Metal Express Radio posted an extensive interview with Alex Lifeson to their website earlier today. Alex talks at length about the new album, with some track-specific analysis of his solos on several of the songs along with some comments on the additions of strings - specifically on the track The Garden:

We put down keyboard, sample strings and we really liked it but we thought rather than use sampled strings we'd bring in a real orchestra and Geddy and I were the catalysts for that. He's a real sucker for those sort of things. We decided to bring the strings in and David Campbell did a great job on the arrangement. That really tugs at your heart. I think there`s something that`s really classic about that arrangement and really heartfelt. The song works really well as a closer, the final chapter of the story. That single cello note at the very end is very poignant.

When asked about the set list for the upcoming tour Alex had the following to say:

We've been throwing about set lists for the last couple of weeks and the length of the set is creeping up to over 4 hours so we'll have to reign it in and fine tune it. There'll be a good portion of new material and some older stuff that we'll be revisiting that you haven't heard in a long time. There's also a couple that we haven't played live before that we`re thinking about doing. There's quite a few in contention for the final set list. ... [2112] will be in there, in the big hat but we`re concentrating on our new tour right now and that's all we can really think of directly if I can put it like that.

Alex also confirms that the album was not recorded in surround sound as had been rumored previously. He also was asked about the long-anticipated Vapor Trails re-master:

We've been talking about it for years but every time we try to make a move on it something else comes up and because it's a back burner issue it gets left. We were very close a while back and Rich was going to start remixing it when we finished this record but other things were slotted in but we'll get to it one of these days.

You can read the entire interview at this link. Thanks to snowdog2113 for the heads up.

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