Editor’s Note: I originally posted this on the 7th of January, 2023 however as I re-establish my Exhaust Fumes project, I wanted to share this to a wider audience and preserve it for easier access.

I find it hard to believe it’s been three years already since The Professor’s cruel and untimely passing. (No need to read on, unless you like Rush, rock & roll, or my own self-absorbed ramblings.)

It’s not a secret or throwing shade to say that I’ve had to look beyond the home I grew up in for male role models in my life. While people like my buddy Mike’s dad Gary and legendary Bigfoot wheelman Jim Kramer set high-bar standards for me in my youth and teenage years, it wasn’t long after entering the very real world of adulthood that I would become captivated and inspired by Canadian musician, lyricist, and author Neil Peart.

At 18, less than a week after graduating high school here in Cheyenne, I was living (mostly) on my own in central Illinois and beginning my career in monster trucks. As is often the case for those breaking into the “real world” for the first time (I quote those words because working in an industry as absurd as the MT industry is “surreal”, not really “real”), things are far from happy and rosy all the time. To be sure, I benefitted from an outstanding and exceedingly rare (at least for 2003) opportunity to break into the business that had absolutely dominated my childhood and teenage day dreams, but there were ample periods of isolation, boredom, withdrawal, and loneliness that had to be dealt with between the good/busy times.

In that same year Neil and his band Rush revealed themselves to be so much more than the craftsmen behind a handful of classic rock radio staples that really didn’t conjure up any childhood or adolescent memories for me, save for one (more on that later…). The newly-released tropical-rain-soaked epic that was the “Rush In Rio” concert film found its way off of (no joke) a Wal-Mart music DVD rack (yes, that was once a THING!) and into my apartment “entertainment center” one day, and without hyperbole I can say it was life-altering. Days off from the road back then weren’t all that common from what I can remember, nor was having extra spending money, so those two facts alone, never mind Wal-Mart carrying bad ass rock DVDs, make my Rush In Rio encounter/experience seem even more unlikely.

Before I go any further, however, I would be remiss in failing to point out that (read: admit) the only reason I took a chance on the Rush In Rio DVD in the first place was thanks to the constant Rush/Peart name-dropping that bands I was into at the time kept throwing out. Now, remember, I was only 18 and never had anyone really helping guide my music tastes in my teenage years, so bands like Godsmack had fallen right into my CD collection and taken hold. Forgiving the obvious shortcomings of that band, singer/guitarist Sully Erna (a solid drummer in his own right) and drummer Shannon Larkin constantly name-checked Rush and “Neil Pert” (mispronounced as “purt” instead of “peert”) as being huge influences on them and their work.

Being the curious and evolving creature I was at the time, I decided after enough mentions that I needed to break down and see what these Rush guys were all about, and what better way I figured than to see how they stacked up live. So what else does one do but make the short drive north from the sleepy farm community of Thomasboro, IL to the slightly larger and slightly-less sleepy city of Rantoul, IL (which had took a real turn for sleepiness in 1993 when it’s Chanute Air Force Base had been decommissioned) and visit the local Wal-Mart (regular, not a Super Center) to hopefully procure a Rush concert DVD, my limited means and their limited selection somehow not combining to stifle my interest in this pursuit right then and there.

Against all odds, I was able to exchange legal tender for a Rush DVD, and the subsequent viewing/listening would set off an influential and musical landslide that would soon consume me in a way that would make the molten, rocky earth displaced by the Pompeii eruption seem like a minor sandbox incident.

From then on the band and particularly Neil’s drumming and lyricism continued to captivate me, and my path down their swirling prog-metal wormhole would guide me eventually to Neil’s published travel books, which at the time consisted of “The Masked Rider”, “Ghost Rider”, and “Traveling Music”. As a traveler for a touring entertainment industry myself (not to mention a voracious recreational reader) and fancying myself a bit of an intellectual, I latched onto these works with vigor. A short time later his books had inspired me to document my life on the road in a long-form travel blog that basically ripped off his writing style and form. I can happily report without regret or shame that this sort of modified plagiarism-meets-hero-worship still echoes through the way I write (and speak) to this day.

Time would continue to pass as it does (for me, rapidly….always, it seems) and my respect for Neil and reverence for his works, both musical and prose, only grew. For those who don’t know, Neil was an exceptionally intelligent, thoughtful, and detail-oriented man possessed by a consuming brand of curiosity. While he was unashamed of his notoriously strong opinions, he was also open-minded and willingly evolutionary in his thinking. His writing and musings on topics like philanthropy, privacy, politics, and religion have been massively informative and influential in my life. In a world where artists are continually told by some fans to “just shut up and play the hits!”, Rush fans like myself waited in a nearly constant state of impatience for the next worldly offering from Neil, all the while keenly anticipating the next record, next tour, and next live album. So influential on me was Neil, that in 2008 I financed my first drum kit and immediately set about not knowing what the fuck I was doing playing drums.

And just like Neil, playing those drums would see me through a lot of difficult times in my life to come. However, there would be no rock shows and tours for this enthusiastic but embarrassingly amateurish sticksman.

Speak of tours, I was unfortunate enough to get screwed out of using tickets I had purchased to see Rush on their 2007 “Snakes & Arrows Tour” by my then-employer, and you’re shitting in your hat if you don’t think that ultimately helped influence my decision to quit there a few months later. That regretful incident aside, I was immensely thankful to have seen Rush multiple times between then and their eventual retirement in 2015. I soaked up unforgettable gigs (sometimes more than once) in Chicago; Indianapolis; Kansas City; St. Louis, and Denver. Occasionally I was able to enjoy the show from a respectably close distance (Rush shows got EXPENSIVE by the time I discovered them) though about half of my live experiences were from the nosebleeds. But who gives a fuck really, at this point? I fucking saw Rush and Neil play!

