← Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
Classic Replay with the legendary Alex Lifeson
00:23:31
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- [00:00]
Buzz Knight
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:05]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [00:35]
Chase Sapphire Reserve
This episode of Taking a Walk is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve. Whether I'm booking my next vacation or going to a concert, Chase Sapphire Reserve is my gateway to the world's most captivating destinations. When I use my Chase Sapphire Reserve card, I get eight times points on all the purchases I make through Chase Travel and even access to one of a kind experiences like music, music festivals and sports events. And that's not even mentioning how the card gets me into the Sapphire Lounge by the club at select airports nationwide. No matter where I'm walking, travel is more rewarding with Chase Sapphire Reserve. Discover more@chase.com Sapphire Reserve cards issued by JP Morgan Chase Bank NA member FDIC subject to credit approval terms apply.
- [01:29]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Now through August 26th, it's back to Deals time where you can enjoy storewide deals and earn four times points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Hershey's, Cheez It, Kellogg's, Gatorade, Smart Water, Skinny Pop, Oberto, Zoa and Activia. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pickup or delivery. Subject to availability restrictions.
- [01:55]
Chase Sapphire Reserve
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- [01:55]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [01:58]
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- [02:23]
Buzz Knight
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- [02:30]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [03:29]
Buzz Knight
Taking a walk.
- [03:30]
You're never finished, you know, so long as you have the spirit and the passion and whatever it is that you're doing, you're not dead yet. You can treat it like it's a new day every day.
- [03:42]
Welcome to the Taking a Walk podcast hosted by Buzz Knight, the show where Buzz speaks with some of music's greatest legends about their music, their influences, and their latest work. His guest today is the great Alex Lifeson from the band Rush. Alex has new music out with his band Envy of None called Stygian Waves. You'll hear the inside story of his new music along with some stories from his amazing days with the Canadian power trio Rush. Buzz Knight is joined by Alex Lyson on the Taking a Walk podcast right now.
- [04:20]
Alex Lifeson
So, Alex, welcome to Taking a Walk. It's such an honor. We're going to talk about your new music from Envy of None. We might touch on this little power trio named Rush as well in your career. But since the podcast is called Taking a Walk, I did want to ask you if you could take a walk with someone living or dead, could be involved with music. Doesn't have to be. Is there someone you would like to take a walk with? And where would you take a walk with him?
- [04:53]
Buzz Knight
I would love to take a walk with my dad. My dad died 21 years ago, but I think of him often as we do when we've lost a parent. And I would love to ask him if I did. Okay, dad, if I. If I became the man you hoped I would become and did the things that make a difference in the world. And I think he'd be proud of me.
- [05:23]
Alex Lifeson
I dare say he would for sure. Because you have made a difference and you're still making a difference. And the, the beauty of the music that you continue to give us is. Is amazing. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Can you talk about the earliest guitar influences and how they. They shaped your playing style? And by the way, thank you for gracing us with the wonderful wall of guitars back there. It's amazing.
- [05:54]
Buzz Knight
It's my toolbox. I You know, I. I started seriously listening to music when I was probably about 10 or 11 years old. I got my first guitar 12. It was a Kent. My parents paid $5 for. It was an acoustic guitar. A year later, I. I begged for an electric guitar and I got a canora, which was 59. That was a really big move up. It was just, you know, obviously an inexpensive Japanese guitar, but I loved it at night. I have it here in my rack, actually, on the other side. I had it refurbished and, and it's back to its original. But for me, the influences that I list, the very beginning where, you know, I listened to the Beach Boys, listen to the Stones. I was not a big Beatles fan, but I did like the variety in George Harrison's playing. Always great sounds that they had. But of course, it all changed when Jimi Hendrix arrived. And I. I remember clearly being in John R. He was our original drummers in his basement with his brothers. When we first got that Are youe Experienced album, put it on and we were speechless. No one made a sound through the whole thing. We were just so shocked and blown away by what we were hearing. He. Jimi Hendrix was not a direct influence on me, but he was certainly his. His sensibilities made a big impression on me. I went on to Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. They were. Pete Townsend was an enormous influence. I loved his rhythm playing and his acoustic playing. And as years went on, you know, I listened to a lot of different guitar players again in the early days. Steve Howe from Yes and Steve Hackett from Genesis. So there's been a long line. But those few in the very beginning were very, very impactful for me.
- [07:57]
Alex Lifeson
I've heard you discuss the. The science of guitar construction, such as the. The nuances of a solid body versus a hollow body. Who helped grow your, you know, immense curiosity to this day of the instrument. And can you talk about how maybe over some instances, you have reworked some guitars to suit your very needs?
