RUSH guitarist Alex Lifeson The Band Is Done

RUSH guitarist Alex Lifeson has confirmed that the band is unlikely to play any more shows or make new music. “It’s been a little over two years since RUSH last toured,” he told The Globe And Mail. “We have no plans to tour or record any more. We’re basically done. After 41 years, we felt it was enough.”

But the 64-year-old musician added that he has “actually been busier lately than I have been in a while. I’m writing a lot,” he said. “I’m writing on four or five different little projects. I get these requests to do guitar work with other people. It’s really a lot of fun for me. It’s low pressure: I get to be as creative as I want to be and I can work a little outside of the box, which is really attractive to me.”

Lifeson also revealed that he was writing for the West End Phoenix, a new monthly newspaper in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where RUSH is based.

RUSH‘s chronic tendinitis-suffering drummer Neil Peart hinted during a 2015 interview with Drumhead magazine that he would no longer tour with the band, revealing his daughter had already started referring to dad as “a retired drummer.”

A short time later, bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee played down Peart‘s comments, blaming the media for making too much of his bandmate’s remarks.

Geddy said in a 2016 interview that he had “accepted” that RUSH‘s last batch of live shows was “probably the last one as a tour.”

The 65-year-old Peart revealed in RUSH‘s documentary “Time Stand Still” that he initially had no intention of going on a tour in 2015. “In November [of 2014], we all got together in Toronto and I was quite prepared to say, ‘Sorry, I’m done,'” he said in the film. “I realized I was kind of a solitary misfit in that context of being the one that wanted to pull that plug. I left one little window in my mind that if somebody wanted to do it one more time and didn’t know if they’d be able to, [I would do it].”

Lifeson and Lee confirmed that the band will never do a show unless all three musicians agree to take part. “It’s not like you just get new members of a band and just go for it,” said Lifeson. “RUSH has never been a band like that. We’d never, ever do something like that.” Lee added: “We always said that if the three of us aren’t on board, we don’t do a thing. There have been other decisions in our career where the three of us weren’t on board and we didn’t do it. Nothing as profound as ending our touring life, but fair enough. So one guy doesn’t want to do that thing anymore that I love to do. That hurts. But there’s nothing I can do about it and that’s part of the agreement.”

How the end of Rush let Alex Lifeson be ‘as creative as I want to be’

Guitarist and charter member of the legendary Canadian prog-rock trio says he’s actually been ‘busier lately than I have been in a while’ since the band stopped touring and recording

In Between the Acts, The Globe and Mail takes a look at how artists manage their time before and after a creative endeavour

After a distinguished career as a charter member of the legendary Canadian prog-rock trio Rush, the guitarist Alex Lifeson had a wide-open schedule when the band decided to hang up its amps, cymbals and elaborate lyricism in 2015. The musician, 64, speaks about his latest projects, musical and otherwise:

It’s been a little over two years since Rush last toured. We have no plans to tour or record any more. We’re basically done. After 41 years, we felt it was enough.

But I’ve actually been busier lately than I have been in a while. I’m writing a lot. I’m writing on four or five different little projects. I get these requests to do guitar work with other people. It’s really a lot of fun for me. It’s low pressure: I get to be as creative as I want to be and I can work a little outside of the box, which is really attractive to me.

I’m also writing for the West End Phoenix, a new monthly newspaper in Toronto. [Editor-in-chief and author and a founding member of the Rheostatics] Dave Bidini came to me and asked me if I’d wanted to have fun with a little column, and have artist Casey McGlynn do illustrations for it. It’s been great. Casey’s illustrations work really well together with what I’m writing.

For my first column, though, I was panicking. I thought, “What am I going to do? What can I do that’s going to be funny or different or special in some way?” So, initially I wasn’t sure about it. This is not my field. But Dave’s a persuasive guy. He told me to write 150 words, that Casey would do his illustrations and that it would be great. I think I submitted 1,200 words. Apparently, I don’t have a problem with content.

It’s fun to put yourself in an uncomfortable situation. If you have a little bit of confidence and you just get out of your own way, these things can happen. The same thing happened when I got asked to do a small role in a TV show, Crawford, a new comedy on CBC from Mike Clattenburg, who created Trailer Park Boys.

I thought I couldn’t do it – that it was something for real actors. But I ended up doing a few episodes. It definitely was not in my comfort zone. But if you throw a challenge at yourself and dive into it, it can be really gratifying.

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