Documentary about Neil Peart to debut on September 23rd on Canadian CBC

On September 23, a new documentary about Neil Peart will air on the Canadian public broadcaster CBC. Peart was the drummer and lyricist of Rush who passed away in 2020. The film is titled 'Neil Peart: No One's Disciple' and traces both the difficult early years of the Canadian musician and his meteoric rise to becoming one of the most respected drummers in rock history. Alongside interviews with Rush co founders Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, a number of other acclaimed drummers also speak about the influence Peart had on them.

One of the standout elements of the documentary is the rehearsal room performances that Lee and Lifeson prepared specially for the film. Three high profile guest drummers join them for those renditions of classic Rush songs: Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Danny Carey of Tool, and Stewart Copeland of The Police. Lee and Lifeson had previously worked with Smith and Carey at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert in 2022, but collaborating with Copeland was new territory for them. Copeland was not far removed from Peart even so, as the two were friends. "[Peart] never rated himself as highly as everyone else did," Copeland told Rolling Stone in 2020. "But he did very much feel the responsibility that he carried to be the God of drums. Kind of a burden, actually."

Peart passed away on January 7, 2020, in Santa Monica, California, after a three and a half year battle with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. He was 67 years old. Rush announced his death three days later, triggering a worldwide wave of grief and tributes from fans and fellow musicians. What struck many at the time was that virtually nobody outside his immediate circle had known about his illness. Peart had deliberately kept his diagnosis private.

Geddy Lee explained in 2022 why that was the case, during a conversation on the Canadian television program 'House Of Strombo'. "[Peart] didn't want anyone to know [about his illness]," Lee said. "He just didn't. He wanted to keep it in the house. And we did. And that was hard. I can't tell you it was easy, 'cause it was not easy." Lee described how he and Lifeson had to dodge questions from fans in order to protect Peart's privacy, which left him with a sense of dishonesty. "So fuck the dishonesty part. That wins," Lee said, describing the period as a prolonged experience of grief moving toward an inevitable and terrible outcome.

As the documentary's premiere approaches, Rush itself has entered a very different phase. Lee and Lifeson are now on tour as a renewed outfit, joined by German drummer Anika Nilles, who toured with guitar legend Jeff Beck in 2022, and keyboardist Loren Gold, known as a touring musician with The Who and Chicago. The so called 'Fifty Something' tour kicked off on June 7 with a show at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles. After the first dates were announced in October 2025, they sold out almost immediately, and the tour was extended multiple times in response to overwhelming demand. The group is playing multiple nights per city across Canada, the United States, and Mexico, performing two sets each night with a rotating setlist drawn from a catalog of around forty songs.