Rush return to the road in June, with the tour opening on 7 June 2026 in Los Angeles. For a band whose fanbase has followed them through five decades of musical evolution, the announcement sparked something profound. MetalTalk’s Paul Hutchings spoke to fans, tribute artists, event organisers and our own writers to capture what this moment means to those who have lived and breathed Rush for a lifetime. This is their story.
It is 9:00 am on a Sunday, April morning in New Jersey, when I speak with Gerry Schramm, one-half of the duo who have produced the excellent Something for Nothing: A RUSH Fancast for the past six years. Thankfully, Gerry is an early riser, so it is with grateful thanks that we chat about Rush before he heads off to a punk rock flea market.
Something for Nothing: A RUSH Fancast was the result of Gerry and co-host Steve’s love of podcasts and their love of Rush. Lifelong friends who saw their first Rush show in 1986 on the Power Windows tour, the podcast was conceived on a long road trip. It is fair to say that if you are a fan of the Canadian trio, then this podcast should be on your radar.
The podcast started out with humble aims and no expectations, as Gerry explains. “We assumed that we would do two episodes per album. We were only thinking studio albums at that point. So, we were going to do 40 episodes. And just be done.
“We were doing it just for fun, to spend time together and to think more deeply about Rush since we’ve been seeing them and listening to them and talking about them for decades by that time anyway. Why not really kind of figure out what we thought about the band and what we think these songs were about? And we didn’t assume anyone would listen. And we were pleasantly surprised.”
There is an air of confident knowledge about Rush when you listen to the podcast, but no arrogance. They are incredibly humble, grateful to every guest, and they have had some big ones. In fact, the only ones missing that I can think of would be Alex, Geddy and manager Ray Danniels.
They started in 2019, and within the first year, established a wide audience. They also had to address the passing of Neil Peart in January 2020, followed by the pandemic. Limited to an hour per episode, it is an incredible listen.
“That was the plan to try and keep it contained to an hour or so,” Gerry explains. “Steve and I are both big fans of podcasts, and one of the things we realised when we were talking about starting the show was what podcasts we like and what makes them work. One of the things was unscripted. Usually two people. It’s hard to have an unscripted single-person show. On topic, but loose is really what we were going for.”
As the podcast has grown over 210 episodes and 643,000 downloads, so have the guests. Terry Brown, Hugh Syme, Nick Raskulinecz, members of the Peart family, including sister Nancy and brother Danny Peart (RIP), Howard Ungerleider (Rush Lighting Director), Sebastian Bach, and Bob ‘Starman’ King have all joined for conversation.
Gerry and Steve are always prepared with ample research before each episode, but Gerry notes that much of this is already in their crosshairs. “A lot of that stuff, though, we’re aware of it already. We kind of know where to look. It isn’t starting fresh, obviously. It’s a single-topic show. So, we have a base knowledge of where things might be anyway. We have a place to point to.
“The people we’ve talked to that have worked with the band and various things, we know things about them already. So again, it’s easier to do research if you have a starting point. It’s not like we’re getting pitched ideas and people are like, ‘Hey, would you like this person on? You never heard of them.’ and you’re like, oh, how am I going to talk to this person for 45 minutes when I’ve never even heard their name before today?”
Episode 175 saw the guys decide to bring the podcast to an end. A decision not made lightly, but as Gerry tells me, it was about quality control.
“We had done all the albums. We had talked to so many great people. It was never a struggle to come up with what we were going to do that week. If we couldn’t find somebody to talk to, then we always had an album to go back to. And we were meeting all these interesting people who we wanted to have on the show. We were sending out tons of emails and actually getting responses, which was crazy to me. The people who were involved with Rush.
“As we started getting away from the safety net of having an album to fall back on, we didn’t want to struggle to find guests, and we didn’t want to fill those dead episodes with stuff that wasn’t interesting at all. We just didn’t want to make the episodes for the sake of making them. We wanted to make them about something.
“So, we just figured it would be better to just drop it instead of losing our audience over time because it just wasn’t as good.”
Thankfully for me and hundreds of other fans, Gerry and Steve have continued to put out episodes on a less frequent basis, but the quality remains exceptional.
The starting point for any guest on the podcast is their Rush Origin Story – When they first heard Rush, and when they became a fan. Gerry’s is brilliant. The only one of four friends with a driving licence, he didn’t even like Rush much when he drove to their first show with Steve and two other friends in 1986. He came out a fan for life.
Having explained my Rush Origin story, which included first hearing The Trees on the K-Tel compilation album Axe Attack Vol 2, I tell Gerry that Rush was sandwiched between Armed And Ready by Michael Schenker and The Zoo by Scorpions. “Who sequenced that album?” laughs Gerry.
