Russ and Ryan flew up to Canada just for the chance to sit down with Alex Lifeson at Godin’s showroom and talk about his cinematic songwriting, the seductive nature of playing the guitar, and the process of designing his brand new Lerxst Limelight guitar!
Step into the Lerxst Limelight | AMS Alex Lifeson Interview
After Rush ended, Alex Lifeson wasn’t sure if he’d ever make music again. The Canadian guitarist had toured the world with his best friends from high school and changed rock music, so he felt like he had been there and done that. But when Alex heard a young singer named Maiah Wynne, he was transfixed by her voice and lyrics. That led him to form his new band, Envy of None. Alex sat down with Tom Power to talk about how that group came together, the early days of Rush, and how at 17 he decided he was destined for a life of rock and roll.
Q with Tom Power is a daily conversation with the artists, writers, actors and musicians who define this cultural moment in time. The chat is informal, wide-ranging, playful, and allows the artist to explore their art and the contexts that have shaped them through their career.
Alex Lifeson's unexpected second act after Rush
Envy of None - The Story - Official Video (taken from 'Stygian Wavz')
Alex Lifeson Talks Envy of None + Rush’s 50th Anniversary!
Alex Lifeson on Life Music Beyond RUSH, Envy of None and His Thoughts on Performing Live Again!
We got the chance to go behind the strings at the Godin factory and sit down with the legendary Alex Lifeson and Daniel Fiocco to talk all about how they designed and brought the Lerxst Limelight guitars to life!
Unfortunately, if you’re seeing this the Lerxst Limielight guitars are all sold out, but make sure to keep your eyes peeled for when they come back in stock. In the meantime, check out all the amazing Godin Guitars here: https://www.americanmusical.com/c/brands/godin-guitars
Alex Lifeson’s Lerxst Limelight Guitars | Behind the Strings at the Godin Factory
The Grace guitar model is the latest entry into Lifeson's signature guitar series, and was created in partnership with Godin Guitars. The model is a modern reimagining of Lerxst's eye-catching red Hentor Sportscaster with a mirrored pickguard, which Lifeson played throughout the recording and touring of Rush's Grace Under Pressure album. Get yours here: https://bit.ly/4fK9OZa
Rush's Alex Lifeson Recreates the Hentor Sportcaster with the Lerxst Grace
0:00 — Intro
0:50 — On his Mojotone Lerxst Amplifier
2:55 — On his guitar tone
3:53 — On his Epiphone Les Paul
5:34 — On Gibson vs Fender
6:34 — On the evolution of guitars
8:06 — The most challenging Rush song
8:44 — On the classical influence in Rush
10:20 — On Counterparts his favorite solo
12:22 — Composing solos
13:41 — Taylor Hawkins tribute show
16:04 — On working with Geddy Lee again
17:54 — Outro
Alex Lifeson on the hardest Rush song | On The Record
is interview took place on May 24, 1984, in San Francisco. At the time Rush was touring in support of their "Grace Under Pressure" album, and they were booked to play three nights at the Cow Palace. Before we met at a hotel that afternoon, Alex and I agreed to focus our interview on a track-by-track breakdown of his exceptional playing on the new album.
To my ears, Alex’s taut, textural style perfectly framed and mirrored bassist Geddy Lee's impassioned vocals and drummer Neil Peart's lyrics, which expressed his concerns about the ecology, breakdowns in international communication, the specter of nuclear war, and other subjects trending in the news. Alex’s playing on the album travelled in uncommon directions, blending chorused tones, unique vibrato bar passages, and uncommon note and chord choices. And, as he explains during our conversation, he was given a freer hand by their new producer, Peter Henderson. I hope you enjoy this conversation!
Portions of this interview were transcribed for my August 1984 article in Guitar Player magazine, "Alex Lifeson Playback: The Making of an Album."
If you enjoy this unique recording, be sure to check out the many other historic, guitar-intensive interviews on the Talking Guitar YouTube channel. To help us continue producing podcasts like this one, hit that donate button and send some support our way: https://paypal.me/TalkingGuitar.
Thanks to engineer/producer Nik Hunt for enhancing the sound of the 39-year-old master tape. For more than a hundred other guitar-intensive podcasts, interview transcripts, and articles, visit Talking Guitar magazine at https://jasobrecht.substack.com/. #rush #alexlifeson #geddylee #neilpeart #jasobrecht #talkingguitar #nikhunt #guitarplayermagazine
This podcast is copyright 2023 by Jas Obrecht. All rights reserved.
