Alex Lifeson recently sat down with Rolling Stone magazine for an interview to talk about the future of Rush, and the possibility of any further touring and/or writing:
... "We had such a great time on the tour," ... "And it was really nice to go through all the material in reverse chronology, and I think our fans really enjoyed it. I think that no matter how long it would have been, it would have been too short. Neil was prepared to commit to 30 dates and he told us that right from the very beginning. He didn't even want to do the tour, to be honest with you. It's been increasingly difficult for him, but he committed to the tour and we got through it. As far as he was concerned, that was the end of touring." ... "His shoulders were hurting, his arms were hurting, his elbows, his feet, everything," ... "He didn't want to play anything less than 100 percent. He was finding it increasingly difficult to hit that mark on this last tour. So, all those things combined, I get it. I'm disappointed and I think Geddy [Lee] is very disappointed and we'd love to continue this tour a little bit longer, but we're off now." ...
He went on to discuss what Geddy Lee has been up to and the prospect of writing new music:
... "[Geddy is in the] Falkland Islands or something, penguin watching," the guitarist says with a laugh. "I know he's open to sitting down and doing some writing," ... "I've been writing since the summer anyway because that's just what I like to do. I have a small studio in town and I have my own setup at my place. So I like to keep my fingers in it and keep busy, playing guitar. I know I can give Ged a push and we do love working together. We only live five minutes from each other. And I've gone over and had a coffee in the past, and we end up going downstairs into his room and start making some noise." ... "You never know," ... "Maybe next fall or something like that, we'll plan something. We took a year off before the last tour and we didn't discuss anything about the band or work, and everybody had a great time, and we came back from that." He laughs. "We're getting older and it's getting tougher, but I don't know. We'll see." ...
When asked whether there a scenario where he and Geddy would tour together without Peart, Lifeson sarcastically replies as follows:
.. "Well, we have been saying that every 40 years, we fire our drummer and get a new one," he says with a big laugh.
You can read the entire article/interview online here (thanks RushFanForever). Alex himself is keeping pretty busy these days; last night he participated in HELLO! THUNDER BAY! as part of the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival, and later this week will be participating in the Patrick Warburton Celebrity Golf Tournament.
