Neil Peart — Ad for Sabian Paragon Cymbals, Credit: Sabian, Ltd

Neil Peart never wanted to be anyone’s hero, but the “world’s greatest drummer’s” axiom of “do good, get good” made him an inspirational public figure nonetheless.

I wrote this article not for the fans of Neil Peart, but for those around us. Those who don’t quite “get” why we feel so much love and respect for the man and his music. Why it was so much more than just the words and pounding drums that touched us so deeply. And what each of us can learn from this rare public figure is how to live better lives.

Neil Peart, a musician Rolling Stone magazine calls the “fourth greatest rock drummer of all time” died last Tuesday, January 7 in Santa Monica, California. For my mom’s benefit, no, Neil’s death was not the inevitable outcome of a self-destructive, drug-fueled rock & roll lifestyle. In fact, Neil’s life and death were not those of archetypal rock & roll type tragedies at all, but for all who loved and respected the musician, the author, the friend, and the family man, his death certainly was tragic.

“So… We’re having a brain tumor,” Neil startlingly revealed to his close friend Chris Stankee. “I’m fine. Don’t freak out, and don’t put it on Facebook!” Not wanting to dampen Neil’s spirits, Stankee shot right back: “Good! Maybe it’ll dumb you down just enough that the rest of us will understand what the hell you’re talking about most of the time!”

Neil was early into his long-planned retirement following a 40-year career of writing lyrics, drumming and touring with the Canadian rock trio, Rush. After burying his daughter and first wife almost 20 years earlier, he believed he’d been given a second chance and intended to pour his energies into his second marriage and raising their then six-year old daughter. Neil was once asked to share his favorite roadside sign he saw on his tours traveling with the band. He chuckled and remembered the tongue-in-cheek wisdom shared outside a rural church, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” A tumor was not in his plans.

Despite Rolling Stone’s “greatest drummer” distinction, numerous awards, best-selling books and worldwide recognition, Neil was an atypical rock star. Neil was never a man that was too impressed with himself. He never sought but, in fact, discouraged adoration. Fame and adulation embarrassed him. From his perspective, he was just a guy who “hit things with sticks” and got paid for it.

From early in his life, Neil tried to follow the simple karma of “do good, get good” and yet was dealt so much disproportionate tragedy. In an exceptionally rare case of life mirroring art, however, his life story offers lessons echoed in the lyrics and pages he wrote: courage, humility, generosity, curiosity, resiliency, and above all, perseverance. Despite hardships that might have driven many into a self-destructive, drug-fueled lifestyle, Neil lived his life, aspiring himself, and gently nudging others to live that simple mantra “do good, get good”.

The Percussor

Neil’s performances were life altering experiences for those who followed the band. When Neil would showcase his gifts in his highly anticipated drum solos, his playing was organized, high energy, and athletic. His solos were listenable because he never engaged in a boxing match with the drum heads, throwing opportunistic jabs and punches at cymbals and cowbells. Neil was a compositional drummer. His solos were melodic stories, echoing the themes and moods found in his lyrics. He could be heard quoting bits from his influences, Max Roach, Keith Moon or Buddy Rich on his high hat and bass pedals, while layering his own composition drawn from an African rhythm across the snare and toms. His solos were expositions of the instrument, exploiting every possible percussive voice from well-timbered ancient-wood drum shells to the electronic marimba and a cacophony of brass cymbals.

For young rock musicians mastering their craft in the 80’s and 90’s, Rush albums were master classes in technique, setting an impossibly high bar for skill level for bass, guitar and of course drumming. Those influenced by Neil shared their attempts to master his compositions in the 2010 documentary, Rush Beyond the Lighted Stage.

“That was the benchmark of drumming when I was a kid,” said Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater. Portnoy recalls challenging other drummers, “I can play YYZ, but can you play La Villa Strangiato?” Jimmy Chamberlan, drummer for Smashing Pumpkins, added, “If you could play those songs with some proficiency, you could pretty much play anything else.”

Legendary drummer Kenny Aronoff recalled Neil’s influence in a recent article for Billboard, “What made Neil so special is he invented a style. Just like Jimi Hendrix did on guitar or Eddie Van Halen. Every so often somebody comes around and does something that nobody else did, and Neil did that.”

