When I was really young, I was scared to go in my teenage cousin’s room because he had posters of scary women all over his walls. When I got older I realized these scary women were actually men who played in a Canadian prog rock band called Rush. I started hearing the sounds of Rush coming through my older brother’s bedroom door over the next few years, and I was mesmerized. At a time when I was falling in love with the Lord of the Rings triology, this was the perfect music for me both sonically and lyrically. When I was a freshman in high school, my older brother took me to see Rush on the Counterparts tour. It was my first concert.
I got into Rush about the same time I was into Led Zeppelin. I was fascinated by the 70’s in general. Rush was completely different from Led Zeppelin, though. Less testosterone and more sci-fi. I started trying to drum along to what I could of Rush’s music. A lot of it was either too difficult for me at the time, or I didn’t have the extra 15 toms required to play along. But it definitely stretched me. I learned a lot of limb independence from playing with Rush. My favorite to listen to and play along with is “Hemispheres” from the record by the same name.
However dorky it is, I still love Rush, and I think Neil Peart is pretty much the man. It’s just understood. Yes, he has way too many drums. Yes, he writes lyrics about inter-galactic wars set in the future. But he owns it. When you’re that good, you have license to play 36-piece kits and fantasize about living in the Twilight Zone. (Please note that in the photo above, Neil has not one, not two, but three sets of wind chimes.)
Neil Peart is the reason every 12-year-old learning to play drums thinks that there is a direct correlation between the number of drums you have and how skilled you are. It turns out not to be true at all. If you’ve ever seen a 12-year-old doing a fill that incorporates rototoms, you know what I mean. It turns out that the number of drums you have is directly proportional to the number of minutes you can stretch out a song about living in a distant solar federation in 2112 and re-discovering music without it getting boring. Obviously, Neil can stretch that out for a long, long time and I’m still stoked out of my mind.
I liked Rush not just for the drumming but also for the unconventional song structures, the odd meters, and the epic, cohesive nature of their records from the 70’s. If you have heard I Fought Against Myself, you can hear a lot of that influence on those songs. Rush is still an influence. And, yes, I am listening to Rush right now. I recommend anything from their early catalog up through the mid-80’s. Hemispheres, A Farewell to Kings, and Permanent Waves are particularly ace.