Rush’s Alex Lifeson: The Complete 1984 “Grace Under Pressure” Interview
1 Rush Albums Intro
2 Before 2112 2:43
3 2112 9:49
4 A Passage To Bangkok 26:47
5 The Twilight Zone 30:20
6 Move To Moving Pictures 34:12
7 Red Barchetta 35:38
8 YYZ 39:20
9 Tom Sawyer 43:48
10 Limelight 50:34
DVD Bonus Material
11 2112 Overture 57:43
12 Influences 1:03:30
13 Something For Nothing 1:09:00
14 This Is Not A Drum Solo (Neil Warms Up) 1:14:58
15 Geddy On Neil Alex 1:18:58
16 Neil On Geddy Alex 1:22:39
17 Red Barchetta 1:25:10
18 Neil Waxes Lyrical 1:27:38
19 Tom Sawyer Sound Engineering, Performance 1:33:06
20 Alex On Geddy Neil 1:42:27
21 Why YYZ? 1:45:00
22 YYZ Exclusive Performance 1:47:50
The 2010 Classic Albums release of Rush 2112 / Moving Pictures adds to the acclaimed and award-winning series. This DVD tells the story behind the making of two legendary progressive albums. Rush 2112 was the album that saw Rush break through to major chart success, going to #1 in their native Canada and Top 75 in the USA where it would eventually be certified triple platinum. Moving Pictures opened them to a mass audience for the first time and remained the biggest-selling album of their career. The classic progressive rock work also went to #1 in Canada and quadruple platinum there while hitting #3 in the UK and USA.
Rush members Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart talk US through the making of the albums, together with original producer Terry Brown via interviews, demonstrations, archive videos, and use of the original multi-track tapes. Bonus Features include over 50 minutes of additional interviews, archive footage and new demonstrations not included in the broadcast version.
Rush 2112 Moving Pictures The Definitive Authorized Story Full DVD
Comparison of my edit to the only other source on Youtube so you can see the remaster difference: https://imgur.com/a/jrm6hyc
Getting this done was a far bigger undertaking than I could have imagined due to numerous under-estimations and technical issues. The two angles used to put this together were from Toronto on the final night of the tour (Audio is from the same show, the boys were on fire) and second (HQ) video angle is NYC a few shows prior, luckily they were pretty much identical so it was easy to match them up once the audio was synced. I got lucky with these two as virtually every moment that you see one video track the other one was either shaky or blocked so the constant switches back and forth do a nice job of covering up the problems with both originals making them unpleasant to watch.
I had to use loads of stabilization, 100+ different settings optimized for each clip, to make it watchable, the NYC was much more solid but Toronto was all over the place. I then did my best to improve the look of the video, making color adjustments, and constant brightness and contrast adjustments because of old cameras with no dynamic range it goes from super dark to blinding here and there. The videos were different aspect ratios that after stabilization changed constantly so had to shave edges line them up (nightmare). I also upscaled and sharpened as much as possible without making it look worse, NYC was already sharp but Toronto was very blurry and the did not match at all, I am happy how much closer I got them though.
After all that I exported only to realize that somehow during this Vegas decided that at every split between clips it would freeze for a few frames as well as abruptly change stabilization to create an ugly jump in the frame, so I had to go back and manually cover up every single cut (we are talking hundreds) and I almost gave up as it took me longer to fix everything than it did to do the project in the first place. Finally I got through it and rendered it, then had to do some more adjustments and re-render it because the project timeline was so complicated it was unworkable and I needed a fresh one piece clip. The final step was using Hybrid Encoder to upconvert it from 29.97fps to 60fps for that buttery smooth look.
Oh, I have probably 10 other songs from the show that range from mostly done to juuuust about done, so you have that to look forward to.
NEW! Rush Live Toronto 1994 - The Trees/Xanadu/Hemispheres/Tom Sawyer (Use 720p 60fps)
Video enhanced and upscaled using AI software and audio re-balanced using different AI software (vocals turned down 2db with slight reverb added to vocal and drum track).
I will no doubt take some heat from purists and Presto fans for re-assembling the track order, but I just re-cut it in the way that I wanted to watch it at home, it's just my least favorite Rush album and I didn't really want to have to listen through half of it to get to my favorite tracks from this show, newcomers and casual fans may feel the same so I made it more accessible to the average viewer by putting the hits and classics in the first half. Also because it took so long to render this huge file-size that I didn't want to process two different versions, AND, the original version is already incomplete and cut between every song, so I didn't think it mattered that much.
RUSH - Live In Auburn Hills 1990 (2021 HD Remaster) Presto Tour
As a kid, Alex Lifeson would spend every Saturday playing guitar at Long and McQuade’s, his local music shop, until they kicked him out. Watch this episode of My First Gibson to hear the story of Alex’s first Gibson and the guitar players that inspired his choice.
