Neil Peart's death following cancer immediately ended the Canadian Rush group. Back on the career of an exceptional drummer.
Neil Peart grew up in Port Dalhousie, Ontario. He will spend his adolescence between regional groups in pursuing a full -time drummer career. One year older than Lee And Lifeson,, Neil Peart has already spent 18 months in England at the end of his adolescence, receiving a meager salary in a Carnaby Street jewelry store, The Great Frog, while trying to join a group.
When he auditions for Rush, Lee and Lifeson are, according to the first, “completely blown”. The powerful and complex Peart technique results from a“monomania“Advantly dating back to his years of adolescence in a semi-rural Ontario. But, as Lee says,”We were guys from the city and therefore, in our eyes, Neil was a bumper. He had a bizarre, tagged look, and he worked in his father's agricultural equipment shop. It was found a little plouc. But he was much more experienced than us.»
Neil Peart is also a great devourer of books, a fairly rare phenomenon among rock musicians. Lee and Lifeson suggest that he write the words of the group, but it will take a certain persuasion to convince him. “Extroverts do not always understand introverts,” will recognize the drummer.
Neil Peart's literary side adds a new dimension to Rush. On the second album, Fly by nighthis talent for telling evocative stories highlights the group’s increasingly grandiose music. “Rivendell” refers to Tolkien; “By-Tor & The Snow Dog” imagines a mythical battle between good and evil, its protagonists who were baptized according to the two Clébards of the manager Danniels, Biter and Snowdog. “Anthem” is more revealing; Peart appropriated the title of a 1938 novel by Ayn Rand. This philosopher born in Russia is the author of The fountainhead (The lively source). Peart will later quote Rand as the main source of inspiration for 2112.
This connection will cause the greatest controversy of the group's career. By recognizing the influence ofAyn RandPeart aligns with a thinker whose theory of objectivism can be interpreted as “enlightened personal interest”, which Neil Peart keeps, or, at worst, as a form of extreme right capitalism. In an interview of 1978 given to Nmehe is attacked on the convictions he shares with Rand. Peart, who describes himself as “An ultra-liberal with a sensitive heart”recalls a “Intellectual conversation” with the journalist Barry Miles.
But the published article establishes a parallel with the Nazis (“The shadow of the a hundred years?”Miles advance). Peart feels“completely betrayed“. Lee, given the story of his family, is furious.” I wanted to kill this guy, “he said.” How dared to describe us as fascists? ” “I was surprised by the noise it made,” Miles will specify much later. Wave permanent is also a transition album for Peart as a lyricist. The influence of Rand is still obvious to “Freewill”, but he got rid of Tolkien and Coleridge. Rush's very look is different. No more prophetic dresses and mustache. The drummer now has short and LifeSon hair wears a fine New Wave tie.
In 1981 released the group's best -selling album. Moving Pictures Defines the sound of the new rush and leads the Canadian charts and ranks number 3 in England and the United States, but this new celebrity irritates Peart. The text of “Limelight” – “I cannot pretend a foreigner was a long -awaited friend … We have to put barriers to preserve ourselves” – Recall those of Roger Watersof Pink FloydIn The Wall. “” “The Wall is also the story of my life“Said Peart.”Isolation – as musicians on tour, we all experienced this. “
In the early 1990s, Rush was considered “The biggest cult group in the world”, Waterproof to fashions. But towards the end of this decade, a disaster occurred which seems to defeat the group. In July 1997, Selena, the 19 -year -old daughter of Peart died in a car accident. Ten months later, her partner Jacqueline Taylor dies of cancer. At the funeral of her daughter, Peart says to Lee and Lifeson:”Consider me as retired.”Lifeson remembers it as if it was yesterday:“That day, the group ceased to exist. It was only a question of Neil and how he could get out of it.»
Peart leaves to cross North America on a motorcycle for months, trips of which he will later make the chronicle in his memories, Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road. Finally, in 2001, after marrying photographer Carrie Nuttall, he called Lee and Lifeson and told them that he is ready to rework. AFTERIMAGE will be released: “a reaction to a tragedy,“He will say. After Peart's return, Rush is more in sight than he has been since the 1980s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwrmojqdilu
More positively, the group's rating dates back in 2010 with the release of a documentary. Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage Contains fascinating extracted from a TV shooting in the early 1970s never broadcast in which a teenager lifes is argued with his parents about his rock'n'roll life choice. We also see the three members of Rush during a recent dinner at the restaurant, completely drunk (“It was a crazy evening“Says Lee.”Typical”). He especially reveals one of the rarest things: a successful rock group in which friendship has continued. According to Peart:“ Jhe know how it can happen – I am friends with (the police drummer) Stewart Copeland. But we share something both musical and personal.»
The 19thth and last Rush studio album, Clockwork Angelsreleased in 2012. And although the group is reluctant to use the term, it is obviously a concept album. In addition, the story he tells – influenced by science fiction steampunk, with a hero taken between the police and chaos – presents more than a vague resemblance to that of the album that triggered everything, 2112. Rush will loop the loop. And as Peart wrote on Hemispheresa long time ago, in 1978 (in French in the text): “What goes around comes around…”Despite some return and concerts here and there, Peart dies on January 7 in Santa Monica of brain cancer. And Rush will remain for eternity one of the largest cult groups but unfortunately underestimated, in the history of rock.
