The Musical Schizo

Sometimes people are famous for one particular thing, but in reality, there’s so much more they have to offer the world than just that one particular thing.

Steve Martin was one of the most popular live comedians of the 1970s, and well-known from his many TV appearances. Then he was one of the biggest comedic movie stars of the 1980s. But it turns out he had more to offer, because he was also a successful novelist, and a truly amazing musician. Just full of surprises, that wild and crazy guy.

People like to typecast people, though – think of them for the one thing that they know them from. And as humans, that can be hard to shake, because once we associate someone with something, we kind of get stuck.

I feel like Neil Peart is another one of those people. He’s almost universally known as one of the best rock drummers ever. Top 5, for sure, on almost anyone’s list. Surely for most musicians. Neil influenced countless drummers. He pushed people to excel in ways they would have never considered before hearing him attack a drum kit. He played with the deep knowledge of a true craftsman, composing drum symphonies that showed his ability to float around the kit with the finesse of a dancer and pound them into oblivion with the bludgeoning brutality of a street fighter.

“The Professor” (as he became known) played intricate, fully-composed pieces that formed the foundation of some of the best progressive hard rock ever created. Not as self-absorbed as Yes, not as esoteric and weird as Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, not as inaccessible as Mahavishnu Orchestra or King Crimson, but not as pedestrian as so many other 70s rock bands. His band Rush managed to always do what was true to them, no matter whether it was a basic rocker with some clever musicianship, or 20-minute space operas. And they managed to evolve all the way through their career, honing their songcraft and tackling big picture ideas through their lyrics. Neil’s drumming was a standout feature of Rush – it was the hook that made people get used to Geddy Lee’s interesting vocal approach, and overshadowed Geddy and guitarist Alex Lifeson’s amazing individual performances.

Drumming is where Neil Peart became a superstar. He won “best drummer” over and over as he constantly challenged himself to perfect his style and evolve as the muse carried him to different places. Starting with a Bill Bruford-meets-Keith Moon attack on Rush’s early records, capturing the precision and complexity of Bruford’s approach, mating it with the manic intensity of Moon. As his playing evolved, he expanded on the progressive aspects, exploring crazy time signatures and polyrhythms and an ever-growing palette of sounds leading to an ever-growing drum kit, featuring orchestral bells, wind chimes, and all sorts of other percussion. This excess appealed to the aspirational musician kids of the 70s in much the same way the flash and showmanship of KISS launched thousands of hard rock garage bands.

But this wasn’t all of what Neil offered. You see, all of those big themes Rush was exploring in their music, all those fantasy and science-fiction narratives and Randian philosophy, which then evolved into many songs about fame and society and culture, then to socially-conscious takes on life in the 80s and personal songs about how we connect and relate to one another – all of those ideas were Neil’s. The big thoughts, big dreams, tapestries of lovely words and stories that went over Rush’s complex and aggressive but often equally-beautiful music were from his mind. Most people would never expect the drummer to write all the words to all the songs, but Neil did. Because Neil was as much a student of drums as he was of the human condition.

Suspicious of strangers, always, but empathetic and always curious, Neil was a self-taught intellectual. In his words and philosophy, he evolved from his younger dalliances with the selfish materialism of Rand into understanding the value of being connected and looking out for one another in the face of the oppression that is modern life. He evolved into a “bleeding-heart libertarian” as he aged, understanding the value of our shared responsibility, while maintaining his fierce independence and privacy.

His life ended up being one of massive success that crumbled into heartbreaking tragedy when he lost his partner and his daughter within less than a year of one another – his entire family, his two most important people – gone. This spun him out into a few years of just riding his motorcycle all over North America, chronicled in the wonderful (and kind of painful) book, “Ghost Rider”. This was Neil’s second book, but the first one I’d been able to get my hands on, and though I was already 100% in on Neil as a drummer and lyricist, as Rush was my favorite band, it was surprising to me how much I enjoyed him as an author, too. He’s a big fan of description and prose, which I sometimes find distracting, but I never felt like it took you away from the story – reading his books with all their detail and lyrical flourish was just like listening to someone with a particular accent. He wrote many other books, most chronicles of his favorite music or stories from the road, the last few being books containing as many beautiful pictures as words.

But getting to the whole point of this – most musicians really only knew Neil as the masterful drummer that he was. Most never knew how wonderful a lyricist, writer, and storyteller he was.

Rush only got the true respect they deserved by the mainstream press until their later years as a band, but they always maintained their rabid fanbase, most accompanying them through musical and stylistic changes because as a live band, they were absolutely amazing every time.

With the huge bump in Rush’s popularity following the excellent documentary “Beyond The Lighted Stage”, people started to learn about Neil for more than his drumming. They started to learn he was the wordsmith and storyteller behind all of Rush’s classic songs. They learned about his writing, his idiosyncratic personality, his privacy. And they finally learned about his true brilliance, which went far beyond pummeling a GIANT drum kit in varying bars of 5/8, 6/8, and 4/4.

After his horrible tragedy he did end up meeting a wonderful lady in California and having another child late in life, who apparently has “the gift” and is learning to drum. The last five years of Neil’s life, after he retired from playing in 2015, were spent with his little girl and his wife Carrie, a photographer (the art kind, not the media or wedding kind). That is, of course, when he wasn’t fighting the monster that eventually took his life – glioblastoma.

I’ve said many times FUCK CANCER but this one really hurts. We lost Neil a little over a year ago, on January 7, 2020 (though most in the public didn’t find out until a few days later – a testament to everyone close to him that fiercely protected his privacy because of their love for him). In these weird pandemic times it somehow seems like it was simultaneously yesterday and a decade ago.

Neil taught me so many things about music.

I learned to count my first odd time signature because of him (and his song “Subdivisions”).
I learned that you can be intellectual and poetic and write and sing flowery prose while you are rocking someone’s face off.
I learned that there is always something more to learn, through his mid-90s complete deconstruction of his playing where he tried to swing more and learn to be more improvisational.
I learned that being in a band with your best friends is fantastic. That level of trust makes everything musical that much easier.
I learned how to listen for all the individual parts of an arrangement.
And I learned that you should always follow your muse with all your heart.

I already missed him, since he retired in 2015 with Rush’s final show and had mostly been staying out of view, save for some writing on his blog. Unfortunately I missed out on seeing Rush’s final tour when it came through Austin, largely because I was quite poor at the time. I did see them multiple times over the years, though, and every show was awesome. I’m proud to say that my daughter’s first rock concert was a Rush show. (And she loved it!)

So, this may be long but it’s way too short to truly express how much of an impact Neil Peart made on my life. All I can say is thanks.

And well done, Professor.

TMS