Ian Harvey from the UK's Express & Star caught up with RUSH guitarist Alex Lifeson recently. Rush’s Time Machine tour will play Birmingham’s LG Arena on Sunday, May 22. The pair talk about some of the band’s notable Midlands concerts, the Hemispheres tour at Birmingham Odeon, the Tour of The Semi-Hemisphere’s at Stafford Bingley Hall in 1979 as well as numerous appearances at Birimingham NEC, including the A Show Of Hands live album and video recorded there.

“I do recall that Birmingham gig,” says Lifeson, “Because it was one of the largest venues that we were playing in the UK at the time. It left a big impact on us coming to the UK.

“The first time was, I guess in ’76, when we were a relatively unknown band. I remember how exciting it was to come to the root of where our hearts lay in terms of music. There was THE WHO, for sure, and earlier on THE STONES. For me it was always more The Stones than, say, THE BEATLES.

“But there were all those other great bands from the '60s. THE SEARCHERS were amazing, THE ZOMBIES were incredible. And then over the years came CREAM, The Who, ZEPPELIN of course, JEFF BECK and then YES – it just goes on and on and on. That really was where our musical tastes were centred. And I think that was more a Canadian thing as well. I think generally Canadians lean more towards the UK than they did to America. We had the benefit of absorbing from both sides.

PETE TOWNSHEND for me was a huge influence. Because essentially they were a three-piece band and the way he structured his chords and took up a lot of space musically in the songs was really important to the way Rush developed. Geddy and Neil both were such active players and lot of the time we were all playing like crazy and it was too much and somebody had to reel it in and me being the faceless guy, I would do that,” he laughs.

Read the entire interview here.