Alex Lifeson

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Alex Lifeson

Born	August 27, 1953 (age 53) Fernie, British Columbia, Canada
Alias(es)	Alexander Zivojinovich
Genre(s)	Rock
Affiliation(s)	Rush
Label(s)	Mercury Records (1973–1988) Atlantic Records (1988–present)
Notable guitars	Gibson Les Paul Gibson ES-355 PRS Guitars
Years active	1968-present

Alex Lifeson OC (born Alexander Zivojinovich on August 27, 1953, in Fernie, British Columbia, Canada), is a Canadian musician, best known as the guitarist for the rock group Rush.

Lifeson founded Rush in the summer of 1968, and has been an integral member of the three-piece band ever since.^[1] For Rush, Lifeson plays electric and acoustic guitars as well as other stringed instruments. He also performs backing vocals in live performances, and occasionally plays keyboards. During live performances, Lifeson, like the other members of Rush, performs real-time triggering of sampled instruments, concurrently with his guitar playing.^[2]

The bulk of Lifeson's work in music has been with Rush, although Lifeson has contributed to a body of work outside of the band as well. Aside from music, Lifeson is part owner of the Toronto restaurant The Orbit Room, and is a licensed aircraft pilot and motorcycle rider.^{[citation needed]}

Along with his bandmates Geddy Lee and Neil Peart, Lifeson was made an Officer of the Order of Canada on May 9, 1996. The trio was the first rock group so honoured.

Lifeson is currently working with Rush in preparation for the May 1, 2007 release of their latest album, Snakes & Arrows, and a concert tour to follow.[1]

1 Biography
2 Body of work
3 Guitar equipment
4 Other instruments played
5 Television and film appearances
6 Awards
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Biography

The son of Serbian immigrants, Nenad and Melka Zivojinovich, Lifeson was born in Fernie, British Columbia, Canada and raised in Toronto, Ontario.^{[citation needed]} His assumed stage name of "Lifeson" is a semi-literal translation of the name "Zivojinovich", meaning "son of life".^{[citation needed]}

Lifeson's nickname among his associates is "Lerxst". The name appears in the sub-titles of La Villa Strangiato, an instrumental based humorously on Lifeson's nightmares, from the Rush album Hemispheres.

[edit] Body of work

The bulk of Lifeson's work in music has been with Rush. (See Rush Discography)

Lifeson's work outside of his involvement with the band includes the following:

In 2006, Lifeson founded The Big Dirty Band, which he created for the purpose of providing original soundtrack material for Trailer Park Boys: The Movie.
Victor, Lifeson's solo album released in 1996. Victor (the album) was attributed as a self-titled work (ie. "Victor" is attributed as the artist as well as the album title). This was done deliberately, as an alternative to issuing the album explicitly under Lifeson's name.
Lifeson composed the theme for the first season of the science-fiction TV series Andromeda.
Lifeson jammed regularly with The Dexters (The Orbit Room house band from 1994-2004). The Dexters' lead guitarist Bernie LaBarge nicknamed Alex "Big Al Dexter".^{[citation needed]}
Lifeson made a guest appearance on the 2007 album Fear of a Blank Planet by UK progressive rock band, Porcupine Tree.
Lifeson was approached by Digitech for inclusion of his trademark sound in their 2120 Artist Studio Guitar System. Lifeson created one of the presets, calling it "New Lerxst."

