While rumors regarding Rush’s comeback are in the headlines, it is no secret that the band hasn’t had it easy in these last few years, after Neil Peart’s passing.
However, it appeared that the band still had ‘problems’ way before Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson lost Peart. This particular problem, especially, caused Lifeson ‘much pain’ that the guitarist had to open up about it in 2015 and reveal that he had arthritis for a decade.
Now, arthritis might not seem like the world’s most troubling problem, but for a guitarist like Lifeson, who had to constantly use his fingers and stand up for hours, it meant severe knuckle pain and suffering.
Still, it felt to Geddy Lee that his bandmate had been dealing with it professionally, as the frontman commented on the ‘painful’ matter while speaking with the Montreal Gazette in 2015.
The topic opened up when the host asked Lee if he would’ve known Lifeson was suffering from arthritis if it hadn’t been revealed, the bassist said:
“No, he’s playing great. But I know he’s also in pain. So it’s not so simple. He’s able to rise above it, but it’s not going away. So I think that was a reason for him wanting to tour sooner than later.”
The said tour was the rock outfit’s last tour, as, five years after this interview took place, Peart lost his battle with cancer in 2020. Still, even with Peart’s passing and Lifeson’s problems with arthritis, sources close to Lee had said it was possible that Rush would be getting together for their 50th anniversary.
