RUSH's ALEX LIFESON Opens Up About His Serbian Heritage, Love Of History

In a new interview with the Hear 2 Zen podcast, RUSH guitarist Alex Lifeson — who was born Aleksandar Živojinović in 1953 in Fernie, British Columbia, Canada and was raised in a Serbian immigrant family in Toronto — spoke about the fact that his latest project, the Canadian-American rock band ENVY OF NONE, recently announced that proceeds from the sale of a limited-edition 12-inch colored vinyl single, "The Thrill", will be donated to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, to support its lifesaving humanitarian response in Ukraine. Asked how important it is for bands that have got something to say to say it without making it all about themselves, Alex said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Yeah, it's a touchy one, because musicians quite often are told not to say anything, 'cause they don't have an opinion, by those sort of people that do have opinions.

"I have a fairly good base in history — I've always loved history. For a while, I studied Serbian history and found it fascinating 'cause those are my roots. But I was born in Canada — I'm a Canadian — to Serbian parents. So I just find it intellectually interesting to learn about that kind of stuff.

"With Ukraine and seeing what the Russians are doing and the long history of the Russians as a nation, as a power and what they did when they arrived in Yugoslavia at the end of the war — better than the Nazis, but not a whole lot," Alex continued. "You can see that they have a brutal streak to them. And what's happened in Ukraine and continues to happen is just horrendous and unacceptable. And who helps? There's so many places to help. But on the first record, we made a fairly substantial donation to the United Nations Refugee [Agency] — UNHCR, think it is — and we had an opportunity to do it again.

"There seems to be a waning in the support that the Ukraine is getting from the West," Lifeson added. "One of their most powerful allies isn't doing anything and, in fact, sides with Russia on a lot of it. Thank you, Mr. Trump. So it's one little small thing that we're doing, and it's to help people. It's not to buy bombs or drones, which I probably wouldn't have a problem with, but that's not what this is about. This is helping people to survive this onslaught that they're facing every day. And if we can do it in any way we can, then we certainly will. And I would encourage anybody to do that — any musician, any person to do that."

Asked if there is a particular Serbian food or custom from his childhood that he still loves now, Alex laughed and responded: "So I try to go to my mom's on most Mondays. My mom's 92 — she just turned 92 last week. My sisters meet me there — my two sisters; one older, one younger — and we have lunch and we play cards. We play tablić, which is a Serbian card game. So we play cards and we talk and gossip and eat, of course. And my mom will make ćevapi, she'll make burek, she'll make gibanica, she'll make Serbian dishes when it's her turn to do lunch. I bring nice croissant sandwiches — ham and cheese — but she goes all out on the Serbian end of things. And I love it, 'cause that food — I truly did grow up with that food. And it's definitely hearty food, and it comes from a place of suffering."

He continued: "Traditionally that part of the Balkans has been such a difficult place to grow up and live and always wars and fights and something terrible going on. So food became that sort of thing. The scarcity sometimes forces you to eat a certain way and certain things. And I think of all those things when I eat those dishes and the feeling that they give me to kind of give you some kind of satisfaction. It makes you feel good when things are not going great around you."

Alex's stage name "Lifeson" is a semi-literal translation of "Živojinović" from Serbian, meaning "son of life."

ENVY OF NONE will release "The Thrill", a three-track single, on November 1 via Kscope. The new offering features an alternative version of album track "Thrill Of The Chase", a demo version, and the album track itself.

ENVY OF NONE's second album, "Stygian Wavz", was released in March via Kscope.

In addition to Lifeson, ENVY OF NONE features Andy Curran (CONEY HATCH),Alfio Annibalini and singer Maiah Wynne.

"Stygian Wavz" was released on a selection of formats, including colored vinyl, standard black vinyl, CD, Blu-ray, digitally and as a special deluxe edition boxset.

"I think we started working on the record about twenty minutes after the release of the first," Lifeson told Classic Rock magazine about "Stygian Wavz". "We had little bits of ideas lingering. But once we committed to doing a second LP, we threw those aside and started with fresher, newer ones. And it was really exciting, because we'd had this great time making [the debut], and nobody wanted to stop."

He added: "When I finally listened to the mastered record from top to bottom, I felt, 'This is a band.' The first record was a union of four musicians writing music to create an album, but with this second one we really connected as bandmates."

Lifeson made his mark on the music industry over 50 years ago, redefining the boundaries of progressive rock guitar. His signature riffing, copious use of effects processing and unorthodox chord structures befitted him the title by his RUSH bandmates as "The Musical Scientist." While the bulk of Lifeson's work in music has been with RUSH, he has contributed to a body of work outside of the band as a guitarist, producer and with the release of his 1996 solo album "Victor". Lifeson ranks third overall in the Guitar World readers' poll of "100 Greatest Guitarists" and is also included in Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time."