Neil Peart

Peart’s daughter, 19-year-old Selena Taylor, was killed in a single-car accident on August 10, 1997. His common-law wife of 22 years, Jacqueline Taylor, succumbed to cancer 10 months later.

He met photographer Carrie Nuttall in Los Angeles. They married on September 9, 2000. Their daughter Olivia Louise Peart was born nine years later. They live in Santa Monica, California.

Neil Peart was born Cornelius Ellwood Peart on September 12, 1952 to Glen and Betty Peart, and lived in the family’s farm in Hagersville near Hamilton. The first of four children, His siblings were Danny, Judy and Nancy.

The family moved to St. Catharines when Peart was two, and then to the Port Dalhousie area of the town in 1956. He attended Gracefield School, and later Lakeport Secondary School.

He listened to pop music on his transistor radio. He took piano lessons, but seeing his penchant for drumming on various objects, his parents bought him a drum kit for his 14th birthday.

He took lessons from Don George at the Peninsula Conservatory of Music. He debuted at the school’s Christmas pageant in St. Johns Anglican Church Hall in Port Dalhousie.

He appeared with his first group, The Eternal Triangle, at Lakeport High School. The performance contained an original number titled “LSD Forever”. He performed his first solo at the show.

At eighteen, Peart travelled to London, England. He played in several bands, and occasionally received session work. He sold trinkets to tourists at The Great Frog on Carnaby Street to support himself.

During his stay in London he read novels of objectivist Ayn Rand, whose writings had a significant philosophical influence on him. Her novel “Anthem” influenced his “Fly by Night” and “2112”.

He returned to Canada disillusioned by his lack of progress in the music business. He worked for his father at Dalziel Equipment in St. Catharines. Thereafter, he joined the band ‘Hush’ to play drums.

He auditioned for the Toronto-based band Rush. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson who oversaw the audition accepted Peart’s style of drumming. He officially joined the band on July 29, 1974.

On his first outing with the band, he opened for Uriah Heep and Manfred Mann in front of over 11,000 people at the Civic Arena, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on August 14, 1974.

In the 1980 album, “Permanent Waves”, Peart stopped using fantasy literature or ancient mythology in his writing. His lyrics began to revolve around social, emotional and humanitarian issues, using metaphors and symbolic representation.

1981’s “Moving Pictures” portrayed his interest in mythological figures, which he placed in a modern reality-based context. The alum contained their most popular song “Tom Sawyer”, and “Limelight” about popularity, and its pressures.

He returned from his self-imposed sabbatical, and Rush recorded the 2002 album “Vapor Trails” wherein Peart spoke about his personal issues, and humanitarian topics such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks as in “Peaceable Kingdom”.