- [08:26]
Buzz Knight
Yeah, you know, the stuff that I'm doing now with Envy of None, I go, you know, I, you know, I spin around in my seat and I look and I sort of look at the wall and I go, okay, yeah, that one's going to work on this time. So I start there. I've always been kind of a bit of a technical person. I don't know if I've learned a lot directly from other guitar players or any specific guitar player. I. I've always been intrigued by effects and how to manipulate them and how to get the most out of them. The stuff that I'M doing with Envy of None is quite a departure from the stuff that Alex Liveson did with Rush. It's a very different palette and I get to make or create sounds that are not guitar, like on a guitar. The first album was probably 70% like that, where I made an effort to really create sounds that were unguitar, like, unlike anything. And. And I really enjoy that experiment. It's. It's challenging, it's gratifying when you. When you're successful with it and you do some good stuff and. And create some great sounds. And that's really kind of where my head's at. I've always been inside the instrument because I. A background. I've been playing since I was 12 years old. So over 50 years. I. I understand what the difference is between a solid body and. And a hollow body. The tonality, the. The Riz and strings and how it's projected in the body or whether it's a solid body or a hollow body. I. It's just. It's always been a fascination for me. And I play every day. I. I probably play a few hours a day, and I always reserve an hour before I go to bed to play. I keep a couple acoustic guitars in my bedroom and it's the first thing I do when I walk in that room before going to bed is I play for an hour. So I'm in a really good space.
- [10:30]
Alex Lifeson
Guitar wise, you know, Rush's evolution over the years from album to album, as. As a fan, it really always kept me really thirsty for, you know, the band's next great moment. I was hoping we could jump across a few album to album periods and kind of get your reflection on what changed from. From one to the other in that. In the terms of that evolution, if that's okay. First of all, from Hemisphere to Permanent Waves, what was going on and evolving in your mind and in the band's mind then?
- [11:11]
Buzz Knight
Hemispheres was a very challenging record to make. We wanted to make one last attempt or take one last attempt at doing a concept record, much like 2112 was. You know, we always were conceptual in the way we put records together. They were always thematic in terms of Neil's writing. They were always thematic. With Hemispheres, we wanted to do that and really make it a powerful concept piece. But it was very, very difficult. The. The key that we chose to work in was a key that was just outside of Getty's range, so it was really difficult for him to do the vocals, and he spent a great deal of time doing that. It was Quite an effort on his part. Once the record was finished, we toured it. We really wanted to take a break and reinvent, or not reinvent ourselves, but just move forward, you know. We were always very progressive in the way we tried to do things. And when we started writing the material for Permanent Waves, it seemed to be quite. It was fresher and the songs in general were shorter and more kind of impactful and pointed. And that was really a departure for us. And it was really the precursor for Moving Pictures. You know, I don't know if we would have made. But we could just. If we hadn't made that record, you know, great memories of those two records and things were changing, you know, music was changing. We were always had a finger on the pulse of what was happening around us. And we used to say we were. We were never in the mainstream, but we were sort of on the bank walking along with it.
- [12:53]
Alex Lifeson
What was going on from Signals to Grace Under Pressure, that was another amazing evolution.
- [13:01]
Buzz Knight
Signals also was a bit of a difficult record to make. We struggled with mixing that record. We thought that perhaps this was the time for us to. To look at different producers working with different people. We'd worked with Terry for a lot of records, loved him and had such a great time making records with them, great results. But we felt if we didn't, you know, take that leap at that time, that we were never going to know what it was like to work with someone else and what their influence might be on the work that we were doing. So we decided to work with a different co producer, Peter Henderson on Grace and then that was full of its own set of problems. That was also a difficult record to make. We were in Quebec in the winter and it was minus 40s for weeks when we were up there. And we made the best of it, but we, we found that we had to work a lot harder on that record as producers. And Peter was. Was more of a great engineer to work with. But when it came to making decisions about production, he was not quite up to snuff.
- [14:17]
Alex Lifeson
So the Envy of None, the new project, Stygian Waves. The excitement of your collaboration really just leaps out of the speakers, Alex. It really does. It's bold, it's moody, it's unique. The album, you know, follows your. Your 2022 self titled debut and then of course the EP as well. Can you first talk about how Envy of None first came together?
