The drummer Neil Peart called Gene Krupa’s successor
The late Rush drummer Neil Peart helped take his instrument into the future. This resulted from his undoubted natural talent and the fact that he had a more expansive drum kit than most, adding a variety of rhythmic textures to the trio’s oeuvre that weren’t necessarily traditional for the rock genre.
There’s no real surprise that Peart was such a monumental drummer. In addition to his technical prowess, his inventive attitude towards his craft created the distinctive style that ballasted everything Rush did. To do so, he took his cues from a list of pioneers, and together, they showed him the way, culminating in Peart rightly taking a seat at the table alongside the greats.
However, the man Neil Peart cited as his number one hero was American jazz drummer, bandleader and composer Gene Krupa, who made his name on Benny Goodman’s 1937 hit ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’. Famously, Krupa impacted drumming so much that the late Led Zeppelin sticksman, John Bonham, simply referred to him as “God”.
Another man who had a defining impact on Neil Peart was The Who’s resident drumming hero, Keith Moon, who “opened” him up to more exciting and less stringent ways of playing the instrument. Peart was so enamoured with Keith Moon that he even drew a parallel between him and Gene Krupa.
“Gene Krupa was the first rock drummer in very many ways. Without Gene Krupa, there wouldn’t have been a Keith Moon,” he once said before building on this point when speaking to Rhythm Magazine in 1987. There, he posited that Keith Moon was Gene Krupa’s successor, describing him as the “heir” to the music industry.
“I think (Gene Krupa’s) rock ‘n’ roll heir was probably Keith Moon. In fact, I see a lot of direct similarities between their playing styles. Even though Keith Moon showed even more abandon and was more sloppy. But he was a drummer who really captured my imagination because he was so free and so exciting because of his freedom. It opened me up,” Peart said.
Notably, whilst Moon’s influence on Peart could be found throughout most of his efforts, it is in the early Rush material that it is most prominent. In these greener days, Peart was a rawer drummer, with the ferocity of his attack and his propensity for explosive dynamism clearly influenced by that of Keith Moon. However, reflecting the British musician’s artistic breadth, his image is also conjured in Peart’s more sophisticated, jazz-influenced moments.
Watch Keith Moon in action below.
