Victor

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Linernotes - Album News Archive

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Produced by Alex Lifeson

Recorded by Alex Lifeson
At Lerxst Sound, Oct. 1994 - July 1995, Assisted by Bill Bell
Mixed by Alex Lifeson
At McClear Pathe, Toronto, Assisted by Denis Tougas
Arrangements by Alex Lifeson

Mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering Studios, Portland, Maine
Management by Ray Danniels, SRO, Toronto
Executive Production by Lerxst

Art Direction by Andrew MacNaughtan
Photography by Andrew MacNaughtan
Design by Megan Oldfield, Coolaide Design

Edwin appears courtesy of Capital Records, Inc.
Dalbello appears courtesy of EMI Electrola Gmbh., Germany
Les Claypool appears courtesy of Interscope Records, Inc.

Special thanks to nobody in particular.

Grateful acknowledgements for the technical assistance of Coll Audio, Saved by Technology, P.R.S. Guitars, Zurba, DOD Digitech, Dean Markley Strings, and of course, The Omega Concern.

Dedicated to Charlene for her inspiration, spirit and loving support.

In Memory of Randy Knox

From collected poems of W.H. Auden, Excerpts from Victor used with permission from Random House Inc.

Alex Lifeson - Guitar, bass, mandola, keyboards, programming, vocals, yelling
Edwin - Vocals
Bill Bell: Black Hole guitar, twelve-string guitar, guitar, E-Bow, wah guitar, slide guitar, wobble, background vocals
Blake Manning: Drums, darbuka
Dalbello: Vocals (Track 3)
Peter Cardinali: Bass (Tracks 4, 7 & 10)
Adrian Zivojinovich: Programming (Tracks 5 & 9)
Les Claypool: Bass (Track 9)
Colleen Allen: Horns (Track 10)

January 9, 1996
© 1996 Atlantic/Anthem/Lerxt Music Inc.

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Notes

• Highest Billboard Chart Position: 99
• There were two promotional singles released for Victor, with radio edits of "Promise" and "I Am The Spirit".
• A promotional concept video was released for "Promise".
• "Strip And Go Naked" was later released on the Guitars That Rule the World, Vol. 2: Smell the Fuzz: The Superstar Guitar Album released October 22, 1996.
• I Mother Earth's vocalist, Edwin, was the male vocalist on Victor; shortly after this release, Alex Lifeson performed one track on their album Scenery and Fish.
• Alex later recorded tracks with Tara MacLean, wife of Victor co-guitarist Bill Bell, for her album Passenger. However according to Tara, none of Alex's tracks were included on her album.
• Click here for the Victor Transcript Archive

In Their Own Words

"I didn't want to call it 'The Alex Lifeson Project' or the 'Big Shot, Big Deal Project'. Everybody that worked on the record was so into it, and I just felt that it would be fairer to have everyone involved as more of a band project, and to salute them for it." - Alex Lifeson, "Rockline", January 15, 1996

"I opened a book that I had of [Auden's] collected poems to 'Victor', and I read it through. Although 'Victor' the poem is very, very long, I condensed it for the song. [Webmaster note: all but 8 of the original 36 stanzas are included verbatim in the song.] It really caught the essence of what the record was about, dealing with the dark side of love and how it can push you to do things that are pretty horrific. So, it seemed to suit the record quite well." - Alex Lifeson, "Rockline", January 15, 1996

"As for the anger on the album, there were relationships breaking down all around me, I was having problems in my relationship. My wife and I realised that we'd started to take each other for granted; there'd been a lot of work, I'd been away a lot. It's uncommon to have stayed together as long as we have stayed together. We'd reached a crisis in our relationship and we needed to strip it down and analyse it and find where we were going. Other relationships around me were breaking down also, a lot of my friends who are the same age were really reaching a mid-life crisis. ... All this stuff was happening around me, and I just thought about the darker side of relationships and love. By nature I'm very optimistic, a little romantic, a little funny maybe, but I felt really impassioned by all the stuff that was going around, and that was reflected in that album." - Alex Lifeson, Classic Rock, July 2002

"I Mother Earth opened the last show that we did on the last tour, which was here in Toronto. Although I didn't get a chance to meet [Edwin] that night, I met some of the other guys in the band. When it came time to think about vocalists for Victor, I had to listen to their CD, and thought that Edwin would really suit the material well. He just has a certain quality and a menace in his voice. For song's like 'Don't Care', for example, or 'The Big Dance', I just thought he'd be perfect. I called him up, and he said that he'd love to give it a whirl. We got together, and we've become quite good friends. I think he's done just a fabulous job on it. I thought it was great." - Alex Lifeson, "Rockline", January 15, 1996

