The Audition That Wasn’t: Inside the Quiet Jam Sessions That Brought Rush Back in 2026
“OKAY… WE’VE GOT A DRUMMER. SO WHAT HAPPENS NOW?” Fans are still wrapping their heads around how Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson found their way back to a 2026 Rush comeback nobody expected. A handful of casual jam sessions quietly snowballed into something bigger than either of them planned — and it all clicked the day one drummer finally cracked the code.
17/06/2026
The following is adapted from Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson’s recent conversation with Guitar World.
So, anything exciting going on lately? When you’ve got two of rock’s most legendary musicians on a call, you might as well lead with the tough stuff.
“Honestly, nothing much,” Geddy Lee says flatly, dialing in over Zoom from his home studio with a wall of basses lined up behind him. “Mostly just trying to take Al’s money at the card table.”
“And he usually manages it,” adds Alex Lifeson, beaming in from his own home setup. “The guy is downright ruthless at Go Fish.”
Since we’re talking games, here’s the thing: nobody had Rush penciled in for a 2026 tour — not the fans, and for a long stretch, not even Lee and Lifeson themselves. The notion only began to feel real around the spring of last year. And even once the two had quietly committed to it, they sat on the news for months without a word slipping out.
“Not a soul knew,” Lee stresses. “I kept it from my own kids.”
“Keeping anything under wraps these days is nearly impossible,” Lifeson notes. “But we managed to hold the line pretty well, all things considered.”
When the reveal finally came, it landed almost offhandedly. At a private Rock and Roll Hall of Fame gathering in Cleveland last October, a planted “fan” question floated the idea of another tour — and Lee simply replied that he figured they ought to hit the road the following year.
The run, billed as Fifty Something, started life as a modest seven-city outing. Then the dates sold out almost instantly, more cities were tacked on, and then more again. The trek now spans North America, South America and Europe — 86 shows in total — and doesn’t close out until April 2027 in Helsinki, Finland.
“The response really caught us off guard,” Lifeson says.
“We always knew there were people out there hoping we’d come back,” Lee adds. “Fans would reach out constantly, wanting to see Al and me onstage together again in whatever shape it might take. We’re lucky to have a fan base that devoted. But none of us — not Al, not me, not anyone in our camp — was ready for how huge the reaction to that first announcement would be. It’s humbling, really.”
Lee doesn’t hide the fact that the end of Rush’s final tour, 2015’s R40, left him frustrated. To his mind, the group was firing on all cylinders, and both he and Lifeson were eager to press on. Drummer Neil Peart, though, had a different vision for the years ahead. “He was loving life as a stay-at-home dad,” Lee recalls, “and physically his body had told him it was done — that the touring grind just wasn’t something he could keep up.”
In the months that followed, the two came to terms with Peart’s call. “That’s just how it goes — no resentment,” Lee says. “He’d more than earned the right to step back from all the noise.”
After Peart died of glioblastoma in 2020, Lee and Lifeson slowly filled the void with new pursuits. Lee, who’d already released Geddy Lee’s Big Beautiful Book of Bass in 2018, went on to write two more: 2023’s My Effin’ Life: From Holocaust Roots to Rock and Roll Stardom and 72 Stories: From the Baseball Collection of Geddy Lee. “That first book opened something up for me,” he says. “It showed me I could lay down words the way I lay down notes. It pointed me toward a whole new road.”
Lifeson, meanwhile, put a pair of solo instrumentals — Kabul Blues and Spy House — up on his website before launching the alt-rock outfit Envy of None alongside bassist Andy Curran, guitarist Alfio Annibalini and singer Maiah Wynne. The band dropped a self-titled debut in 2022 and the follow-up Stygian Wavz in 2025, but never took it to the stage. “Going back out on tour just held zero appeal for me,” Lifeson says. “I genuinely thought I’d closed that chapter.”
The pair did share a stage a handful of times in 2022. First came an appearance with Primus marking South Park’s 25th anniversary — show co-creator Matt Stone sat behind the kit for Closer to the Heart — followed by short sets of Rush staples at two tribute concerts for the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. There they were backed by a rotating cast of drummers: Dave Grohl, Tool’s Danny Carey, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith and former David Bowie player Omar Hakim.
