The drummer Neil Peart considered to be his “mentor”
Oh, to be a drummer in a band like Rush. It sounds like both a dream and a nightmare, as you would be allowed to engage with your creative know-how more than you would with most other bands, but at the same time, it would be pretty exhausting. Rush are a band famed for their ability to jump between styles and sounds as though music is a second language. It’s immense to hear, but a lot for a drummer to keep up with; lucky they have someone like Neil Peart.
“The usual chain of circumstances and accidents,” Peart once said, describing how he came to be in the band, not his playing style, “I came from a city that’s about 60 or 70 miles from Toronto. A few musicians from my area had migrated to Toronto and were working with bands around there when they recommended me as someone of suitable style.”
He continued, “I guess they tried a few drummers, but we just clicked on both sides. There was a strong musical empathy right away with new ideas they were working on and things I had as musical ideas. Also, outside of music, we have a lot of things in common.”
An instant connection will no doubt be necessary in a band like Rush. Their songs are long and complex, as are their albums. Getting that sound perfect and committing it to wax is a mammoth task that requires musical brains to be on the same wavelength and a great deal of patience. They seem to have found that in one another, and the result is some of the most exciting albums in recent decades.
Of course, when you are playing in a band like Rush, you need to have several different genres under your belt and ready to go. When you have someone like Peart, who can dabble in a range of different styles and sounds, it’s worth pondering who his major influences are. Though he has a number of drummers he’s a fan of, there is one in particular that he calls his mentor.
“Starting way back with Keith Moon. He was one of my favourite mentors; it’s hard to decide what drummers taught you what things,” he said, “Certainly, Moon gave me a new idea of freedom and that there was no need to be a fundamentalist. I really liked his approach to putting crash cymbals in the middle of a roll.”
Moon was undoubtedly a massive influence for Peart as being anti-fundamentalist is something the drummer has built a lot of his career around. Rush songs are so exciting because they are so hard to pigeonhole, and it turns out we have Keith Moon in part to thank for that. By showing Peart that drumming doesn’t have to be as black and white as just keeping a beat, we were given one of the most exciting rhythm sections in rock.