"When we first wrote 'Promise', Sebastian was in town for Christmas. He's from fairly close to Toronto. He popped by my place and put a vocal on that song. The problem was that as things developed, and as I wrote the rest of the material for the record, I really wanted to have one single voice on there - one single male voice. So, when I talked to Edwin about working on the record and we got focused on all the songs, I decided to go with him. The take that Sebastian did on the song was really, really great, and Sebastian is a fabulous singer. Talk about energy! The whole studio at home was shaking when he was out there jumping around, bouncing off the walls doing it. I really felt really badly about not using him on the record, because I know that it meant something to him, and he really enjoyed working on it. Unfortunately, I had to make that call, and I did." - Alex Lifeson, "Rockline", January 15, 1996

"There's a drink that [Bill Bell] invented called 'Strip and Go Naked,' which after you've had a couple, that basically is what happens. On the other side, we thought that was kind of what the song was about. We stripped the whole song down to very basic elements - it goes through a lot of different changes musically, but it's basically stripped down." - Alex Lifeson, Jam Music, February 8, 1996

"...my solo work in 'At the End' - all of that bluesy stuff, especially at the end of it, is really emotion-packed. Actually, there's a really good story behind that one. I had a rough day that day. I'd had a couple of meetings that didn't go so well, and I was feeling uptight; I was really pissed off. So I plugged the guitar straight into the amp, said, 'Screw this,' and started working. It got really edgy. Bill Bell was there, and I said to him, 'We need a drink.' I went upstairs and got half a bottle of Jack Daniels and a sixpack of beer, and we sat there and drank the stuff down in a matter of minutes. Then we did some more takes. The next day, I came back downstairs to listen to it and I'm thinking, 'Well, we had quite a bit to drink last night, so maybe this one didn't turn out so well.' But I listened to it and went, 'Wow, this is great!'" - Alex Lifeson, Guitar For The Practicing Musician, February 1996

"For a lot of these songs, I imagined what the situation would be like from a screenwriters point of view, or as a novelist who can write a passage in a book that's so horrific that you think this guy's nuts-he's gotta be twisted. But then you realize that, through your imagination, you can create a scenario that doesn't really exist in your own life, but it's so graphic that you can still relate to it in a weird sort of way. And that's what I wanted to do with the songs here". - Alex Lifeson, Guitar, February 1996

"Alex is a complete sweetheart. I was just finishing mixing the Whore CD at a studio where as it happens Alex was recording his solo record, and not long after I was finished with my record, I got a call from him asking if I'd be interested in coming in and having a listen to one of his songs with the idea of having me sing the lead vocal and hey - I said yeah right away. It was a great day and the song is intense and personal for Alex and being given the privilege step inside of his world and allowed to be his 'voice' and represent his feelings by singing 'Start Today' was something I'll not forget. What a rush - no pun intended." - Lisa Dalbello, rockreunion.com, 2001

"Atlantic...could possibly create a Victor screen saver based on the album's photo/collage motif cover". - Billboard Magazine, December 2, 1995

"Andrew photographed Alex in a number of different ways - wearing make up, with water on his face, darkening his eyes, 'aging' his face, etc. He then painstakingly hand cut each photo and finally put Alex' face back together like a puzzle... At one point, a coffee cup was inadvertently placed on one of the photos leaving behind its mark. By then Andrew said 'the hell with it!', took a cigarette and burned a mark on another of the photos." - "An Introduction to Andrew MacNaughtan", TriNet, December 2002

It is rumored that lack of support from Atlantic records meant the end of a followup album to Victor, which was rumored to have have featured at least some vocals by Sarah McLachlan. When asked in 1998 if there would be a followup, Alex replied:

"I wouldn't say soon. But I'd like to do something like that. I had a lot of fun. It was a very satisfying experience for me and rewarding because I did it all by myself. I worked very hard on it and got to play with some other people which was kinda fun. But it seems that it was something that I needed at that time in my life and sort of satisfied that urge that I had...I have no overwhelming desire right now to get into that kind of a project. It's a very time consuming thing that takes a lot out of you. I'd like to pursue some other things." - Alex Lifeson, Different Stages Fancast, November 1998