RUSH guitarist Alex Lifeson has confirmed that the band is unlikely to play any more shows or make new music. "It's been a little over two years since RUSH last toured," he told The Globe And Mail. "We have no plans to tour or record any more. We're basically done. After 41 years, we felt it was enough."

But the 64-year-old musician added that he has "actually been busier lately than I have been in a while. I'm writing a lot," he said. "I'm writing on four or five different little projects. I get these requests to do guitar work with other people. It's really a lot of fun for me. It's low pressure: I get to be as creative as I want to be and I can work a little outside of the box, which is really attractive to me."

Lifeson also revealed that he was writing for the West End Phoenix, a new monthly newspaper in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where RUSH is based.

RUSH's chronic tendinitis-suffering drummer Neil Peart hinted during a 2015 interview with Drumhead magazine that he would no longer tour with the band, revealing his daughter had already started referring to dad as "a retired drummer."

A short time later, bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee played down Peart's comments, blaming the media for making too much of his bandmate's remarks.

Geddy said in a 2016 interview that he had "accepted" that RUSH's last batch of live shows was "probably the last one as a tour."

The 65-year-old Peart revealed in RUSH's documentary "Time Stand Still" that he initially had no intention of going on a tour in 2015. "In November [of 2014], we all got together in Toronto and I was quite prepared to say, 'Sorry, I'm done,'" he said in the film. "I realized I was kind of a solitary misfit in that context of being the one that wanted to pull that plug. I left one little window in my mind that if somebody wanted to do it one more time and didn't know if they'd be able to, ."

Lifeson and Lee confirmed that the band will never do a show unless all three musicians agree to take part. "It's not like you just get new members of a band and just go for it," said Lifeson. "RUSH has never been a band like that. We'd never, ever do something like that." Lee added: "We always said that if the three of us aren't on board, we don't do a thing. There have been other decisions in our career where the three of us weren't on board and we didn't do it. Nothing as profound as ending our touring life, but fair enough. So one guy doesn't want to do that thing anymore that I love to do. That hurts. But there's nothing I can do about it and that's part of the agreement."

In a new interview with CTV Morning Live, Geddy Lee was asked about the possibility of working with his former RUSH bandmate Alex Lifeson again. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "If I say anything about working with Alex, people run to the conclusion that RUSH is starting up again. That is not the case. Yes, Alex and I like each other a lot, still. We hang around with each other a lot. And we both have a desire to try to write songs together. We don't know whether that will bear fruit or not. If it does bear fruit, great. Then we might release some songs. If — that's always an 'if' there. But when people publish articles about that, they leave the 'if' out. So, yeah, I plan to get together with Al, and we plan to write some songs, but we don't know if they'll be any damn good, so we'll see what happens."

Earlier this month, Geddy, who is currently promoting his upcoming memoir "My Effin' Life", told Los Angeles Times that he he misses RUSH "enormously. It was hard for me when Neil [Peart, late RUSH drummer] announced he was going to retire, which is a word I refused to hear, la la la," he admitted. "Do I miss the adulation? No. But I miss the sound of the crowd a little bit. When I go see my friends on tour, I am jealous. They're still enjoying it.