Here is the latest interview with Alex Lifeson, recently posted to
the Counterparts message board by DoubleAgent5150. The interview was
given prior to the West Palm Beach concert on Oct. 11th, 2002.

In the interview Alex answers questions you won't see in an standard
media interview, such as "was 'The Fountain of Lamneth' ever played
live? Why wasn't 'The Camera Eye' performed this tour?" and "will
the Vapor Trails tour make it to Europe?". Also mentioned are the
songs which were rehearsed for the current tour that didn't make the
final cut (includes "Presto" and "Entre Nous"!). Another key point
is that he mentions plans of recording for a DVD at both Madison
Square Garden and Brazil!

Thanks to DoubleAgent5150 for the great interview!

The direct link to the post is:
http://www.rushmessageboard.com/forums/cp/index.php?
act=ST&f=1&t=4509&hl=20+questions&s=80f5fc8b80fc5ae4401378126b2911a1

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20 Questions With Alex Lifeson Of Rush

This interview clocked in at around 24 minutes. The band was being
rushed (no pun intended), because Neil arrived late to the venue and
for soundcheck which did not begin until a little after 5:15 P.M. in
West Palm. So here it goes...my interview with Alex Lifeson of Rush.

Greetings and things get out of the way and a few pictures....

1. Alex before we get into anything real important like what Paul and
Gene are doing in your Tiki Bar...can you tell me a bit about the
mood on this tour currently and how you plan to possibly carry this
onto the next album?

Alex-Next album? Is it made yet? (laughs), I would say that the vibe
is still strong and things have been really good. Neil has loved the
scheduling of the tour because it allows him to reach out a bit more
to parts of his life he kinda took advantage of before. Geddy has
liked it because he is playing live again and we really are coming
back and playing like we were when we were in our 20's. With
myself...well I like the room service and flying to some of the
different shows...oh yeah and that traveling Tiki Bar...(laughs)

2. Speaking of the the traveling word.....what happened with going to
Europe and is that still on the table or not going to happen?

Alex-It is off the table. To be honest we know we have fans there but
the album sales and interest in promoters is seriously lacking in
Europe. A lot of that is our own doing but financially it just does
not make sense to bring our show over there when we could play nine
or ten different venues in North America and reach more people and
make a profit. We did have it scheduled to begin in January for 3
weeks but we could not get backing over there and we decided to scrap
it. We are aware of the interest but I am sorry to say as of right
now it would actually hurt to tour there than help in a monetary
sense.

This is a big show ya know? We would not want to just show up over
there and have to cut corners and short the fans over there from the
same concert experience the audience is getting over here. We hope
things improve but not this tour.

3. You are going to South America for the first time however! This
was great news to hear, do you have anything special planned for the
tour there?

Alex-Well, to be honest we are bringing the same shows we have been
doing here in North America to Brazil. It is without question going
to be exciting to play for them and for us to travel to that part of
the world for the first time as a band. It is long overdue and I
think the shows will be similar to what we did in Mexico. That show
went over very well and we were glad we were able to finally hit
there. I was able to get a real phat sombrero man....(laughs-talking
in stoner Mexican voice)

4. I had been given some questions from some other Rush fans that
they really wanted to know and we can belt these out in like 30
seconds if you really want your brain picked...?

Alex-Fire Away....

4. OK, well inquiring minds want to know...is Limelight really green?

Alex- (Laughter) it actually is Sprite. It was influenced by Sprite
when we wrote it. Neil and Ged could not make the original title
Limonlight work...so I happened to say "Hey! Stop fighting...just
meet half way and call it Limelight," and so there in lies the true
story of Limelight and its birth. (Laughs)

5. The Fountain of Lamneth....has it ever been played live or even in
maybe a jam or anything in any live performance that you could
remember?

Alex-Did we record that? (Laughs), wow....(pauses) that is a really
interesting question. I honestly do not recall that song ever being
played. Our setlist was not that long and we did not have that much
time back then to fit something like that in. I really wanted to do
the theme song to Dobie Gillis...but Neil would have none of it. So
we had to drop it. (laughs), Dobie was a cool kat...hip.
(laughs)...Fountain...I honestly can't remember that song coming up
in an interview. You remembered it!

