Neil Peart and Rush mixer and engineer Stephen W. Tayler was recently interviewed by Innerviews to discuss a multitude of topics. Here, Tayler discusses what it was like to work with Peart and how the late drummer couldn’t record for multiple days after a tragic weather event. A Rush employee recently revealed if Neil Peart ‘gave up’ before his death.
Tayler told the outlet: “I recall Neil Peart being a joy to work with. It was quite complicated to set up all the microphones and sound check for his substantial drum kit. On Presto at Le Studio, Morin Heights, we took a day to record each drum track. He was really well-rehearsed but took plenty of time to capture the ultimate take, each always in a single pass.”
He also said: “However, when we were setting up for Roll the Bones at Le Studio a couple of years later, it was winter and the weather was really bad. There was a power outage after a truck hit a power line, and that managed to take out the power supply of the Mitsubishi 32-track recorder. Due to a shortage of parts and difficulty reaching the studio up in the mountains, we weren’t able to record.”
Tayler continued: “We had 10 days set aside for recording the drums and we couldn’t record for eight days. Neil became very annoyed and frustrated, but he came in and rehearsed endlessly each day with a guide track. When we were up and running again, he managed to completely smash all the drum tracks for Roll the Bones in a day-and-a-half. It took Geddy by surprise as he wasn’t expecting to have to then immediately start working on his bass tracks.” A sad Neil Peart beach photo taken before his death was recently revealed.
Fans recently took to the prominent Rush message board, TheRushForum to pay tribute to Peart. One forum user wrote: “I was cleaning out a corner of my room and came upon an 11 x 14 envelope addressed to me with my return address in the corner. I noticed it was from Seattle and couldn’t remember what it was. It was the issue of Rolling Stone that has Rush on the cover that had been autographed by them during the show in Seattle during R40. The first person my eyes fell on was Neil. I started crying. He looked so happy in that picture and made me wonder if the photographer hadn’t maybe been Carrie. Then I remembered that it had been Neil who wrote so nicely: To Lorraine. It made me cry more, and that sent me on a crying jag for the next few hours. I felt so bad. He was too young to go. He didn’t deserve such a cruel ending either. Rest in peace, Neil.” Howard Stern announces Rush drummer ‘replacement’.
