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Alex Lifeson's Attitude Adjustment

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This particular interview has some
interesting content about how Alex made the transition from the
somewhat 'sterile' sound he had throughout the 80s and early 1990s,
to the much 'dirtier' sound he adopted for Counterparts.

Guitar For the Practicing Musician, February 1994

RUSH
Alex Lifeson's Attitude Adjustment
by Jon Chappell
transcribed by Dave Ward

Rush has gone back to basics. On Counterparts, their 19th
album, we see the band apply a more muscular, leaner-and-meaner
approach to production that recalls their 1981 release, Moving
Pictures. Gone are the lush keyboards, MIDI bass pedals, and
overwrought production tricks that have dominated so many of
their albums in the interim. It's rock'n'roll the way it oughta
be, straight from the band which, despite apostasies into MIDI
techno-land, set the standard for smart power-trio rock in the
'70s and '80s.

Guitarists and Rush aficionados will be delighted to find
that Alex Lifeson's guitar is out in front and all over the
place, running the sonic gamut from lovely atmospheric shimmers
to blazing, Hendrix-like solos. To give himself the proper
attitude adjustment, Alex left the familiar confines of the
control room--his usual domain--and ventured forth to that lonely
room on the other side of the glass. Here, away from creature
comforts and distractions and armed with only his guitar, he
squared off with the rhythm tracks, meeting the challenge
mano-a-ampo.

The results are spontaneous, immediate, and inspired. Alex's
liberated playing was a pleasant surprise not only to nostalgic
fans but to Alex himself. In conversation he is forthcoming about
the fact that he denied himself this approach for many years.
Because he was co-producer as well as guitarist, Alex recorded
his tracks in the control room, where he could advise the
engineer, discuss ideas with bandmates, and hear the finished
tracks immediately. But, as he now admits, he was missing that
feeling you get when the amp is so loud that it shakes the
guitar. "It not only affects the sound--because the wood is
vibrating and the amp is coming back through the pickups--it
affects your playing. I love it," Alex enthuses. "For a long time
I maintained you could get the same results in the control room
as in the studio, if you had enough control. I know now that I
was completely wrong."

For this interview, Alex was relaxed and candid about the
production process for Counterparts. He reveals trade secrets and
discusses unflinchingly some of his past regrets and missteps in
reconciling the control room and the studio. Leave the control
room to engineers, producers, and well-wishers. The place where
guitarists belong, Alex asserts, is in the studio.


How did the making of Counterparts compare to recording other
albums?

It was fun to make, everything just happened, there were no
real hurdles that we had to go through, and it just feels
right, y'know? The results are very apparent on this one. I
think probably Moving Pictures is the album for us that's
very similar to this one; made the same sort of way I
remember that being a lot of fun and everything really
happening on that record.

Did you play live in the studio a lot for this one?

I did all the guitars in the studio but we didn't play live
as a band. I think we're still a ways away from doing that [
laughs]. But after spending the last 12 or 13 years recording
in the control room, this is the first time I've been in the
studio doing all the guitars. And I loved it! I mean, the
first couple of days it was difficult to get used to it
mostly because of the concessions you have to make--your
monitor mix, the cans are never quite loud enough when the
amps are facing you--but for what you end up getting, the
benefits far outweigh those few little inconveniences.

What specifically about playing guitar this way makes a
difference?

The fact that the guitar is just vibrating against your body
means you can feel it through the wood, you can sense it
going through the pickups, the sound of the guitar coming
back through the pickups--all of that. It's definitely worth
it. Plus, the way we recorded the guitars for this record
made a difference [in the end]. But I think probably the
major difference is being in the studio and playing. I really
enjoyed that a lot.

Do you think it influenced your playing? Would you, for example,
vibrate a note differently or hang on to a note longer and make
it more legato?

Yes, definitely. I noticed that, obviously, if the guitar is
vibrating that much then the wood is sympathetic to anything
that you're doing on it. The sustain would be greater for
notes that you'd want to hold; the feedback of course was
more immediate. All those sort of things. And the fact that I
was plugging straight into the amp and just going for it
makes a difference, too. I wasn't impaired by having a lot of
stuff in the line, effects in the line and things like that.
I guess it sort of reminded me of the way things used to be,
the way we used to record. And I really enjoyed it. 1 think
there's a lot of emotion that you get out of the instrument
and out of the sound recording that way, which I'd kind of
forgotten about.

