RUSH Frontman: 'We Ignored A Lot Of Canada To Focus On The Rest Of The World For A Long Time'

May 23, 2008

Rob Williams of the Winnipeg Free Press reports: Geddy Lee wants to apologize to Canadians.

"We basically ignored a lot of Canada to focus on the rest of the world for a long time, and as our touring slowed down, we sacrificed a lot of the world," the RUSH frontman says over the phone days before beginning the next leg of the band's Snakes & Arrows tour. "We didn't get to England for 20 years, so it's not like we ignored Western Canada. We just concentrated on our bigger markets and just focused on the bare essentials. Now we enjoy touring more and the last couple of tours we're hitting places we haven't been to for a long time."

Since 1971, the trio Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart have released 19 studio albums that have sold an estimated 40 million copies. But the group has slowed things down in the past decade, with only three releases since 1996 and selective tours of their biggest markets. After 37 years together, the amount of time between albums and tours has become more spread out, allowing the band more down time to regenerate and keeping things from becoming a grind, the 54-year-old Lee says.

"I'm a big believer in laying fallow. I'm a big believer in after every tour getting away from each other to let the juices rejuvenate and then sitting down when we're hungry to write. When I say to Alex, 'We've got to write,' that's a good sign. It's easier to be creative (when we're) not touring. As much as touring is fun to a point, it's also a tremendous amount of work and really an upheaval in your life."

Read the entire article from the Winnipeg Free Press.

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