"The measure of a life": Remembering Neil Peart

by Andy Olson

September 10, 2020

As I write this, it's been over nine months since Neil Peart passed away unexpectedly from brain cancer (glioblastoma). After we found out the news on January 10, and throughout that awful, sad weekend, I tried to make sense of what had happened. I attempted to write some kind of a meaningful tribute, but words failed me, and I finally gave up.

I knew it was going to take time to process this.

During January and into February, I watched drummers, friends, musicians, and fans mourn the loss of Neil on social media and articles. I retweeted a lot of those remembrances. But the intensity and volume of those notes surprised a lot of people, myself included. Many of us still saw Neil and Rush as the ultimate outsiders, though this had clearly changed in the last part of their career. When I saw Brian Wilson comment on Twitter about Neil's death, I remember thinking, "Wow, I didn't know Brian Wilson knew about Neil Peart?" Of course he did, because Neil represented the pinnacle of rock drumming.

I also reached out to my followers on Twitter, asking them to share how Neil had inspired them. As I read the responses, it seemed like I could have written many of them. Here's a sample:

Gregg #BLM (@sirclinksalot): "It's not putting it mildly when I say I wouldn't be the person I am today without Rush."

Matt the Drummer (@MattFoFdrummer): "Neil made me a better drummer & musician...can't stress that enough."

Blamethrower (@ShakedownSteve): "He inspired me to write, to dream, to try and be the best at whatever I chose to do, to be an individual and have independent thoughts, to push myself. He was intertwined with so many memories of my life."

Sue Verica (@vericafamily): "To be the best that you can possibly be at whatever you do in life."

The same goes for me: I wouldn't be a drummer or writer without Neil. But I think more importantly, through his lyrics and writing, his ideas influenced the way I looked at the world. That's the short version, anyway.

The longer version starts in 1982. As a teenager in Richland, Washington, I'd seen kids walking through the school halls wearing Rush Moving Pictures t-shirts. I'd examined the red and black Moving Pictures album cover at the record store, read the evocative song titles. Rush was "calling" to me — even if it was on some subconscious level. But then I heard "The Spirit of Radio" (from Exit...Stage Left) and all that changed. After that, Rush's music and Neil's drumming, lyrics, and writing became the "soundtrack of my life." Through those teenage years, college, marriage, bands, jobs, children, births, and deaths, Rush was there.

For drummers, songwriters, and musicians, Neil showed us what was possible. His created drum parts and rhythms that were as important as any instrument. With each new album, he added more voices to his musical palette, including cowbells, concert toms, tubular bells, bell trees, crotales, and glockenspiel. Though he was sometimes mocked for his elaborate setups, in the end — like all great drummers — most of his playing happened between hi-hat, snare, bass drum, and cymbals. All of these "bells and whistles" were musical choices.

But it wasn't just the songs. Through his drum solos, Neil told stories. In the beginning, they included the rhythms he'd learned in his formative years: the double-hand crossover, quadruplets, and other patterns. Many of these first showed up on "Didacts and Narpets" from "The Fountain of Lamneth" on Caress of Steel. He expanded his solos into complex arrangements that seemed like a history of percussion and music — often extending beyond six or seven minutes. From primal African-inspired rhythms to European marches; from jazz horns to melodic passages; from acoustic drums to electronics, the precision, musicality, and creativity in his solos raised the bar for drummers.

As a live performer, Neil reproduced his intricate drum parts, while also improving them. One of my favorite early pastimes was listening to the ways he updated his drum parts from the original recordings. Since my introduction to Rush was Moving Pictures, the next album Exit…Stage Left provided an opportunity to see how he did this. While there were minor alterations to just about every song, "The Spirit of Radio," "A Passage to Bangkok," "Beneath Between and Behind," "Jacob's Ladder," "Xanadu," and "La Villa Strangiato" offered more rhythmic variations. What's more, many of these drum arrangements continued to change all the way up to the R40 tour. Neil was very much a live drummer.