It's appropriate, too, because these songs are more visceral;
they're more rock-oriented songs. A more direct, rock approach
rather than a cerebral one.

Yeah, for sure. Certainly in the way it was recorded it was.
We went right back to a very basic style of recording. The
engineer that we got to do this record, Kevin Shirley, that's
his style. He doesn't like to clutter it with all kinds of
crap. He goes in and he moves the mic around until he hears
the top end, until he hears the bottom, until he hears the
mids that he wants to hear. And once he's achieved that, then
he knows that that's the sound. It's not going back into the
control room and tweaking the EQ until he's manufactured the
sound.

You're probably used to playing with headphones on and getting
tremendous spatial reverb in your cans, but it's different when
it's coming out of the amp and hitting you in the face. You can
simulate an amp sound, but there's nothing like what happens to
you physically.

That's right--it's very, very true. And I was the first to say
that it's not true. I've come to realize that I was wrong in
my thinking. I've rediscovered an essence to the guitar's
sound--and to recording in general--that I'd forgotten about,
just because there have been so many leaps in technology and
how you record and what you do to achieve a certain thing. I
guess there's a whole movement to going back to basics. And
if you've already been there, it's maybe a little harder to
go back to them because you know how much easier it is now.
But certainly for a lot of bands that are trying to go back
to that sound because they've listened to their parents'
records [laughs] or whatever, they hear that and they hear
those qualities, and that's really what they want to do. I
don't see myself ever sitting in the control room and
recording again.

You don't think you'll go back?

Never. I loved it! I felt--God, I felt young! I really felt
energetic. I had a ball, I had a great time. One of the
things I was afraid of was communication because there's
always a lot of communication going on when you record. I
didn't realize that being in the control room is a far more
distracting place to be because of that. As soon as you
finish a take or you stop for one reason or another,
immediately the conversation picks up, blah blah blah. There
are three or four people in there and it's quite often tough
to maintain a level of concentration through that. You work
around it and you just get used to it and that's your
environment. But I found that when sitting in the studio, I
was the only one out there. It was just me and my amps
humming happily in the corner.

Were you responsible for picking the recording amps?

Yes. I ended up using a Peavey 5150 and just a Marshall 4x12,
with the Marshall 100-watt head, for just about all the
recording. That was basically what we were going for. And I
used my Gallien-Krueger setup that I had been using on the
last few tours for a couple of things. But primarily I used
the Peavey and the Marshall. And they turned out to be a
great combination. The 5150 is an extremely versatile amp.
You can really do a lot in the studio with that amp.

What was the cab for the Marshall?

Just a 4x12, just the regular Marshall. I'm not sure which
Celestions they'd have in them. It was probably the 25-watt
speakers, the standard ones.

How did you hear of the 5150, just from word of mouth?

Yeah. That and the fact that Eddie Van Halen's involved with
them. He's always had a really good sound. And you can hear
it on his records and the records where he used those amps.

But whose idea was it to bring one of those out with all the
different amps available?

Well, I think I sat down with my tech, Jim Johnson. We said,
"What do we want in the studio this time around?" Because
normally we have maybe 10 or 12 different amps and we set
them all up and we get a sound on each one and just chain
everything up so that it's there. And depending on what sort
of sound you want, you just bring them up on the rails,
slightly EQ them and make some very subtle changes from song
to song. But with this album we knew that we were going to go
for a much more straightforward approach. So this time we
said, "Let's get the Peavey, let's get the Marshall, and
bring them in and see what those things sound like." And we
just scrapped everything and just went with the Marshall and
the Peavey.

That must've been a nice surprise.

Yeah, it was. I was a little apprehensive at first because I
had an idea of the sound that I wanted to get, which I think
we've achieved but I don't think I would have achieved
without having those amps.

What will you use for the tour?

