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" I've heard the stories. Like, Eric Clapton said he wanted to burn his guitar when he heard Jimi Hendrix play. I never understood that because, when I went and saw a great drummer or heard one, all I wanted to do was practice. "

Neil Peart

Play

Great

Drummer

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" 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. "

" In 2007, I studied with Peter Erskine because I was doing a Buddy Rich tribute concert, and I wanted to take my big-band drumming up a level. I went over to Peter's house with my sticks, feeling like a 13-year-old again. "

Neil Peart

Rich

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" 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. "

" People don't realize the limitations of 200 words, and the way they get chiselled down into a song that has to be sung. "

" Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to play music that I liked, and even when I was in cover bands when I was a teenager we only played cover tunes that we liked. That was the simple morality that I grew up with. "

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

Neil Peart

Play

Joke

" 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. "

" What is a master but a master student? And if that's true, then there's a responsibility on you to keep getting better and to explore avenues of your profession. "

" When I started playing, I played in R&B bands. I played James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and all that. "

" The Seven Cities of Gold always fascinated me. Southwestern U.S. history especially fascinates me. The whole spur of the Spanish exploration of the Southwestern U.S. was the search for these mythical Seven Cities of Gold. "

Neil Peart

Gold

History

" 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?' "

" It seems to me that's the only way you can have a truly creative aggregate of people is if they're all contributing in different ways. "

" Even as a kid, I never wanted to be famous; I wanted to be good. "

" I want to be an improviser, and I've worked very hard at that. It's an art. You don't just play whatever comes into your head; you have to be very deliberate about what you do. "

" Too much attention and hoopla doesn't agree with my temperament. "

" I always thought if I could just put something in words perfectly enough, people would get the idea, and it would change things. That's a harmless conceit. With people, too, you constantly think, 'If I'm nice to people and treat them well, they'll appreciate it and behave better.' They won't, but it's still not a bad way to live. "

" 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. "

" It's interesting. I've known quite a few good athletes that can't begin to play a beat on the drum set. Most team sport is about the smooth fluidity of hand-eye coordination and physical grace, where drumming is much more about splitting all those things up. "

" It astonished me in the early Nineties to suddenly have musicians admit that they had been inspired and influenced by us. That meant a lot at that time. But of course, being human, the... disrespect isn't even strong enough a word, is it? The opprobrium was painful. Being popular and hated is not satisfying. "

Neil Peart

Time

Strong

" The real test of a musician is live performance. It's one thing to spend a long time learning how to play well in the studio, but to do it in front of people is what keeps me coming back to touring. "

" I try not to repeat myself in fills in all the Rush songs unless it is something simple or something I feel is my own characteristic thing. "

" 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. "

" The government's only functions are to protect the rights of the individual; therefore, you need a police force and an army. "

" Rudimental snare work is something I've always loved. "

" People say to me, 'Are you still excited when you go on tour?' Should I be excited about leaving my family? No, and no one should. It's as simple as that. If you put aside the fantasy of it, it is what it is and has to be done. And that's fine, and I pour my entire energy and enthusiasm into it, but of course, I'm of two minds about the whole idea. "

" 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. "

" It's not the music you hear in your head that other people are going to hear. You have to be able to make it true enough to the image in your head, and that's where technique and technology come in, for sure, and knowledge. It's not true and will never be true that someone who knows nothing can sit in a basement and make great music. "

" The thing for me about Ayn Rand is that her philosophy is the only one applicable to the world today - in every sense. If you take her ideas, then take them farther in your own mind, you can find answers to pretty well everything on an individual basis. "

" Performing live in front of an audience is such a matter of will - all of those things you can do just fine in your basement, suddenly you have to do them in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and it becomes a different matter entirely. "

" To get nostalgic about other people's music, or even about your own, makes a terrible statement about the condition of your life and your prospects for the future. I have no patience with that kind of attitude, whether it's on radio or among friends. "