Drummer for Canadian band Rush dies at 67
Neil Peart, the renowned drummer and lyricist from the influential Canadian band Rush, has died. He was 67.
His representative, Elliot Mintz, said in a statement Friday that Peart died at his home Tuesday in Santa Monica, California. The band posted on Twitter confirming the news.
“It is with broken hearts and the deepest sadness that we must share the terrible news that on Tuesday our friend, soul brother and band mate over 45 years, Neil, has lost his incredibly brave three and a half year battle with brain cancer,” the band wrote. “Rest in peace brother.”
Peart placed fourth on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time, just behind Ginger Baker, Keith Moon and John Bonham. Peart’s jawdropping percussion skills, though, were matched by his wondrous skill with lyrics as Rush composed song after thought-provoking song that deftly explored the human condition or conjured up mysterious realms beyond the humdrum life of the band’s heyday in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. Peart was precise, deliberate and skilled behind his sprawling drum kit, but his innovative lyrics helped set Rush apart from other prog rock bands.
Rush was a power trio that rock had never quite seen before, with the searing guitar work of Alex Lifeson, the bass, keyboards and vocals of Geddy Lee and the fantastical drumming of Peart, who was no mere backing member of the rhythm section but rather an indispensable leg of the unusual tripod. The band still finds airplay today with anthems like “The Spirit of Radio” and “Tom Sawyer” — perhaps its best-known song — and “Subdivisions,” with its searing assessment of early ’80s life in cookie-cutter housing tracts: “Be cool or be cast out.”
The band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, and honored for combining “the signature traits of progressive rock with a proto typical heavy-metal sound.”
Peart was born on Sept. 12, 1952, in Ontario. Music became an outlet for the self-described introvert who remained a quiet, under-the-radar star his entire career.
“I was very academic until I discovered drums,” he explained in a 2017 interview with Classic Rock. “Then I was a monomaniac about drumming.”