6. A typical Internet browsing day would consist of what websites? Do
you frequent any of the Rush sites?

Alex-Yes I have and do stop on by a few of them. Some are scary...it
is like having a constant fashion nightmare over and over on every
link. I like a lot of the news websites and film sites. I like
webtender of course!

7. Ahh which brings me to a question I just thought of! Why were you
wearing leather pants on every date of the Test For Echo tour?

Alex-You noticed?!?! Damn! I was told I would sweat a lot of weight
off every night. It was a new diet. I tried it. I never gained a
single pound...but never lost one either.(laughs)

8. You have mentioned rushpetition.com in some of your interviews so
I know you are aware of the website. Can you tell me why The Camera
Eye did not make the setlist?

Alex-Yeah it actually is pretty simple. I think we actually looked at
that site and took 4 or 5 songs from the top ten. That is pretty fair
to say the least. The Camera Eye just would have taken up too much
time in the setlist that we already had designed with Natural Science
in it. We did not want to drop Natural Science and we wanted to play
enough Vapor Trails material in the show so we had to sacrifice.

Camera would have taken up 3 song spots and we knew that was a song
that the hard-core fans would love to hear but we need to play to a
wide audience and please everyone...including ourselves. I think the
setlist works really well night to night. I am happy.

9. I noticed that Passage To Bangkok, Nocturne, Vapor Trail, and The
Trees are on an alternate list for this tour to add at any time. I
know The Trees are in, how about the others?

Alex- Most likely not. We are pretty much set right now as far as the
set list goes. We actually had rehearsed almost 4 hours worth of show
material to fall back on if we decided to change up either mid-tour
or whenever. We did change it up a bit by adding Freewill and The
Trees along with Ghost Rider on the opposite nights. That keeps us on
our toes.

10. What songs were taken off the list that were going to possibly
added or played in favor of another this tour?

Alex-Real behind the scenes stuff here...honestly there was Test For
Echo and Animate that we really like playing but ran out of time in
the scheme of things. We had gone through like you said Bangkok,
Nocturne, and Vapor Trail. Ummm, some more acoustic stuff like Presto
and Entre Nous were there but we just really were inching closer and
closer to the full 3 hour mark. We have unions to answer to ya know!
(laughs)

11. Can you tell me honestly without offending other cities too
much...(laughs), what have been the best cities on this tour so far
and maybe the worst?

Alex-They all have been special. Opening night in Hartford was a bit
of a blur and things were just so exciting yet tense. I will never
forget that night. I truly had doubt it would ever come again. L.A.
was a great time and so was Vegas. Probably the best shows were in
Detroit. Like I said earlier Mexico was great to play in but it had
its troubles. As far as the worst? I can't say there is a bad city to
play in or has been a bad city to play in. We selected these cities
carefully and things have worked out.

12. If you could change one song that you have recorded in the past
with Rush...which one would it be?

Alex- I would not mind going back and touching up some areas on
Presto and Signals. But those are meant to be how they are now.
Nothing real specific stands out to be honest.

13. Can we expect a DVD release of this tour?

Alex-We are in the planning stages right now about that. Nothing
concrete. We would like to get Madison Square Garden done and maybe
some film in Brazil. We will have to see what goes on but I really
can't tell you just yet what is going to be done for sure.

14. Is there ever going to be a time that you will work with Terry
Brown again in any capacity? I know I am a bit biased here in asking
this question as I think he really worked like a perfect glove with
you guys.

Alex-I think there will always be that recognizable chemistry that
happened back then with Terry. We moved on from that era a long,
long, time ago. I can't rule anything out for the future but I think
that time has passed. But you never know what will happen. We are
taking one tour date at a time and each moment for what it offers
right now. Terry will always have a soft spot in our group.

15. Will there ever be an opportunity to see or hear the Fear
chapters live again? I heard that you were going to be playing them
this tour and it did not pan out? I do love Freeze and was hoping to
hear/see its debut.