“Those Hawkins tributes were a turning point on a few levels,” Lee says. “We got to honor Taylor, obviously, but in our own quiet way we also got to honor Neil — something that was overdue. Hearing our songs come alive again with other gifted players proved to us the music still had a pulse.”
Buoyed by those nights, the two toyed briefly with making it something more official. “It just never came together,” Lee says. “No point lingering on it — you keep moving.”
For Lifeson, the priority became his health. Surgery to repair a hiatal hernia left him with gastroparesis, a lasting condition in which the stomach muscles fail to move food along properly for digestion.
He checked into a wellness clinic in Austria and learned to keep the condition in check through tight lifestyle rules — no alcohol, no smoking, no gluten, lactose or junk food. Back at home, he’d swing by Lee’s place as he always had, and before long the two were jamming. Then they were jamming on Rush tunes — just a couple of old friends having a ball.
Except it didn’t stay that simple. This wasn’t merely two buddies goofing around — it was clearly something more, though neither could quite name it. Could they actually go back out as Rush? Should they? Getting comfortable with the idea took a while, particularly for Lifeson, who’d publicly declared Rush’s touring days finished. And then there was the elephant in the room: if they did play again, who on earth sits behind that kit? As Lee puts it, how do you even ask anyone to fill the shoes of a man who can’t be replaced?
A tip eventually came through Lee’s bass tech, John “Scully” McIntosh, who pointed him toward Anika Nilles — a German composer, producer and music educator who also happens to be a phenomenal drummer (her credits include a 2022 run with Jeff Beck). Lee recalls reaching out over Zoom and laying it out plainly: they were mulling a return to the road, they’d need a drummer, and would she be up for tackling some Rush material?
That was the whole pitch, he says. She was immediately into it, hopped on a flight and spent a week playing with them. By the final day, Lee and Lifeson found themselves exchanging a look that said it all: they realized they’d actually found their drummer — and now had to figure out what the hell to do about it.
So when exactly did the two of you first start running through Rush songs again?
Geddy Lee: Probably late 2024. I’d just wrapped my third book, and I was sitting down here surrounded by all these basses, and frankly they were giving me a guilty conscience. So I set about getting my hands back into shape — and trust me, they were badly out of shape.
I’d come down and play every day. One night over dinner with Al I mentioned I’d been working my fingers back into form and scribbling a few lyrics, and floated the idea of a jam. We were already seeing each other every couple of weeks anyway — dinner, drinks, that sort of thing.
Al came around and we just started messing about the way we always do once we’ve had too much coffee. [Laughs] Plenty of laughs. Then one of us — Al, I think — suggested we try a Rush song cold, no prep, just to see how much stuck. Naturally we could only piece together fragments. That was the spark, basically.
Beyond the Rush catalog, what else were you two playing?
Lee: Just jamming — making things up on the spot. That’s the whole point of a jam.
When two guys from Rush sit down to tackle Rush songs, which ones do they reach for?
Alex Lifeson: There’s only, what, a thousand to pick from. We went hunting for the simplest ones —
Lee: There aren’t any simple ones. [Laughs]
Was it strictly the two of you, or did you lean on a click or loop to keep time?
Lee: Just the pair of us. Now and then we’d cue up the original and play along, mostly to ask ourselves what the thing was even supposed to sound like. That jogs loose all the bits you’ve forgotten. Al’s pretty sure Freewill was the first one we attempted.
Lifeson: Yeah, that was it.
Lee: Which, for a bassist, is anything but a stroll in the park. It was eye-opening to feel my own fingers refuse to cooperate. But it was a blast — we ended up cracking up the whole time. And when we walked out of that ridiculous session, we’d not only captured some genuinely intriguing jams (no idea whether anything ever comes of them or they just gather dust), we walked out grinning. Playing our own material was such a joy.
From then on, every time we got together it turned into a dare — “Bet you can’t remember this one” — and we’d stumble our way through it. After a while we’d find ourselves trading these guilty little smiles at the end of each session, like, “Hang on, what are we actually doing here? Are we secretly nudging each other back toward the road?” But committing to that was still a long way off.
What was it like when one of you finally said it out loud? Who broke the ice?
