Neil Peart Quotations | Page 2

If drummers are 'anti-solo,' that's up to them. They're musicians, and they can play whatever they want. But my inspirations early on were people like Buddy Rich, seeing him on 'The Tonight Show', or Gene Krupa.

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.

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.

For me to call myself a musician, it's necessary to play live, and it rewards so much - not just in the pay cheque sense but what it does for my playing. I feel it through a tour - I feel it at the end of a tour - all that I've gathered, and especially now that I am improvising so much.

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.

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

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

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

You have to know when you're at the top of your particular mountain, I guess. Maybe not the summit, but as high as you can go.

I'm learning all the time. I'm evolving all the time as a human being. I'm getting better, I hope, in all of the important ways.