Roll back to Monday, 6 October 2025, and the announcement that Rush was going to tour again, Gerry had no idea that it was coming. “It was totally out of the blue,” he says. “The Rush camp, they’re very tight-lipped. I don’t know how they do it, but they keep a real tight lid on information.
“We have friends, and we know people who have worked in and around the Rush camp. And they didn’t know either. They’re privy only to whatever they’re working on with the band. But nobody that I knew knew.”
Like most Rush fans, the news caused massive excitement. That initial burst of joy as we all messaged our friends. “I texted Steve,” Gerry admits, “and then everybody that we knew was sending in messages. I have so many emails that week that were just like, did you see this? Did you see this? Did you see this?
“I was getting texts from people left and right, did you see that announcement? Did you see that announcement? This is crazy. Did you see that announcement? Because nobody thought that they would ever get back together and do anything.”
Having interviewed Andy Curran and Alfio Annibalini, two parts of Envy of None, who are completed by Alex and the incredible Maiah Wynne, I assumed that our best chance of seeing Alex again was via EoN playing live.
“That’s what I was hoping for, or at least a string of dates somewhere,” agrees Gerry. “Not maybe like a full tour, but like five nights, Radio City or something. Who knows?”
Once the excitement had subsided a little, the next thing Rush fans had to contemplate was how to get tickets during unprecedented demand. For many UK and European fans, the absence of the R40 tour over this side of the Atlantic still smarts.
I, for one, was convinced that we would have got some shows, but as Gerry and I talked, we agreed that once you watch the Time Stand Still DVD, you realise that it was never going to happen. That meant a dilemma about whether to get over to the US or Canada for the shows that were announced.
“It was planning tickets,” says Gerry. “It was like, which shows are we going to try to get tickets for? Because we knew it was the seven shows or the seven cities. Only that small block went on sale. So, it was me, Steve and Lex, the guy who does the bass intros for the show and some other people that we knew were like, let’s put our heads together.
“You try to get tickets for the Madison Square Garden show. You try to get tickets for this, you try to get tickets for that, you try to get tickets for Cleveland, I think was one of the things. So, all of us are trying at the same time when the tickets went on sale and it was almost complete failure. We got shut out.
“Those tickets sold out so quickly because everyone was like, oh my God, they’re touring, but they’re only going to do these cities. So, let’s get them while they’re hot. I was relieved when they announced other dates because we got some decent seats for four shows now.”
Gerry tells me that Steve and he will also be in Toronto for Rush Day at Henderson Brewing. This is the weekend that Rush arrives in their hometown for the first two of four dates. I will be at those two dates and at the Brewery for Rush Day. “Oh, nice,” Gerry says. “We’ll see you there because we’re expecting to be there. We were just talking to the owner, Steve Himel, last week.”
Having negotiated the tortuous ticket queues to get tickets, we obviously had to consider the prices of the tickets, something that has caused a lot of disquiet within the Rush fan fraternity. It is worth checking out Episode 201 of the podcast, where Steve and Gerry speak to Dean Budnik, co-author of Ticket Masters: The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public got Scalped, about the dynamic pricing.
I have not spoken to one Rush fan who was happy. “Oh yeah. As a fan, I was very unhappy with the pricing,” says Gerry. “Even the tickets that we got were so expensive, not even talking about the packages and the VIP treatment and all that kind of stuff.
“Then, of course, when we couldn’t get tickets at what I thought were high prices to begin with, as soon as the show sells out, the secondary market kicks in. Are we only going to see them once? That’s unheard of for us because where we live in New Jersey, in the States, we’re close to Philadelphia and close to New York. We’re not too far from Connecticut.
“We can go on a three-hour drive, and there are five places they might be playing. So yeah, we were disappointed with the pricing structure. Talking to Dean, it may or may not be the band’s fault. The dynamic pricing thing is one of the more ridiculous things. I understand it from the band’s point of view, from a capitalistic point of view, I understand it. But from a fan’s point of view, I just want to see my favourite band.
“We bought three tickets, I think, to one show and it was a thousand dollars. I mean, am I going to see four shows? We’ve spent a lot of money on this tour. A lot of money.”
For many, it’s just impossible to do. I tell Gerry about one of MetalTalk’s team, Rayna, who lives miles away from where Rush will play. She is a huge fan, but she just cannot justify the cost. “Yeah. I feel for her. I feel for every young Rush fan who was so excited, because I know a few of them.
