Alex Lifeson opens up on the end of Rush: “It was difficult to accept that the band was over”

Rush’s Alex Lifeson recently shared that, like many of the band’s fans, he too struggled to come to terms with the band’s end.

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In a new interview with The Rockman Power Hour, the Rush guitarist spoke candidly about how even after over four decades together, it was tough to accept the band would never play together again after their final tour: “It was difficult to accept that the band was over, even though it was 41 years, and there’s no shame in it after that period of time.”

“Neil didn’t feel he could play 100 per cent, it was just getting too difficult to play this kind of music for three hours a night. It is what it is, that was the end. And then within a year we found out that he was sick, and so it was quite a turbulent period,” Lifeson said, referring to drummer Neil Peart’s brain cancer diagnosis.

The band played their final show together in Los Angeles in August 2015, and with Peart’s passing in 2020, Rush naturally came to an end.

Despite all this, Lifeson has made it clear that he’s not going to stop making music. “I have all this music in me,” said Lifeson, who has found new life in his current project Envy of None, a quartet with a markedly different sound than what the Rush guitarist is probably known for.

“I think I’m more a songwriter than a guitarist, and I always thought of myself as a guitarist first. But realising that I have so many ideas, and they’re all over the place, and they’re more about melody and about harmony and about space and mood and colour and tone rather than just playing.”

Envy of None’s self-titled debut is set to arrive this Friday (8 April), and is said to contain 11 tracks.

Watch the full interview below.