UPDATE - 8/9@12:57PM: Although the article states that they spoke with Alex back in 2008, it's actually taken from this 1996 Guitar World interview with Alex Lifeson (thanks Eric at Power Windows).

Back in 2008 Guitar World magazine interviewed Alex Lifeson and asked him to dissect several key songs from Rush's past. A few days ago they re-printed the interview for a feature on their website which you can check out at this link. Starting with 1975's Anthem and working his way up through 1996's Test for Echo, Alex discusses 11 different Rush tracks, specifically focusing on the guitar parts. Here's what he had to say about Rush's ambitious 1978 instrumental masterpiece La Villa Strangiato:

“We wrote this one on the road. We used our soundchecks to run through songs that we were going to record; then, when we would have a few days off we’d start recording. This song was recorded in one take, with all of us in the same room. We had baffles up around the guitar, bass and drums, and we would look at each other for the cues. My solo in the middle section was overdubbed after we recorded the basic tracks. I played a solo while we did the first take and rerecorded it later. If you listen very carefully, you can hear the other solo ghosted in the background. That was a fun exercise in developing a lot of different sections in an instrumental. It gave everyone the chance to stretch out.

“By that time I had my ES-355, and my acoustics were a Gibson Dove, J-55 and a B-45 12-string. I had my Marshall in the studio. I had the Twin and two Hiwatts, which I was also using live, but the Marshall was my real workhorse. The Boss Chorus unit had just come out at that time, but I think I used a Roland JC-120 for the chorus sound here. Hemispheres was the first of many ‘chorus’ albums.”

You can read the entire article/interview here. Thanks to scootertrashaz for the heads up.

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