Gibson.com's Michael Wright reports:

It would be so easy for a guitar player to disappear in a trio like RUSH. Fronting the band is the man-siren shriek and thundering bass of Geddy Lee. Propelling things from behind is, quite possibly, the greatest rock drummer of all time, Neil Peart. So, a mere mortal might just be inclined shrivel up and play barre chords. But Alex Lifeson has always been up to the challenge. From the crashing riffs of 'Working Man' and 'Passage To Bangkok' to the searing leads of 'Limelight' and 'The Main Monkey Business', he has always represented the cutting edge of rock guitar. Alex recently visited the Gibson Custom Factory and sat down with Gibson.com.

Q: It seems like you guys are jumping on the road just as things are getting going in the studio.

A: "Yeah, well, we were off for a year and half and we finished the last tour in July of ’08. So we had a fairly long break. You know, Neil had a baby girl last summer, and we did a 120 shows on the last tour, and we really felt it. So, we wanted to take a break and just not think about the band and all that stuff. And then, like it always happens and I don’t know why, and you don’t seem to remember it, but it seems like overnight you go from zero to a million. We had a couple meetings in the fall about scheduling and things to do, and then we came home and everything just went crazy. We’ve been doing some writing in the last couple of months. We have some stuff written, a couple of songs we wanted to release for the tour. In fact, what we talked about, originally, was just to play them live, not record them, and make it something kind of unique to the tour. But the more we got into them, the more we lived with those songs, the more we got into the idea of recording them. So they will probably be released by the end of July. Both of them."

Q: As a disc or just Internet release?

A: "Um, we’re not quite sure. We’re just sort of figuring that out right now. We’re not sure if we are gonna release one first and then the second one later or both at the same time. Or one, you know, aw, I’m sure it will be a download release, but we’ll also do some packaging and do something like that."

Q: What’s your target for the album release?

A: "We’ll see about that. We’re not even — we haven’t even talked about when we are gonna start the recording of the album."

Read the complete interview at Gibson.com.