Well, at least we know Neil is thinking about new lyrical ideas. He says in the first part of his two-part article on drum soloing for Rhythm magazine that last October, two months after the Clockwork Angels tour ended, he was driving up to the Drum Workshop outside Los Angeles to play around on some new shells the company had produced when some lyrics popped into his head. “I . . . laughed at myself for having a lyrical idea,” he says. “‘You’re not supposed to be doing that yet!’)”

Whatever the band ends up doing, it’ll have to wait until after its 41st anniversary your next year, which Alex has said will likely showcase some of Rush’s “rarer” songs.

In any case, Neil’s two-part article is a walk-through of how he composed his solos for the Clockwork Angels tour. Nick Raskulinecz wanted him to key his solo off the…