- [14:48]
Buzz Knight
Sure. It's kind of a cool story. We were, you know, rush finished in 2015, last tour and I just kind of hung out you know, I was taking time off, I wasn't playing a whole lot, but I. I didn't completely abandon it. I don't know, probably about eight months later, sometime in 2016, Andy Kern approached me. I've known Andy for over 40 years, and he worked in our office for 12 years. So, you know, we were very close. And he played in Coney Hatch, you know, a quite well known big hair band in Canada. And he asked me if I would put some guitars on, just scratch guitars on some stuff that he was working on. And yeah, sure, I did that and I did a few songs and they were scratch. I mean, I didn't spend a whole lot of time on the sound. I just used plugins, sent it to him, and so it was kind of like enough of a work tape for him. He was invited to be a judge at a talent contest, and Maya Nguyen was one of the contestants, one of. One of his contestants. And he said to her, you know, what you should do is as advice, what you should do is work with other people, you know, learn more about yourself and how you work and, and go from there. And she said, well, Andy, I googled you. I know your background, so why don't we work together? And he kind of laughed, thought, yeah, that was pretty ballsy. And he said, okay, I'll send you a song that we kind of work, that I'm kind of working on and, and see what happens. We sent that. He sent her the song Liar, which was on the first record that we had another female singer sing on, who very, very different style. And she did her vocal, sent it back. Andy sent it to me, said, you have to. You have to hear this. I listened to it. I wrote back to him, erase everything that I did. I'm going to redo all the guitars for real. We have to work with this woman. We have to work with this girl. She was only 19 at the time, and I went on to use her for another project that I was working on. And then we just dove into what became Envy of None, and. And I think that our sophomore record, the Difference, the first one's very cinematic and it's very moody and, and tonal and. But this second one has a lot of funk in it. It's also cinematic and has lots of power, but I think we are more of a unified band, for lack of a better term. The first record, I always said, you know, we're just four musicians getting together to make music. But this second album, I think it's. It's indicative of the unity that we feel and the closeness that we feel as friends and as writers. Yeah.
- [17:37]
Alex Lifeson
There's obviously this great spirit of joyous collaboration and, you know, each of you challenging each other in a. In a wonderful way. And, I mean, look, it's. I give the great, you know, progressive rock alert for everybody on this. But it's not just that it goes beyond progressive rock, which I love it. So I wanted to highlight some of the songs in particular. First of all, the song Not Dead yet, which is pretty amazing and powerful. I see it as a look at ageism and women in the business and maybe in some regard a mysterious poke in the eye to the unfortunate reality in. In the world. Do you want to talk about that song?
- [18:27]
Buzz Knight
Yeah. You know, Andy started working on that song lyrically as, you know, a voice that you're never finished. You know, so long as you have the spirit and the passion and whatever it is that you're doing, you're not dead yet. You can treat it like it's a new day every day. When Amaya got it, she looked at it more from a female's point of view. She understood where we were coming from, from with it. And then she brought that slant to it about a woman, particularly in the industry, has a lot to say. And it's a man's world. At times, it can be very, very difficult. Yeah. You know, it's never over. And I can. Just speaking for myself, I just feel rejuvenated. This is a renaissance for me, working on this material. I had some health issues for the last couple of years, and I went to a clinic in Austria called Viva Meyer M A Y R. And I had an amazing experience and I came, I left there a changed person. I learned how to eat properly. I learned how to deal with the problems that I have that are chronic and a way to live with it. And I feel like I'm not even close to being dead yet.
- [19:45]
Alex Lifeson
Amazing, amazing. Another one I love is the Story. What a great vibe to that one. Maya's vocals, I think, are hints. A bit of Amy Mann, but also of Amy Lee from Evanescence. I mean, they're really cool. Can you talk about the story?
- [20:08]
Buzz Knight
Yeah, the Story was primarily from Maya. It's, you know, obviously Maya's gone through a lot. She's. During the recording of this project, she went to India for a month. She went as a chaperone for adolescents, school trip thing, Northern India, and it was an inspiring trip for her. She's had issues with a lot of different things and she's survived them, and she's come out of them glowing. You know, since she did this trip and since we made the record and she rearranged things in her life and got things sorted out, I think what she was getting at with that song is, you know, you want to be so good. I don't mean good in a nice way. You just. You want to be good at everything and you want to feel good about yourself. You want to be positive and do the right things. And there's something in us that sabotages. That's that little devil that sits on your shoulder that sabotages, you know, your. Your best intentions. And she wanted to speak about that, but it's really one of my favorite songs and I get to solo on it. You know, I've avoided playing solos because I don't want solos to seem like a show off thing where I'm there in the service of the song. But it was nice to be able to play some solos on these records where I thought they could be tastefully implemented to service the song in. In the best way. So that song is really a high point for me because I think that solo really says a lot about the song. And it's really the follow up part of that song after the solo where we really drive the point home that's the most powerful for me.
