For anyone who’s ever fumbled through a Rush cover, it may be heartening to witness the strenuous efforts made by four of the world’s most formidable drummers to plausibly execute a Neil Peart part, along with their varied reactions upon getting the job done. In the first of the performances presented in Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn’s documentary Neil Peart: No One’s Disciple, a beaming Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers makes many jubilant noises after blasting through “Working Man” alongside Rush’s Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson in a darkened studio. Conversely, Tool’s Danny Carey exudes exhaustion and relief after conquering “2112: Overture”, an understandable response given the difficulties we see him face in the song’s notoriously tricky opening. After navigating through “Dreamline”, Gavin Harrison of Porcupine Tree and King Crimson adopts a sober expression, evidently relieved not to make “too many mistakes”. Even Stewart Copeland’s customary supply of garrulous energy has been noticeably depleted by the time he concludes “New World Man”. “Fuck!” exclaims the erstwhile Police drummer. “That is hard work!”
Whatever their respective states when the last note is hit, these drummers — all of whom had close friendships with Peart, who died of brain cancer in 2020 — are clearly grateful for the chance to honour him by playing his music. Whether viewers consider themselves casual or diehard fans of the proggy Canadian power trio, they may feel a similar degree of gratitude about the larger achievement here. A very worthy successor to McFadyen and Dunn’s more conventional history Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage (2010), Neil Peart: No One’s Disciple boasts surprising poignancy both as a celebration of its subject and as a rumination on the ways we try to keep hold of the loved ones we lose.
As Lee explains in an early scene, Rush’s surviving members had long hoped to pay tribute to their bandmate in a larger and more public way than toasting him with a few fingers of Macallan 25, Peart’s whisky of choice. “We had a plan to do something,” he says. “Then everything locked down and that weighed on me quite a lot.”
The 2022 tribute concerts for Taylor Hawkins provided one model for the events they eventually organized. Those shows also featured Lee and Lifeson’s first live performances of Rush songs since the R40 tour and Peart’s retirement in 2015. “It made sense to bring together his drummer friends for a jam,” says Lee. “We’re talking about guys who are monster drummers in their own right and bringing them together to talk about drumming, to talk about music and to talk about Neil and what made him unique as a drummer.”
The jams and conversations are interwoven with archival footage and other interviews, including several with Peart originally shot for the earlier film but not previously shared. These elements cohere into an uncommonly rich portrait, one that balances an insightful appreciation of Peart’s artistry and ingenuity (hence his nickname of “The Professor”) with an affectionate look at a complex man who, as several note here, was warm and funny with friends but infamously prickly with fans who dared intrude on his privacy.
Along with much evidence of the goofy brand of humour the band enjoyed amongst themselves, space is also granted to a consideration of grief as experienced not only by the film’s surviving subjects, but by Peart. In the aftermath of the tragic losses of his first wife in 1997 and his daughter in 1998, Peart devoted many years to the solo motorcycle treks he later described in his 2002 memoir Ghost Rider. The directors handle this part of Peart’s story with great sensitivity.
That a music doc can be so profoundly moving yet still supply such ripping renditions of “Xanadu” and “Tom Sawyer” is impressive enough. Yet the epilogue connecting this tribute to Rush’s triumphant return this year brings it all into the present with an equally satisfying brio. New drummer Anika Niles speaks about her own desire to capture the feel that always made Peart’s playing more than the sum of its infamously complex parts. “I wish I had the chance to have nerdy drum talk with him,” she says. That sentiment will be shared by many of this film’s viewers.