How I wish I could play drums for Rush. It sounds like a dream come true because you would have more opportunities to use your creative skills than with most other bands. However, it would also be very demanding. The band Rush is well-known for their ability to switch up their sound and style. It’s as if it were a second language to them. It’s incredible to listen to, but it takes a lot of skill for a drummer to keep up with; fortunately, they have Neil Peart.
Not because of his playing, but rather because of “the usual chain of circumstances and accidents,” Peart once described how he ended up in the band. “I came from a city that’s about 60 or 70 miles from Toronto.” A few musicians from my hometown moved to Toronto and were playing with bands there. They thought I had the right kind of style.
“I guess they tried a few drummers,” he said, “but we just clicked.” I immediately felt a deep musical empathy between the new concepts they were working on and my own musical ideas. We also share a lot of interests outside of music.
With a band like Rush, an instant connection will undoubtedly be required. Both their albums and songs are lengthy and intricate. It takes a tremendous amount of patience and coordination for musical minds to come up with that flawless sound. They need to achieve it before committing it to wax. Some of the most exciting albums in recent decades are the result of their apparent discovery of that in one another.
Naturally, you have to be proficient in some genres and ready to go when you play in a band like Rush. It’s interesting to consider who Peart’s main influences are. You have a musician with his versatility and ability to experiment with a variety of styles and sounds. Despite the fact that he admires many drummers, he regards one in particular as his mentor.
“Leading all the way back to Keith Moon.” He said, “Moon gave me a new idea of freedom and that there was no need to be a fundamentalist. He was one of my favorite mentors; it’s hard to decide what drummers taught you what things.” His method of adding crash cymbals in the midst of a roll was really appealing to me.
Given that Neil Peart has centered much of his career around being an anti-fundamentalist, Moon was clearly a major influence on him. It turns out that one of the reasons Rush songs are so exciting is that they are so difficult to categorize. We can partly attribute this to Keith Moon. We were gifted one of the most thrilling rhythm sections in rock music. Peart demonstrated to him that drumming is more complex than simply keeping a beat.
