Neil Ellwood Peart (/pɪərt/ PEERT; September 12, 1952 – January 7, 2020) was a Canadian and American musician, known as the drummer, percussionist, and primary lyricist of the rock band Rush.

Peart earned numerous awards for his musical performances, including an induction into the Modern Drummer Readers Poll Hall of Fame in 1983 at the age of thirty, making him the youngest person ever so honoured.

After a discouraging stint in England, Peart returned home to concentrate on music where he joined Rush, a Toronto band, in mid-1974, six years after its formation.

He drew most of his inspiration from drummers such as Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, and John Bonham, players who at the time were at the forefront of the British hard rock scene.

[18] Peart fulfilled his promise and his parents bought him a drum kit for his 14th birthday; furthermore, he began taking lessons from Don George at the Peninsula Conservatory of Music.

[18] Peart got a job in Lakeside Park, in Port Dalhousie on the shores of Lake Ontario, which later inspired a song of the same name on the Rush album Caress of Steel.

These bands practiced in basement recreation rooms and garages and played church halls, high schools, and skating rinks in towns across Southern Ontario such as Mitchell, Seaforth, and Elmira.

[9] Despite playing in several bands and picking up occasional session work, he was forced to support himself by selling jewellery at a shop called The Great Frog on Carnaby Street.

[23] After 18 months, Peart became disillusioned by his lack of progress in the music business; he placed his aspiration of becoming a professional musician on hold and returned to Canada.

[9] Soon after, a mutual acquaintance convinced Peart to audition for the Toronto-based band Rush, which needed a replacement for its original drummer John Rutsey.

[30] The supporting tour culminated in a three-night stand at Massey Hall in Toronto, a venue Peart had dreamed of playing in his days on the Southern Ontario bar circuit and where he was introduced as "The Professor on the drum kit" by Lee.

[31] Peart returned to England for Rush's Northern European Tour and the band stayed in the United Kingdom to record the next album, 1977's A Farewell to Kings, in Rockfield Studios in Wales.

While producing the first Buddy Rich tribute album, Peart was struck by the tremendous improvement in ex-Journey drummer Steve Smith's playing, and asked him his "secret".

At the recommendation of bassist Jeff Berlin, Peart once again augmented his swing style with formal drum lessons, this time under the tutelage of another pupil of Freddie Gruber, Peter Erskine, himself an instructor of Steve Smith.

On August 10, 1997, soon after Rush's Test for Echo Tour, Peart's 19-year-old daughter (at the time his only child) Selena Taylor was killed in a single-car crash on Highway 401 near the town of Brighton, Ontario.

[37] Peart took a long sabbatical to mourn and reflect, and travelled extensively throughout North and Central America on his motorcycle, covering 88,000 km (55,000 mi).

We ask that friends, fans and media alike understandably respect the family's need for privacy and peace at this extremely painful and difficult time.

[51][52] His influences were eclectic, ranging from Pete Thomas, John Bonham, Carl Palmer, Michael Giles, Ginger Baker, Phil Collins, Chris Sharrock, Steve Gadd, Warren Cann, Stewart Copeland,[53] Michael Shrieve[54][55] and Keith Moon, to fusion and jazz drummers Billy Cobham, Buddy Rich, Bill Bruford and Gene Krupa.

[58] Peart had long played matched grip but shifted to traditional as part of his style reinvention in the mid-1990s under the tutelage of jazz coach Freddie Gruber.

He was "considered one of the best rock drummers of all time, alongside John Bonham of Led Zeppelin; Ringo Starr of The Beatles; Keith Moon of The Who; Ginger Baker of Cream and Stewart Copeland of The Police.

[61] Music critic Amanda Petrusich in The New Yorker wrote: "Watching Peart play the drums gave the impression that he might possess several phantom limbs.

[62] During live Rush shows, the riser allowed Peart to swap the prominent portions of the kit (traditional acoustic in front, electronic in back).

[66] In the early 2000s, Peart began taking full advantage of the advances in electronic drum technology, primarily incorporating Roland V-Drums and continued use of samplers with his existing set of acoustic percussion.

[67] Peart was noted for his distinctive in-concert drum solos,[71] characterised by exotic percussion instruments[72] and long, intricate passages in odd time signatures.

From Permanent Waves onward, most of Peart's lyrics revolved around social, emotional, and humanitarian issues, usually from an objective standpoint and employing the use of metaphors and symbolic representation.

This became the band's breakthrough release, but also brought unexpected criticism, mainly because of the credit of inspiration Peart gave to Ayn Rand in the liner notes.

Peart explicitly discussed his religious views in The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa, in which he wrote: "I'm a linear thinking agnostic, but not an atheist, folks.

[88] However, in his 1994 Rush Backstage Club Newsletter, while contending the "individual is paramount in matters of justice and liberty," Peart specifically distanced himself from a strictly Objectivist line.

Peart's first book, titled The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa,[84] was written in 1996 about a month-long bicycling tour through Cameroon in November 1988.

However, Ghost Rider is a first-person narrative of Peart on the road on a BMW R1100GS motorcycle, in an effort to put his life back together as he embarked on an extensive journey.