For many years, Rush followers have related the band’s id with Alex Lifeson’s intricate guitar work. Songs like “Working Man,” “2112,” and “La Villa Strangiato,” stay milestones of rock guitar efficiency, with Lifeson’s six-string entrance and heart. However by the Nineteen Eighties, as synthesizers started to function extra prominently within the band’s sound, many long-time listeners felt the guitar had taken a backseat.
Surprisingly, Lifeson says that shift didn’t occur when many assumed it did.
“I used to be reluctant even in Rush in the direction of the top, I used to be not enjoying practically as many solos,” Lifeson shared in a current look on Q with Tom Energy, as transcribed by Final Guitar. “That was a part of the way in which we did issues. There was all the time a spot for a solo, whether or not we used it as a solo or not. It was there. And I might do a solo.”
He continued, “After which, within the later years, I simply needed to get away from that. As a result of I did not wish to convey a lot consideration to that. I do not know, possibly I used to be considering loopy, but it surely simply appeared that method on the time. So, going into this Envy Of None, the music was so totally different. I simply needed to be within the background. And my job was to be part of this factor. Not this man from Rush.”
The interval Lifeson refers to as “in the direction of the top” of Rush‘s profession contains the albums Snakes & Arrows (2007) and Clockwork Angels (2012), each of which marked the ultimate chapters within the band’s studio output earlier than their official retirement in 2015. That retirement grew to become everlasting with the demise of drummer Neil Peart on January 7, 2020, leaving no query that Rush had performed their closing notes collectively.
Lifeson’s understated method to guitar has carried over into his post-Rush undertaking, Envy Of None, which launched their second album, Stygian Waves, on March 28, 2025. With this undertaking, he continues to prioritize texture and environment over flashy solos – an intentional evolution from the towering guitar hero persona he as soon as embodied.
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