The member Rush thought wasn’t cool enough to join: “My first thought was he’s a little goofy”
Anyone who even thinks about joining a prog rock band usually has to go through certain qualifications. No one can manage to make a 20-minute piece work without putting themselves through their paces, and the greatest players of all time need to practice multiple scale exercises before they even think about getting to primetime. But even when auditioning for Rush, you wouldn’t think that coolness would really be a factor.
Because when looking at the group during their tenure, they were never considered to be at the top of the musical food chain. They always claimed themselves as the world’s most popular cult band, and even if that meant that they never had a great relationship with the charts, that wasn’t going to stop any fan from not singing along to every word of ‘Limelight’ or playing air-bass every time one of Geddy Lee’s massive fills comes in on ‘YYZ’.
When the group first started getting the ball rolling, it wasn’t guaranteed that they would be prog-rock overlords. The band was started by Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee when they were still barely out of school, and even if they bonded more over a sense of humour in those early days, something changed in their collective DNA when they listened to bands like Led Zeppelin for the first time.
And looking at their first attempts at writing, they were clearly a Zeppelin knockoff in many respects. While Lifeson had some great riffs in him, it’s clear that ‘Working Man’ came from someone who listened to a little too much Jimmy Page in his bedroom, but things started to take a turn once John Rutsey left the band. The drummer needed to focus on his health more than anything, and with the drum throne open, Neil Peart got the chance to sit in with them after a long drive from St Catherine’s.
Although Peart’s skills spoke for themselves, he wasn’t necessarily the most eye-catching badass in the room. Since he rolled up in his mother’s Pinto, most of the drums made him look huge, and by the time he set up everything, both Lee and Lifeson were already starting to have their doubts about even auditioning him.
According to Lee, he felt that Peart was a bit odd choice for a hard rock band, saying, “This car pulls up with this sort of gangly guy, really kind of short hair. My first thought was he’s a little goofy.” That’s being generous compared to Lifeson’s reaction: “I remember thinking, “God, he isn’t nearly cool enough to be in this band.”
But the minute that Lee heard him playing the kick drums alone, he was sold. Compared to most other drummers, most of Peart’s strengths came from raw power and mathematical accuracy, playing the most complex drum fills with the internal metronome so precise that it felt like he had some sort of computer installed in his brain to make sure everything came off on the right time. And that’s before even getting into the lyrics.
While Rush’s lyrics would get more esoteric once Peart started writing them, it was clear that prog rock had an intellectual lyricist at the helm. Most of the group’s previous lyrics had the standard sex, drugs, and rock and roll style lyrics, but only someone with Peart’s level of mental capacity could make a song revolving around the trees sound interesting.
While Rush would eventually get their cool points later, none of them seemed to have any problems being known as the founders of nerd rock. It might not be the most en-vogue thing to listen to, but there’s a certain purity to their music that isn’t lost on the thousands of prog fans who still follow their every move.
