Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
How are you. I'm wonderful man. I've got a Hall
of Famer on my show today.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Maybe I do too.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I don't know about that.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Man.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm stoked to have you on the show Life After
Rush with Envy of None. I've got Alex Lifson, Hall
of Famer on the show today. This is the second
album that Envy of None has put out. It's called
Stygian Waves and it will be available on the twenty
eighth of this month. You've got Alfeo and a Bellini,
(00:37):
Andy Kurran, Maya Wynn and your attorney who's also your drummer,
David Steinberg. And I understand that he came up with
the band's name.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yes on the first record initially did He played on
a few tracks on the first record as well as
a few tracks on this second one, and he suggested
that name, and it seems it seems kind of appropriate
for us, and it's kind of a cool, cool title.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Really, where does that come from?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
So it comes from an essay written by the Roman
philosopher Ovid. He makes mention of the you know of
a group of people being the envy of no one,
and in it he also makes mention of the stygion waves,
which refer to a Roman mythology as the turbulent waters
(01:31):
that the gates of hell on the river sticks. So
it seems kind of appropriate for this day and age
when everything is so turbulent. But we like to think
that there's a way to navigate those waters so that
you can come to a commer place, and with a
little bit of time and effort, we should be able
to reach that place patience patients, which is kind of difficult,
(01:57):
you know, on a day to day news cycle. We
got to stick with it and we got to change
the things that are wrong best way we can.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
So it's my understanding that this kind of developed during COVID,
during the lockdowns.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
That's right. The first album was at the height of
COVID and we worked remotely, so we would share files
and we would just build like a pyramid. We would
you know, share files back and forth until we finally
reached that peak and we were confident that we'd finished
that song. The second album is like that as well.
Although Maya did come up to Toronto, we spent a
(02:34):
little bit of time in the studio, ostensibly to catch
some vocals, but in fact we ended up just hanging,
you know, and just being together, which was probably, you know,
even more important than actually getting tracks done. So but
we like working this way. I actually love it. It's
(02:55):
a very efficient way to work. There's nobody in the
room with me when I'm working, so if I don't
like something, I could just trash it and start over again,
and there's nobody but there's no committee suggesting ideas and
things like that. So I think we're all quite comfortable
working this.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Way, no distractions. She's so much younger than everybody else
in the band. Ouch, I'm sorry, bro.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Yeah, yeah, no, you know that's okay. She makes me
feel a lot younger. Yeah, she's she's twenty eight years old.
We started working with Maya when she was nineteen, when
she was a contestant on The Talent Show and Andy
was one of the judges. And Andy said to her,
you should work with some other people and you know,
(03:41):
develop your skills. And she said, well, I googled you
and I know where you come from, so why don't
we work together. So he kind of laughed and said, okay,
I'll send you a song. And Andy and I were
kind of working on a track that he'd written called Liar,
which is on the first record, and he asked me
to put some guitars on, just you know, casually, and
I did that and he sent it to her. It
(04:04):
came back and he played it for me, and I
was so blown away. I said, erase everything that I sent,
I'm redoing all the guitars. We have to make a
record with this woman. She's amazing And that's basically how
all started. And honestly, she's such an inspiration to me.
She is my muse. I get so much amazing inspiration
(04:27):
from her, and I think she gets it from me.
And we have this beautiful relationship where we dance together
in our arrangements and it's really really a very special thing.
And I'm blessed at this stage in my life to
be able to work with such a wonderfully talented young vocalist.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
What a beautiful voice is she also the lyricist.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, like I would say, it's half and a half.
I mean, Andy does have a few lines that he
comes up with which might set a tone for the lyrics,
but it's Maya who flushes them out and and she
also brings her own lyrical ideas into into the pot
(05:13):
as well. So it's it's a very much a group
effort the whole record.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
We're talking to Alex Lesson of Envy of None. Their
second record, Stygian Waves, is out on the twenty eighth,
and your guitar playing is a lot different than than
what folks would expect it to be. There's a couple
of tracks. We had the opportunity to hear three of them,
including the title track, Stigian Waves and Under the Stars,
(05:40):
and it's your guitar playings almost in the backgrounds. It's
almost like I'm watching Blade Runner.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, you know. Yeah. The music is very cinematic. It's
very trippy, atmospheric. You know. I don't want to draw
attention to myself in this particular thing. I mean, there's
enough of that already just because of my history. So
I went into this wanting and maybe I downplayed the
(06:09):
guitar a little bit on the first record, and I
really made an effort to make the guitar almost disguised,
to make it sound like another thing and not a
traditional kind of guitar. And I like doing that because
it's challenging and I get to create really cool sounds
and textures. On the second record, I let down my
(06:31):
guard a little more and I started doing some solos again,
which I only did when I found that the song
required it, that it was in the service of the song.
It made the song better. It just wasn't a flashpoint
to show off that I could move my fingers at
any kind of speed. So, you know, for me, for
(06:53):
all of us, it's all about the service of the song,
to make the song as best as you can, and
not just a platform to be a show off.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
You know, so many guitar players have signature tones, and
you've got like signature tones. For every era of your career,
the tone changes, so technology does does that? Does that
drive you to search for that perfect tone?
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I mean, yeah, it's I mean it's a curse sometimes
because I can't sit still. This is just the way
I am and all I'll always have been. In Rush,
we had a very interesting working relationship. Getty was very
methodical and I was very spontaneous. So all my best
stuff happened in the first ten minutes or the first
(07:39):
five takes with him. He would develop things. He would
take my you know, ideas and stretch them out. That
was a great way that we worked in our relationship.
