Interview with Alex Lifeson....

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Rush: Testing For Echo
By Chris Ayers

For the past two decades, Rush has continually metamorphosed into bigger and bigger rock entities, shaping the face of the genre itself. From nerdy progressive to solid pop, the Canadian trio has cranked out both the greatest generational anthems and the most lacklustre compositions ever written.
Ergo, there's no such thing as a typical Rush fan. Some embrace their newer albums like Counterparts or Hold Your Fire; others swear by the magnum opera of 2112 or Hemispheres. Regardless, there is something for everyone amid their massive, twenty-album catalogue, including the just released Test For Echo.
I caught up with guitarist Alex Lifeson by phone as the boys gear up for their winter tour, the only Carolinas date being Dec. 12 at the Charlotte Coliseum. Much laughter ensued as we chatted about the good times and, well, the good times.
The number of Rush bootlegs available on the Internet is staggering and quite expensive. Consequently, there is much money being transferred under the band's nose, with the quality of the recordings being questionable. Lifeson remains ignorant.
"I'm not on the Internet, so I don't really know what's available. Things get around very, very quickly, and where they're sourced is a mystery in many cases. There have always been a lot of Rush bootlegs around, and quite a few in Europe, I know that. But that's a pretty normal thing, I suppose, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it. Certainly there's no chance of us controlling it or really having a say in any of it. Some things I guess you can get your legal department to look into, but a lot of these things are so underground that you just have no chance of dealing with them."

Rush have bucked the musical trends throughout their entire career to the point that they've set their own trends for others to follow. So what does Lifeson think of the influence Rush have over other musicians?
"It's very difficult for me to be objective about that. I don't know if I can actually name a guitarist that, to me, sounds like I've influenced them. Rush has been around for so long; I think probably the main influence Rush has had on younger bands is that we've shown that there's a way that you can stick to your guns, that you can play the music you want to play, that you can work the way you want to work, and not be caught up in the whole system that the music industry is, that there's a way to do it on your own terms. I think that's probably the one thing we've given to most bands is that idea of hope, that 'I can do it my way.'"

As for his secret to longevity, both as a guitarist and as a band member, Lifeson is definitely a team player.
"I think with Rush the secret has been that we just enjoy each other's company so much. Obviously we work together in this united goal to write the kind of music that Rush writes, but when we're together we spend 90% of our time just laughing, and the other 10% catching our breath! We just have so much fun together, and that's kept us going through all these years. We're quite unified in our direction where we're going with music, and we'll work towards that. We'll have disagreements from time to time, but underlying all that is this love of each other that stayed with us all these years, probably stronger now than it has been."

We spoke in April during his Victor solo project about some old live tapes that Rush had found in the studio that might find their way onto an upcoming album, and it is still in the works.
"So far, that's the next project we're going to work on. We're going to take some time off in the New Year and mix a live album. We recorded material from the last tour, we're going to be recording material from this tour, and we came across these old tapes that were recorded in England in the late '70s. They're in really good shape and there's some really great material on them from that period, so we're looking at that as well to do a really special kind of package."

With this vintage live release and the current tour being "An Evening With..." (No opening act), the potential to hear old material will certainly have hardcore fans beside themselves.
"That's what we were thinking! On this tour, we were aiming for 2 1/2 hours of music. We're at 2:45 right now, and we loathe to slice anything else out of the set. We take a short intermission between sets, and I think for a Rush fan, this is perfect. It's just us, it's tons of material to listen to, it's a lot of fun for us to play, and we've brought back a lot of stuff from the past. For instance, we do all of 2112, which we've never done before. We never played "Natural Science" live, so we put that in the set and it sounds great. We're doing a lot of material from the new record as well, so I think for 2:45, it goes by like an hour. I think it's a great thing for Rush fans."

