ALEX LIFESON

Interview with
Alex Lifeson, 17 October 2003

Rush burst out of
Canada in the mid seventies recording a number of progressively
sophisticated albums until the late nineties when Neil Peart suffered a
devastating personal tragedy. His wife and daughter both died within a
short space of time. It was to be five years before Peart re-joined Alex
Lifeson and Geddy Lee to record another Rush album.

Vapour Trails was
released in 2002 and the band set out on a tour to promote the album.
Demand for Rush was such that many extra dates had to be added. The tour
finished in South America and the final date at the Maracana stadium in
Rio de Janeiro was filmed and is due to be released on DVD as Rush in Rio.
Jon Kirkman caught up with guitarist Alex Lifeson in Toronto to talk about
the forthcoming DVD and CD and what lies ahead for Rush.

Jon Kirkman: The
DVD (Rush in Rio) was filmed in Rio de Janeiro at the end of the Vapour
Trails tour. What was the motivation to go to Brazil because it was the
band's first trip to Brazil?

Alex Lifeson Right. We've long had offers to go to
Rio to play at 'Rock in Rio' and we've always avoided it because we're not
really comfortable playing in that kind of pop festival format. We're
really about our own show and representing ourselves that way. Record
sales don't give you a true indication of your popularity in places like
that. Our record sales are modest you know, nothing to go crazy about but
this opportunity came up to do more than one show, to do a few shows. The
promoters made it worth our while to come down because it's a very
expensive trip; to get all the gear down there, all our lighting you know,
it's heavy stuff.

JK: I guess you
would want to give the fans the full show and not skimp on
anything?

AL Absolutely the full show, it has to be. So it's
quite a costly procedure to get everything down there and do these things.
So anyway the opportunity came up. Now we had planned on shooting the DVD
on one of the last American dates in upstate New York and we had some
problems at the venue and decided to pull it on that last day. So really
our only other choices were the shows in South America and we thought Rio
would be the best choice. A lot of videos have been done in Rio, it's a
great audience and we could see from our ticket sales that it was going to
be a really good enthusiastic crowd. We never expected then to be the way
they were. They were just mind blowing.

JK: I take it you
were very surprised then at the reaction?

AL Oh yeah! We were completely surprised by it. We
had 60,000 people in Sao Paolo and 44,000 in Rio. Those are the biggest
audiences we have ever played to in a headline situation and the fact that
in Rio we had all these Brazilians who don't speak very much English sing
every word to every song and even sing through the instrumentals, it just
blew our minds. It's such an amazing thing to watch.

JK: If you look
at the DVD this must have been pretty emotional for you guys on stage
because in front of you you've got thousands of people who know every
nuance and every word. They don't particularly speak English that well and
yet they know all the words to your songs so that must have been pretty
emotional for you as well as the fans.

AL Well for me, well for all of us but for me the
first set was difficult. We knew we were shooting this video; we were also
recording. The gear got in late. We didn't actually get on stage until ten
thirty that night. There was no sound check, no line check, and no video
line check. We went on dead cold. We got up on stage; we hadn't even had a
chance to see what the stage was like because we had forty cameras. There
were cables everywhere; there were lights everywhere (laughs) that weren't
where they were before. So what was our very comfortable environment up
there, suddenly was transformed into this very hectic and tense place so I
had to really, really concentrate in the first set but there were moments
where I just had a lump in my throat. Seeing the audience singing and
hearing even through my in-ear monitors how loudly they were singing.

JK: Do you think
sometimes in a situation like that, which is a real seat of the pants job,
that it gives the band the impetus to raise their game just that little
bit more?

AL Sure, it always does. Everything was on the
line. This was the last show of the tour, if it didn't happen, if there
was some big catastrophe or problem or if we just played poorly that would
be it. Either we would live with that or not release it. So it put
everything on the line. You know our crew, it was so unbelievable how hard
they worked to get the show together, to get everything running and we
raised our game as well I think. It was that much more intense on stage
and I think it's reflected in our playing.

JK: I'm sure most
Rush fans will know that Neil suffered a terrible personal tragedy a few
years ago which took the band off the road and obviously Neil had to
reconsider a lot of things in his life. But when a band comes back after
an extended lay off you obviously want to promote the new album but how do
you decide which of the older material you will perform? For instance
there was a big response to Closer to the Heart on the DVD.