Nobody’s Hero

Neil never let the fan and rock magazine rankings go to his head. While he welcomed their respect and appreciation, he felt “any sense of adulation is so wrong.” In the song “Nobody’s Hero” Neil opines, “Hero — lands the crippled airplane/Solves great mysteries/Hero — not the handsome actor/Who plays a hero’s role/Hero — not the glamour girl/Who’d love to sell her soul.” Neil saw the Limelight as a “gilded cage.” He struggled with surveys and fan rankings that called him the world’s greatest drummer. Instead, Neil saw recognition as a responsibility more than a personal attribute. He suggested,

“In a world which is supposed to be so desperate for heroes, maybe it’s time we stopped looking so far away. Surely we have learned by now not to hitch our wagons to a ‘star,’ not to bow to celebrity. We find no superhumans among actors, athletes, artists, or the aristocracy...maybe the role models that we really need are to be found all around us, right in our own neighborhoods. And if we ever get the idea that people from faraway places are all thugs, villains, or lunatics, we can stop to realize that we have those all around us too — right here at home. But I have found, in all the neighborhoods of the world, that the heroes still outnumber the villains.”

The Professor

Whether it was feeding his curiosity or mastering his craft, Neil never stopped learning. In an interview for the 2010 documentary Neil’s mother talks about how, as he was growing up, Neil had an insatiable curiosity. She openly admits,

“He was…in those days I used to say ‘weird’. He just read everything. He just read everything there was to read. He even had to learn how to knit, because he had to know how that was done.”

The veracious reader also developed a deep passion for music, drawing influence from jazz greats like Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich as well as rock legends like John Bonham and Bill Bruford. As he began to play out professionally, he worked to perfect his time, often under the unwilling tutelage of guitar players…whose disapproving glances and “stern disciplinarian foot” Peart called “the ultimate metronome.”

After joining and touring with Rush, his band mates teasingly referred to him as “The Professor,” referring to his preference for book sellers over bar rooms. In the 2010 documentary Neil argues almost incredulously, “What a more perfect portable education than having a lot of free-time on your hands and bookstores everywhere?? For the next few years I started filling those hours reading.” His love of reading and enormous vocabulary would quickly make this drummer the ideal, if not unusual, candidate for lyricist.

1980’s “The Spirit of Radio” — Peart’s handwritten lyrics. Who uses the word “unobtrusive” in song writing?

His love of learning and love of challenge ultimately led to Neil deconstructing his playing style and, after 30 years of performing and achieving the moniker of “World’s Greatest Drummer,” he started over. Neil felt that his playing “lacked a certainly fluidity of time” that he admired so much in his jazz influences. In his early 50s he decided to break down his style and begin taking lessons, not because he believed he needed to be the greatest drummer but because he explains,

“That’s what it takes if you’re going to be among the good ones. If the world is going allow you to hit things with sticks for a living, you oughta work at it…it didn’t come natural to me. The simple dedication to learning gave me a whole other gift. A new understanding of time that gave me an improvisation ability that I never really had. I consider [improving] a responsibility. Trying to be your own hero.”

In what can only be described as self-fulfilling prophecy, “The Professor” became the professor by sharing his drumming technique in a series of books and videos specifically targeted at budding drummers. Rather than releasing videos where a nameless instructor breaks down Neil’s playing with only cameos by the man himself, Neil committed to hundreds of hours of studio time, trying to squeeze a lifetime of learning and practicing into a short series of instructional videos, Taking Center Stage and Anatomy of a Drum Solo, each running just over 3 hours.

The books and videos demonstrate that the man never believed his style or skill of playing was unattainable by mere mortals. Sharing the schematics to his percussive knitting techniques, he encourages drummers to understand that his methods are not so proprietary in their creativity that they cannot borrow from his approach. Peart understood that just as he mastered the styles of his influences, his students could do the same — or not. He ALWAYS wanted them to find their own way, not to just follow him but rather “be their own hero.”

Working Man

The phrase “hardest working band” is often bandied about without really offering a yardstick for comparison. Neil and his bandmates were never branded with this title, but their work ethic, especially for a 70’s era arena touring group, sets the bar pretty high.

