Two Rush songs Neil Peart used to challenge himself as a drummer
Rush, Pink Floyd, and Yes—all of prog rock can be traced back to Cream’s innovative writing style.
It’s difficult to pin down the origin of prog rock due to the fact that its spontaneity and unpredictability are what make it special. There are plenty of musicians who have made something unpredictable, and they all play a part, but all Rush members would admit that their adoration of music was triggered by Cream.
“Cream sort of changed my life,” said Geddy Lee, echoing the sentiments of his bandmates. “They blew my mind and I remember they were coming to Toronto. I couldn’t get any of my friends interested to go see them; they were playing at Massey Hall, and I went down and bought a ticket, and I went by myself.”
Rush was so influenced by the band that the majority of their first gigs together were spent playing Cream covers. While many may see this as filler while the band tried to find their definitive sound, this time together helped the band appreciate the complex nature of the music that they wanted to make. As fans of prog rock and a band who were desperately keen on making great prog rock, these songs showed the band that the road ahead wouldn’t be easy.
Since then, Rush has progressed to cement itself as one of the great prog rock bands on the planet. The genre that is celebrated for being impossible to define remains even more so as Rush completely pushes the boundaries of what can be achieved through music. Whether you want a 10-minute epic or a quick, radio-friendly rock song, you’ll find it with Rush.
Every single member is integral to achieving this unique sound; without one of the power trio, the band wouldn’t have achieved the excellent range that they did. However, making this kind of music didn’t come without its challenges. Drummer Neil Peart admitted that when the band were writing music, some ideas came to him straight away, but others posed massive hurdles that took a while for him to overcome.
“I mentioned before the dichotomy of balancing simple and complex, which is something that is always difficult,” he said, “I find simple parts challenging for me. The most challenging aspect of new music is coming up with the right part or the right pattern. Some things just seem to fall together, where I hear the piece and immediately have an idea, and luckily it works. However, that’s the exception.”
When talking about the band’s 1989 album Presto, Peart said that the songs ‘Show Don’t Tell’ and ‘Scars’ were particular challenges for him. With the former, he was attempting to drum a funk beat under a syncopated guitar riff, which proved incredibly difficult. Meanwhile, on ‘Scars’, Peart was left to play the snare and bass drum with his feet, while hitting pads with his hands to give the drums a unique sound.
“There’s another song on the album, called “Scars.” On this song I was playing eight different pads with my hands in a pattern, while I played snare and bass drum parts with my feet,” explained Peart, “I was using paradiddles with my hands to get the accents in the right place and on the right pads. Then I had to organize the different sounds on the pads correctly so they would fall in the order I wanted them to.
“Then I had to arrange all of that into a series of rhythmic patterns, not just one. It was more than a day’s work before I even played a note […] That was a challenge of a different sort, but it came about in an interesting way.”
The band have had it ingrained into their creativity from their very first gigs that making music wasn’t going to be easy, meaning Peart happily accepts these challenges. While ‘Show Don’t Tell’ and ‘Scars’ were tricky to put together, the songs themselves turned out excellent.