I'll probably use the Marshall stacks for the next tour. It's
been a long time since I used that kind of format in
amplification. And it's been a really long time since I used
Marshalls on stage. But I kind of like the idea of having a
few stacks behind me. I went to see Eric Johnson in Toronto.
I went down to say hi when he was playing a semi-outdoor gig.
When he toured with us on the last tour he had a real
mishmash of gear. He had a Fender Twin up there, a Marshall,
somethin' else and somethin' else. When I saw him, he had a
row of Marshall stacks. I thought, "God, y'know, that really
looks great! I'm gonna have to go back to that!"

There's a real psychology, isn't there, being backed by a wall of
Marshalls?

There is. And I've been really happy with the Gallien-Krueger,
with the solid-state stuff. I think they make really great
equipment, and it served my purposes for a long time, but I
just feel a whole different thing now. So I'd like to make
that kind of a switch.

Let's talk about some of the solos on Counterparts "Cut to the
Chase"--how would you approach a solo like that? Is that
spontaneous?

That was a solo that I did on my own, on my little ADAT
[Alesis' digital 8-track recorder] scene that we flew in.
That was a spontaneous solo. I had quite a different solo for
that song originally. And I thought, "Well, now that I have a
picture of what the album is like and what the solos are
like, I don't have anything very fast. Maybe I'll do a solo
here that's fast." So that was really the drive behind doing
that kind of a solo in that song. It was as simple as that.
Just to be in contrast to the other things. On the other end
of the spectrum, in "Double Agent," that's very simple. I
don't really play any notes in that song! I play a couple of
chords and that's what the solo is made up of.

Speaking of "Double Agent," it's got that great secret agent
riff. But it doesn't just stay there, it's not just a parody.
There's some really adventurous exploration within that form.

That song in some ways reminds me of our older material, kinda
like Hemispheres era. It's a quirky sorta song for us. It
doesn't really have a flow to it. Songwriting has become a
much more important thing to me than being just a guitar
player. When you think in context of the whole record or the
whole song, it's not just some kind of statement you want to
make as being an individual instrumentalist in the song. It's
really what you do with the other players and what you do for
the song that really is the most important thing.

A perfect case in point is "Leave that Thing Alone," the one
instrumental. You turn it on expecting to hear something--burning
picking or the lead/hybrid style taken to the nth degree--but
it's melodic. You can imagine somebody singing your part, almost
like it had Iyrics.

Yeah, it's accessible, without being cheesy or hooky. It's
easy to rock out, and that's the way you would normally
approach an instrumental. And that certainly was the way we
approached instrumentals in the past, like "La Villa
Strangiato" or "Y-Y-Z." But this song is just a nice song.
It's enjoyable to listen to and it goes through some changes
and there's a little bit of variety. But maybe it's like you
said, a quality of the guitar that sounds like a voice
singing, that makes it sound more emotional.

Were you tempted to put Iyrics to it or form a song around it?

No, never. It was always going to be instrumental.

"Stick It Out" has an intensely sick riff. You're really smacked
in the face with that interval.

It's ugly, yeah.

Yeah, it's ugly. Good ugly. Powerful--it seizes you.

Yeah. Again, that's the important thing about songs. They
should have an effect on you physically. And it's jarring and
it makes you feel uncomfortable in a way. It's unsettling. It
leaves an impression. And I think that's really what music
should do.

There's a lot of different guitar sounds on "Cold Fire"; some are
almost Mark Knopfler-like...lean, sparkly little things. What was
the evolution of those guitar parts?

I think that's something that I've always been working
towards, certainly the last three or four records. Most of my
arpeggio stuff has been the contrast to the heavier stuff, so
it's been generally on the cleaner side with repeats.

"Speed of Love"--that lovely, atmospheric stuff in the beginning,
is that just guitar?

Just guitar.

Can you describe that?

That's all volume pedal with lots of reverb and delay. For
some of it I would play the chords and just kind of sweep in
with the volume pedal, move the chords around a little bit.
Then I think with the overdub I would just do single notes
here and there. So we made a nice movement between the two
with the repeated notes extended, overlapping. And I also had
the DigiTech IPS-33 pitch shifter.

How has your unique lead/rhythm hybrid style evolved?

