Rush: Geddy Lee Talks "Clockwork Angels"; UK 2013 Dates Announced

With a new album coming out, Rush are ramping up their publicity machine. On Thursday May 10, bassist and vocalist Geddy Lee appeared on Real Radio XS in the United Kingdom to talk about "Clockwork Angels" namely, why it took so long for it to come to fruition.

Lee explained that the genesis of the album came about in 2010 when they were planning the ‘Time Machine’ tour. “We didn’t feel good about going out without anything new,” Lee said. “It feels to us that we need new material to stay contemporary in our view. So we…started writing some material based on an idea that we had discussed the previous winter for a potential album featuring a single story line. So we wrote four of those songs and two of them, we recorded very quickly, one called ‘Caravan’ and the other called ‘BU2B.’”

Rush was able to include the songs on the "Time Machine" tour, which began in June 2010 featured the band playing their 1981 album "Moving Pictures" in its entirety. But the tour, which was only supposed to last three or four months, was so successful that they took it around the world.  The tour’s last show was July 2, 2011.

“Long story short,” Lee continued. “In the fall of this past year, 2011, we finally got back together to continue writing and putting the rest of the album together, and finished it in February.”

Rush have unvelied details of a UK arena tour… but it won’t take place until May 2013.

Full dates are as follows:

Wed May 22nd – Manchester Arena
Fri May 24th – London O2 Arena
Sun May 26th – Birmingham LG Arena
Tues May 28th – Sheffield Motorpoint Arena
Thurs May 30th – Glasgow SECC