- [22:06]
Alex Lifeson
And then the title track, Stygian Waves, which is, you know, just so big and cinematic and just quintessential talk. Talk about that one as well.
- [22:19]
Buzz Knight
Stygian Waves was the last song that we worked on and earlier on it was. Was going to be another song. And then we decided, but maybe we'll just treat it as an instrumental. And when Maya heard that, she said, great. I'd like to really let loose a bit for her and just do vocalizations in it. You know, there's a little bit of a line that she picked up from. From her trip to India, but other than that, it's just vocalizations. And Maya, I gotta tell you, when she delivers vocal tracks, it's not like five tracks with a vocal and a double and a two or three harmonies. She sends 20 or 25 tracks of the most incredible stuff. Everything is fully produced, so all the effects are on it. It's exactly the way she hears it. And it is astounding. I mean, honestly, she's. She's bordering on genius at times with this record. And it is just such a great, great thing to work with her. We. We dance together. And that's one song where we really danced well together. It has flavors of India, middle Eastern flavors, Heavy industrial. Like a lot of things, it's a very active song. Lots of stuff going on and melodies going on and things whipping around and power and it was really a great way to finish the record. And like the Stygian Waves at the gates of hell, it's chaotic, it's turbulent. And I think we, we did exactly what we wanted to do with our closing number with Stygian Waves.
- [23:58]
Alex Lifeson
It's fantastic. It really is. And when I think of the future, I know you have worked on some things with Andy that have been soundtrack related projects. Is that something still in your, in your mind to pursue at some point? And additionally, I know the band has not been seen live on stage. Is there a future out on the stage as well?
- [24:30]
Buzz Knight
Yeah. So Andy and I have done some things together. It's a very competitive area of music to get into, but it's really a lot of fun and we did a few things. I've done a few things with someone else that is a writer for that sort of work. We're hoping that we can get placement with some of these Envy of None songs. We did get placement on that song Liar on a Netflix series, so there's that. I would, I would like to do it. It's great to work to a visual, but right now I've been so busy with Envy of None and a few other projects that I'm working on, so I'm not really missing that part so far. And playing live, I think we've talked about it, we'd love to do it because we think we could put on an amazing evening of music to play the both records in a nice hall with a nice PA and light show. It could be really a great evening of music. But the logistics are not so easy. You know, it's a different industry now from the one that I grew up in. At my age, at 71 years old and my history, I'm not ready to jump in a van and drive around the country playing, you know, nightly shows. If there was some way to do it where we could go into a city and do some multiple shows and maybe a couple cities, that's. That's a possibility. At the same time, we're relatively unknown. So to get the interest, it's hit and miss and to get a promoter interested, we did some numbers, we spoke to our agent and we looked at some numbers. And we would only lose thousands of dollars by doing something like a live show. So until the conditions are a little bit better, I don't think it's possible, but we're certainly interested in doing it.
- [26:20]
Alex Lifeson
I'm so glad your health is is is well after your trip there and I'm so inspired by your, you know, creative confidence and happiness. With envy of none and just such a fan of your work. I'm so appreciative that you were on Taking a Walk. Alex Lifeson thank you so much Buzz.
- [26:40]
Buzz Knight
It's been a pleasure.
- [26:42]
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a Walk Podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.
- [27:00]
Chase Sapphire Reserve
This episode of Taking a Walk is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve Whether I'm booking my next vacation or going to a concert or Chase Sapphire Reserve is my gateway to the world's most captivating destinations. When I use my Chase Sapphire Reserve card, I get eight times points on all the purchases I make through Chase Travel and even access to one of a kind experiences like music festivals and sports events. And that's not even mentioning how the card gets me into the Sapphire Lounge by the club at select airports nationwide. No matter where I'm walking, travel is more rewarding with Chase Sapphire Reserve. Discover more@chase.com Sapphire Reserve cards issued by JP Morgan Chase Bank NA member FDIC subject to credit approval terms apply.
- [27:54]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Now through August 26th, it's back to Deals time where you can enjoy storewide deals and earn four times points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Hershey's, Cheez It, Kellogg's, Gatorade, Smart Water, Skinny Pop, Oberto, Zoa and Activia. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pickup or delivery. Subject to availability restrictions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.
- [28:24]
Buzz Knight
Ugh. Come on.
- [28:25]
Annabe
Why is this taking so long?
- [28:27]
Buzz Knight
This thing is ancient.
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- [28:43]
Alex Lifeson
Whoa.
- [28:43]
Annabe
This thing moves.
- [28:44]
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- [29:02]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [30:32]
Buzz Knight
This is an iHeart podcast.