In a candid new conversation with Pete Pardo of Sea Of Tranquility, Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson opened up about an impromptu evening that most musicians could only dream of. As it turns out, a recent visit from two members of Metallica turned into an unforgettable jam session in Lifeson’s own home.
“The guys from Metallica were in Toronto last week. And I got together with Kirk and Rob. We went out for dinner and then we got together and jammed afterwards — actually, right here at my house. They came over after dinner, and we played for a few hours, and it was great,” Lifeson said.
Rather than defaulting to predictable bluesy standards, the trio let their shared musicianship steer the evening into more rewarding territory.
“Often in the past, if you jam with a bunch of people, we’d play a 12-bar bluesy thing; everybody can play that: ‘Let’s do that.’ But when you play with great musicians like those guys are, the places you go is, it’s just unbelievable,” Alex explained. “It’s so remarkable. And God, I loved every second that we did that. The three of us were just oozing with enthusiasm, that whole thing. And that’s pretty cool.”
While this spontaneous meetup felt rare and exciting, Robert Trujillo had already shared his deep-rooted connection to Rush. In an earlier interview with Meltdown of Detroit’s WRIF, he reflected on his teenage years and the impact Geddy Lee had on his musical growth — an influence that recently came full circle thanks to the Paramount+ docuseries Geddy Lee Asks: Are Bass Players Human Too?
“I played in backyard party bands at age 16 and we played Rush‘s ‘La Villa Strangiato’, we played ‘YYZ’, we played all those classic songs,” Robert said. “The harder, the better back then. And we probably butchered them, but we would play these backyard parties and play Rush songs in the same way that we also played Ozzy songs, and we played Black Sabbath songs and Van Halen and all these different bands. So you can imagine hanging out with one of your heroes and just trying to stay grounded. At the end of the day, everybody’s a human being and you always wanna treat people with respect and, again, stay grounded. But at the same time, you’re going, ‘Damn, that’s Geddy Lee.'”
That sense of reverence came to life again during Metallica’s April 26 concert at Toronto’s Rogers Centre, when Trujillo and Hammett performed a rendition of “La Villa Strangiato” as a tribute to Rush — a nod that surely hit close to home for the hometown crowd, and one that capped off a week of musical full circles.
