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
In September 1968, Rush played for around 20 people at a small hall in a church basement. We played songs like 'Spoonful,' 'Fire' and 'Born Under a Bad Sign,' and got paid $10. Then we went to a nearby deli and ordered Cokes and French fries and started planning our future.
It used to be that you made an album and then you went on the road to promote that album, hoping for good record sales. Well, good record sales basically don't exist any more, and the emphasis has been more on the live show.
It's hard to stop wars, and it's hard to stop the abuse of the planet and all of those things. I guess you just do what you can do and voice your concern.
'Moving Pictures' still makes me get into a groove; I love the way it feels. But I'm not nostalgic for old times. I'd love to have that hair again and be 40 pounds lighter, but it's a tradeoff.
Pete Townshend is one of my greatest influences. More than any other guitarist, he taught me how to play rhythm guitar and demonstrated its importance, particularly in a three-piece band.
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.
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.
We got together and it was very slow. The first two weeks we spent just talking about everything -- I don't think we played a single note.
Today closes a difficult and painful period in the lives of my family, my friends and myself. But the sun is shining and it feels good.
One doesn't want to feel too contented; you have to feel challenged by the music.
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.
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.
Everybody has terrible things that they deal with. Everybody. Just because you're some big shot rock star doesn't mean you're immune to having these awful tragedies in your life.
The Stones were more dangerous than other bands of the Sixties. It looked like they had more fun than the Beatles - like they stayed up later.