Fu Manchu: How SoCal Stoner Crew Enlisted Alex Lifeson for Epic Space Jam

Revolvermag.com has posted a new interview with Fu Manchu frontman Scott Hill, where he talks about enlisting Alex Lifeson on their latest album Clone of the Universe, set for release on Feb. 9.

"Our manager is friends with his manager, and they were talking. Without asking us, our manager was like, "Hey, would Alex want to play on their new record?" His manager asked him and got back to our manager, like, "Oh yeah, he totally will. Send him a song!" When he told us, we were all like, "Holy shit!" We immediately reverted back to the Rush fans we were in seventh grade! [Laughs] So we sent him the four-track, which was a little lower than normal demo quality and he was like, "This is great. What do you want me to do on it?" We were like, "Holy shit, he's asking us?!? Dude, do whatever you want, wherever you want!  So we got in the studio and recorded the song, and then we sent it to him in Canada; he sent us back a bunch of stuff, and it all just sounded insane. He was like, "Use whatever you want," so we picked this one section of stuff that he did; it's in the first part where the band drops out — he's playing a really effected guitar riff along with the bass and drums, and then the bass and drums drop out. He's doing stuff with a bunch of different effects, all these sci-fi sounds and pick slides, and we were just flipping out listening to it. We still can't believe it! [Laughs]"

 Click here for the full story.

"Animate" covered by Allegaeon, featuring "Counterparts" inspired album art

Back in September 2016 I shared that Denver Colorado death-metal band Allegaeon had included their cover of "Subdivisions" on their latest album, Proponent for Sentience.  During the recording sessions for Proponent For Sentience, Allegaeon recorded two Rush covers. Besides the aforementioned "Subdivisions", on January 6th, 2018, the date version of the band's song 1.618, Allegaeon released their cover of "Animate" worldwide on all digital music services featuring a single cover based on the Counterparts album art; buy the digital single at Amazon.com.

"When we settled on Rush to cover during the 'Proponent' sessions, I simply couldn't pick which song to do. 'Subdivisions' or 'Animate.' Both were favorites for me personally, and both were sort of 'under the radar' eg. not 'Tom Sawyer' or 'Spirit Of Radio.' Where the original idea was to do a cover for a Japanese bonus track, we figured if we did both we could cover a special song for both the Japan AND Europe pressing. Then the powers that be decided to just include 'Subdivisions' on the album, and keep 'Animate' in reserve for something. Jan 6th, 2018 is the only occurrence of the golden ratio in date form that will occur during our life time. So 1.6.18 seemed like the perfect date to release it in Allegaeon fashion." Guitarist Greg Burgess, via Blabbermouth.net, January 5, 2018

- Thanks to B-man for the headsup!