“They’re very excited. Their favourite band for ten years of their life, they’re 24, their favourite band since they were 14. We’ve all been there, having your favourite band for so long, especially a band that is already disbanded. There’s seemingly no hope of them ever touring again. And then they tour, and you’re just priced out. Yeah. So, I feel for her.”
You can read my interview with Rayna Leigh here.
We knew there would be more dates, given the big gaps in the tour schedule, but of course, as Gerry and I agreed, none of us was going to take the chance of missing out.
“That’s what happened to us, too,” he says. “We were like, there must be other dates. There’s so much time in between these concerts. There must be other dates. But what if they’re not? What if they were taking that time off because they are in their ’70s? Well, absolutely. They don’t want to go all out and then have to do it again two nights later, which is what they’re doing now.”
We move on to the Juno Awards and the first performance of the band with Anika Nilles and keyboard player Loren Gold alongside Alex and Geddy. The band played Finding My Way to an ecstatic crowd. “I think they did that on purpose, right?” says Gerry. “No comparison. I mean, it was the first song of the first album. It’s almost like a reintroduction of the band.”
The title kind of fits, too, doesn’t it? “Right, exactly. They’re finding their way again.”
Given that Alex and Geddy are almost the same age as my mother-in-law, who seems to do nothing but fall over and break limbs these days, is the age of the duo a concern for Gerry?
“Sure, I have concerns about it, not only as a fan, but for them. How’s Geddy’s voice going to hold up? He sounded good at the Juno’s. He seemed to be really stretching for some of the notes. How is that going to go, three months into this?
“The tour is so long, so many dates. They’re not doing a weekend thing and then having a whole week off. These are a lot of dates. Last count, somebody told me it’s almost 100 dates. I just wonder how his voice is going to hold up. I wonder how they’re going to feel, four months in, dragging themselves across the country.
“They feel like they can do it, and I hope they can. But I hope they don’t push themselves too hard. So, there is a concern. Obviously, no concerns about Annika. She’s a spring chicken. Comparatively, but I know for myself, I’m 57. I mean, I don’t play an instrument well enough to have anybody pay for it.
“But even standing in one spot for three hours a night, it’s got to be hard on your back and your knees. They must be in pretty good shape to do this. Oh yeah, never mind the double neck, they’re definitely going to be playing. That’s a heavy instrument.”
We move on to a more positive tone, and that is the wishlist for the setlist. Steve has often said that he would love to hear Afterimage. But it’s Available Light that is now the main track that Steve and Gerry, mainly Steve, want to hear.
“Steve brought up a good point,” Gerry tells me. “With the addition of a keyboard player, they could play Available Light, which I think is a real deep cut, and that would be fantastic. Personally, I don’t really know what I would want to hear them play. I’ve always loved Hand Over Fist, and I don’t think they’ve ever played that live. That would be cool.
“I think I’m leaning more toward the ’90s. I’m leaning more towards something from Presto. The older stuff, I think I’ve heard much of it. The only thing I would really love to hear, which I doubt they would ever do, is if they played all of Hemispheres.
“But other than some kind of grand song like that. On the R40 tour, they played Manhattan Project with the strings, which was fantastic. They played several songs from Power Windows, which is such a great album.
“So, I’m not really looking forward to a single song that’s going to make or break the show. I mean, the last time they played two different shows, they played Losing It with Johnny Dinklage on violin, which was fantastic, a highlight of any show I’ve ever been to for those two shows.
“So, highlight-wise, I might be highlighted out. I’m not sure there’s any one song that they could play that would really be like, I’m so glad they played this song. I’m just glad to be in the room.”
Although it is not going to be a three-hour set, there is still talk of well over two hours. That is still a long show. “I think that they said they’re preparing 40 songs,” Gerry says. “They can’t play 40 songs in two hours and 20 minutes. So, I’m assuming they’re going to do the same thing they did on the R40 Tour, where they had separate nights, an A night, a B night, a C night.
“So hopefully with the number of shows that we’re going to see, we can see all of them, because we can see all the different sets. That’s my hope.”
I admit, that is my hope too, with two nights in Toronto a better bet than single nights at the UK shows. With the Rush 50 Tour just one day away, all eyes and ears are moving toward the Kia Forum in Los Angeles on 7 June.
It is going to be something special.
Before then, you should really immerse yourself in Something for Nothing: A RUSH Fancast, where you can also find their social media links.
Rush’s tour opens on 7 June in Los Angeles, where Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson will be joined by Anika Nilles on drums and Loren Gold on keyboards. Further articles in this series, including interviews with Rushfest Scotland, tribute band Rushed, and the Something for Nothing: A RUSH Fancast, will follow in the coming month.
To read our Rush At 50 series, click here.
