Rush Guitarist Alex Lifeson Has A New Band, Meet Their Talented Singer
By Matt Wake, AL.com, March 8, 2022
Portland singer/songwriter Maiah Wynne was three months into a collaboration with Canadian bassist Andy Curran when he called her up with a bit of news: "So, I showed this to my friend Alex. He really likes it and he's gonna play some guitar on it." Curran was referring to a song titled "Shadow" he and Wynne had put together.
At first, Wynne had no context as to who this "Alex" was. Then a few seconds later Curran added, "You know, the band Rush," referring to the Canadian prog-metal trio known for songs like "Tom Sawyer," "The Spirit of Radio" and "Closer to the Heart." The band the great Alex Lifeson played guitar for.
Lifeson and Curran go back aways. Early in Curran's career he fronted Coney Hatch, an '80s hard-rock band that toured with the likes of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. Curran later moved into songwriting and A&R work with Anthem Records, a label formed in the late '70s by Rush's management to release records by Rush, Coney Hatch and other Canadian acts.
More recently, Curran and Wynne had connected via a songwriting contest Wynne won when she was just 20-years-old. The thought of Lifeson contributing to their nascent project had Wynne immediately jazzed. "I think I just exploded. It was such a surprise," she recalls. "It was a really cool day when I found out that Alex was going to play guitars on the songs." Wynne and I connect for this interview via video chat. In conversation she's kind, thoughtful and humble.
Those early Lifeson-Wynne-Curran recordings blossomed into a band, called Envy of None. The group also features producer, recording engineer and multi-instrumentalist Alfio Annibalini, whose prior credits include Big Sugar, Nelly Furtado and DMX.
"All of it was sort of just very natural and genuine," Wynne, now 25, says of Envy of None's formation. "I was just very naive to the whole situation until it was suddenly like, wow, this is a real thing." On April 8, Envy of None will release their self-titled debut album, available for preorder via eon.lnk.to/EnvyofNone.
Rush fans hoping to bust out their vintage "Limelight" and "Fly By Night" air-guitar moves can keep those in the case. Envy of None's sound is more celestial and electronic - evoking an amalgam of Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and Mazzy Star, rather than reheated "Moving Pictures" riffs. Of Envy of None's songs released so far, the closest Rush relative is material from Rush's synth-driven period, like say 1982 single "Subdivisions." And that would still be a distant cousin. "At this point in Alex's career, he's creating textures with the guitar that don't sound like guitar," Wynne says.
Leading up to their album, Envy of None has released two strong singles, "Liar" and "Look Inside." The former is a slow-mo groover with Lifeson providing artful shades - an evolution of ambience he began exploring in the early '80s after starting his career in the early '70s hurling Zep-like riffs and hummable solos. The latter song's a cirrus of digital and analog. On both those cuts, Wynne's future-folk-siren vocals are at the center of it all. She's the perfect singer for this music, and Lifeson has been effusive about that.
"Maiah became my muse," Lifeson says in statement. "She was able to bring this whole new ethereal thing through her sense of melody on tracks like 'Liar' and 'Look Inside.'" He was particularly excited after hearing Wynne's vocals on yet to be released tune "Never Said I Love You." "I've never had that kind of inspiration working with another musician," Lifeson says. "When we say she's special, it's because she's really f---ng special!"
Quite the endorsement coming from someone who spent some 50 years of his life in Rush, a band famously associated with virtuosity. "He's just a really amazing person," Wynne says of Lifeson, "and I feel really grateful. Everybody wants to make it about him, you know, and he wants to make it about me. He's like, 'I don't want this to the Alex Lifeson Band, I want this to be Envy of None.' He wants the record to do really well and he believes in it. I feel like it's definitely helped me feel more confident in myself as a vocalist. So when I start having the self-doubts … Alex Lifeson believes in me, so that's got to mean something, you know?"
To promote the album, Wynne says the band's considering doing a few live shows, perhaps a festival or two and possibly a performance on late-night TV. "Alex, he's toured his whole life," Wynne says, "Huge, exhausting tours, so I don't blame him for not wanting to get back out on the road necessarily. I think we're all just sort of waiting to see how people feel about (the Envy of None album), and if there's a demand for it. But yeah, there's definitely a good chance there will be at least a couple performances." Envy of None
Wynne was born in Colorado and grew up in Spokane, Washington and Missoula, Montana. One can definitely hear big skies and starry nights in her singing voice. At first, she wanted to be an actor, but after starting with the piano and school choir she realized she's "a musician at heart." She's since learned how to play more than 15 instruments. As a teenager, she began playing her own songs at local coffee shops, honing her songwriting skills.
Her dad was a Rush fan and went to see the band in concert multiple times. When she was around 13, Wynne herself got really into rock as she was teaching herself how to play drums. "That definitely was a time where I got more into Rush," Wynne says. Rush's drummer Neil Peart is universally considered one of rock's greatest all-time drummers, and often tops such tallies.
Wynne's a fan of more-challenging Rush material like the mystical math-metal on 1976 album "2112." She's also into 2012's "Clockwork Angels," the band's final studio album. But like most humans she can't resist the hooks and riffs of signature song "Tom Sawyer." "I know that's like basic," Wynne says, "but it's a great song."
Because of the pandemic and Wynne residing far from the other members of Envy of None, most of their collaboration and camaraderie happened in a very 2020s way: Zoom calls and emails. As of the time of this interview, the four musicians had rarely been in the same room. At one point, Wynne traveled to Toronto, where she recorded vocals for a couple Envy of None songs. During that trip, the whole band got together for dinner at a local upscale Thai restaurant. In addition to Lifeson's guitar wizardry, he's known for his sense of humor. (See his now classic Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acceptance speech from Rush's 2013 induction.) Wynne says that humor's on regular display in emails the band exchanges.
