Alex Lifeson says he was “bombarded” by drummers offering to join Rush after Neil Peart’s death “thinking we were just gonna replace somebody that we played with for 40 years”
Alex Lifeson says he was “bombarded” with drummers offering to join Rush following the death of Neil Peart in 2020.
In a new interview with New York’s Q104.3, Lifeson touches on whether he and Geddy Lee, Rush’s remaining members, discussed looking for a drummer to replace Peart.
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“Oh, well, yeah, of course, because we’re bombarded by it all the time,” he explains [via Blabbermouth]. “After Neil passed, it didn’t take more than a few minutes before we started getting emails from all kinds of drummers who wanted to audition for the band, thinking that we were just gonna replace somebody that we played with for 40 years who wrote all the lyrics for our music.
“I don’t know what some of these people were thinking. So, yeah, we’ve had the conversation, because we can’t avoid it.”
He goes on: “But honestly, Ged is my best friend. I talk to him – must talk to him every day. We get together for dinner, we play tennis, we’re doing all this charity work together. He’s my best bud, so, yeah, I go over there. He plays bass, I play guitar – yeah, we’ll play a little bit.
“I go over there ostensibly to play with him and we end up just sitting and drinking coffee and laughing the whole day. So it’s not just Rush, Rush, Rush.”
In early 2024, Lee admitted the amount of outreach they received from musicians in the days after Peart’s passing. During Strombo’s Lit, a bookclub and podcast created by George “Strombo” Stroumboulopoulos, Lee explained, “Oh, yeah, I heard from all kinds [of people]. That was a very weird moment. My little black book got filled up really quickly.”
When Stroumbolopoulos confirmed that these were “people you thought were friends,” Lee added: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was, like, ‘Whoa, that’s just so inappropriate right now. Dude, wait two months. At least two months – if ever.’ It still happens, now that the clickbait freaks are out there talking about Alex and I getting a new drummer and starting Rush again.”
Peart passed away on 7 January 2020, after battling brain cancer for three and a half years. In 2022, Lee admitted that Peart had wanted to keep his cancer diagnosis a secret before his passing, going on to say that he and Lifeson had to be “dishonest”, in order to respect Peart’s wishes for privacy.
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