[edit] Guitar equipment

In Rush's early career, Lifeson used a Gibson ES-335 for the first single and the first three albums: Rush, Fly By Night, and Caress Of Steel, and for the 2112 tour he used a Gibson Les Paul and Marshall amplification. Later on in the '70s he started using a Gibson EDS-1275 (similar to Jimmy Page) for songs like Xanadu. By the time of Hemispheres he had switched primarily to a cream-colored Gibson ES-355 guitar, with most of the amplification coming from Hiwatt amplifiers. Pedal wise he used various phaser and flanger pedals a Cry Baby Wah Wah, and a "Plexi" amplifier. Beginning in the late 1970s, he increasingly incorporated twelve-string guitar (acoustic and electric) and chorusing (Using the Boss Chorus Ensemble and later the Roland Dimension C) into his sound. By the time of the 1982 Rush album Signals, Lifeson's primary guitar had become a hot-rodded Stratocaster with a Bill Lawrence high-output humbucker L-500, (a type later made famous by Dimebag Darrell) in the bridge position and a Floyd Rose bridge, and as the '80s wore on he switched from passive to active pickups and from vacuum tube to solid-state amplification, all with an increasingly thick layer of digital signal processing. Lifeson used Stratocasters from 1980 to 1986, he used them on newer material from Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures on their respective tours and more predominantly from 1982's Signals up to 1985's Power Windows, with a small detour on the Grace Under Pressure CD to use Hentor Sportscasters, (These were Fender Strats with the Fender Strat name scraped off and replaced with the name Hentor Sportscaster. Strat in reality, Hentor by name only.) which were custom built for him. For the Moving Pictures and Signals albums and on several tours Alex used up to four quite rare brown Marshall 4140 Club & Country 100W combo amps, giving him his perhaps most characteristic guitar tone to date. Lifeson was also later on an endorser of the now all-but-forgotten Gallien-Krueger solid-state guitar amplifier line. In the late 1980s he switched to Carvin amplifiers in the studio and his short-lived Signature brand guitars onstage and in the studio.

Lifeson primarily used PRS guitars during the recording of Roll The Bones in 1990/1991. When recording 1993's Counterparts, Lifeson returned to rock guitar tradition: he continued to use PRS guitars and Marshall amplifiers to record the album, and for the subsequent tour. On one Counterparts song, Stick It Out, Lifeson used a Gibson Les Paul to create a deeper, more resonant tone for the song's signature riff but used a PRS on the guitar solo. He maintains this "classicist" stage rig today, although his signal processing chain is still so complicated as to make Pat Metheny's processing rack or Robert Fripp's "Lunar Module" look minimalist. Lifeson currently uses PRS, Fender, and Gibson guitars, two Hughes and Kettner Triamp MK II's, two Zantera amplifiers, and six Hughes and Kettner custom cabinets. In 2005, Hughes and Kettner introduced an Alex Lifeson signature series amplifier; $50 from every amplifier sold will be donated to UNICEF.

[edit] Other instruments played

During live Rush performances, Lifeson uses a MIDI controller that enables him to use his feet to trigger sounds from digital samplers, without taking his hands off of his guitar. Lifeson and his bandmates share a desire to accurately depict songs from their albums when playing live performances. Toward this goal, beginning in the late 1980s the band equipped their live performances with a capacious rack of samplers. The band members use these samplers in real-time to recreate the sounds of non-traditional instruments, accompaniments, vocal harmonies, and other sound "events" that are familiarly heard on the studio versions of the songs. In live performances, the band members share duties throughout most songs, with each member triggering certain sounds with his available limbs, while playing his primary instrument(s).^[3] It is with this technology that Lifeson and his bandmates are able to present their arrangements in a live setting with the level of complexity and fidelity that fans have come to expect, and without the need to resort to the use of backing tracks or employing an additional band member.^[4]

Lifeson's (and his bandmates') use of foot-pedal keyboards to trigger sampled instruments and audio events is visible on R30: 30th Anniversary World Tour concert DVD (2005).

[edit] Television and film appearances

Alex Lifeson and Bubbles

In a 2003 episode of the Canadian smash hit mockumentary Trailer Park Boys, titled "Closer to the Heart", Lifeson plays a fictional version of himself. In the story, he is kidnapped by Ricky and held as punishment for his inability (or refusal) to provide the main characters with free tickets to a Rush concert. In the end of the episode, Alex reconciles with the characters, and performs a duet with Bubbles at the trailer park.
Lifeson appears in Trailer Park Boys: The Movie, as a traffic cop in the opening scene.
Lifeson appeared on The Golf Channel in 2006 with PGA golf-pro Rocco Mediate for an entire episode of Personal Lessons^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Awards

1983 - "Best Rock Talent" - Guitar for the Practicing Musician
1991 - Inducted into the Guitar for the Practicing Musician Hall of Fame
1996 - Officer of the Order of Canada, along with fellow bandmates Geddy Lee and Neil Peart

See Rush awards list and RIAA certifications for more complete list.