Alex Lifeson
Alex Lifeson
Alexandar Zivojinovich, OC, better known by his stage name Alex Lifeson, is a Canadian musician, best known as the guitarist of the Canadian rock band Rush. In 1968, Lifeson co-founded the band that would become Rush, with drummer John Rutsey and bassist and singer Jeff Jones. Jones was replaced by Geddy Lee a month later, and Rutsey was replaced by Neil Peart in 1974; the band's line-up has remained the same ever since...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth27 August 1953
CityFernie, Canada
CountryCanada
Well, I stand by that comment, I think a couple of years ago, I think we all felt the same way, we weren't sure wanted to release another live record.
Rush has never been a spontaneous group. We may be spontaneous in our writing, we may be spontaneous as individuals in our day to day lives... certainly I think am and always have been, but I think when it comes to Rush and our presentation of our music it's quite controlled.
I'd say we do reach somewhat of a younger audience, but I think for the most part that younger audience is picking our music up from a brother or sister or even parent, who is turning them onto the band.
Certainly after the tragedy in Neil's life, we were holding out hope for his recovery. It wasn't too promising at the time and obviously you get to the point of thinking that that is it.
But when Neil called, I have to say that my heart soared. And the reason was, because it said so much about his recovery... that he was coming back to the world of the living.
But I think the credit has to go to Geddy... he spent a lot of time in the studio with Paul, I think he needed that kind of focus to be in there to be a part of the whole thing, and for the most part he made all the major decisions.
I mean, you go to the internet and you can see all these conversations and arguments that our fans have about our music and that's wonderful to know, that people would take the time to be that involved.
I think we're quite unique in that we do have our own sound and approach and we don't really care what's going on elsewhere... we've never wanted to be part of another trend or movement.
And on top of that, when we work together we have a wonderful working relationship we push each other we challenge each other we laugh 80% of the time that we are together we're very fortunate.
One doesn't want to feel too contented; you have to feel challenged by the music.
You know, we have a long history of covering different periods of this band's development with a live record... a sort of live thing that would be done for three or four records, and that was the intention with this particular package.
The more I got into playing guitar, the more I enjoyed music, and the broader my listening became. The instrument itself became important to me, and I started messing around with classical guitar and took classical lessons.
I think Rush have always had this reputation, particularly to non-fans, of being an ultra-serious and cerebral group when, in fact, the reverse is true. We don't take ourselves seriously at all. Sure, we take our music seriously, but that's altogether different.
The thing is, I don't take anything for granted anymore - my family, my music, you name it.