Neil Peart - In Memoriam

September 12th, 1952 - January 7th, 2020

Ten days into the new decade and the drumming world has already suffered about as huge of a loss as is humanly possible.  The Professor Neil Ellwood Peart is no more.  As I have previously discussed briefly on this blog before, Peart was to rock drumming what Eddie Van Halen was to rock guitar; a virtuoso with nigh a contemporary at the time who forever changed what could be both possible and accepted as far as hard rock skin-bashing is concerned.  Fusing intricate fills with highly inventive drums parts, a pristine kit sound, taste and finesse, and arguably the most precise execution out of anybody, Peart has long been one of the most cherished and impressive drummers who has ever breathed air.  His influence is vast enough to the point where it has become a cliche that even people who do not like Rush, (meaning people who do not like Geddy Lee's vocals), admit one and all that Neil at least was the goddamn man.

Beyond Peart's unanimously lauded drumming, he just seemed to be a gem of a human being.  He succumbed to a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer on Tuesday, January 7th of this year, but in his typical and fiercely private personal life, he kept his diagnosis completely out of the public, only notifying close family and friends.  This included his band mates and collaborators for over four decades, both Geddy Lee and Alex Liefeson who honored Peart's wishes in the respectful way that they always had.  Peart's passing at only sixty-seven years of age after less than only five years since the band wrapped up with their unofficial farewell R40 tour seems particularly unfair.  It was heavily hinted that Peart was the one who wanted to walk away from touring life once and for all to quietly retire and spend more time with his family.  Though it was sad for the rest of us to be told that he had lost all interest in ever sitting behind the kit again, it is nowhere near as sad as the reality that he can NEVER sit behind the kit again.

For such a beautiful thing as this to forever collect dust is a crime if ever there was one.

I started playing drums at the age of twelve, almost entirely because of John Bonham.  Yet Neil Peart was a name you cannot be ignorant to once you pick up a pair of sticks.  Probably because no one in my family was a huge Rush fan, they were one of the rare classic rock bands that I had to go and discover on my own.  Thankfully, the high school I went to in southern Illinois, (shout out to my fellow Red Bud alumni), was full of Rush fans from top to bottom.  So by the time that I was playing in my first house party band, Neil Peart's inevitable influence was already seeping in.

I have grown increasingly fond of not only Rush's music and Peart's masterful playing over all these years, but Peart as a human being.  I have always found it amusing that Peart's smiles while playing were few and far between as he always took his performance deadly seriously.  On the flip side of that though, I never saw a single second of any interview that he ever gave where he was not grinning from ear to ear while enthusiastically discussing all things music or just his overall passion for life.  After losing both his first teenage daughter to a car crash and ten months later, his first wife to another bout of cancer, Peart chose to temporarily retire and travel through North and Central America on his motorcycle for fourteen months.  He discussed in his book Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road how spending all of that time with no goals, no plan, and no destination in mind where no one he ran into even recognized him ultimately mended the horrible emotional wounds that he had suffered.  He eventually came back to the band that had been his home with as much dedication and positivity as ever.  You do not have to be a drummer or even a musician to find that remarkable.

It may not be as cool as his drum kit, but a home on the road is a home all the same.

As a lover of his instrument, Peart was a beckon of drum admiration.  A huge big band fan, he was ultimately humbled by his performance at the Buddy Rich Memorial Scholarship Concert in 1992 which showed that even amongst his top-notch abilities in his band of choice, he was in over his head when playing with dazzling jazz technicians like Omar Hakim and the like.  Unphased though, he chose not to skitter away with his tail in between his legs and instead he produced and performed on the tribute records Burning for Buddy: A Tribute to the Music of Buddy Rich, (which continued to get Rich's big band even more work).  Then all of these years already into a successful career, he took lessons from Freddie Gruber to up his chops and re-approach his instrument even further.  Such dedication to his craft is the stuff that any musician anywhere can wholeheartedly admire and even though the man himself can pursue his passions no more, it is undoubtable that he will continue to inspire just as he always has.

Peart's life was up and down as well as far more than the typical rock star.  On that note, he hardly conducted himself as such.  He refused to do the all too standard band meet and greets near the end of Rush's touring cycle, but not due to any pretentious arrogance on his part; more because he was openly honest about how uncomfortable it made him to be fawned over and treated above just a normal, everyday person.  Even if Peart was far from a normal everyday person, he would never admit it or accept anyone telling him such nonsense.  Still, he never disrespected his fans who gave him such accolades either and remained thankful for all that he had through and through.  A class act all the way.

A class act with a bitchin' mullet to boot.

Kiss told funny stories about how lame Rush was on the road back in the excess, groupie-ridden days of the 1970s.  As you would expect then, they rarely if at all partook in such sleazy shenanigans.  Peart in particular was commonly found knee-deep in reading materials, always fueling his creativity as the band's lyricist as well as their percussionist, even when swarms of willing, naked ladies would have politely ran their fingers through that glorious mullet of his, amongst other things of course.  Yet who has time for that when you got all those Ayn Rand books to read?  2112 is not going to write itself after all.

It will be hard for so many to say goodbye to Neil Peart's physical form, but as is always the case, the man's work is going nowhere.  It shall remain here to fuel all of us in any creative endeavor that we may have.  On that note, I think it is best to leave with a quote from Peat's The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa, one of many where he sums up, (or scratches the surface more likely), of his intellectual, elegant, and above all else sincere take on life in general:  “I can worship Nature, and that fulfills my need for miracles and beauty.  Art gives a spiritual depth to existence -- I can find worlds bigger and deeper than my own in music, paintings, and books.  And from my friends and family I receive the highest benediction, emotional contact, and personal affirmation.  I can bow before the works of Man, from buildings to babies, and that fulfills my need for wonder.  I can believe in the sanctity of Life, and that becomes the Revealed Word, to live my life as I believe it should be, not as I'm told to by self-appointed guides.”

Peace be with thee Mr. Peart.