This interview was intended for a drum magazine that folded before it could be published, then was split into 2 parts and published in the summer and fall issues of Drum Science. Conducted in April of 1991, Neil was very open and candid about Rush's evolution as a band and as song writers.

A Rush Through History With Neil PearT — Part 1

The one word that best describes Neil Peart is phenomenon. Whether you love his drumming or hate it (there are very vocal groups on both sides), you have to admit that he has had a major impact on rock drumming, and drumming in general. A true testament to his popularity comes from attending various drum clinics were one question is always asked of the clinician: "What do you think of Neil Peart?" Throughout the eighties, Neil won more MODERN DRUMMER polls than anyone else. His response has been one of amazement and mystery. He just does his best and doesn't really know why he should be so popular.

I'll never forget the first time I saw Neil. Rush was just an unknown opening band added to a three-band billing. As such, I didn't pay much attention to them at first. The band was okay, but the drummer was something special! Seated behind a chrome Slingerland double bass kit, he played with such precision and authority. I wasn't sure if the band would ever be a hit, but I knew the drummer was destined for bigger things. The next day was spent finding out who the band, and especially the drummer was .

As it is, it's nearly twenty years later and Neil Peart and his band mates in Rush, guitarist Alex Lifeson and Bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee, are still going strong. The band is an amazing success story. With little radio airplay or record company support, they have survived the critic's scorn to become one of the most successful bands of the last twenty years.

All this has not been easy. Rush has shunned the typical rock star lifestyle and mentality, preferring instead to work hard at their music and lead an almost reclusive existence. The fact is, all three members are very private people. They have never been media darlings making the tabloid headlines. Also, with the exception of two recordings, they have not worked outside of Rush (Neil shared the drumming with Steve Smith on one track of Jeff Berlin's VOX HUMANA album and the entire band played on the track, "Battlescar" from Max Webster's UNIVERSAL JUVENILES album). All this, along with their serious attitude, has helped them earn a reputation as being aloof. Far from it, they just value their privacy and want to lead normal lives.

I found Neil to be a very warm and open person. Although he doesn't believe in looking back, he was very open and candid about Rush's growth and explorations through the years. Rather than being an interview about drums and hardware, it turned into a much more interesting look at the man behind the drums

Peart joined Rush on the heels of their first album release, simply titled RUSH. At the time, the band was highly derivative of Led Zeppelin and other current heavy rock bands. When the original drummer left on the eve of their first American tour, Peart was brought in with two days to learn the material and hit the road.

FLY BY NIGHT

Peart's first recording with the band showed a more focused group, with more depth and originality. "I think Alex and Geddy wanted to go in a different direction [than the first record]," Neil says, "but were held back by my predecessor. My enthusiasm was a catalyst, allowing them to go in a direction they wanted to." Part of this change came from Peart's contribution as lyricist for the group. "It was an added part of the vehicle," he says. "The lyrics were more by default than anything-the other guys weren't particularly interested in doing it. I had only written two or three songs before that. I'd always loved words and reading, so I thought this was an opportunity I'd like to try. At the time, I wasn't serious about it as an ambition or a drive, but it was something that might be mildly entertaining. Gradually I did become obsessed and it became a long term goal to improve and refine it."

Songs like "Bytor And The Snow Dog" expanded the music into stories of epic proportions. "I use the word vehicle," he says, "because all it is lyrically is an excuse to do a lot of things instrumentally. It's good, and the lyrics didn't mean anything really, just the simplest of fantasy stories. But what's important musically is being allowed to work in a cinematic format. That was an important step, because it carried us even up to right now. But nine or ten years ago, when we were doing a lot of involved instrumental pieces that were very cinematic in nature, that was a large step we didn't really appreciate."

Peart's expanded lyrical ideas brought more drama to the music. "Musically," he says, "it just allows you so much scope and visualizing, that you can try to exercise your musical abilities. It was a very important writing tool, and educational too. Much of that stuff I will belittle now as being simple fantasy in the lyrical sense, and pretty formless in the musical sense, but it was school for us. Our earlier records were entirely high school, college, and then university. Step by step we we're learning how to create moods and join pieces of music together to make people feel something, without resorting to clichés or writing love songs to make people sad, or dance songs to make them move. We were trying to find something a little more legitimate."

CARESS OF STEEL

Rush's next release featured the side long epic, "The Fountain Of Lamneth". They were expanding into the more progressive territory dominated by English bands like YES, ELP, and King Crimson. "It was a continued evolution," Neil says, "but dealing with more serious themes musically and lyrically. Again, it was like the second year of high school-that's the best analogy I can make. We were learning more and trying to apply it, being swept away by ourselves.

