I came across 3 recent interviews in various online newspapers last night and this morning so I thought I'd lump them all into one post. The first is a Reuters/Billboard interview with Geddy and Alex released yesterday titled New songs on tap as Rush releases Arrows. Nothing really new in this interview except the last couple paragraphs were interesting:

... "There's a lot of playing on this record," Lifeson said. "To me it's got our whole history in it, somehow. It's got little bits of the way we wrote songs in the past, the kind of chords we might have used, but not in a nostalgic kind of way."

In fact, Lifeson and Lee agree that many of the new songs hew back to the intricate, prog-rock stylings on which Rush staked its reputation in the '70s -- and in turn have inspired more recent rock bands whose work and sound techniques interest Rush.

"We like to feel we're current," Lee said. "We listen to a lot of younger bands, especially Alex. A lot of those bands cite us as an influence. It's ironic that bands that have been influenced by our playing or our past have some instruction for us, too. They help us grow."

That pattern has helped Rush become a kind of rite of passage band, handed down from one generation of fans to the next. The trio maintain a particularly strong live following, so expectations are high for a 42-show North American tour that begins June 13 in Atlanta and will be followed by dates around the world, perhaps returning to the States in 2008.

Yet another hint that they will return next year for a second US leg of the tour.

The next 2 articles both are interviews with Neil Peart. The first from The Globe and Mail is titled A rock-solid survivor in an unpredictable world and the second, from the Toronto Star and titled Closer to the heart, contains an interesting hint about the tour setlist:

... To keep things interesting [on tour], though, he promises Rush feels somewhat "liberated" from its catalogue after doing a pure greatest-hits tour three years ago, and will this time be honing in on new material and "old songs that we haven't played for years or that we've never played." One such gem from 1979 is in the works, although he won't say which. ...

Now Rush didn't actually release an album in 1979 so my bet is he's talking about a song off Hemispheres that they haven't played in a while. Hmmm...

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