Nationalpost.com spoke with RUSH legend Geddy Lee recently about the band's new double-live album, Snakes & Arrows Live, which was released today. Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

Nationalpost.com: Snakes & Arrows Live is the third multi-disc live album you've released this decade. Why so many?

Lee: "We like fans to have a souvenir of every tour, particularly DVDs. I think our fans really like to have a visual version of what every tour was about. So this is just a precursor to (a DVD), which hopefully will be edited by the fall."

Nationalpost.com: The received wisdom about Rush seems to be that it's this love-or-hate band that critics mostly hate. But I did some digging and most of the reviews for Snakes & Arrows, and Vapor Trails before it, were positive. Was there really a time when critics hated Rush?

Lee: "I think that reputation is an old hangover from our early days. We were not very well-liked the first 10 years of our recording life. Time has worn on; that has changed."

Nationalpost.com: Do you think fans connect as intimately with the new songs as they do with the '70s and '80s stuff?

Lee: "It's hard to know. Certainly looking at the first bunch of rows that my poor eyes will allow me to see, they seem as enthusiastic with the new material as the old stuff--in some cases, with the younger fans, more enthusiastic. I do have a great fondness for [2007's] Snakes & Arrows and I think it's some of the best work we've ever done--along with Power Windows [1985], Moving Pictures [1981] and probably 2112 [1976]. Those are probably my four favourite Rush albums."

Nationalpost.com: You've said many times that you feel like there's a great song in you that you haven't written yet. How will you know when you've created it?

Lee: "I don't know if you know that. Maybe that's just a fool's errand. Maybe you never really know when you're doing your best; never really know when you've peaked. I just still believe that there's some great music out there that I can channel in some way into a Rush song."

To read the entire interview head to this location.