Hold onto your hats folks. I have a doozy of a rumor to report. Back in April just before the 2008 tour started, Alex Lifeson gave an interview to Keith Spera of the New Orleans Times-Picayune where he said:
... just before we started rehearsals, Ged and I were talking about what we're going to do on the next tour. So I guess we're looking forward. I don't know what our plan is. I think we want to take a little bit of a break after this tour ends.
We're saying that, but I don't know what's going to happen. We might get itchy like Ged and I normally do; after a few months we'll want to start writing and get back into it. Whether we go back in the studio and make another record or do another tour...hard to say.
We've got so much catalog. I'd love to do a tour where we just play stuff that we've never played before. Don't play anything that we play now and call it the B-track Rush tour. Play some of the stuff nobody has ever heard us play live. That would be a lot of fun. There are lots of opportunities and directions that we can go. ...
This made it sound as if Alex was more looking forward to the next tour rather than the next studio album. And just a couple of months ago Alex gave an interview to the UK's Classic Rock magazine where he said the following regarding Rush's next studio album:
We really need to sit down and decide what we want to do with our next record. Whether we do an album or whether we just write songs over a period of time and release them as we go along. That's kind of attractive to me.
No album? Release songs as they go along? Unconventional to say the least. But at the time I wasn't really buying it. Shortly after this the rumor started going around that Rush would be leaving Atlantic records after releasing an Atlantic-era greatest hits album. This seems to have been at least indirectly confirmed with the news that a Retrospective 3 album will be released on December 9th, although there has not been any kind of official announcement.
So what does all this mean for the future of Rush? A couple of months ago if you had asked me what the chances of Rush touring again in 2009 were, I probably would have said a snowball's chance in hell. I figured that they'd probably start work on a new album next year, maybe release it early 2010 and tour in the summer of 2010. But guess what? The latest rumor I've been hearing is that they are seriously considering touring in 2009 as well as releasing some non-album connected songs online and/or as digital EPs. The big question is what to tour on if no studio album? Possibly an EP of some kind, but one thing they are seriously discussing is another nostalgic-type R:35 tour (similar to R30) which would run through the late spring and into the summer. In addition to mentioning the B-tracks tour, Alex has expressed a desire to get as much of their catalog on video as possible. This might suggest a tour where they play many songs not yet recorded live, and put out an R:35 DVD in 2010.
The more I think about this, the more sense this all makes. With the current state of the music industry it is becoming increasingly difficult for bands to make much money by selling albums. Most of their money is made through touring, merchandise, DVDs, and newly-emerging unconventional revenue sources such as Rock Band downloads. And with Rush rumored to be leaving Atlantic, it doesn't make all that much sense for them to sign up with another record label and release albums in the conventional way. One thing Rush has never been accused of is being conventional.
Whether any of these rumors are true or not, it definitely stands to be an interesting 2009 for Rush and their fans. Let the speculation begin! More as I learn it.
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