The drummer Neil Peart said will never be forgotten: “He had guided so many”
From the minute that Neil Peart picked up a pair of sticks, the goal wasn’t to be the same kind of madman that Keith Moon was.
He wanted to be the best at his craft, and while he could have done without the headaches that came along with fame, it’s not like he was losing sleep over the amount of respect that he got from his fellow players and his peers. He was a god among drummers in many respects, but even if he was forgotten along the way, he knew that certain drummers had styles that would go on long after that final snare hit.
But when you think about it, Peart served as the greatest teacher any kid could have asked for if they were learning rock and roll. He wasn’t called ‘The Professor’ by accident, and while not every one of Rush’s songs had the greatest linear storyline straight through, it was impossible for anyone not to be blown away the minute that he dug into his kit and piled on every single appendage that he could to his setup, all of which would be used at least once whenever the band played.
The pure spectacle of his kit was one thing, but the muscle that he put into everything was a much different story. This was the answer to John Bonham that a lot of people thought they would never get to see, and yet Peart remained one of the few drummers that made everything look easy, which isn’t exactly a walk in the park when you’re having to play at the speed of light while also changing time signatures.
It was a sight to behold back in the day, but there came a point where Peart started to feel a little bit too stagnant. He was still playing to the best of his abilities, but where do you go when you’ve conquered the greatest challenges that any drummer can face? You can’t just forget everything you know and start from scratch, so the next best thing was for Peart to start taking lessons from Freddie Gruber.
Gruber was already a powerhouse on his own, having worked on jazz drumming his entire life before meeting Peart, so when ‘The Professor’ called him up, it wasn’t so much about the finesse. He wanted to get that same feeling back into his drumming again, and after years of playing to click tracks and developing a perfect sense of rhythm, Gruber helped bring out the natural player that he always wanted to be.
So while Gruber might not have been the most recognisable face in rock and roll, PEart felt that his students would carry on what he did until the end of time, saying, “Freddie Gruber was loved and appreciated during his lifetime. He had guided so many of his students into finding their own voices on the drums. All of those musicians will continue to pass along that fundamental and immortal language of human life, to listeners and to younger drummers, and thus Freddie’s place in that divine continuum will continue to resonate forever. He will be missed, but he is not gone.”
Although Peart was a much different drummer after working with Gruber, the real test was hearing his bandmates play with him. He still sounded like his old self whenever he started playing on his own, but once the rest of the instruments were brought in around him, there was a lot more breath in the way that he played that didn’t have to be worked out on a drum machine to sound perfect.
After all, some of Peart’s greatest fills almost sounded inhuman, so hearing him improving and adding that human feel back into his drumming was the best thing he could have done. And for someone that many would consider to be the greatest of all time, the fact that he could still improve was all that anyone could have asked for.
