“I never realised just how difficult it was for Alex. He had to rethink everything”: When Geddy Lee’s obsession with synthesizers made Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson feel sidelined in his own band

Rush in 1986.

In 1981, Rush had the biggest selling album of their career with Moving Pictures. But if that decade began brightly, it soon became a struggle for guitarist Alex Lifeson.

In the mid-’70s, on their first three studio albums, Rush had operated as a power trio in the classic sense – Lifeson on guitar, Neil Peart on drums and Geddy Lee on bass guitar and vocals.