Alex Lifeson said that drugs and Rush never led to particularly good music. Ultimate Classic Rock transcribed some of the guitarist’s chat with House of Strombo where he recalled, “It was hard to play. We were very disciplined when it came to shows — not even a beer during the drum solo. I smoked a joint before a rehearsal once, and we jammed for about 20 minutes, like psychedelic surf music. And it was so great.”

Lifeson, who just dropped his new band Envy Of None‘s self-titled debut, went on to remember, “I was having such a great time, and then it was like, ‘Okay, let’s do the show now.’ We start playing, and it was like. . . everything sounded crazy, and my hands wouldn’t speak to my brain. Ged kept looking over at me like, ‘What the hell’s going on with you there?’ We were making mistake after mistake. I couldn’t wait for it to be over. But I learned a very important lesson: Don’t smoke a joint before a gig.”

Alex Lifeson told us a while back that Rush’s long history is the result of a combination of friendship and creative commitment: “I think, primarily, we really enjoy each other’s company. We’re very, very close friends. The music has always been very important to us. We’ve always pushed each other, in terms of our writing and where we want to go as musicians.”