Alex Lifeson Says It’s ‘Unlikely’ That Rush Will Tour Again
Just in case you've been wondering whether the members of Rush have changed their minds about retiring from the road, Alex Lifeson just offered an update, and the answer still sounds like "no."
"I would say that it's unlikely that we'll tour again as Rush," Lifeson said during a recent visit to SiriusXM (via BraveWords). "Really, we toured for 41 years, and I have to say that first year off, I felt like I was grieving for my career and the band, but truly, 41 years of touring the way we toured, I shouldn't feel badly about that."
Looking ahead, Lifeson says he and fellow Rush vet Geddy Lee "will probably do something together," although he remained decidedly noncommittal about when it might happen or what shape it might take; for now, Lee is reportedly putting together a book about the history of the bass. Drummer Neil Peart, meanwhile, seems to be largely off the radar; as Lifeson put it, "I'm not sure what Neil's doing these days. He's on the west coast. He's always got something going on."
Rush's current downtime would seem to leave plenty of room for Lifeson to put together a solo project — something he admitted he's given some thought, but hasn't yet decided if or how he might end up going about it. Although he has a repository of unreleased material waiting to be recorded, he said his own ambivalence about the songs has thus far kept them in the vault.
"It's funny. One day, it's, like, 'Yeah, this is exactly what I wanna do.' And then the next day it's, like, 'This sucks. Forget it. I'm not doing this.' I love those songs, then I hate them, and then I love 'em again," said Lifeson. "It's pretty typical, I think. It's a much more focused thing when it's the band. I just need to be more focused and a little more disciplined, I think. But it's something I would like to do."
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