I spoke with Edwin of I Mother Earth over the summer, and he was really pleased to hear that Lifeson thought he did a great job singing on the Victor project. The feeling is obviously mutual.
"Edwin's a great guy, very sweet, great vocalist, and I think he has a very bright future. Those guys grew up in Toronto; obviously Rush has had a big influence on Canadian bands because we've shown that there's a way to break out of the local market of Canada and be more international. I Mother Earth is a great example of one of these bands that really wants to be good; they work very hard on their song writing, their playing ability, and that's what motivates them. Edwin's experience with me was important to him because I think it gave him some confidence. I worked in a different way than he was used to, and results came very, very quickly. I think that gave him a real boost."
 

Rush are up for another live album, once again following the formula of four studio albums followed by a live recording. Conscious decision or coincidence?
"I guess it's a bit of both. We don't record a live record and then do a studio album, saying that we're going to do four studios and then we'll do a live, but it does seem to work that way. Rush has had such a long history of being a live band, and it's a really good way to cap these particular periods in our musical history. Where we go after this live album, who knows. We never know where we're going to go next, but all we know is that we're going to go somewhere."

The Victor project helped Lifeson to grow, both personally and musically, and he certainly brought this renewed enthusiasm to the new album.
"It was the fact that I came off Victor feeling very good about myself, and I was in very good playing form. I spent all this time on song writing and arranging, and I only had a couple of weeks off before we started Test For Echo. I felt a lot stronger about the way I wrote my parts and their development. That new confidence really shone when we started writing the material for Test For Echo. Traditionally, I'm more spontaneous and instinctive than Geddy, who's great at developing melodies from little titbits of ideas. So we really gave each other a lot of space on this record, we trusted each other, and we had much more confidence in each other."

Neil Peart's lyrics have moved from being rather profound and philosophical in the old days to more down-to-earth and understandable in recent years. Lifeson elucidates,
"He writes from a different area now. He's more of an observer; he looks at things around him and writes about that, but not in a preaching manner, not saying it should be one way or the other. I think he just lays the cards on the table and you look at them and you decide which are right and in which order they should go. He's really peaked on this record. The great thing about Neil's writing is that it's multilayered, and it can be taken in a number of different ways. The essence of what it's about can be about a few different things that are not necessarily related but more thought provoking. That's what I've always really liked about his lyrics, and that's what I think is the important thing: it gives you this stuff to chew on for awhile, much like our music is."

A Rush tribute album, entitled Working Man, was just released, mired in controversy. Lifeson hasn't even heard it yet.
"There have been a number of comments regarding that floating around lately, especially on the Internet, that we were totally against it and that we tried everything in our power to stop it. You know what? We didn't really care; our only concern was the exploitation of Rush fans by this thing so that somebody can make some money at it. There's been some friction between our office and the people that are involved; as far as we're concerned, it's very flattering that musicians would get together to do something like this as a tribute to us. We don't particularly want to spend very much time thinking about our past; we're focused on the future and where we want to go, and that's always been the case with us. A tribute is great for people who are no longer around, bands that have broken up that have been an influence; you want to pay some sort of tribute to them. But we're still an active band that plans on continuing for some time longer."

Throughout twenty years of touring, Rush have exceeded their expectations of success, though all good things must come to an end. The near future definitely holds this tour, a live album, and another studio effort, though after that, Lifeson admits, is destiny.
"One day the day will come when we no longer feel interested in doing this, and that's inevitable. Whether it's going to be in two years or ten years, I don't know. Based on our attitudes toward what we do, we're always going to give 100%, but touring has been a difficult thing for us to come to terms with. We took this time off so that we could get away from it, and we found that we really liked our time off, the new connections that we've made with our families and friends, and having the stability of being a little more planted at home. It was always fun when we were young, but the last few tours have been gruelling and tough on us physically. So it really depends on how this tour goes; if we feel healthy, vibrant, and positive by the end of this tour, then of course we'll tour again. If we feel completely worn out, burnt out, and unhappy, then we would look at it very seriously."


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This page last updated 11/05/2003