In a recent interview with Guitar World, Rush bassist and vocalist Geddy Lee addressed something that weighed heavily on him after drummer Neil Peart‘s death in January 2020: the number of drummers who immediately pushed themselves forward as replacements. Lee drew a sharp distinction between the friends who kept their grief to themselves and those who saw an opening.
“People who are close to us — good friends that are successful drummers — would never infer something like that because they have too much respect, not only for Neil and for the situation,” Lee told Guitar World. “They were grieving as well, so they wouldn’t be so selfish as to say something inappropriate like that.”
Others, he said, were less considerate. “There were many other drummers who reached out to me in the aftermath of Neil‘s passing that were pushing themselves, and that was most distasteful to me. It was completely inappropriate timing.”
On how he and guitarist Alex Lifeson eventually landed on award-winning fusion drummer Anika Nilles for the “Fifty Something” reunion tour, Lee said: “We didn’t really know where to begin to look. We started with Anika because she had been recommended to me, and I had done some research on her. I loved her vibe and diverse style.”
“We didn’t have a list,” Lee added. “When Al and I finally said, ‘Okay, I guess we’re getting serious. Who’s going to sit in that impossible seat? It’s daunting.’ We started with the name that was already on my mind. We called her up, she came, and we hit it off. She brought a lot to the table, but more than her chops, more than her guts, and her willingness to sit in that hot seat, she brought an intelligence and a story.”
The outreach from drummers was already something Lifeson had referenced publicly. Back in March 2025, around seven months before the “Fifty Something” tour was announced, Lifeson told Q104.3: “After Neil passed, it didn’t take more than a few minutes before we started getting e-mails from all kinds of drummers who wanted to audition for the band, thinking that we were just gonna replace somebody that we played with for 40 years who wrote all the lyrics for our music. I don’t know what some of these people were thinking.”
Lee had touched on it even earlier. During a January 2024 appearance on “Strombo’s Lit,” the Apple book club curated by Canadian broadcaster George “Strombo” Stroumboulopoulos, Lee said: “Oh, yeah, I heard from all kinds [of people]. That was a very weird moment. My little black book got filled up really quickly.” When Stroumboulopoulos noted that some of those people were “people you thought were friends,” Lee said: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was, like, ‘Whoa, that’s just so inappropriate right now. Dude, wait two months. At least two months — if ever.’ It still happens, now that the clickbait freaks are out there talking about Alex and I getting a new drummer and starting Rush again.”
Peart died on Jan. 7, 2020, after quietly battling brain cancer for three and a half years. Rush held the announcement for three days before going public. In 2022, Lee revealed that Peart had wanted his diagnosis kept private and that he and Lifeson had been “dishonest” with fans at times in order to protect that privacy.
Rush will play multiple “evening with” shows across Canada, the United States and Mexico on the “Fifty Something” tour, opening June 7, 2026 at The Kia Forum in Los Angeles. Each night features two full sets drawn from a rotating 40-song catalog built from the band’s greatest hits and fan favorites. After their first batch of 2026 dates sold out instantly following the October 2025 announcement, Rush doubled the run and continued adding dates, stretching the North American leg into the fall.
