RUSH Guitarist Talks About 'Beyond' Documentary, Upcoming Studio Album

U.K.'s Guitarist magazine recently conducted an interview with guitarist Alex Lifeson of Canadian rock legends RUSH. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Guitarist: 2010 seems to have been a great year for RUSH with the tour and the documentary "Beyond The Lighted Stage". How was it for you?

Alex Lifeson: "The documentary changed a lot of things with people's perception of the band and its history. We're seeing so many different people coming to shows and I have to say the most noticeable thing is the number of women that now come to shows. Traditionally we've been a guys' band and the only females we would see — mostly not all — were the ones that were dragged by their husbands or boyfriends.

"I think we had our smattering of actual fans but now, and I think it's been due to the documentary, probably a quarter of our audience is female. But true fans — they know the material, we can see them singing and they'll come in groups; three or four girls coming to a RUSH show is crazy."

Guitarist: Do you think outsiders can see what the band are about more now because of the film — your sense of humor as much as your musical integrity...

Alex Lifeson: "It's created a curiosity, particularly for people that thought of us in a certain way and had no interest in our music before. Suddenly this has piqued their interest — they see us as people but also, everybody in their secret heart wants to be in a rock band and here we are living the dream.

"We're older guys now but we've been doing it since we were teenagers and along the way there's this story about who we are as people. Not only as musicians but the way we function in our world, what friendship and family means. And I think a lot of people relate to that, whether they're a fan of ours or not. Suddenly there's this story that they find compelling."

Guitarist: It's a new step for you to record and release two new songs — "Caravan" and "BU2B" — ahead of recording a whole album, and you're also playing them both live. Are you planning to reappraise them when you go back to work on the album?

Alex Lifeson: "Well I think it would only make sense to have a go at them and see if it develops in any way. They will develop in the course of a tour and it's interesting how much they've changed from the very start of the tour. And you don't think you've don't anything different to them but the feel has changed and maybe the ferocity with these two particular songs.

"It'll be interesting to have another whack at them. It's an easy thing that once you've been playing a song for close to a year, you go in and record it. We don't ever really do that so I'm eager to see what happens with it."

Guitarist: Is the plan now to take a break after this tour then think about releasing the next album in 2012?

Alex Lifeson: "Originally the plan was to get back into writing and then recording this year but this tour was so successful with the demand for us to carry on and play a little bit longer. So we played with the ideas and as we got closer to the end of the tour we realised we were going to get a lot of push to continue it. And we wanted to, we didn't think we were going to have quite as much fun as we've had with it.

"The whole idea of doing 'Moving Pictures' and not sharing it, particularly in the U.K., was a real concern of ours. So Ged and I will get back to writing in the New Year. We'll get through the Christmas holidays and start writing through January and February. We only have two or three more songs that we feel we need for the album. So we can start reworking the material and get it in great shape. Then we'll prepare for the tour in March, finish in July, take the summer off then start work in earnest in September."

Read the entire interview from Guitarist magazine.