Alex Lifeson, crowd Rush, Staples Center, Los Angeles. PHOTO: JMAN2112/EOOA.

By DoubleAgent515/Counterpart Message Board

>I am going to just do the Q&A format here. Keeping it simple and direct for CP members. 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