The 2015 “R40” tour was clearly their farewell tour, that much was easy to tell very early on despite the band never having labeled the tour as such, at least not before or during. But the writing was on the wall and honestly, I cannot and would never blame Neil for being the one to cause the band to pack it in. Playing incredibly complex and heavy music for three hours a night, proving every time that he was the greatest drummer alive, all while living away from home as a 60-something rock star sounds impossibly hard to me. Having already lost his first wife and first daughter to the faceless twin evils of chance and bad luck in the late 1990’s, Peart couldn’t be blamed for wanting to be home with his current wife/savior and young daughter instead of slogging it out on the road for yet another round of shows (eventually the band played just over 2000 shows in their career!).

Even with that understanding well in-hand and making good sense to the logical part of my brain, it was still impossible to fight off a welling of tears in my eyes and the corresponding lump in my throat as I bore witness to Rush’s reverse-evolving set list and stage presentation that night in Denver on their final tour. I knew with full conviction in my heart that this would be the last time I’d see, feel, and hear The Professor and his band power and pummel their way through classics like Limelight and The Spirit of Radio; rarities like How It Is and Distant Early Warning; and pillars of their catalog like Animate, Subdivisions, and The Anarchist. Every note, every fill, every solo carried a weighted sense of finality to it that stirred emotions deep within me then, and now.

Those emotions are especially powerful these days, especially in the wake of losing Neil three years ago to an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Neil gave the world so much, yet it took so much from him. And, if that wasn’t injustice enough, it took him from his family (and all of us) far, far too soon. It is a measure of just how suddenly and randomly cruel life can be. It is said Neil took his diagnosis and the ultimately futile fight against the invader with dignity and composure, and that he lived his last years to the fullest that he could. It seems disgustingly insulting that his brain of all areas should be the target the cancer chose to attack.

The day the news came out about Neil stands in my memory with stark clarity. I had just arrived home from work, and was about to sit down and relax for a bit with my family before I had to head to a local bar to work a craft beer promo. I opened my phone to post a reminder to local friends about the night’s event when I read the news. “Oh my god Robin, Neil Peart passed away….what the fuck? Fuck me, no, no!” I remember saying to my wife. I quickly sat down on the couch as my head quickly began spinning, my chest tightened and that dreaded lump in my throat grew in size while I scoured social media in a futile attempt to find prove that the awful news I had read was some kind of cruel hoax.

It wasn’t. And the tears started.

I told myself on the way to the promo that I wouldn’t get emotional, I wouldn’t make an ass of myself (because who the fuck gets this shit like us crazy, nerdy, obsessed Rush fans?). I’m an emotional person and I wear my heart on my sleeve for better or worse, but I did my best to keep that all under “lock and key”. Still, the topic (and the corresponding jukebox) were unavoidable and I’m grateful that some of my best and closest friends had joined me at the bar that evening, one of whom who “gets it” like I do. Many a Rush tune graced the jukebox (we didn’t give any other tunes much of a chance), and we celebrated The Professor’s life with a dram of The Macallan. Somehow I even fed the fucking jukebox enough digital currency to play “The Necromancer” in full. The fucking Necromancer. At a bar. In Wyoming.

Eventually, myself and my trusted fellow Rush-addict Eric and Dylan, his band’s drummer, retired to the privacy of my garage bar to have some more drinks, listen to/watch a bunch of Neil and the band’s best work on the TV, and generally cry and hug it out and tell cancer it really and truly can go and fuck itself. In the days to come, I found myself devouring the accolades and tributes that Neil’s friends, contemporaries, and admirers shared on social media, all of which would make me deeply emotional and withdrawn. It was a painfully strange way to grieve.

It was very hard for me to listen to Rush for a long time after Neil’s death, it just drug up too many heavy emotions and memories, often at inconvenient moments. It is frustrating when you know the people around you can’t, don’t, and won’t ever understand how someone you never got to meet personally can mean so much to you.

Look, for real, I used to listen to Rush to get me through tough and lonely times in my early 20’s. I listened to Rush to get over bad breakups. I played shitty covers of Rush songs on my drums to feel better about myself. I listened to Rush songs to get pumped up before driving Bigfoot. I always start off my road trips with “The Spirit of Radio”, and that’s the only song I remember hearing the day Kadence was born. “Grand Designs” played in my car as I was rushing to the hospital the morning Kaelan was born.

Thankfully as time passed, I was able to revisit and re-indulge in Rush’s music and Neil’s travel and instructional books, although the dark hole of grief caused by his passing lurks nearby, always.

But as a counterpart to that darkness, or perhaps as “The Weapon” against it, is my undying love for his and Rush’s works and the joy I take in sharing all of that with my musically-inclined daughters, and with my best friend/Rush pal Eric. It is through these moments that the legend and legacy of Rush and Neil Peart will continue to stay very much alive and be handed down to future generations, so that they too will get to enjoy the magic.

However, it may never again happen that a band and it’s individual members will ever enjoy the longevity, influence, and reverence that the three “guys at work” in Rush have, Neil in particular.

“The future disappears into memory

With only a moment between

Forever dwells in that moment

Hope is what remains to be seen

In the fullness of time

A garden to nurture and protect

It’s a measure of a life”

“The Garden” (2012, Rush’s final recorded album track)