“It’s just about dancing and jumping around – I really don’t have a lot of respect for it”: Why Alex Lifeson “can’t stand” pop music
Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson has declared that the days of searching for “good music” are over for him.
The 71-year-old, who’s currently involved in his post-Rush project, Envy Of None, reveals in a new interview with All Music that he hardly listens to “modern music” anymore.
READ MORE: Alex Lifeson says he was “bombarded” by drummers offering to join Rush after Neil Peart’s death “thinking we were just gonna replace somebody that we played with for 40 years”
Asked to name the modern day music artists he enjoys, Lifeson replies: “I don’t listen to any modern music, to be honest with you. I take that back – I heard a band last week, called Måneskin. They’re an Italian band. Amazing. They sounded really, really good.”
He clarifies that it’s not about a lack of good music but rather a shift in his own habits.
“I’m not saying there’s no good music around, there is,” the guitarist concedes. “I’m just not interested in searching for it anymore. Those days are over for me, where I’d go to the record store and buy an album and take it home and go through that whole process.”
“I do what I do. I’d much rather listen to music I create these days. And I do a lot of that, from my own personal use,” he says. “I have reams of stuff that I record that I play in the background, if we’re having a dinner party or something like that. And it’s under the radar, nobody knows who it is or what it is. It’s just really nice music in the background.”
Lifeson’s feelings on pop music, however, are less forgiving: “Modern music, pop music, all that stuff, I can’t stand it, really – to be honest with you. It’s just about dancing and jumping around. And I really don’t have a lot of respect for it.”
Beyond his listening habits, Lifeson also reflects on his approach to songwriting with Envy Of None, saying: “We get the basic thread of an idea. And usually they’re quite minimal. When it comes to me, I do scratch guitars, and I don’t do a lot of them, but I’ll do the thematic and maybe one secondary kind of guitar presence.”
“And I don’t spend a whole lot of time. I usually just use plugins and try to get through it very spontaneously. And then it goes to Maiah [Wynne, singer] and she’ll do a scratch vocal, and it comes back to me, and then I start doing the final guitars. And then I just break it down in sections between the verses and the choruses and bridges and any instrumental section – much like I would have done in the past with Rush music. I mean, that’s my formula for mapping things out.”
Envy Of None’s sophomore album, Stygian Waves, is due out 28 March. Listen to its lead single Not Dead Yet below.
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