Rush Fans Shouldn't Hold Out Hope For Unreleased Material, Says Geddy Lee

Rush has no plans to release a Wildflowers-like boxset of incredible previously-unreleased music that the band recorded in its prime.

Bassist and frontman Geddy Lee tells Canada's National Post that Rush was never the kind of band that wrote more music than it had to.

“There’s actually not much in the vaults,” Lee said when prodded about whether the band had any unheard material up its proverbial sleeve. “We were a band that used what we wrote and if we didn’t like what we were writing, we stopped writing it. So there are really no unreleased Rush songs that were worth a damn. Recording our songs was so difficult and ambitious that we didn’t do extra stuff and pick the best.”

Despite the challenging technical nature of Rush music, the band still managed to write and record 19 studio albums, the last of which, Clockwork Angels, was released in 2012.

Rush's final show was in 2015 at the Forum in Los Angeles. Drummer Neil Peart retired soon afterwards, citing burnout and an accumulation of injuries that hampered him at the drum kit. Peart was diagnosed with a brain tumor the following year and passed away last January after years of keeping his cancer battle secret to all but family members and a few close personal friends.

Lee, Peart and guitarist Alex Lifeson remained close friends in retirement and through Peart's declining health. Lee says he believes the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame trio's famous closeness was viewed as aspirational by many fans.

"I think the camaraderie we had for so many years — we really were very close friends. Alex and I still are,” Lee explained. “I think that struck home with a lot of fans. People like to see long marriages and long relationships, people who work together without acrimony.”

Lifeson said last summer at a fan Q&A with Lee that he hopes the two can record together again, though he has also said he is content working in the studio and has little desire to tour again.

Lee has done a significant amount of traveling in recent years to promote his Big, Beautiful Book of Bass and has publicly bandied about the idea of making another solo album to put to work some of the 200-plus instruments he collection while writing the book.

He recently reissued his 2000 solo LP, My Favorite Headache.

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