As a teenager in the late Seventies and Eighties, Neil became my exemplar of drumming and writing. Of course, all I had were his albums and lyrics — as Neil didn't publish a lot of prose, except in tour books or the Rush Backstage Club newsletter (although when I first became a fan, I didn't have access to any of this). Back then the only place you might see a picture of a band was in Circus or Hit Parader magazine. The album sleeve photos for Moving Pictures and Exit… Stage Left created more mysteries about their appearance. I'd only seen a few photos that showed a more "wizardly" Peart, so when I saw an advertisement with him for Zildjian Cymbals ("Taste the Power") I was shocked to see his short hair.

Looking back, it's surprising that Neil wasn't the first one to pique my interest in drums. I'd always liked music, and my Uncle Gordy was a professional musician in Seattle. But my interest through my pre-teen years was mostly focused on soundtracks (Star Wars). We had a piano in my house, and my Mom taught me to play basic chords. As far as other instruments, after a failed attempt at playing violin, I took up the trumpet in Fifth Grade — because my Dad still had it in the garage from his high school years. My first real memory of drums was watching a kid named Orlando play a double stroke snare roll in our third grade music class. I remember how loud it was. A few years later, at Carmichael Middle School, as a Seventh Grader, I snuck into the "zero hour" jazz band rehearsal in the basement every morning and watched a series of drummers who took turns behind a set of drums. Once again, I was astonished by the piercing volume, but this time I felt the bass drum punching through my chest, the primal ring of tom-toms, and what seemed like explosions from the cymbals. As someone who was struggling with bullies around that time, being able to control that power seemed appealing.

I remember going over to Matt Mahoney's house after school, and he tried to show me how to play a simple beat on his CB-700 drum kit. Coordinating all four limbs was much harder than it looked. Later I became friends with Brian Bielicki, whose brother, Ben, had a drum kit (Rogers with Zildjian cymbals) in the garage. While their mother Gina slept above us (she worked the night shift at the hospital), we would take turns sitting behind the drum kit, and it was really the first time I learned how to play beats. But it wasn't enough. At my house, every night after everyone else was asleep upstairs I would play "air drums" in the living room, headphones plugged into the Magnavox stereo cabinet, "playing" along to the Moving Pictures LP (both sides) and a few other albums. After a year of this, I wore a hole the carpet with my "bass drum" playing.

Seeing that my obsession wasn't diminishing, my parents agreed to buy me a blue sparkle CB-700 drum kit from Music Machine in Kennewick. Now, instead of playing to songs in near silence, I was terrorizing my brother and sister after school with constant practicing. Eventually I was exiled to the garage, which was only a marginal improvement for the family — and made things significantly worse for our neighbors (even a nearly deaf grandfather living with the family next door commented that he could hear me). Unfortunately, because this was during the winter, when the temperature plunged below freezing, I broke most of my drum heads and cracked the cheap cymbals (which did silence me for a little while). But it would also provide an excuse to purchase some of the same Zildjian cymbals that Neil used: first a 16-inch Medium Thin Crash, then a pair of 13" New Beat hi-hats, and finally a 19-inch Ping Ride (not Neil's 22-inch Ping Ride, but close enough).

In addition to my drumming pursuits, I continued my education of Rush music. It took a few Christmases and birthdays, but I eventually had all their vinyl albums. Upon getting a new one, I'd sit beside that same Magnavox stereo, put on headphones, and read the lyrics sheet while listening. With my growing knowledge of Rush's music, I thought of myself as becoming an expert. My friends and I argued about how to pronounce Peart (it rhymes with "ear"). Another time, at the bowling alley on a weekend, my friends and I met another group who claimed to be bigger Rush fans. Like rival gangs, we tested each other's knowledge for hours ("What's the shortest Rush album?"— Hemispheres at just over 36 minutes), and finally ended in a draw after 1:00 a.m.

And then there was the controversy about Rush and other rock bands being labeled "Satanists." A lot of it had to do with what looked like a pentagram on the cover of 2112. Some talked about how RUSH was an acronym for "Rulers Under Satan's Hand" (like how KISS stood for "Knights in Satan's Service"), and others found a "demon" on the back of Starman. It would take Neil's letter to the Daily Texan in 1981 to set the record straight, and for me it was an introduction to his formidable writing skills (at least beyond lyrics).

Of course, there was always a constant debate about who could copy Neil's beats the best. As good as I thought I was, I soon learned there were others in Richland who could copy Neil even better. One of them, a kid named Bill who went to Hanford High School, had a replica of Neil's Tama Superstar drum kit. At a dance in the gym, I watched him play "Tom Sawyer" with his band. I'd never seen anyone who could copy Neil note-for-note (including throwing in a bunch of stick twirling). It was discouraging, but I kept trying.

