Neil Peart documentary is a ‘celebration’ of the late Rush drummer, say its filmmakers - Toronto Star

'Neil Peart: No One’s Disciple,' screening on CBC Gem, features members of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tool and the Police.

Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson have honoured their late Rush bandmate Neil Peart at every stop on their Fifty Something reunion tour, but a quiet scene at the start of a new documentary reveals just how deeply they continue to feel his absence.

“Neil Peart: No One’s Disciple” begins as the two musicians gather around a dinner table in a wine cellar. They’ve selected a few vintages and filled their glasses, before turning to a third across the table. An empty Scotch glass sits where Peart once would have had his customary place. A connoisseur of Macallan 25 Year Old Scotch whisky, he measured his serving to strict specifications.

“He would have ‘two fat fingers,’” Lee remembers.

“And his fingers got fatter over the years,” chuckles Lifeson.

They pour a generous amount of Scotch and sit together in silence.

“That’s for him,” Lee says. “The chair that’s not here.”

Such a vulnerable moment might have been left on the cutting-room floor of other rock documentaries, which tend to favour stage spectacle over quiet human moments. But the filmmakers behind the Peart documentary, which begins streaming Wednesday on CBC Gem after its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last week, say the interaction reveals the enduring bond at the centre of Rush.

Neil Peart of Rush performs at the Forum in Los Angeles in August 2015.

The three musicians had played together for 40 years, making Peart’s absence all the more devastating when he died of brain cancer in 2020.

“The choice of using it was to bring people in and immediately take away any rock star stereotypes,” Scot McFadyen, co-director of the film told the Star.

“If you know Rush, maybe it won’t be such a big surprise. But if you don’t, I think the scene is not what people would imagine.”

“Neil Peart: No One’s Disciple” is full of other revelations. Shortly after the sombre opening, the documentary turns to the intricacies of Peart’s drumming and the ways his discipline inspired the people around him. It also offers new insight into why Peart decided to stop touring with Rush in 2015.

Sitting on the benches inside Henderson Brewing Co. — the Toronto west-end craft brewery that produces Rush’s official beers — McFadyen and co-director Sam Dunn are energized by the renewed interest in the prog-rock band, which is earning many new fans on the road and reinvigorating the ones who have been around for decades.

But carried along with their excitement is the feeling that Peart never got a proper goodbye.

Directors Scot McFadyen, left, and Sam Dunn also made “Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage.”

The drummer died just as the COVID-19 lockdowns began, leaving his family, friends and Rush fans little opportunity to publicly mourn him.

When the Toronto filmmakers were contacted by Lee and Lifeson with an idea for a Peart documentary a couple of years ago, they understood this film carried more than just the usual expectations of a music biography. It also came with a need for closure.

“The film is definitely a eulogy — the one they didn’t get to make,” said McFadyen. “But it’s also a celebration.”

Coming into the project, McFadyen and Dunn were well versed in Rush history.

The directors had interviewed Lee for their 2005 documentary “Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey,” a deep dive into the history of the genre, and reunited with all three Rush members on the 2010 retrospective ”Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage,” an upbeat, sometimes silly film that saw a parade of musicians, including Jack Black, Sebastian Bach and Trent Reznor, speak Rush’s praises. It won the audience award at the Tribeca Film Festival and helped fuel a resurgence of interest in the famously underappreciated band.

But they said “Neil Peart: No One’s Disciple” couldn’t be anything like those previous efforts.

Peart was an intensely private person who shunned celebrity. While he willingly participated in “Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage,” his involvement ended there.

“He was very open with us all the way through,” McFadyen said, “but he never watched it.”

With that in mind, the filmmakers say it’s difficult to know how he would have reacted to a documentary bearing his name. They tried to respect how Peart might have felt about their movie and decided the best approach was to let Peart speak in his own words, when possible, and use the people closest to him to fill in the blanks.

“We made a decision early on that we would only interview musicians and people that knew him,” said Dunn.

They also kept the focus on his music.

While the documentary briefly touches on his cross-country motorcycle trips, and the tragic loss of both his wife and daughter within a year of each other, it rarely strays far from the drum kit.

To help bring his music to life, the filmmakers recruited four prominent drummers — all friends and protégés — to join Lee and Lifeson in playful jam sessions meant to demonstrate just how difficult Peart’s complex drum compositions were to master.

“You think you know it, but you don’t until you actually play it,” says Tool’s Danny Carey after he struggles to nail the odd time signatures in the opening of “2112”‘s “Overture.”

King Crimson’s Gavin Harrison takes on Rush deep cut “Dreamline” after carefully studying how Peart intended it to be performed.

“It’s really when you get into the details of it that you realize how much thought went into every drum part,” he says. “There’s no extra fat laying around. It’s all very lean.”

Stewart Copeland of the Police tackles “New World Man,” while Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith plays “Limelight.”

Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, left, and Rush’s Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson attend the TIFF premiere of “Neil Peart: No One’s Disciple.”

Filming these performances gave Dunn a far greater understanding of how much Peart valued his closest musician friends.

“Neil was like a big brother to some of these people,” he said.

The directors say they hope that generosity shines through, and that casual viewers gain a better understanding of exactly why Peart is often considered one of the greatest drummers of all time. 

“We wanted to be sure that people came away fully appreciating what Neil contributed to music,” said Dunn.

“Geddy and Alex didn’t want the film to be just a mourning. They wanted it to be fun.”

David Friend writes about arts and culture in Toronto and beyond. Follow him on Instagram and Bluesky.