Lee: Honestly, I can’t pin it down. Historically I was always the one asking, “Hey Al, fancy doing some shows? Want to kick it around?” But I was gun-shy this time, because we’d gone down that path before and it fell apart after the Hawkins tributes.
We dipped a toe in back then, but Al wasn’t feeling it for all kinds of reasons. So this time, I don’t think either of us announced it — we just kept glancing at each other thinking, “You know, this is actually fun.”
Lifeson: I remember Ged saying, “Come on over, grab a coffee — there’s a few things I want to run by you.” So I went over and that’s exactly what we did. We got to talking: “Why not just play one of these days? Knock around some ideas, maybe build on a few things.”
That’s what set it off. I think Ged could tell I wasn’t exactly itching to get back on the road, let alone commit to a tour — and certainly nothing on the scale this turned into. He was careful about it. We’ve been playing side by side for 60 years, and at heart he just wanted to play. So that’s what we did on day one, laughing and grinning the whole way through.
I definitely needed talking into it. The turning point was getting healthy — I sorted that out in early 2025, and it was a huge obstacle for me. I simply wasn’t in good enough shape physically to take on the road
Alex Lifeson
Like Ged said, we were just jamming — bluesy stuff, whatever came to mind — and that drifted into a Rush song or two. That led to a few more, and then the thing kind of took off under its own steam, picking up a momentum and an energy all its own. Piece by piece it all fell into place and carried us toward getting together and actually doing the tour.
I needed convincing, no question. The big hurdle cleared once I felt well again — I got my health sorted at the top of 2025. Before that I just wasn’t up to the road or committing to anything along those lines.
But as time went on and I felt strong, and we kept playing and new ideas surfaced, following through started to feel like the natural next step — really digging in and playing together again.
Pulling off one song is one thing; pulling off 40 is another beast entirely. And I’ll be honest, it’s brutal. Hard, hard, hard — but also genuinely thrilling, and it feels fantastic once the songs lock in, the fingers find their spots, and the whole thing floods back. Muscle memory is a strange phenomenon, but it’s a beautiful one.
That sounds like a strange and remarkable process to live through. You mentioned you took some persuading…
Lifeson: It crept up on me gradually. Once we started genuinely clicking again — more recently — and I could just make out a faint glimmer at the end of the tunnel, something flipped inside me. I went from second-guessing myself, not entirely certain I wanted any of it… but I’d already given my word. That was the moment it hit me: yes, this is going to be a good thing — good for me, and good for us.
Your health must have factored in too — that question of whether your body could physically handle it.
Lifeson: Mainly I zeroed in on my digestion. [Laughs] That was the big one. I’ve dealt with arthritis for years and I’ve got that fairly well under control, but the stomach issues were the real sticking point.
Countless people deal with this kind of thing. I found a solid way to keep the worst of it in check, and now my energy — and honestly my whole outlook — feels so much better.
It’s probably safe to assume plenty of drummers have come knocking over the years?
Lee: Yeah, fair assumption. Although the people genuinely close to us — friends who happen to be brilliant drummers — would never dream of hinting at anything like that. They had far too much respect, both for Neil and for the whole situation. They were grieving too, so they’d never be crass enough to say something so out of line.
But there were others who came at me hard right after Neil passed, basically pushing themselves forward, and I found that deeply off-putting. The timing was completely wrong.
Naturally we’ve got close friends who are world-class drummers in their own right, holding down spots in hugely successful bands. When it came time to actually choose someone, though, we genuinely didn’t know where to begin. We started with Anika because she’d come recommended and I’d already looked into her. I loved her energy and how versatile her playing was — I’d filed her away in case some project ever came along.
There was never a shortlist — we never once sat down and compiled names. When Al and I finally admitted, “Alright, this is getting real. Who do we put in that impossible chair?”… because how do you ask somebody to step in for a guy who simply can’t be replaced?
It’s a tall order. So we went with the one name already rattling around in my head. We rang her up, she came out, and the chemistry was instant. And once we were certain… she brought so much more than chops. Beyond the playing, beyond the nerve it took to sit in that hot seat, she showed up with intelligence and a real story behind her. I love her story.
