Neil Peart Quotes

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Neil Peart

Profession : Musician

Birth : September 12, 1952

If I go play golf with the guys, it's intended to be a joke.

Neil Peart

What I've learned over the years is that the craft of songwriting is trying to take the personal and make it universal - or in the case of telling a story, taking the universal and making it personal.

Neil Peart

Our songs were not written to be listened to in headphones or on the radio. They were written to be played. All of the little infinite detail that went into the arrangements and giving ourselves lots of breathing room in terms of playing what we wanted to play and using up any ideas that we had - all of those were conceived to be performed.

Neil Peart

When I was young, my ambitions were very modest. I thought, 'If only I could play at the battle of the bands at the Y, that would be the culmination of existence!' And then the roller rink, and you work your way up branch by branch.

Neil Peart

I sang the hymns, and I read the Bible stories, but I was always perplexed, like, 'Really? Jesus wants you for a sunbeam? For a what?'

Neil Peart

We don't want to be Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. That type of thing wasn't what we were after. It was most important for each of us to be equal in input and output - each of us has to pull the same amount, musically, in composition and in every sense of being in the band.

Neil Peart

When Mr. Ludwig invented the bass-drum pedal, that's what made the drum set possible.

Neil Peart

There's still a lot I'm angry about, a lot of human behaviour that's appalling and despicable, but you choose what you can fight against. I always thought if I could just put something in words perfectly enough, people would get the idea and it would change things.

Neil Peart

Live shows were always religion for us. We never played a show - whether it was in front of 15 people or 15,000 - where it wasn't everything we had that night.

Neil Peart

It was actually drumming that gave me the stamina to get into sports later. I started playing drums at 13, and when I got to the international touring level... I got interested in cross-country skiing, long-distance swimming, bicycling... things that require stamina, not finesse.

Neil Peart

I think, in music, you're always hoping that you'll have a like-minded audience and that the music you like making will appeal to them, too.

Neil Peart

I am the audience. I want to observe people. Even when I'm playing drums onstage, I'm watching people. I'm looking at them and their faces and their T-shirts and their signs. And travelling by motorcycle, especially, the world is just coming at me.

Neil Peart

For a person of my sensibility, you're only left with the Democratic party.

Neil Peart

To me, drum soloing is like doing a marathon and solving equations at the same time.

Neil Peart

There is no blood in jazz drumming, and there are no bullies in jazz drumming.

Neil Peart

Stamina is the force that drives the drumming; it's not really a sprint.

Neil Peart

Rudimental snare work is something I've always loved.

Neil Peart

I don't like lyrics that are just thrown together, that were obviously written as you went along, or the song was already written and the guy made up the lyrics in five minutes.

Neil Peart

Drumming completely eclipsed my life from age 13, when I started drum lessons. Everything disappeared. I'd done well in school up until that time. I was fairly adjusted socially up until that time. And I became completely monomania, obsessed all through my teens. Nothing else existed anymore.

Neil Peart

I'm still no good at ball-and-stick games. If I go play golf with the guys, it's intended to be a joke.

Neil Peart