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MusicRadar.com republish a classic interview in which he looked back on a lifetime of study. Below is pasted an excerpt of the full interview, at the bottom will be a link to the full interview.
“It’s been my life’s tangent,” says Neil Peart on the subject of the pursuit of excellence. Since he joined Rush back in 1975, Neil has been the poster boy for prog – a disciplined, metronomic and powerful player. More than 35 years since he joined the world’s foremost power trio, Rush are still breaking new ground.
It’s a lifelong pursuit to develop good time
Neil’s first role model for drumming excellence was Gene Krupa, who he encountered in the movie The Gene Krupa Story (starring Sal Mineo). “Even watching it now, it was so well done,” says Neil.
“Sal Mineo was coached by Gene. The opening sequence is a beautiful overhead shot of Gene actually playing, and then all the drumming is Gene. Sal Mineo mimics it so well that it really works and that was the inspiration. ‘Wow! Being a drummer is romantic and dangerous and glamorous.’ That got me curious.”
Neil’s mastery of his trade has made him the toast of his peers in the rock community. His career is littered with classic performances and brilliantly crafted drum parts that are vital to Rush’s musical identity.
Yet despite his success, Neil remains a student of his art, reinventing his playing virtually from scratch in the 90s with drum guru Freddie Gruber and recently undertaking another course of study with Peter Erskine.
The continuing evolution of Neil’s abilities speaks to the truth of the maxim that success is not an act, but a habit. The pursuit of excellence is a journey, not a destination.
“While I was playing along with records, all the frustrations were tempo things – getting excited when you play a fill and then getting tired after. It’s a lifelong pursuit to develop good time.
“I’m talking about spanning four decades for me, first of all just trying to play the tempos like the records, then being in the studios and having to deal with click tracks and sequencers from the late-70s and playing in mathematical time. That was my pursuit, to be able to do that both in the studio and live.
‘Can I go down to the basement every day and practice again like I did when I was 13?’
“I learned a lot about the click track, how you can make it breathe. It doesn’t have to be a mechanically-driven clock at all, it’s a guide. You can push and pull an amazing amount on those tiny increments of click pulses.
“But that led me into a trap by the mid-90s with sequences and click tracks that I felt were metronomic in the bad sense, I was starting to feel stiff and that’s when I studied with Freddie Gruber because I saw Steve Smith play.
“In the mid-80s we worked together on a Jeff Berlin record, so I’d seen Steve play and knew that he was great, but when we were doing the Buddy Rich tribute he came in to set up and just started playing. I said, ‘What happened to you?’ It was so beautiful, so musical, so crisp and elegant. And he said, ‘Freddie.'”
Learn how to dance on the drums
“I met Freddie around that same time of the recording of the Buddy Rich tribute. We became lifelong friends and started working together to loosen up my playing. That’s what his coaching was all about – it was all physical, not musical.
“He’s not the kind of teacher who teaches you how to play the drums, he teaches you how to dance on the drums.
“At that time, around ’95 or so, I’d been playing for 30 years. ‘Am I really going to stop now, practise everyday with these exercises he’s giving me, go back to traditional grip, the right end of the sticks?’ because I’d been playing butt-end with matched grip for a long time by then.
“He had me moving the snare drum up, the bass drum farther away – so counter-intuitive. I always thought, ‘Get everything as close as you can and then you have the best reach on it’. But in fact, no, it’s your area of motion. It’s better to have your bass drum, toms, ride cymbal a little farther away, so it was re-inventing the way I play the instrument.
“‘I’m a good butcher but I’d just like to get a little more surgery into it'”
“I had to say, ‘Can I go down to the basement every day and practice again like I did when I was 13? If I can commit myself to that, will I be rewarded?’ I decided it was worth a try and did that for about a year and a half. The band happened not to be working because Geddy and his wife were having a baby so it was perfect timing.
“Freddie helped me in that way of loosening it all up within the framework and carrying forward with the accuracy and it was still my playing. A lot of people couldn’t tell the difference at first until they played with me and then they noticed the clock was different just from that new physical approach to playing the kit.
“It was such a subtle approach that our co-producer at the time, Peter Collins, said, ‘Well, it still sounds like you.’ I was kind of disappointed but then when the other guys played with me, they noticed the clock was different.”
Check out Neil Peart playing One O’ Clock Jump at the Buddy Rich Memorial Concert in 1991:
Read Article: HERE
