Rush’s Geddy Lee reveals drummers touted themselves to him following Neil Peart’s death: “Completely inappropriate”
Rush’s Geddy Lee has condemned the drummers who tried to offer their services following the death of Neil Peart in 2020.
At the time of Peart’s death, Rush had been inactive for several years following the conclusion of their farewell tour in 2015.
Nevertheless, despite the last thing on Lee’s mind while he was grieving his late friend was to get the band back together with a new drummer, he’s now revealed that many indirectly touted themselves for the position.
In a new interview with Guitar World, Lee said that the band’s “good friends that are successful drummers would never infer something like that because they have too much respect, not only for Neil and for the situation.”
However, that attitude didn’t extend to the whole musical fraternity, adding, “There were many other drummers who reached out to me in the aftermath of Neil’s passing that were pushing themselves, and that was most distasteful to me.”
Lee then blasted their behaviour as “completely inappropriate timing”.
When Lee and Alex Lifeson did eventually decide to get Rush back together with a new drummer, it was Anika Nilles who received the call-up after she was recommended to the band by a tech who worked alongside her in the Jeff Beck Group, rather than her approaching the duo.
Lee added in regards to Nilles being the perfect fit, “We called her up, she came, and we hit it off. She brought a lot to the table, but more than her chops, more than her guts, and her willingness to sit in that hot seat, she brought an intelligence and a story.”
Previously, Lifeson lifted the lid on their difficult start to life with Nilles during her initial rehearsals with the band, sharing, “It wasn’t quite working with the three of us. We were thinking that maybe we should continue with someone else, just to see how that might feel.”
However, that all eventually changed on the fifth day of rehearsals with Lifeson revealing, “She took all our comments about feel, about Neil’s feel and the way he played, and being very cognisant of the ability that he had, and bang! She nailed the songs all day. It was a real ‘Wow!’ moment.”
The days are now counting down until Rush begins the North American leg of their reunion tour on June 7th in Los Angeles. Due to phenomenal demand, it was extended multiple times, taking their total number of planned dates to more than 50 and keeping them on the road from June to December.
Next year, they will take their tour international, with visits lined up to Argentina, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Poland, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Music Newsletter
All the latest music news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.