Neil sat down for an interview with George Stroumboulopoulos, a Canadian broadcaster known as “Strombo,” between rehearsals just before the second leg of their 2014 tour. Given that at that time so many of their surviving contemporaries did “cash grab” tours where they show up without rehearsal just in time to perform the show, Neil was asked about how they get motivated to prepare for a tour.

“Feeling that I constantly have to earn it is good motivation,” Neil explained. “I don’t take for granted that people admire what we do, so whatever we’ll do they’ll admire. Every audience, I feel like we have to earn them...we have to earn their dedication.”

The band believed they should only be touring to support work they’d done in the studio, therefore, tours always included a generous mix of new material and some of the same songs year after year, tour after tour on the road. Along with the band and crew, Neil spent months before the show learning and rehearsing the sets, composing drum solos and new arrangements. Sometimes starting his own rehearsals a month before the band would begin. His bandmate, Geddy Lee bassist and vocalist for Rush, would tease him “You’re the only drummer who rehearses for rehearsals!” On the road, Neil made every sound check for every show and warmed up before every single performance. He explained,

“For us, the studio performance of the song is the benchmark we should try to reach every time. For me, and the band, we’re trying to be as good as the records -every time!”

Turn The Page

Before the end of the band’s first year on the road, Neil was already disenchanted with touring. Still in his early 20s, Neil shunned the rock & roll lifestyle, trading groupies for books and the tour bus for the tranquility of solitary cycling from city to city. He constantly sought diversion. While on tour in the 70s he purchased a typewriter from a local store in Arkansas. He would use that typewriter to develop his skills as a writer of both lyrics and non-fiction works. Later Neil would go on to write seven best-selling non-fiction books, mostly travelogues. The first, The Masked Rider, describes his 1988 cycling trip across Cameroon. Several others are drawn from his motorcycling adventures between shows as Rush toured in Europe, the US, and Canada.

By far, his most profound work was, Ghost Rider. The part memoir part travelogue describes the 50,000 mile motorcycle journey Neil took in the period following the death of his daughter Selina, which was immediately followed by the death, in his words “by broken heart,” of his wife Jackie. In the book, Neil shares,

“[I] use the road and the constant moving as a soothing balm. From the time we’re babies we want to be rocked and if the baby’s crying you can take it in the car and it calms down. That’s the way I described it to myself, my little baby soul would only be soothed by motion.”

The band took a four-year hiatus following these tragedies and, for many, it seemed Rush was finished for good. After riding, Neil made the decision to leave Canada and move to California where he was introduced to his future wife, Carrie Nuttal, by a common friend, band photographer Andrew MacNaughton. (MacNaughton would die in 2012 of a heart attack while on assignment with the band).

Sweet Miracle

Neil and Carrie were married in September of 2000 and by 2002 Neil was considering working again. In bandmate Alex Lifeson’s words,

“He was apprehensive and thought that perhaps..maybe..we might try to talk about perhaps..trying..to maybe think about possibly getting back in the studio to record a record”.

Neil spoke about working his way back in the Beyond the Lighted Stage documentary.

“I could hear my state of mind in my drumming…anger, obviously, but confusion..the state I was in the lyrics too, of course, so many of them had to deal with [anger & confusion], I could not sidestep all of that stuff.”

To the casual listener, the album that followed, Vapor Trails, is a punchy high energy rock album. For listeners who follow the band closely, Vapor Trails is an album steeped in melancholy and grief. In the album’s title track, Neil describes the desperate realization that the memory of Selena and Jackie’s voices were slipping from memory. He compares the fading memory to the condensation trails jets leave across the sky. The haunting lyrics are set against a defiantly bright and hopeful melody.

Stratospheric traces of our transitory flight

Trails of condensation held

In narrow paths of white

The sun is turning black

The world is turning gray

All the stars fade from the night

The oceans drain away Horizon to horizon

Memory written on the wind

Fading away, like an hourglass, grain by grain

Swept away like voices in a hurricane In a vapor trail

Following Vapor Trails, Neil and the band would release three more studio albums, each subsequently stronger than the previous, and, with Neil’s reluctance, embark on five more tours, playing to some of the largest audiences of their career. In 2015, Neil announced his retirement.

