RUSH Guitarist: 'I Don't Think It's Going To Be Anytime Soon That We're Going To Be Retiring'

RUSH fan site RushIsABand.com has posted excerpts from a new interview with RUSH's Alex Lifeson that Skip Daly conducted for Modern Guitars magazine. The interview has not been published yet but Daly was kind enough to post a few excerpts to the Counterparts message board at this location. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

Daly: Are we going to see a remix or remaster of "Vapor Trails"?

Lifeson: You know, Rich Chycki just remixed a couple of the songs for the retrospective that's coming out ["Retrospective III"], and he did such a great job that we're so tempted to just remix that album, because we've never been pleased with the mix, and particularly the mastering on it. It's a dangerous precedent that you set by doing that, because you want to go back and re-do a bunch of things. We were never happy with that one — there are a lot of reasons for that. We're to blame for a lot of that — the way we recorded it was very impulsive. We didn't spend a lot of time on getting sounds, and we used a lot of the stuff that we did in the writing phase, rather than re-recording things. So, to maintain the pure energy of what those ideas were, we gave up a bit on the sonic end. But Rich just has this way of mixing and hearing this band that translates so well into our heads, and he did a great job. He remixed 'One Little Victory' and 'Earthshine'. They sound so big and powerful and heavy and thick...and round, whereas the original recordings are very compressed, and a little bright and scratchy. So we listened to those and we thought "Well, look...what is the point in remixing it really? We would just be doing it for ourselves... and... so... well, OK, why not — let's do it!" So, we're sort of toying with the idea, when we have some spare time, of just remixing that whole album, just for our own peace of mind.

Daly: I've always been curious what live recordings might exist that have not seen light of day yet. Specifically, do you guys still have any recordings in the "vault", even just board recordings, from the earliest days of the band, prior to Neil [Peart] joining? I've got a couple books on the band that talk about old originals like "Slaughterhouse", "Run Willie Run", "Tale", etc. Any chance we might get a "live from the Gasworks" official bootleg release at some point, or something else that would offer insight into what the band sounded like way back then?

Lifeson: You know, it's funny that you mention that. I was up at my studio... I'm upgrading and changing my control room around a little bit. Rich and I have sort of "moved in together" in there. And I was cleaning up the back room...I've gotten rid of a bunch of stuff over the years...and I just found a case that was way up on the top shelf, and at the bottom of this box were a bunch of reel-to-reel, unlisted, unmarked, recordings... and I can only imagine that they're pre-'74. So, they would probably be from between '70 and '73...recordings from that period. So, they would probably have songs like "Run Willie Run" and "Slaughterhouse" and "Garden Road", and all of those early songs that we wrote and played during our bar days."

Daly: There is a rumor currently going around, and I'm guessing I know how you're going to answer this, but there's a rumor going around that the next RUSH tour will be the last. Is it too early for you to confirm or dispel this?

Lifeson: You know, we did 120 shows. We are beat. We've worked really hard since the time off that we had when Neil was getting through that hard time in his life. We've worked solidly from 2001 until now. We've done... what, four tours, and a bunch of DVDs, four records, I mean, we've really worked hard and we want to take a break. We're tired. So, we're going to take a year off, at least. We're not going to do anything until next fall, at the earliest. Now, Ged [Lee; bass, vocals] and I might, in the spring or sometime, get together — we're only five minutes away from each other, and we get bored, and we like to sit down...we love writing together — we might just casually do some writing, and who knows — that might get the juices flowing and we'll get going. But I have a feeling that we're not going to do anything until next fall. Now, we're planning stuff. We have a list of things that we're very very excited about doing. That includes touring, that includes a record, and that includes a lot of different things. So, we just want a little break, and we're completely dedicated to the idea of continuing working. Who knows when the last tour will be — maybe the last tour was the last tour!? You just never know where life takes you — that's one thing we've learned. But we're certainly making lots of plans for the future, and I don't think it's going to be anytime soon that we're going to be retiring.

Read more of the interview at RushIsABand.com.