I've always put a lot of emphasis on being a rhythm guitarist,
and in a three piece you have to be. You have to fill the
space, certainly from the pre-keyboard days. Soloing is fun,
but to tell you the truth I'd rather hear 60 or 70 percent
less soloing on this record than is on it. To me it's a dated
kind of thing. But I get into a big discussion with Ged about
this every time. He says, "You gotta do it! It sounds great;
it's a neat little change for a song, a shift of mood." So I
get talked into it, I guess, every time. And actually, in
retrospect, I think on this record there are very different
soloing styles. And that's really what I've been aiming for
for this one. I'm trying to be different on every song. Maybe
[there is] a little more of a Hendrix influence overall than
I've had in the past.

There is an incredible diversity: the textural stuff in
"Animate"; the metal-god thing in "Cut to the Chase"; the Iyrical
stuff, like in "Leave that Thing Alone." But then there's your
unique style, like in "Nobody's Hero" and "Between Sun and Moon."

Yeah. "Between Sun and Moon" is very pick-y, sort of a cross
between Keith Richards and Pete Townshend. With "Nobody's
Hero," that's a very emotional song. And then "Leave that
Thing Alone," it's almost Celtic and Eastern, or some mix
between them.

The genesis of the solo on "Cold Fire"--that's single-note stuff,
and kind of unpredictable. Quirky, almost.

That one--we actually spent a lot of time with that one. Tried
a few different approaches and none of them seemed to really
work. What we ended up doing was I got my Tele out with a
very clean sound. And it's not a particularly comfortable
environment for me playing a solo with that, without any echo
and repeats, nothing I can play off of. This was a very
strange world for me to be in. But I think it worked for the
solo. I think it's very honest. I think for that song, it
suits it.

It's a terrific solo--improvisational and inspired.

Yeah, I think it climaxes in a very strong, almost manic way.
For that sound. I mean, it's a very clean sound, it's very
hard to get tension out of that. And yet it does get the
tension as it slips into this Iyrical picture.

A Tele is a very unforgiving instrument, too.

Yeah, it certainly is [laughs]. That's very true.

[Note: The same issue includes a guitar tabulature transcript
of "Cold Fire." The following are the performance notes.]

COLD FIRE

This is perhaps the most radio-friendly cut on Rush's
rough'n'raw Counterparts. Alex Lifeson's tasteful guitar shines
throughout, culminating in a soulful, expressive 12-bar solo.

Two elements of Alex's playing on this tune bring to mind
Strat-smoothie Mark Knopfler. The first is Rhythm Figure 1 (and
later in the bridge as Rhy. Fig. 3) because it recalls the
"54oney for Nothing" lick, which in turn is reminiscent of Keith
Richards' rhythm style. But the other irresistible Knopfler
comparison is Lifeson's verse and chorus figures. That clean
sheen that sounds so fluid is part chorus effect, part delay and
part touch, and is a Knopfler hallmark. The arpeggio figures and
full-chord strums are all quite accessible, most requiring little
or no left-hand movement. And yet there is a capaciousness about
them that belies the simplicity of their makeup.

Let's look at the solo in two-bar sections, which is roughly
how Alex breaks up his phrases. The first phrase enters
suddenly--as if taken by surprise--and is centered in
12th-position A pentatonic minor. The rhythm sounds erratic until
the phrase lands on the D, which sustains for two beats. In bars
3-4, steady eighth note triplets counter the rhythmic imbalance
of the first phrase and bring the subsequent line down to a
sustained E on bar 4. In bars 5-6 Alex continues the triplet idea
down through fifth position, exploiting the lower range of the
guitar. The next two bars provide the most delightful section of
the solo. The tap-and-slur flourish on the beginning of beat 3
have the kind of soaring freedom of a Van Halen lick. The
counterpart (wink) to this comes at bar 9, where the same flowing
effect occurs, but in a cascading or descending direction. Alex
finishes the solo with slower rhythms, and doublestop bends, all
in 12th position.

This solo is typical of Alex's playing on Counterparts. He is
the picture of restraint, never overplaying, yet still forcing
himself into musical corners where he must resort to drastic
means and musical leaps of faith to escape. Does he manage to get
himself out? Baby, he's outta there on roller skates!

--
Dave Ward