Donna Halper is a Boston based historian and radio consultant, credited with discovering Rush in 1974 when she was Program Director at WMMS in Cleveland, OH. In a blog post days after Neil’s death Halper shared a personal story from a backstage meeting after the band’s 2010 show in Boston.

“And as he and I were saying goodbye, we were standing out in the hall and he remarked upon the lesson he took from “King Lear” — that it’s not enough to say you love someone; you have to show it. And he remarked upon second chances — that he hadn’t been there enough for his daughter Selena (he loved her, but by his own admission, he was on the road a lot); but he absolutely was going to be there for his daughter Olivia. It was a promise he kept. I was not surprised when Neil decided to retire.”

For so many of us long-time Rush fans, following the band since childhood, the band’s songs have become the soundtrack to our lives. From the inwardly focused, individualistic and fantastical lyrics (Best I Can, 2112, Subdivisions) of the early stuff, to the pragmatic lessons in dealing with family, community, and professional life (Mission, Middletown Dreams) of the 80s and 90s, and finally the later cuts that deal with considering your own legacy and looking outside yourself (Far Cry, The Larger Bowl) to try to make the world a better place than you found it.

No one could know that both Ghost Rider and Vapor Trails would offer the tools and the remaining bits of the soundtrack Neil’s fans might need to deal with the tragic ending of his life.

Ghost Riders

Neil Ellwood Peart died on Tuesday, January 7, 2020. At the time of this writing, few details were known about his death, other than that he fought against glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. He had struggled against the disease for more than three years. Neil was survived by his wife, Carrie, his 10 year-old daughter, Olivia, three siblings and, in a type of Shakespeare meets Twilight Zone inhumanity, his parents.

Glioblastoma is a sadistic, dignity-robbing form of cancer for which there is no cure. Depending on the age of the victim and access to medical care death can come in as few as three months or prolonged for up to five years. Death, however, is always certain and can come to its victims in painful, awful ways. Donna Freydkin, Commerce Editor at Fatherly wrote of her husband’s death from glioblastoma, “It kills people in the worst way — by destroying their ability to think and to function.” Her article was commented on by dozens of widows, siblings, and parents of small children torn to shreds by the disease’s malevolence.

For you the blind who once could see, the bell tolls for you — “Losing It”, Neil Peart

It seems exceptionally cruel that this disease should attack the things he’d spent decades building — his mind and his talents. More cruel that he should be aware of the affliction, plundering his thoughts and memories, impairing the cells and silencing the synapses.

While we know little about the progression of Neil’s illness, and in respect to the privacy of the man and his family, we don’t want to know. We can only surmise from descriptions of the disease that it, in the end, it may have been a terrible experience for all of those close to him. For this man and this family who have seen so much tragedy, in Neil’s words: “it’s somehow so badly arranged.”

Shortly after learning of Neil’s death all I could say to myself was, “This is not what was supposed to happen.” A sentiment that would be echoed by all who knew him and fans filling social media posts with their grief. He deserved his second chance.

Now, in a dramatic twist of irony we find ourselves the Ghost Riders. Once again drawing from Neil’s words and his experience with loss and grief spilled into written pages and song lyrics to soothe our own little baby souls.

Earthshine

Neil was writing about himself. In his grief he was comparing his blank expressionless face to the thin faint light of the full moon behind the brightness of the crescent, light reflected from the earth.

Floating high

In the evening sky

I see my faint reflection Pale facsimile

Like what others see

When they look in my direction Earthshine

Stretching out your hand

Full of starlit diamonds

Earthshine Reflected light

To another’s sight

And the moon tells a lover’s story

In the wake of his death, the pale facsimiles are those who are finding it difficult to come to terms with their own grief.

Social media and the blogosphere is full of the confusion of countless fans who cannot explain the sadness the feel for a man that, admittedly, they never really knew.

Photo: Gail Vivian, Geddy Lee Fan Club

“I haven’t cried like this since I lost my Dad 8 years ago. I’m 50 …. been crying on and off for 4 days now.” “ Deep in my gut something has switched off or on… some kind of profound way that hasn’t become clear to me yet.” “ It comes and goes. Weeping for a man I have never met.”

