it’s not why you do it and it feels awkward.  This is awkward - because it’s just a personal thing. You want to give someone a hand.  I don’t think Alex feels any differently. I don’t think he does.”

Lifeson: “No, I feel the same way.”

Lee: “And shouting out about it, I understand those that are championing causes that do not have enough public awareness. And so they need to raise public awareness and that’s why they step out and start doing that. I get that. But there’s a lot of people in the world that need help. They don't really need awareness; they need dollars and cents. So we tend to those causes. Sometimes they’re very small, but what you donate, you see a direct impact on their lives, and that’s gratification for us and it’s helping them.”

Read more at Samaritanmag.com.

(Photo Grant W. Martin Photography)