Here’s someone raised in Germany in a household of musicians. Her father was a drummer. She’s been playing her entire life — she can’t even recall the first time she held a pair of sticks. It’s simply who she is. And I thought, how great would it be to drop someone that fresh into the mix and let her light a fire under Al and me?
She’s a fair bit younger than us, and she enjoys reminding us of it. Any time we spin some yarn about a gig back in 1971, she pipes up with, “Wow, I wasn’t even alive yet.” I’m a huge admirer of hers, and I think Al’s become one too.
A big part of this whole adventure is us cheering her on. I really want to see her shine in this moment, because she’s the one taking all the pressure. The fans adore her now, but the scrutiny is coming — and she’s ready for it. That’s exactly what I love about her.
Did you hand Anika a long list of songs to woodshed before she came out?
Lee: We just settled on a handful of classics. I told her, “Get these down as best you can and we’ll see where it goes.” Very loose, very low-key — and pointedly not an audition. We made that clear: “We’re not auditioning drummers, but your playing’s really got our attention, so come on out and let’s just see.”
Lifeson: I went in with no fixed expectations. I figured she was excellent and seemed to have the songs down on a technical level. But something hadn’t fully landed yet. It wasn’t really until that last day that she suddenly opened up and grasped what we were chasing. And from there it’s only gotten stronger, steadily, across the whole year of rehearsals we’ve put in since.
Lee: Here’s how the fifth day played out. We’d gone four days and Al and I still hadn’t so much as compared notes about her. We only had her for a short stretch, so we were determined to grind through all these songs and read her reactions — get a feel for her instincts, learn a little about who she was. She was basically a stranger to us.
She was understandably a bit nervous when she first showed up — she knew the band by reputation but wasn’t a Rush fan and didn’t know the songs inside out.
Sure, she knew the obvious ones like Tom Sawyer, and she was aware of our reputation — and of course there isn’t a drummer alive who doesn’t know exactly who Neil Peart was and hold that name in awe. It was a daunting task for her, but we were so heads-down working through the material that we never paused to talk it over.
On that final day I told Al, “Swing by the house — we need to talk about what’s happening here.” [Laughs] He came over and I asked what he thought. He shot back, “I don’t know — what do you think?” And I said, “No idea. What are we even doing?” [Laughs] We weighed her strengths against her weak spots. There was the faintest flicker of doubt. Her technique was staggering, her command of the instrument…
The fills were the very last thing she’d ever struggle with — she nailed those cold. That was never the issue. There’s so much more to a Rush song than the fills. It’s the feel. It’s the tiny nuances. Our music is quirky and idiosyncratic, and that kind of thing just needs time to sink in.
Then song after song, she just nailed it. She’d absorbed every one of those tiny details Alex and I had spent the whole week drilling into her
Geddy Lee
We’ve run Rush songs past maybe five or six different drummers over the past few years, and every single time — no matter who it is — there’s an adjustment period. Al and I always have to do a little translating, tweaking this part or that part with the drummer. That’s par for the course. But this was uncharted territory for us, so we couldn’t be sure. We headed into that final day open-minded, but with a sliver of uncertainty.
Then song after song, she just nailed it. Everything Al and I had drilled into her all week — she’d soaked it up, processed it and delivered. That’s the moment we turned to each other in the studio and went, “Yep, we’ve got a real problem on our hands, because now we’ve got a drummer and we’re about to commit to this.”
For Anika, the goal wasn’t just copying the records note for note — it was bringing her own voice to the songs.
Lee: I can’t speak for Al, but to me she’s deeply respectful of whose parts she’s stepping into. She knows full well that for 45 years now, air-drummers everywhere have been mimicking those very fills, and she wants to do right by that. And yet she’s also a wholly original, independent creative force in her own right — she’s just reining a bit of that in out of respect, as a tribute to Neil.
At the same time, the deeper she gets into the songs, the more assured she becomes. There are spots now where she’s starting to add her own flavor here and there. We’ll keep carving out room for her to stretch. There are already a couple of points in the set where I catch her eye and say, “Anika, this is open — go wherever you want, and I’ll be right there with you. We’ll find each other.”
The way I see it, this has unfolded in stages. Stage one was her getting her head around Neil’s role within Rush. Stage two is where we are now — we’ve learned the songs, so let’s actually enjoy them. We’re reshaping the arrangements and seeing how far they’ll bend.