Alex-Actually that again would have taken up so much time. Literally
we are able to play so much more material right now in their place.
We went through it and it just did not seem to flow right with the
rest of the material live. It kinda was sounding all over the place.
I agree Freeze is a very strong song but it just did not make the cut.

16. Recently your names appeared with the likes of Britney Spears and
ZZ TOP about online piracy and audio theft. I was wondering if you
could tell me a bit about how you got into that and what effects
downloading songs has done to your band?

Alex- A horrible situation. Everytime you download a song offline
whether it be something from 2112 or Vapor Trails you are hurting us.
Not so much in the pocket but really in principle and respect. This
is what we do for a living. We don't go out of our way to come to
your work and expect everything for free and steal your property
right? We were told that something like 52,000 downloads were done
the first month of release of Vapor Trails on just one website. Then
got insane numbers like One Little Victory was downloaded almost
400,000 times.

Geddy was irate and called me and told me what was going on and the
quality of it was horrible. We were very sensitive with the album as
it was and here it was in all kinds of horrible shapes and sounds and
it was a real crime and shame what happened but what can you do? So,
yes we are all for legal regulation on music on the Internet. Bands
like us can't take the hit like that and still maintain a major
recording contract. I have heard all sides of the argument. The fact
is if someone wants to buy the album online and burn the tracks at
least do it legally. Let there be some kind of number to be shown
that your album is indeed selling and moving units.

Record labels will drop a band today if they no longer see them as
viable for radio and promotion of new releases. We had a very strong
debut and we usually give the album to the label and let them run
with it. We are professionals about it. We have been in this business
for over 30 years. Rush is obviously a powerful name in rock and we
realize that. However, it can be just like that (snaps finger) that a
band like us will vanish from radio and you would never know if we
had a new album out or not if the piracy continues to scream at this
rate.

17. I am going to continue on this theme and skip my next question
and ask you is this the reason Vapor Trails is now for sale at shows?
Are you trying to market the new material now anyway you can?

Alex-It just makes sense, to be honest. We realize we are from a
different era. We realize we are not the new hot radio act or MTV
darlings. You just have to conduct business in a different manner now
than say 10 years ago. All kinds of industry is affected by the
Internet and it is growing daily. So it does help in different areas
and hurts in others. We are happy with the way things have turned
out. We just feel the bleeding needs to stop in some way.

18. The animation on this tour during By-Tor is hilarious. What was
running through your minds to come up with that?

Alex-Cartoon Network does amazing things to the chemically imbalanced
mind (laughs), it is fun stuff. We really enjoy it and we can have
some fun with some of the funnier stuff we did a few hundred years
ago.

19. Alex, would you tell me if this is the last tour for Rush or not?
Just to calm some hysteria?

Alex- I would say that things have worked out better than expected.
We feel tight and are having a good time. Will this be our last? I do
not know. But then again I never expected in 1981 to still be playing
Tom Sawyer in front of 20,000 people.

20. Final question would be more of a personal one and opinion. The
current state of affairs of the world and the war on terrorism. Do
you feel it has effected the touring economy to the point of where
you actually feel a bit out of place being on the road and the ticket
prices that have to be charged?

Alex- I think you asked that question as as nicely as possible. I
know what you are getting at. You know we have a road crew and the
venue's and all kinds of pieces of the pie are taken out. We do not
go out of our way to charge a zillion dollars for no reason. We
really are fairly priced for what we deliver in my opinion. It just
happens this way. We have toured in some really bad economical
situations in the States and in Canada before. This is something
nobody has ever gone through but you know you just have to go out
there and do it and just bring as much enjoyment as you can to the
situation.

The war of course is on the minds of people. 9-11 was a very
difficult time in this worlds history. The Madison Square Garden show
will be nice. We hope to have a really special night up there. It is
an amazing sight to be seen or at least it was months ago at the site
up there. NYC is strong however and there are great fans. They will
turn out and we will do what we know how to do and that is give them
a great show. Europe played into that situation and with a pending
war in Iraq and whatever else is going to happen in this world it
just felt right to hit markets that worked for us right now. It is
almost fitting that America is in a step by step way of living right
now. That is how we planned Vapor Trails and this tour before 9-11
ever happened.


End Of Interview