That was part of the fascination of Neil. His playing made you want to get better, to dig deeper — and understand how he did what he did. It wasn't easy, especially for those of us who were "self-taught" drummers. My friends and I exchanged drumming ideas, but there was no YouTube back then and not a lot of instructional videos. I suppose not having an understanding of the fundamentals was one of the reasons I'd sometimes hear things that weren't there, like ghost beats. Parts that sounded like double-bass were heavily syncopated (listen to the guitar solo in "Tom Sawyer" or the rhythm right before the second verse in "Grand Designs"). For years, I tried to understand the three drum solo fills in "YYZ," going so far as to slow down the vinyl with my finger (no computers back then!). In particular, I became obsessed with the first solo, the flurry of four-note triplets. When we finally had some video of Neil playing "YYZ," the cameras always cut away during that first solo, which drove me crazy. (To this day, I can never quite get it to sound like Neil.)

Because Neil was restless in his pursuit of new sounds, I would do the same. At one point, I was given permission to borrow a spare glockenspiel from my high school so I could learn the bell part to "The Spirit of Radio." I was having so much fun, I didn't return those bells right away. Weeks later, my band teacher reprimanded me in front of the class (I guess the real issue was I'd taken some brand-new mallets, too). One Christmas, my Mom gave me a sad, four-bar bell tree, like the kind you might hang outside a window but smaller. I immediately hung it on one of my cymbal stands. I didn't care that it was basically some toy; I used it during my renditions of "Xanadu" and "Jacob's Ladder." On Grace Under Pressure, Neil combined a satellite Simmons electronic kit into his acoustic setup. Songs like "Red Lenses" and "The Big Money" showed an almost superhuman ability to find ways to incorporate these new sounds. He'd take it to a whole new level with "Scars" on Presto. I wouldn't add electronics to my drum setups until much later, when I bought a Roland SPD-S pad, and then a full Roland electronic kit.

Yet, during my first three years of being a fan, I never saw Rush in concert. That changed on May 18, 1984, when I drove a van full of high school friends from Richland to Tacoma, Washington, including my friend Dan Martin (who would attend many Rush concerts with me after 2002), to see the Grace Under Pressure concert. I soon found out that some people in my caravan were more interested in getting high and drunk, which also ended up being the case with most of the audience. The mass inebriation and anonymity in the darkness beyond the stage led to a lot of problems that night. About halfway through the show I ended up alone on the floor of the cavernous Tacoma Dome, and I watched as glowsticks and other objects began raining down on the band. Between songs, Geddy Lee asked people to stop because, "Somebody might get hurt, and that's not fun," but the assault continued. It was clear that my heroes weren't happy, which meant that I wasn't happy. At the end of "Tom Sawyer," as Geddy was playing the final keyboard melody, a glowstick flashed in from the audience like a missile and hit the keyboard. I was close enough to see the frustration on his face. He just stopped playing the keyboard part. It left me a bit disillusioned about the live concert experience, but impressed with the band's professionalism. Fortunately it would only get better from there.

In addition to lighting a fire in me to play drums, Neil also inspired my interest in writing. I found that even something as simple as "YYZ" had a larger meaning. In his titles and lyrics, I started finding literary breadcrumbs to Shakespeare ("Limelight"), Samuel Taylor Coleridge ("Xanadu"), John Dos Passos ("The Camera Eye," "The Big Money," "Grand Designs"), and Ayn Rand ("Anthem," "2112"). I checked out books from the library, hungry to understand the source material. Some stories I could never find, like Richard S. Foster's "A Nice Morning Drive" (although my brother Erik would eventually give me a copy of the Road and Track issue in which it appeared.)

Even though I considered myself to be a big fan of Neil's, in those early days I really didn't know a lot about him. Besides that illuminating interview in Modern Drummer in 1984 with Scott K. Fish, articles in the Rush Backstage Newsletter, and tour book intros, there just wasn't a lot of information available. That changed when I met Monica Zimmerman outside the Seattle arena at the 1990 Presto show. It was right after we listened to sound check through the glass doors; everyone was standing around, still buzzing from the impromptu jam we heard. I found out that Monica was hosting a group of fans from Europe, including Mick Burnett, who published the fanzine The Spirit of Rush. I bought a copy, which included a personal letter from Neil to Mick.