AL Yeah, Closer to the Heart was not included in
the North American tour. We've played that I think every tour since
1977-1978 so it was a bit of a relief for us not to play it and slot some
other things in that we hadn't played before. In South America we've heard
that it was a very popular song, one of our most popular songs down there
so we thought we should really include it in the set and I think that was
a smart thing for us to do. It's always so difficult for us to get a set
list together. I think we probably had about four and half hours of
material that we whittled down to three hours (laughs) and Geddy and I sat
down and went through all the albums and we listened to just about
everything. Certainly there were songs that we would never plan to do
live.

JK: But surely
that's the case with every band. A band will record an album and certain
tracks become popular and people want to hear them and then there are
other tracks that will never get played live.

AL Yeah! That's right.

JK: Looking at
the set list on this tour and DVD, it's a very broad cross section of your
career.

AL Yeah, we really tried to do that. We tried to
include something from all the records. You know, Moving Pictures is a
very popular record of ours and it's popular with our whole fan base going
back to the early fans and the more recent ones. Tom Sawyer, YYZ, Red
Barchetta, those are songs that along with Limelight; we have to include
them and that takes up a lot but Vapour Trails on this tour, we would have
loved to have played the whole album. We were so inside that record and it
was so important to us you know. The culmination of those four or five
years of all the difficulties we had gone through.

JK: I suppose it
must have been like a release.

AL Oh absolutely it was.

JK: Well the DVD
and CD will be in the shops shortly and I have to ask this as the rumours
are doing the rounds that this is the last thing Rush will do. So do you
get fed up with hearing the rumours or do you just get on with things and
not get caught up in that and do what you do?

AL Well that's exactly right. (Laughs) We've
always just done what we do. I think the way we feel right now; there's
certainly more music in us. There's certainly more tours. We really
enjoyed the last tour. It was the first time we had done a summer tour. So
it was much brighter and happier and fun and I think we'd like to do that
again. We'd like to play a summer tour and in fact we're talking about
possibly going back on the road next year without a new release and doing
a thirtieth anniversary tour and this would also afford us the opportunity
of coming to Britain and Europe.

JK: I've been
waiting to hear that for a few years.

AL Well it's always been a very difficult thing
because as we get older our touring schedule shrinks and of course we had
the five years away and that compounded the problem and we haven't been
back in eleven years I think now and honestly we know that and we know we
have an audience there and we have fans that would love to see us and we
feel very guilty about not coming over. We had honest intentions, sincere
intentions of coming over on the last tour. But once things started to get
put together we weren't sure how it was going to go for us; we'd been out
of the loop for a while.

There were a lot of questions. Neil had committed
to a fifty, actually I think it was more like thirty eight dates in his
original request and we ended up doing sixty seven shows so it just kept
building and building and building and when we finally could squeeze in
going overseas it was too late. The window of opportunity was gone. Hall
availability had completely dried up until February of this year and this
was in the summer we were looking at it. So this time around and I know
Geddy of all of us is the most adamant that we come over and play. I don't
think he even wants to tour unless we come there and do a tour. This time
we're going to work it in so we absolutely will come because I think it
would be great to bring this whole show. I know it would be different from
the Vapour Trails tour but that would be the starting point for the new
show. It would be great to bring that over and particularly for fans in
Britain to see it.

JK: Well I think
I can speak for most Rush fans and say we'd love to see
you.

AL Yeah and I think that'll what we will do. We
haven't really confirmed that yet. Geddy's away for a couple of weeks.
He's on a trip with his wife in Vietnam. So when he gets back from 'Nam
(laughs) we'll sit down and finalise all this stuff but it really looks
like we're leaning that way and I'm glad of that. I think it would really
be a lot of fun to go back out and do another tour especially a thirtieth
anniversary of the band and stuff.

JK: I think it's
probably just as important for the band as well as the fans that you
celebrate and mark that because it is a very important
landmark.

AL It is, I never thought we would be here thirty
years ago. I was hoping for maybe five years at that point. If we could
tour for five years and make four or five records, boy, what a great
career that would have been.

JK: I think a lot
of bands think that and say, "Let's see if we can stick around for five
years and make a few records," and before you know it you're looking back
on ten years.

AL Yeah, well when you're a nineteen, twenty year
old kid playing in bars six days a week, boy! Your vision beyond that
isn't that deep. (Laughs)

JK: Well the Rush
in Rio DVD is superb and is a must for any Rush fan or any real rock fan
come to think of it and it's great to hear that you guys are going to
continue making more music and I can't wait to see you in the UK. Thanks
for talking to me today.

AL Thank you Jon.

© 2003 Jon Kirkman,
Rock Ahead. All rights
reserved.

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