In addition to being an enchanting singer, Wynne's deft with the pen. Her lyrics to "Liar" were inspired by a recent experience doing jury duty for an intense trial. "This woman was accused of all of these horrible things," and in the courtroom, "She looked me dead in the eyes with this look that was so piercingly cold and empty. And just so evil. That's when I went home and I wrote the verses for the song."
In general, Wynne's more likely to write lyrics about introspection and, as she puts it, "internal battle battles of hope" than dramatic heartbreak songs. For most of the songs on the Envy of None debut, Curran would send her a basic demo and three or so words as a thematic starting point or maybe a chorus, and she'd write the rest of the lyrics around that. "It was really challenging at times, but really fun too," she says.
Wynne says the writing and recording process also involved "really cool back and forth" with Lifeson. "He waits for me to add my vocals before he adds his guitar. He's almost always adamant about that, because he usually builds off of harmonies that I'm making and will add textures underneath. We have a really similar approach to harmony. It's been really cool to work with him because it feels like I can have this direction with the vocals, the layers and how the song will grow, and he will take that and amplify it and add all these colors and textures around it and just really make it work. It makes it so much more beautiful."
She also appreciates how a storied guitar slayer like Lifeson doesn't confine himself to just that. For example, Lifeson heard an early folk-rock version of an Envy of None song called "Old Strings" and broke-out his banjo. "And it sounded awesome," Wynne says. "I just love that he's so open to anything. He just serves the song, whatever the song is, whatever it wants to be, whatever genre it wants to be." The band ended up with a more chill and vibey version of "Old Strings" for the Envy of None LP. But the folkier version - complete with Lifeson banjo solo - will appear on Wynne's upcoming solo album.
Previously on her own, Wynne's built the beginnings of a solid career doing indie-folk, often stripped down to just her voice and acoustic guitar. Standout Wynne solo tracks include "The Reaping Song" and "Sell You for a Song." She's released some seven EPs and done shows with the likes of Brandi Carlile and Lucinda Williams. (More info at maiahwynne.com.) The as yet untitled latest solo effort will drop about a month or so after "Envy of None," and finds Wynne exploring pop and indie-rock sounds a little more.
In addition to being featured on NPR's "All Songs Considered," she's won several songwriting contests, including the one that connected her to Curran. In 2019, she scored a recording session at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals and $10,000, from Music From The Moon, a Huntsville-based songwriting contest tied-in with the NASA Apollo 11 lunar mission's 50th anniversary. A panel of judges - including Mumford & Sons multi-instrumentalist Ben Lovett. ex-Civil Wars singer John Paul White and standout country instrumentalist Mac McAnally - selected Maiah Wynne's song "Show the World" as the winner.
"That was a huge, amazing year for me and it all revolved around that contest," Wynne says. "I had never been to Alabama before, and I wasn't sure what to expect or what the energy would be. And everybody that I met was so incredibly kind and warm. It was such an amazing experience getting to go to Huntsville and the Space and Rocket Center, and perform that song for astronauts and the people who had worked so hard on building rocket ships. And it really was a special experience for me to get to record at FAME Studios, getting to be in a place like that, where so many incredible artists have recorded, like Aretha Franklin.
"And of course, the (songwriting contest prize) money was a huge help for me as an independent artist, and helped me stay afloat through the next year and through 2020. And it helped me be able to keep working on the project with Alex and Andy and have the gear to do that as well."
Wynne recorded most of her Envy of None vocals at the Portland basement home studio space she shares with an engineer/producer she collaborates with on her solo work. In addition to the brief Toronto session, she also cut some vocals at a friend's studio in Los Angeles.
As a primarily acoustic act solo, Wynne's enjoyed recontextualizing her talent to work in a band format for Envy of None. "Playing in a different genre gets me in a different headspace," she says. "And there's been a few times it's been extremely hard. You know, I listen to a song and I feel like man, I just wish this had a heavy rock vocalist on it. But they don't want me to be that. They want me to be who I am. I've struggled with it at times because I don't always see how it works. But I feel like in the end, it always sort of does work."
The song "Enemy" is another of her favorite moments from the Envy of None album. She describes that track as "heavier, darker and little more raw." Wynne also cites the song "Dumb" as another fave from the LP. "It has a very groovy vibe," she says. The album also detours into Middle Eastern-tinged music on the song "Kabul Blues." Lyrically, Wynne's particularly fond of current single "Look Inside."
The 11-track Envy of None debut concludes with a song with no words. The instrumental "Western Sunset" is dedicated to Neil Peart, Lifeson's Rush bandmate who died in 2020 at age 67 from brain cancer. Many huge legacy bands can now barely stand each other long enough to play a few enormodomes and count their money. But the three members of Rush, which also included singer/genius bassist/keyboardist Geddy Lee, remained close friends. To the end.
"I visited Neil when he was ill," Lifeson says of Envy of None instrumental "Western Sunset," in a statement. "I was on his balcony watching the sunset and found inspiration. There's a finality about a sunset that kinda stayed with me throughout the whole process. It had meaning. It was the perfect mood to decompress after all these different textures… a nice way to close the book." At one point, Envy of No One tried adding some vocals by Wynne to "Western Sunset." "But it never felt right," she says, "so we just scrapped the vocals from it. And it's just so purely perfect exactly the way it is. I'm really excited for people to hear that song."