Later, my brother and I went over to Monica's house. We were awestruck by her of Rush knowledge, as well as her collection of "artifacts." We began a friendship that's continued to this day. It was also Monica and her husband Steve who introduced me to seeing multiple Rush shows on a tour. For the Counterparts tour, we flew down to the San Francisco area for three shows in three nights! (It was a good thing because they never came to Seattle on that tour.)

Monica was also my source for the latest news about the band. We'd often spend our lunch hours talking about Rush. She would also be the one to tell me about Neil's daughter, Selena, dying in 1997, and then his first wife Jackie Taylor a year later. We both thought Rush was done, and they were for five years. But when Rush returned in 2002, Monica and I were there at that Vapor Trails show in Hartford, Connecticut, and the next night in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Those were both magical shows.

Monica was also an early supporter of this website, which I started in 2004 to share my appreciation of Neil's work. What probably started as a way to send a virtual hello to Neil, turned into something much different, as I began talking to other fans around the world (mostly through email since Facebook didn't yet exist). Some fans sent me postcards that Neil wrote to them. Others sent photos of their drum kits. When I traveled to different cities in the United States, I always tried to meet some of them in person.

As the web became a more powerful marketing channel, people and companies associated with Neil began reaching out to me. I helped Michael D.F. Lowe at NeilPeartDrumsticks.com with the launch of 30th Anniversary drum stick packs from Pro-Mark. When Ari Gold made his movie Adventures of Power, in which Neil had a cameo, I met Ari in Seattle after a screening and did an interview with him to support the film. I learned about David Kerzner's Neil Peart Drums product, which allowed drummers to sample Neil's Snakes and Arrows DW drum kit. I helped promote all of Neil's instructional videos with Hudson Music, and especially the last one, Taking Center Stage. I even did an interview with Mike Portnoy before a Winery Dogs show in Seattle in 2013, where we discussed Neil's influence. Eventually, I got up the courage to invite Kevin J. Anderson to lunch near the Seattle airport, where he was attending a convention. On the way to lunch, I got lost — and Kevin graciously used Siri to help us find our way (so embarrassing!). We ended up having a long, in-depth conversation about his collaboration with Neil on Clockwork Angels.

Looking back now, none of these connections and friendships would have existed without Neil Peart.

Neil was all about "being your own hero" and finding your own voice. He once said originality came from copying as many drummers as possible and freely admitted to "copying a hundred." When I started playing original music in Seattle, I relied on his drumming as a template for how to write a drum part. In my first band in the 1990s, Wake, 90% of what I was playing came from Neil. As the years went by, and my music influences broadened, I've added more influences to the list. I've been playing in the band Chris Mess for the past 15 years, with Chris Niccoli (songwriter, vocals), Stephen Page (bass), and Brooks Clark (guitar). Not long after I got the news about Neil, I received a text from Brooks:

"Through the years, I've played with a lot of drummers whose main influence has been Neil. I think a lot of us band mates have made fun of those drummers because we realized they were attempting a weak facsimile of Neil. You're the first of those drummers I've played with that took his influence and made it into your own musical thing. I think that's part of the reason I'm really broken up about Neil. You've been the most overall fun drummer that I've played with, and even though Rush was a huge deal to me in my younger years, I never would've suspected in my later years I'd be playing with someone who took Neil to heart, and made me glad to play along. Thanks, man."

It turned out to be just what I needed during that sad weekend, along with the outpouring of support by everyone — from my family, friends, and other fans. As I reflected on the true meaning of what had happened, it became clear that part of me had always held out hope for some chance encounter with the Professor — to tell him how much his work meant to me. That door was now closed. Of course, I knew it had always been wishful thinking, given Neil's need for privacy.

Actually, even Neil's reclusiveness from interviews and other outlets would be another influence on how I viewed celebrities. While he enjoyed his hard-earned success and appreciated the recognition from his audience, Neil dismissed the idea of being a rock star or even a hero. He found that being a celebrity made it impossible for him to relate to other people on an equal level. He tried to explain it in songs like "Limelight," interviews, or his many books, but most people (including myself) bought in to the fantasy.

