Lifeson says the band has six songs pretty much ready to go and three others almost done. The group plans to write at least a couple of additional songs after the tour. At this point, the CD is shaping up to be a musically varied work.

"There is the epic song, 'Clockwork Angels,' which is really taking shape. It's a multi-parted piece, very dynamic," Lifeson says. "Then there's some stuff that's very melodic and on the softer side, on acoustic, with a strong melody. So there's great diversity there. Honestly, I can't wait until we start really working on these songs. We've sort of got them to the stage where Geddy and I were happy with the arrangements and then Neil kind of comes in and starts working on his drum arrangements, and they go from there. So they're sort of in that pre-drum stage right now, and it's great to see them come to life."

Six songs recorded so far for Clockwork Angels. Sounds like they'll be touring behind it next year once it comes out:

Lifeson says Rush hopes to finish recording during the fall in time for a release in the spring of 2011, followed by a more extensive world tour.

On playing Moving Pictures in its entirety, which was Neil's idea:

Plus, 'Camera Eye' has been probably the top song on our request list from fans for several years, so it really gives us an opportunity to include it in the set and to present it with the full album."

Regarding being approached about the documentary:

"We thought, 'How foolish are these guys?' " Rush frontman Geddy Lee says. "We're just this dull band. I remember Neil [Peart] asked them rather pointedly, 'What's your angle? What's the story you want to tell?' They said, 'Well, to be honest, we don't know.' We liked that and said, 'Good luck, let you know what you want us to do.' "

Some tidbits:

On new songs:

...we'll probably release one as soon as it's ready, before the tour starts, and then probably release the second one as the tour starts. But our hope was to really get something down on tape, so we could play these songs live and road test them in a way. We're still kind of throwing titles back in forth, but one is called "Caravan."

On recording Tom Sawyer:

"Tom Sawyer" was in many ways the most difficult song to record on that record. I remember even though the writing of the song came together pretty quickly, putting it down on tape was a little difficult. We were trying different sounds, and going with a whole different approach to lyrics -- the kind of spoken word thing, getting the right sound for Alex's guitar, and so on. It was kind of a dark horse. And then in the mixing, it all came together. When we finished it, we were so pleased with what happened, because we kind of had the least expectations of it, because of the difficulty we had.I think a lot of musicians probably go through a similar thing, where they have this one song that they beat themselves up over, and then the next thing you know, it's their biggest song.