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Forty-seven tracks into Rush 50 — a new career-spanning anthology presenting 50 songs across nearly five hours — a cool sonic Easter egg arrives. Near the beginning of “Headlong Flight,” a track from Rush’s final studio album, 2012’s Clockwork Angels, Alex Lifeson plays a slashing solo-guitar break, which Geddy Lee and Neil Peart answer with quick unison bass-and-drum punches. The moment is a deliberate, near-exact replica of a passage from “Bastille Day,” originally released 37 years prior and included as track 10 on the comp. It’s both a fun throwback, and — heard here in...

My Effin’ Life, the new memoir from Rush’s frontman and bassist, Geddy Lee, tells a tale that’s almost as epic in scale as his band’s largest-scale songs, from his upbringing as the child of two Holocaust survivors, to the rise of Rush, to the loss of drummer Neil Peart in 2020, and everything in between. In this exclusive excerpt, Lee takes us back to 1969, when an early, as-yet-unsigned lineup of Rush consisted of “Alex Lifeson, keyboardist Lindy Young, drummer John Rutsey, and me … until I am dumped.” (Lee...

In 1976, Rush practically lived on the road. Two years prior, the Canadian band had replaced their first drummer, John Rutsey, with Neil Peart, and they were hitting their stride as a touring band. “We were doing over 200 shows a year, probably in excess of that,” bassist-singer Geddy Lee told Rolling Stone of the era. “We didn’t take much time off. We did back-to-back-to-back-to-back shows. At one point, I remember someone counted that we did 17 one-nighters in a row, 17 different cities.”

On December 10th of that year, the band played...

Tony Sokol Jan 10, 2020

There is unrest in the forest. Rush says Farewell to a King as prog rhythm master Neil Peart takes the beat outside the gilded cage.

Neil Peart, drummer and lyricist for the Canadian rock band Rush, died in Santa Monica, Calif., according to Variety. He was 67. Peart was diagnosed with brain cancer 3 years ago, but hadn't made it public.

"It is with broken hearts and the deepest sadness that we must share the terrible news that on Tuesday our friend, soul brother and bandmate of over 45 years, Neil, has lost his incredibly brave three and a half year battle with brain cancer," Rush posted to their official Twitter page.

Peart was one of the most influential and experimental drummers in rock, mixing elements of jazz and Gene Kupra-style big band without losing the rocking spirit of The Who's Keith Moon or Cream's Ginger Baker. He laid...

Geddy Lee recently spoke to Rolling Stone’s Ryan Reed about the new reissue of Rush’s 1978 LP Hemispheres, and at the end he casually mentioned that the band may find a way to continue on after Neil Peart’s retirement. “I would say there’s no chance of seeing Rush on tour again as Alex, Geddy, Neil,” he said. “But would you see one of us or two of us or three of us? That’s possible.”

For full context, Rush have been completely inactive ever since their R...