[Rush is back: Pop culture proclaims the formerly dorky band cool]

Kirk Baird of the Toledo Blade recently conducted a great interview with Alex Lifeson. The article focuses on how Rush has been everywhere lately; from their Colbert Report appearance to a cameo in the upcoming comedy film I Love You, Man to the VH1 Classic Rush Hashanah special and everything inbetween. Pop culture has now declared something we've already known for years; Rush is cool. Here's what Alex said about Rush's newly-found coolness:

We’ve always sort of been outside — well, maybe not a little bit — we’ve always been kind of outside the mainstream, we’ve done things our own way, ... We have a very strong core following that’s been very loyal and stuck with us for all these years and allowed us to function that way without having a broader appeal. To suddenly be asked to be in films, of course the Rolling Stone thing, and the Stephen Colbert — all these things ... it makes us smile that all of a sudden Rush is a cool thing, when we have not been a very cool thing for a very long time.

On his friendship with Geddy Lee Alex says:

The Rush experience for us has been a family experience. Geddy and I live five minutes from each other. This is [after] 40-plus years of knowing each other and we’re still five minutes from each other. I played tennis with him last week, we had dinner the other night, [there’s a] wine tasting next Tuesday — he’s my best friend and we happen to be in a band together. That makes it a little easier to make those decisions about what you would do if they weren’t there anymore. It’s not just a job, it’s a whole life we’ve lived together.

Baird mentions how Rush's contract with Atlantic is up after the release of Retrospective 3 and asks Alex about the band's future:

Right now we just want rest,... We’ve been working really hard for the last seven or eight years on numerous records, tours, and DVDs; it’s been pretty constant through that whole period. We really feel like we need to step back and recharge our batteries and just not think about the band and what we’re going to do. You never know, Geddy and I might do some casual writing in the spring, but I’m guessing we probably won’t do anything until the fall of next year. At that time ... we’ll set out what we’re doing. There are a number of options open to us. I think the most likely is that we’ll record another record and tour off that. Working with [“Snakes and Arrows” producer] Nick Raskulinecz, he’s pushing us to think about doing another sort of concept record ... instead of just a thematically conceptual album like the most current records are. Whether we’re up for that kind of thing, I’m not so sure. We’ll have to wait and see.”

So Alex essentially confirms what Geddy had said in his Billboard interview. But the bit about the possible concept record is pretty interesting. I'll believe that when I see it though! He also says the following in a sidebar piece:

Another option is that we might do a specialty tour, or we’ll do another major tour and look at doing more obscure songs. I don’t think we would just do the same sort of tour we did last time. I would be different. I don’t think we would be content to just do another tour ... just milk it. Otherwise, I’d rather stay home, to be honest with you.” (Laughs)

And also in the sidebar he's asked about doing Hemispheres and/or one of the band's longer pieces on tour:

It takes up too much time. I’d totally be into doing that. We did that with ‘2112’ a few tours back where we played the whole thing. That was the first tour where we did, in fact, play all of ‘2112.’ Even when we first started doing it back in the ’70s we never played the whole thing. I like the idea of the challenge of doing that. ... If we’re going to play for five hours, let’s do ‘Jacob’s Ladder,’ let’s do all those songs. It’d be fun. And visually we’d have a lot of license to do some very interesting things technically. Wait and see.

Alex has stated similar things in the past regarding a b-sides tour and performing some of their longer pieces live. Whether he can convince Neil and Geddy to do something like this is still an open question. The article ends with a question regarding Rush's Grand Finale:

As the conversation winds down, talk pushes to the end of the band. Given that all the members of the group are in their mid-50s, the end of Rush is certainly closer than its beginning. So how would Lifeson like the band to go out? How would he script Rush’s finale?

“That’s a tough question. I don’t know,” Lifeson said. “I was going to say that we go out on this incredible tour where we were just at the top of our game and we moved on and that was it. But at the same time, and I think maybe it’s because I am Canadian, I think I’d like us to rather just go quietly out. Just kind of fade away quietly and not cause a big deal.”

This was probably the best Rush interview I've seen for quite some time. Thanks to robertkincaid96 for the heads up.

NOTE: Posts over 10 years old are partially archived. All comments, images and other embedded media have been removed.