{"id":492904,"date":"2020-01-10T13:58:05","date_gmt":"2020-01-10T20:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=936221"},"modified":"2020-01-10T13:58:05","modified_gmt":"2020-01-10T20:58:05","slug":"neil-peart-rush-drummer-who-set-a-new-standard-for-rock-virtuosity-dead-at-67","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/neil-peart-rush-drummer-who-set-a-new-standard-for-rock-virtuosity-dead-at-67\/","title":{"rendered":"Neil Peart, Rush Drummer Who Set a New Standard for Rock Virtuosity, Dead at 67"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Neil Peart<\/a>, the drummer and lyricist for Rush<\/a>, died Tuesday, January 7th, in Santa Monica, California at age 67. The cause was brain cancer, which he had been quietly battling for three years, according to Elliot Mintz, a spokesperson for the Peart family. A representative for the band confirmed the news to Rolling Stone<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Peart was widely considered one of the best drummers in rock history, with a flamboyant yet utterly precise style that paid homage to his hero, The Who\u2019s Keith Moon, while going well beyond that example. He joined singer-bassist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson in Rush in 1974, and his virtuosic playing and literate, wildly imaginative lyrics  \u2013 which drew on Ayn Rand and science fiction, among other influences \u2013 helped make the trio one of the key bands of the classic-rock era. His drum fills on songs like \u201cTom Sawyer\u201d were pop hooks in their own right, each one an unforgettable mini-composition. A rigorous autodidact and a gifted writer, Peart was also the author of numerous books.<\/p>\n

Peart never stopped believing in the possibilities of rock (\u201ca gift beyond price,\u201d he called it in Rush\u2019s 1980 track \u201cThe Spirit of Radio\u201d) and despising what he saw as over-commercialization of the music industry.  \u201cIt\u2019s about being your own hero,\u201d he told Rolling Stone in 2015. \u201cI set out to never betray the values that 16-year-old had, to never sell out, to never bow to the man. A compromise is what I can never accept.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cNeil is the most air-drummed-to drummer of all time,\u201d former Police drummer Stewart Copeland said in 2015. \u201cNeil pushes that band, which has a lot of musicality, a lot of ideas crammed into every eight bars \u2014 but he keeps the throb, which is the important thing. And he can do that while doing all kinds of cool shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rush finished their final tour in 2015; Peart was done with the road and eager to spend more time with his wife, Carrie Nuttal, and daughter Olivia.<\/p>\n

Peart grew up in Port Dalhousie, a middle-class suburb 70 miles from Toronto. As a teen,  he permed his hair, took to wearing a cape and purple boots on the city bus, and scrawled \u201cGod is dead\u201d on his bedroom wall. At one point, he got in trouble for pounding out beats on his desk during class. His teacher\u2019s idea of punishment was to insist that he bang on his desk nonstop for an hour\u2019s worth of detention, time he happily spent re-creating Keith Moon\u2019s parts from Tommy.<\/em><\/p>\n

This story is developing<\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neil Peart, the drummer and lyricist for Rush, died Tuesday, January 7th, in Santa Monica, California at age 67. The cause was brain cancer, which he had been quietly battling for three years, according to Elliot Mintz, a spokesperson for the Peart family. A representative for the band confirmed the news to Rolling Stone. Peart […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-492904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-music-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-24 04:56:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KQZR - The Reel","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}