Rush Reunion Rumours Quashed By Guitarist Alex Lifeson
Rush will not be performing again as a band following the death of their drummer Neil Peart according to a new interview with guitarist Alex Lifeson. Speaking on SiriuxXM’s Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk, Lifeson spoke about the possibility of playing with his longtime Rush bandmate, Geddy Lee, again in some capacity but conceded that it would not be Rush without Peart. The two haven’t performed together since the completion of Rush’s final tour, R40, which commemorated the 40th anniversary of drummer Neil Peart joining the band. Peart died in January 2020 after a three-year battle with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
“Geddy and I started writing together when we were — I don’t know — 14 years old, I guess,” the guitarist said. “And we are best friends; I love the guy so much, [and] he means so much to me. And we’ve had this amazing experience of working together as well as being buddies. I talk to Ged every couple of days or so… If there’s something that comes up in the future — an opportunity for us to do something — we’ll decide over a cup of coffee what that’ll be. But there’s no urgency or there’s no pre-planned thing now.”
“I know Rush fans are a unique bunch, and I love them,” Lifeson went on. “And certainly everything that we’ve done, we’ve always done to satisfy ourselves before anybody else, and I think Rush fans understood that and were always very supportive — very critical at times too, but always supportive. And that was the nature of our relationship with our fans — it was a really good two-way relationship. But I think, really, Rush ended in 2015. There’s no way Rush will ever exist again because Neil’s not here to be a part of it. And that’s not to say that we can’t do other things and we can’t do things that benefit our communities and all of that. I have lots of plans for that sort of thing that don’t necessarily include Geddy. I get asked this all the time — are we gonna do this, or are we gonna do that? Who knows? All I know is we still love each other and we’re still very, very good friends, and we always will be.”