A hero of mine passed away this week. Neil Peart was more than the drummer for one of my all-time favorite bands. He was an avid motorcycle rider, a voracious reader, and an amazing lyricist and prolific author of books. Peart's lyrical abilities and laws-of-physics defying playing skills propelled Rush's career to astonishing heights and his drumming style influenced a generation of percussionists around the world.
I like to say that I play drums, but I've always been hesitant to label myself a drummer. Neil Peart was a drummer and by comparison, I am just a guy who occasionally plays on his drums. Neil was also a profound writer with a gift for articulating his experiences on the road with Rush and on the road alone on his BMW motorcycle. Neil never rode a tour bus or flew on the band's private jet to gigs. A rider's rider, he would pilot his motorcycle for hours each day, arrive at the band's venue, attend the sound check, and then go to work, playing a three-hour set before discretely ducking out the backstage door and riding off again. When Rush toured overseas, Neil would ship his bike over and ride from gig to gig in whatever country the tour happened to be in. It was common to see him performing his own maintenance changing his motorcycle oil or tires in the concert venue parking lot.

Neil commonly referred to his drumming with Rush as "work". In his books, he would follow up an amazingly descriptive passage or chapter about a particular day's ride with a comment about "going to work tonight". Peart made it clear that Rush was his job, but his family, his writing, and his riding were his passions. Neil played his final show with Rush in 2015 and then retired into obscurity. Rush never played the "final tour" card like so many bands do today. They simply said goodnight at their last show in Los Angeles and have not performed since. With the three members of Rush still living, one could always hold out hope that there could have been another one-off performance, if not a tour. But Neil's passing seals the end of a musical and literary era.