So with this it's just, uh, you know, I I
(08:00):
try to come up with tones that I feel fit
the song that aren't just classic rock tones, although there
are plenty of them. But I get to be more inventive,
and I have bandmates that are as inventive and supportive.
So it's really a great environment to be in if
you have this affliction for tone like you do.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
You know, so many guitar players search for that tone
and they find it and that's the tone for the
rest of their career. But like you explained to us,
you're never satisfied or you're always wanting to push the limits,
try something new, looking for that new perfect tone. You know,
this song not dead yet. Did you accidentally write a hit?
(08:46):
Because that is a hit song right there. That's very ucky.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah, that's the first song that we wrote, and that
was an idea that was floating around for a while
with Andy and Alf and you know, Toronto we had
a really vibrant scene music scene in the sixties, late sixties,
early seventies that was half the hippie scene and uptown
(09:11):
and half the downtown R and B scene. So to
come up with a track that had that kind of
driving guitars was just such a treat for me. And
then the song of course, you know, we wrote about
half the song, and then the second half of the song,
after those heavy guitars comes in, it becomes this other
thing with a James Bond kind of theme and all
(09:35):
of that. So it goes through this really cool journey
and then Maya's vocals on top of all this driving funk.
It's just the perfect I love it combination.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I love it man. Stygian Waves will be out on
the twenty eighth of this month. You know, would you
ever write a book like Getty did?
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Well, he's warned me about writing. You know, he spent
years on all the books that he's written. He's that
kind of guy. You know, he's a very he's a perfectionist,
and he's a collector extraordinary. When he gets into something
that he's collecting, he researches it and does the whole thing.
(10:20):
Is Baseball collection was amazing. In the book that he's
written about that is incredible and his life story that
book in life, you know, I know such a big
part of it as Neil was, but that book is
just so beautifully written and it's such an incredible story.
I don't have that I'm way too lazy to do that.
(10:42):
I think if I did something, as my wife is
pushing me to do, is to write a short book
about some crazy road stories, because after forty years, there's
plenty of them, and I'd rather write a book that
you end. You can cut the shut the back cover
and you have this big giant smile on your face.
That's a kind of thing that I would really like
to do, see if I have the time. It's just,
(11:04):
you know, a lot of stuff going on right now
and super busy, but it's in the back of my mind,
so who knows.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
You know, I've heard some of those road stories when
you guys were opening up for Kiss and they are hilarious.
What a combination rush and kiss. I know you and
Getty are great friends, and you still jam. I know
that playing guitar is your life. That's the food that
you that you eat, the air that you breathe. It
was so cool to see you guys at the south
(11:30):
Park show at Red Rocks and then you guys did
the Taylor Hawkins tribute, you know, making making a lot
of drummer's dreams come true and putting smiles on everybody's faces. Uh,
and I know people would love to see you guys
do something, but you know, I get it, I understand,
you know, it's just probably something that you probably won't
(11:52):
touch again unless you did something like that.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
You know, we both have so many things going on
in our lives, and it's I'm playing more guitar now
than I think I have it in my whole life.
It's just I've just had this rebirth, particularly through this
second record, and it's really exciting for me. And I'm
working on other projects with other people, working on this
(12:19):
quite complex documentary about the Great Lakes. But every day
is a different day, and things change more rapidly now
than ever before, so you never know what's going to
happen or you know what might where we might end up.
I Gety is my best friend. We've been best friends
(12:40):
since we were thirteen years old, and as a best friend,
I see him a lot. We you know, I go over.
We were both musicians, so yeah, we go over and
listen to music. We jam from time to time. We
had a laugh a lot of times. I just we
go over and I have a cup of tea or
a cup of coffee and we just laugh together right
out to dinner and we played tennis like all of
(13:02):
that stuff. So I know that people would love to
see some sort of a reunion, but you know, I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
I don't know how you do that. It'll be difficult.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
That I'm still buddies with with my best friend ever
and I love him deeply and nothing else matters other
than just being together with him.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Hey, I'm getting the signal I got to let you go.
But what does Getty think of envy of none?
Speaker 1 (13:31):
He's very happy for me. I think he's very proud
that I continued, you know, doing musical things, and I
think he's maybe a little envious that I was able
to just jump into music, and he kind of misses
it a little bit. I think, you know, he's been
so involved with his books and he has a very
(13:54):
very complicated life, a very busy life. But I think
when I go over there and we have those little
jams now and again, it just makes his heart feel good.
And I'm happy to do that for my buddy.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Rush fifty The Anithology will be out tomorrow, March twenty first.
That will cover you know you guys from nineteen seventy
three to twenty fifteen. That's quite the spread. You'll be
able to pick that up at record stores everywhere, and
then on the twenty eighth record stores, how old am I?
You'll be able to get that online. Who buys records
anymore except on record store Day? And then you'll be
(14:30):
able to start Downloadingstigyon Waves, which is the new record
from Alex and Company Envy of None on the twenty
eighth of this month. What a pleasure. I've been a
huge fan. I've seen your band. I know you hear
this all the time I've seen your band. I've been
in this business a long time, but I've seen Rush
more than any other band. I bet I've seen you
twenty five times over my career. A just a big
(14:51):
fan and pleasure to talk to you. I can mark
you off my list. I was like, I've got to
talk to this dude some point in my life. Thank
you very much for sharing, uh you know the details
about Envy of None and uh some of your life.
We appreciate you keep making music. You loved out there, buddy,
You're loved.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Thank Thank you so much. Great and lots of love
to Denver. Redrocks is absolutely my favorite place I've ever played.
So when we miss it.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Oh, that's kick ass for you to say that. Take
care man, Thank you, Sia. Get the details about Alex's
new project at envyf none dot com com