Alex Lifeson questions the intent of shred-happy Instagram guitarists and has opened up about his diminishing relationship with the guitar solo.
In his early days, tasty solos were regularly peppered across Rush’s technical epics having stolen a key technique from Rory Gallagher to aid his cause. The trait continued into the band’s heyday as they learned to balance their prog-rock ambitions with more radio-friendly songwriting but the amount of solos he injected into each new Rush record slowly began to shrink.
“Towards the end with Rush, I soloed a lot less,” he tells the Prog Report. “I love doing them, but if I don’t feel that they have a real intended position in a song. Unless you’re doing something for the song, it’s just a little ‘faffy.’ It’s just kind of showing off.”
Indeed, the ever-changing guitar landscape seems to play a role in his equally shifting feelings. The guitar solo died something of a death in the ‘90s and early ‘00s when nu-metal blew up.
Dave Mustaine recently sneered that was because those bands “couldn’t do solos.” But they’ve since made a comeback, in part through the rock revivalists that followed in their wake, and now social media is taking shred to a whole other place.
The fad hasn’t gone unnoticed by Lifeson.
“You can go on Instagram and see a thousand amazing guitar players who can play like crazy,” he says. “But is there soul in it? Is there a purpose to it other than just being flashy?”
Fittingly, he uses a new trend-breaking track by his group Envy of None as an example of purpose that practically forces a solo to happen, rather merely being there to show that his aging fingers can still produce fireworks.
“With ‘The Story,’ we left that place for something, and we figured, probably a solo. But when the part that comes right after it, when that started to be built up, tracked up, it became the most important part of the song for me,” he states.
“So the solo’s purpose had to be leading into that and an ascending solo that comes to a crescendo, and then that part comes in, where you drive the point of the song home, is really what it’s all about.
“The solo is just doing this little job of setting Maiah [Wynne, vocalist] up to deliver that last line and that signature little riff that comes in, in that part.
“That’s the high point of the song for me,” he echoes. “It’s getting to it and how to achieve it. And I treat all the solos on the record like that.”
Indeed, solos are now plural: with Envy of None’s 2025 sophomore, Stygian Wavz, Lifeson found himself warming to big lead guitar moments once more.
“I was surprised to hear more solos than I thought I put on the record,” he admits. “But I really enjoyed it, and it got me thinking about doing that again. I think I’m distinctive in how I create solos. So why not? I think that’s a strength that I should be more aware of.”
Speaking to Guitar Player about “Stygian Wavz”, Lifeson reveals that it changed his perspective of both what Envy of None is, and the gear he’s open to experimenting with.
“I always said this is a musical project with four musicians,” he continues. “But when I got the masters back and I heard the sequenced tracks all finished, I thought, Omigod — we’re a band!’
“This is unified. That is the impression I think this record gives, and that’s the big difference between the first one and the second one.”
And while he hasn’t turned his back on tube amps — it wouldn’t be a wise move when his gear brand, Lerxst, sells them — he was left gushing about what his signature IK Multimedia TONEX and Universal Audio pedals can bring to the party.
“They sound amazing,” he says. “They don’t sound like plug-ins; they sound like real amps. It’s a whole new generation in sound. There’s nothing lacking.”
He’s also revealed that he and Geddy Lee were “bombarded” by requests from drummers to resurrect Rush in the wake of Neil Peart’s passing. He has, however, brandished those attempts at worming into a new chapter of the band’s legacy as ill-thought.
“I don’t know what some of these people were thinking,” he reflects.
Lifeson also revealed that he and Lee regularly jam together, but sound like a tribute band. Rush won’t be returning anytime soon.