Photo Scott Henderson, Geddy Lee Fan Club

Musicians, those who came before Neil and those who came after, talk of the inspiration they drew from his playing.

“His power, precision and composition was incomparable. He was called ‘The Professor’ for a reason: we all learned from him.” — Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters “A pensive, sharp-witted intellect whom I looked up to and admired greatly.” — Les Claypool, Primus “Neil was one of the great drummers and he’ll be missed. Love & mercy to Neil’s family.” — Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys “Thank you for inspiring me and for all your help and advice along the way, especially in the early days when you took the time to talk to a young green Danish drummer about recording, gear and the possibilities that lay head.” — Lars Ulrich, Metallica “The GAWD. All respect due to the legend. RIP” — Questlove

My son Nick Weber

My son, percussionist Nick Weber, shared his thoughts,

“Neil Peart has been without doubt the greatest and primary influence on me as a musician. His ever sprawling campaign to extend himself and his abilities in the art world is one for the history books for sure. Never satisfied with things just being the way they were Neil always tried to find some hitch toward innovation. Be it trying to find the most musical, and nuanced way to approach a rock song, or trying to distill his heart into concrete words and images, Neil constantly pushed himself upwards. Never have I been so influenced by anyone else in music. Neil was the total genesis for my respective journey, and will remain a guiding light to me as I steer through those choppy waters we call life. Thank you Professor. Rest In Peace.”

Epilogue — The Garden

In the epilogue to the novel Clockwork Angels which Neil co-wrote with author Kevin J. Anderson, the books protagonist, Owen Hardy, describes his plan for retirement. As I prepared my research for this article, I revisited Owen Hardy, as narrated by Neil Peart, on Audible describing the wisdom a fortune teller had once shared with him:

“’Measure your life not by schedules or riches, the treasure of a life is a measure of love and respect’. Love and respect...I had been carrying those words around with me for years. Some people want fabulous wealth, some want great power, some people like me wanted amazing adventures and to see the wonders of the universe…If you scrape away the gold paint, the ornate facade or just the covering of dirt everybody wants to be loved and respected…I realized that love and respect are the greatest gifts that we can receive. The greatest legacy we can leave behind. It’s an elegy we’d like to hear with our own ears. ‘You are loved and respected’. If even one person could say that about me, I’d consider it a worthy achievement. If I can multiply that many times by living each day with the kind of integrity and generosity that earns respect and love that is true success!”

There was no mistaking that while Neil was speaking for Owen, he was describing the tenants by which he had lived his life. In the days since learning of his death, an outpouring of love and respect have filled media outlets from fans, reporters, and other musicians. Like it or not, Neil left behind a tremendous legacy. Stories from fans and friends show he multiplied it many times by living each day as if he himself had inspired the wisdom of the fortune teller.

Photo Chris Stankee “A thoughtful father, reading to his daughter, her head on his shoulder.”

After years of traveling with the family carnival, Owen and his beautiful wife, Francesca, were preparing to retire on a large plot of land he had purchased from treasure gained during his far-flung adventures. Here he describes joyful scenes of watching his children and grandchildren work, practice, and play as they prepare for the carnival’s next touring season. After a life on the road where he found incredible joy and beauty along with heartbreaking tragedy, he was ready for a simple life. Owen planned to live out his days tending to his garden and writing his memoirs.

The epilogue of Clockwork Angels described a simple quality of life that Owen Hardy had hoped for himself. I couldn’t help but hear a bit of wistfulness, perhaps even envy in Neil’s voice as he spoke for Owen. Maybe it was there..maybe it was imagined.

In any case, it’s what I wanted for Neil.

Nick smiling as I muddle my way through “Red Barchetta” on my 50th birthday.

We Hold On

Neil’s life is a lesson in persistence. It’s absolutely not lost on this fan, that Neil has shown us all that after the grieving and soul searching, it’s time for us to get back to living.

The Ghost Rider returns to the stage.

Through his words and actions Neil has left a legacy that provides many touchstones for us all, but perhaps the most important of these is the simple question he would ask himself each morning, “What is the most excellent thing I can do today?”

Do good, get good.