Last month I mentioned that the November, 2012 issue of Guitar Player magazine would feature Alex Lifeson on the cover. John over at Cygnus-X1.net has transcribed and scanned the article and made it available online at this location. The cover tagline reads Alex Lifeson: Blending Old & New on Clockwork Angels, and the article itself is titled Alex Lifeson: Like Clockwork. Alex talks in detail about his guitar playing on the Clockwork Angels album as well as his gear, along with a few other subjects. Here are his comments on the differences between the band's approach on Clockwork Angels compared to Snakes & Arrows:

I think the approach was a lot simpler with Clockwork Angels. We really made an effort to write Snakes & Arrows acoustically and when it came to recording, I missed those acoustics. So, we blended them in and consequently there's a density to that record that in retrospect I would have preferred to have thinned out. When we started working on this record, right from the get-go the idea was to make it more three-piece in order to make it a clearer-sounding record. So, for the most part, I might have double-tracked guitars and only on a few songs did I layer them up. "BU2B" has 100 guitars overdubbed on it, just playing the same thing to make it super heavy, but generally it's pretty much double-tracked guitar left and right. It was really refreshing to approach it that way. That's the way we used to record: two tracks of guitar and no rhythm guitar in the solo sections. Consequently, it's made reproducing them live simpler in some ways and also more satisfying in the context of having just one guitar player.

There's also a minor setlist spoiler of sorts where Alex states that the band would continue playing one particular track from the last tour that they actually didn't end up playing this tour - at least not yet (note that the interview was conducted in the summer). There's also a sidebar interview with producer Nick Raskulinecz, and another short one with Alex's guitar tech Scott Appleton. You can check out the entire article at this location. Thanks John!

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