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Neil Peart, Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

Fri, Mar 29, 2024

Alex Lifeson-produced David Barrett Trio featured in latest issue of Guitar Player

Wed, Jul 17, 2013@10:11AM | comments removed/disabled

After releasing a series of instrumental singles back in 2011 including Hollowbody, Sonar and Disappearance, the Alex Lifeson-produced David Barrett Trio released their first full-length studio album earlier this year. The self-titled album was produced by Alex Lifeson, Rich Chycki, and Alan Parsons, and features Toronto musicians David Barrett (guitars), Jason Farrar (bass) and Alexander Sascha Tukatsch (drums). Financing for the production was done solely with the help of crowdfunding via RocketHub, and the graciousness of the band's producers, engineer and art house. Guitarist David Barrett is featured in the August issue of Guitar Player magazine for an interview where he talks about the album and working with Alex Lifeson.

... [Alex] brought so much to the table at every stage of the process. When he first offered to produce, I gave him a bunch of demos that had layers and layers of guitar parts that sounded good, but he said, "Look, you're going to need to be able to play this material in the trio setting, so we're going to have to edit stuff down to what's most important." ... The funny thing is, it wasn't just about the logistics of the format. As soon as I started writing with the trio in mind, the material got way better and the arrangements just came together, which is exactly what Alex said would happen. Another thing he's a master at is knowing how to take an otherwise pedestrian-sounding riff and change one little element - maybe the key or the time signature - to give it an extraordinary quality. A wonderful example of this is the end of "Great Eastern Sun". The last section was originally going to be based on the same riff as a previous section, but Alex suggested we change the time signature by adding bars of 5/8 in certain places, and then he had us put the riff in a minor key. Before long, the song had evolved into what I believe is the best track on the record. Also, at the end of "Sonar" there's this abrupt key change and solo, suggested by Alex, that wasn't on the original demo. Aside from his input on arrangements, Alex also had a big influence on how I tracked my parts. In the past, I had always tended to record at low volumes and tried to cut out noise, but he encouraged me to turn things up - sometimes to the point of feeding back in the studio monitors like on "Hollowbody" - and it really freed me psychologically to be a little more in the moment ...

The album is available on iTunes at this location and the physical CD can be purchased via the band's website. The album liner notes are also available for pdf download at this link. You can check out a video for the album's opening track Dive below or at this location:

There's also this in-studio footage with Alex Lifeson where Alex conducts a pre-production session with the band as they develop the ending for Great Eastern Sun, the last track on the album. Be sure to keep an eye on the band's Facebook page and website for all the latest updates.

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