"In realistic terms, it sold exactly the same [as FLY BY NIGHT], which is a circumstance record people find hard to deal with. Ironically, FLY BY NIGHT was always perceived as being very successful, with CARESS OF STEEL being less so. But what FLY BY MIGHT had been was promising. It sold 125,000 copies, hardly earth shattering, but it was promising and still would be for any band today. The problem on the business side was that CARESS OF STEEL did not live up to it [by selling more]. But this was an album that we loved making and we were very proud of it when it was done. We learned a lot and to my mind it still shines brightly."

In the wake of CARESS OF STEEL, the record company looked at the short term bottom line: sales figures. "They're supposed to look at the numbers," Peart says, "I have no problem with that, but I have a problem with narrow vision and shortsightedness. That's the side of business I object to. I'm not anti-business, I recognize the reality of someone doing that side of things. But I don't want to be a salesman, or manufacture and promote our records ever. That's not my ambition in life. There is a part where all artists need the business side to look after their affairs and help expose them to a potential audience. But I have a problem when they won't .

2112

Record companies are always looking for a new band that can have a million selling debut recording, but these instances are rare at best. "It took us four albums," says Neil, "right up to 2112, to break even and pay for ourselves. Up to that point they were writing us off. The year we released 2112, they had written us off and we were going to be totally negligible in their future. As it happened, that album went gold and established us with power and independence of our own. But even after succeeding without hit singles­by hard work and sincere music with integrity­they would not take that as a valid example. That's ridiculous, because to them it has to happen instantly, or why should they invest their time and money without knowing that the return is going to be quick. That to me is just bad business. In the last 19 years we've seen so many bands come up and be the big thing for six months, we would be ignored by the record company, then they would die out and we would be stars again. In their estimation we go up and down, but in reality we just keep going along selling a good number of records. We're consistent and do well on each of our tours, but it's not exactly what they want. They want the quick buck for sure."

In this business atmosphere, 2112 (their fifth recording), may have been perceived as a "last chance" for Rush to succeed. "I never took it that serious," Neil says. "I didn't care, I was young enough that all that mattered was making the music I wanted to make. So I never looked at it as being 'do or die'. So what, what are they going to take away? They can't really do anything. And that's the importance of the whole business side that musicians never face-they never say no because they think 'Oh God, these people hold the strings to my future and if I don't do as they say...' I have no patience with that, and at that time in my life I could've cared less. I thought if they want to pull the plug, fine, I got to make four albums. How many musicians get to make four albums? I looked at it only in a positive light­well we got to do all this, who cares? If this is the end, fine, I had a good time. I've always felt that the music I want to play is what I care about. I'm not interested on playing top-40 in the bars, playing the kind of music I don't like. Making my living at it [music] is entirely secondary. What's important to me is making the music that I like. I can make my living any other way, I don't care."

Peart's attitude is shared by his band mates, Geddy and Alex. Opinions like this have not helped endear them to the critics. But Rush has always believed in what they're doing. Music is a career they happened to choose and succeed at, they could've just as easily been lawyers, teachers, or truck drivers. Just because they haven't been caught up in the rock star mentality and lifestyle doesn't mean they are indifferent. "You get so upset when you see all the insincerity," Peart says. "You see so many bands become successful on a total lie, on an attitude created partly by them and partly by the record company. To see people taken in like that, at least for a while, it makes you very angry. Especially when you're prepared to do it, quote, 'the honest way'. When you see the sleazes doing it, it's annoying. I get mad about it and I'm inspired to write, because anger is one of the great inspirations that gets me fired up enough to go through all the trouble to put things down.

"There's so much temptation for a band to sell out when a record company says, 'Look, if you cover this song it will be a hit for you', or, 'I know you want to write your own songs, but we've got some good people here that can write hits for you. Just do the song and later you can do what you want'. All those famous clichés, it's ridiculous, because nobody, but nobody ever does that. Because once you've sold out, you lose touch with integrity and have no idea of what you originally wanted to do in the first place. People get so corrupted by the trappings of artificiality. There are a number of rock and jazz casualties who get caught up in something beyond them and totally lose contact with reality, consequently they become lost in alcohol and drugs. It's commonly pointed at rock, but it just occurred to me how much more prevalent it is in jazz."

ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE

Buoyed by the success of 2112, Rush released a live recording that showed the energy and emotion of their live shows. It also signified the end of an era for them. "That was definitely the end of the guitar band days," Neil says, "and the end of an era of searching too, as 2112 marked a point at which we started to find our own ground. The live album thus marked the beginning of being something that was Rush, other than too much of a schizophrenic amalgam. Suddenly with 2112 we cemented something that I think we were going to be from then on ... and then threw it all away!"

A FAREWELL TO KINGS and HEMISPHERES

The next two albums took the band's epic story telling to its greatest extent. The "Cygnus X-I/Hemispheres" tale was contained on a side of each album. This dramatic story told of man struggling to reconcile his two halves: the logical and emotional. "The albums can really be lumped together as being one year of university," Neil explains. "It's like the first year of studying the technique of music very seriously and doing experimental and exploratory arrangements, really getting lost a lot. In retrospect, I can see that a lot of times we were just flailing and doing things that didn't make any sense. But we learned so much that it's hard to be negative about them. And again, I have to shake my head and smile, because a lot of it was lost, but it added up to something. We were lost in worlds of technique and were leaning more about our instruments as individuals. More about playing together and putting music together too . . The whole science of arrangement has become, through that period, the focus. At that time the focus was learning and playing the instruments-everything was instrumental. That's what mattered, the little pieces of music. After we went through that, the focus shifted, right up to the present day, the focus is on arrangement-how to put the pieces of music together. That was an important learning process that established something and allowed us to put something to sleep too. Many musicians never get out of the trap of technique being the end of everything. It's still very important, but I'll never be one of the less is more minimalists. I'm never, ever going to say that feel is more important than technique. There's no comparison, unless you know how to express it, it doesn't matter how much you can feel it. That's also an important distinction we had to learn. At the time we didn't know it- technique was more important than anything else. But that's okay, I think it served its purpose. At a point in anyone's development in a craft or job, you have to go through a period in which the nuts and bolts of the job are absolutely what matters most."

Technique as an exercise at the expense of the song became the trap of many a fusion or metal band. How many bands have you marveled at for the first half hour, then quickly became bored as it all started to sound alike. "The important thing is to come out the other side," Neil says. "A lot of people never enter that doorway, never go to that school, and they just close that door entirely. I think that's a big mistake. At the same time, many musicians musicians, get into that world, become snobby and small time about it and never come out. They quite literally never get out of school. That in any walk of life is an arrested adolescence and I see a lot of musicians frozen in that."

These two records also saw the band expanding musically by adding synthesizers and percussion. In many ways, this helped put behind them the heavy metal power trio label that had defined them for so many years. "We added all that and dove deeply into the world of time signatures," says Neil. "We learned how to put two different tempos together, sometimes making them work, but most times not. It's inevitable to explore, and we had some thematic and cinematic pieces that didn't come off all the time. It's not really important that it's successful-the important thing is that you do them."

As a whole, A FAREWELL TO KINGS/HEMISPHERES has some memorable moments, but often collapses under its own grandiosity, becoming an endurance test for the listener. "I don't look at it as an unqualified success," Neil says. "I remember playing "La Villa Strangiato" after six or seven years. I had to go back to the album and relearn the instrumental, which is ten minutes long. On the record it's subtitled "An exercise in self indulgence", and it truly was. So I was quite amazed by what we were into at the time. A lot of our songs, if they can be called songs, were truly exercises in learning different areas of composition and arrangement."

PERMANENT WAVES

This release found a band that had integrated the synthesizers into shorter, more concise songs. Even Peart's lyrics seemed to be more focused. "We were graduate students," he says, "and arrangement became the focus in songs like "The Spirit Of Radio" and "Free Will". Those were our conscious concerns, [but] we still wanted to wail and have our instrumentals on that album. It kind of had a foot in the past and the future too. That's why it's transitional, we were still working in the school mentality and we weren't deadly serious about our new step yet. But our attention was being attracted by the idea of how to put things together, rather than just come up with tricky things and neat little passages. There's a long 6/8 instrumental passage in "Free Will", but it was carefully arranged. It was the first time we had taken the trouble to carefully construct the dynamics, work on our parts, and get some sense as to what it was going to be as part of the song.

"In retrospect, I find that album pretty satisfactory. That's probably the earliest album I can still listen to without wincing. Everything before that I have reservations about. There's some nice playing on it and it starts to become more satisfying in a structural and song sense. The album was carefully constructed. Even though it was allowed to breathe inside, it was analyzed in every small sense."

Hopefully I can locate a copy of Part 2 sometime soon!

© 1991 Michael Bettine