Geddy Lee explained why Rush aren’t currently thinking about making new music.
The singer and bassist stated that he knew there was only a certain amount of time left in the band’s runtime after he and guitarist Alex Lifeson ended their 11-year hiatus and returned to action.
Lee and Lifeson both said they’d never worked so hard as they prepared their set with new drummer Anika Nilles and keyboardist Loren Gold.
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“We had a schedule,” Lifeson told Radio Futuro in a recent interview (video below). We laid out what our rehearsal schedule was going to be, with an end date being in May [2026], that we had to get everything done by then.
“And 14 months, at the beginning we thought, ‘Oh, that’s plenty of time. We’ll get it done!’ The last couple of weeks were, like, ‘Oh my God, we gotta really focus on this and really put it together!’”
Lee said he believed the rehearsals had been especially tough on Nilles, charged with the responsibility of replacing the late Neil Peart.
“She had to learn something like 43 songs in the course of a year, and those are not easy drum parts to learn,” he said. “[S]he was working as hard, I think, as she’s ever worked on anything. [S]he would work really hard on her own, then she would come to Toronto sporadically and we would work really hard.
“And I think she found it much easier to work with us in person, because there’s a chemistry that we have, and we can reassure her, ‘This part is right, this part is this long, and no, you have to play this part this way.’”
READ MORE: Top 10 Neil Peart Rush Songs
He added: “[T]he last month [of rehearsals], as Alex alluded to, we played a full show 24 nights out of 27 days. We’ve never worked that hard in our entire lives. And I’m thankful for it, because opening night, we were all a bit of a nervous wreck. And all that rehearsal paid off.”
Lee explained how he’d tried to help Nilles and Gold acclimatize to the challenge. “I said, ‘Look, these are complicated songs. You are going to make a mistake. It’s not about the mistake – it’s about how you recover from the mistake. So just play; just keep playing and don’t worry.
“And I think it helped them relax a little bit. … When you write a part, it’s automatically in your DNA; you understand it inside out. But when you’re coming to learn it as an outsider, you try to break it down into the laws of music, and our songs don’t adhere to the laws of music!”
Geddy Lee: There Are Only So Many Gigs Left in My Body
He continued: “I’m ecstatic that we’re playing so well and that the musicians that we’ve chosen to join us on stage have jelled the way they have. … I’m not pretending when you see me smiling up there.
“It’s a joyous moment for me, and I know there are only so many gigs left in my body, so I’m going to enjoy them while I can.”
Asked if there was a prospect of new music, Lee replied firmly: “No. We have enough to do. We’re still trying to remember the old songs and play them!”
Watch Rush’s Lifeson and Lee Interview
Rush Albums Ranked
We examine Rush’s 19 studio albums, from 1974’s muscular self-titled release to a series of remarkable late-career triumphs.
Gallery Credit: Eduardo Rivadavia
