“Biggest Rush fanatic”: Mike Portnoy’s favourite Neil Peart drum fills
Few rock outfits touch the surface of the monumental impact achieved by Rush. Setting a new standard for the prog-rock boom, Rush led the charge for over four decades, constantly adapting their sound and remaining ahead of the curve. At the fore of this was Neil Peart, whose unwavering commitment to consistently bettering their sound pushed them from being a great band to one among legends.
A true architect of percussion, Peart knew better than anybody the value of staying ahead, whether that meant constantly practising or ensuring that every approach before touring remained slightly different from the last. He also knew more than most the efficacy of the moments of downtime, when most musicians would think they had fallen into the early stages of writer’s block.
However, for Peart, every aspect of creativity was integral to the process and wouldn’t work any other way. As he once reflected during an interview with Drum: “If some days it feels like you’re only going through the motions, don’t worry, because those motions will still add up to an ever-growing facility and understanding that will one day blossom into something new, as if by magic.”
This drive to constantly move and shift with the times ensured Peart was always a musical forerunner, even when he shifted his gaze from traditional rock figures to reinvent his playing style throughout the 1980s and 1990s by studying those further afield. For instance, operating under the tutelage of Freddie Gruber in the ’90s allowed him to expand his musical horizons with a more fluid and diverse approach, cutting into jazz and other genres in a way that made his own style feel completely limitless.
While almost every Rush song shows off his prowess in varying ways, some stand out more than others, like their hit ‘Tom Sawyer’, which possesses an extraordinary balance of precision, energy, and boundary-pushing. ‘YYZ’, ‘2112 (Temples of Syrinx)’, ‘Subdivisions’, ‘The Spirit of Radio’, and countless others also make a show of Peart’s technical brilliance, proving that not only did he master precision but adopted the kind of versatility that made any track feel unpredictable but entirely grounded.
As a result, Peart remains a significant touchpoint for many, including Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy, who appears steadfast in the belief that the drummer is entirely untouchable. “Peart was my guy,” he told Loudwire, admitting that he was “the biggest Rush fanatic” during his teen years and embarked on a quest to learn all of Peart’s parts.
Some of those early fills became his favourites of all time, including the intro segment to ‘Lakeside Park’, alongside the varying explosions that occur throughout the entirety of ‘2112 (Temples of Syrinx)’ that, according to Portnoy, ensure it remains interesting and dynamic from start to finish—in a way that only Peart could have pulled off. “It was all those really cool Peart-isms that I cut my teeth on,” he said, “That’s how I learned how to play a big drum kit. For so many years, Neil was my biggest drum hero.”
Given Dream Theater’s roots in early iteration prog-rock, it’s clear why Peart would be the first to ignite his fire for great percussion playing, knowing his ability not only to adopt an unmatched level of precision and energy but to tell a story with drum parts that enhanced the weight and depth of any song. Peart’s playing wasn’t just pragmatic in its beauty; it was also visceral and emotionally engaging, which inspired countless others to learn how to play in a way that blended narrative with music.