Kirk Hammett handed me one of his Greenies. I’ve been having a ball with it — a seriously gnarly Les Paul, no doubt about it
Alex Lifeson
That said, we’re not out here trying to reinvent the wheel. We’re here to do these songs justice — with full hearts and our sharpest playing — and we want the fans celebrating that music right alongside us. The goal was never to overhaul everything. The goal is to honor how the songs are built while still lifting them a notch above the originals.
You’ve also brought in Loren Gold on keys, so this is something of a fresh presentation.
Lee: Exactly — that was the intention. When people take in the stage now, it isn’t a trio. It isn’t Rush 2.0. It’s a new era with a different feel, but the music itself is handled with real reverence.
Alex, are you rolling out any new guitars for the run?
Lifeson: A handful, yeah. Kirk Hammett handed me one of his Greenies and I’ve been having a blast with it — a properly raunchy Les Paul. The Gibson Custom Shop did an unbelievable job; the relic’ing is just gorgeous, and it sounds absolutely killer. There are a couple of other Les Pauls in the mix too. [He nods toward an Explorer hanging on the wall]
Oh, and this one just arrived from Gibson — a guitar that Cesar [Gueikian], the company’s CEO, built with some of the craftspeople there. He sent it over for me to try out, so I’ve been poking around with it. It’s a real departure for me shape- and style-wise, so I’ve still got to get the hang of it.
My original ES-355 has moved on to a new owner, but I’ve got one of the reissues coming with me. I’m still piecing the arsenal together. I think I hauled out 23 guitars last tour — this time it’ll probably be more like 15 or 16. Not sure how many Ged’s planning to bring. Ged, I think you had something like 25 basses out last time?
Lee: Last tour I played 27 vintage basses. I doubt I’ll work through all 27 this round — it’s a slightly shorter set, and I’ve completely fallen for my gorgeous ’62 Jazz Bass, which I’ll be using on a good chunk of songs. But I’m also planning to break out some oddities — a couple of classic Rickenbackers, plus some Hofners and T-birds I’ve grown attached to. I’ll probably try to fit somewhere around 10 to 15 instruments into the set.
After those five days with Anika, if it hadn’t come together for whatever reason, would that have been the end of the whole experiment — or would you have regrouped and tried again?
Lifeson: Who can say? Truly impossible to know.
It means a lot how warmly the Rush family has taken to her. They haven’t even heard a single note from her with us yet, and already there’s this wave of affection coming her way
Geddy Lee
Lee: My instinct says we’d have regrouped and kept looking, but I’m thrilled it never came to that. We got lucky. Same goes for Loren Gold on keys — I first crossed paths with him in 2014 at a charity show I did in London with the Who for their 50th anniversary, which is a funny coincidence.
We hit it off straight away, and his name was another that lodged itself in the back of my mind. So when the idea of adding keys came up, he was the first person I thought of. We were incredibly fortunate that the two people sitting at the top of our minds both panned out so beautifully. That feels like a bit of grace from above — like someone’s watching over us.
As you’ve said, Neil is irreplaceable and adored by the fans. Even so, people seem genuinely thrilled to see Anika up there with you.
Lee: It really does mean a lot, how warmly the Rush family has embraced her. They haven’t heard a single note from her with us yet, and already there’s this outpouring of warmth and generosity toward her — which I know is a real boost for her. Watching that response has been incredibly heartening.
She must be a genuine inspiration to female drummers everywhere.
Lee: Absolutely — that’s one of my favorite parts of her story. I’ve had letters from young girls and from older women alike, saying, “Right on — thank you.”
And now she’s a chapter in your story too.
Lee: Completely. But let me be crystal clear: we didn’t bring Anika in because she’s a woman. We brought her in because she’s an extraordinary drummer — and not only that, she’s sharp, hardworking, dependable… I couldn’t even get a drink into her last night! [Laughs] Believe me, I tried.
She’s one of a kind. In a lot of ways she mirrors the big goofball who sat on that throne before her. A total pro, work-first to the core. The fact that she’s a woman doing this for female musicians the world over is a wonderful bonus — it just isn’t the reason she’s in that seat.