To cope, Neil would find ways to tour on his own terms. He wouldn't attend meet and greets back stage. Later, he traveled by bicycle and then motorcycle. Outside of the Rush caravan, he rarely would be recognized and talked to strangers every day. For the record, the closest I got to him outside the concert hall was when I was staying at the Four Seasons hotel in Vancouver B.C. (Roll the Bones tour). Monica and Steve were there, too, along with my wife Brenda. We were talking in the lobby when Monica stopped cold and said, "Oh my god, there's Neil." I turned to see Neil stepping into an elevator, smiling and talking to people with him. I don't think I would have recognized him without Monica pointing him out. Neil never thought he was anyone special and didn't like the attention. Many took it at arrogance, but in the end it was a combination of his introverted personality and humility.

Perhaps the greatest gift that Neil Peart gave us was how much he lived life ("What's the most excellent thing I can do today?"). He embodied Carpe Diem ("Seize the day" for those who haven't yet seen Dead Poets Society). In addition to his "day job" with Rush, he often traveled to exotic lands (and wrote about one such adventure in The Masked Rider). He turned tours into opportunities to learn new things, see new places. He drove thousands of miles on his BMW motorcycle between shows, often staying at budget hotels and motels. He went outside his comfort zone and played with the Buddy Rich Big Band, and later produced an album with the band and many of the world's top drummers. And then, just as he was regarded as one of the greatest drummers in the world, he started over with Freddie Gruber, changing everything about the way he played. He applied this new approach to Test for Echo and its tour, and we got to see Neil play many Rush songs using a traditional grip.

When tragedy struck his life, he wandered Canada, North America, and Mexico on his BMW and disappeared, the "Ghost Rider." As I stated previously, most of us thought he would never return to Rush. And, really, who would expect him to? But he did find happiness again, marrying Carrie Nuttall, and he began a new life in Los Angeles. She was the one who helped him return to Rush.

Given Neil's passion for life, he recognized the second chance he'd been given, and he made up for lost time. He wrote six more non-fiction books. He released two more instructional DVDs. He published a website, including a blog and recipes. He wrote lyrics for his friend Matt Scannell's band, Vertical Horizon, and played drums on a few tracks. He created his own line of Paragon cymbals with Sabian. He continued his study of swing with Peter Erskine, with the goal of becoming a more improvisational drummer (as opposed to compositional), and in 2008 performed again with the Buddy Rich band. He made a wall calendar.

In 2010, he and Carrie welcomed a daughter, Olivia, into the world. He recorded a new version of "The Hockey Theme" on a custom drum kit. For Rush's last album, he wrote the lyrics for a concept album, Clockwork Angels, and collaborated with his friend Kevin J. Anderson on the novelization. He became a New York Times bestselling author. Kevin and Neil had so much fun, they worked on a sequel called Clockwork Lives, as well as comics and graphic novels. He became an American citizen and voted. He worked with John Good and his team at DW drums to create some of the most iconic drum sets of the twenty-first century. He went out on the road with Rush one last time and played songs that meant so much to the fans.

It was during that last tour that I was able to share my love of Rush and Neil one last time — with my wife Brenda and two sons, Cameron and Drew. Unlike the Clockwork Angels show in Seattle, where we all sat together, for R40 I took each person to a different show. Cameron went to the Vancouver B.C. show, Brenda the Seattle show, and Drew the epic final show in Portland.

And Neil's influence continues. Cameron has just started his first year at Berklee, the prestigious music college in Boston, as a drummer. Drew has been studying piano once a week for over the past year, playing songs I've always wanted to be able to play like "Linus and Lucy" and "The Entertainer." I continue to play drums as often as possible, but it's been challenging during the pandemic.

Even with Neil's diagnosis of an aggressive form of brain cancer, he fought for three-and-a-half long years. And though we only know bits and pieces, we do know that in 2017 he became a member of the elite "All Eight Club" (#199). We know that he continued to see friends, even if he asked them not to disclose his sickness. He remained a devoted father, husband, and son. As heartbroken as I am about Neil's death, I'm in awe of his life and what he accomplished. It's a lesson all of us can learn from. None of us knows how much time we have.

"We're only immortal for a limited time."