Neil Peart

Neil Ellwood Peart, OC (/ˈpɪərt/; born September 12, 1952), is a Canadian musician and author. He is the drummer and lyricist for the rock band Rush. Peart has received numerous awards for his musical performances, and is known for his technical proficiency and stamina.


 * In the London of the early 1970s, we didn't know anything about cocaine yet, and apart from hashish, the only other drug commonly available was LSD. Back in Canada, I had experienced a couple of enjoyable "acid trips," featuring all the tourist attractions of heightened senses and visual special effects (never any hallucinations, in the sense of seeing something that wasn't there, but vivid colors and patterns, and intellectual insights that were entertaining and, sometimes, truly transcendent). For me, at least (certainly not for everybody), the LSD experience could give unique perspectives on life and everything in it, sometimes absurd, sometimes sublime. As with my near-drowning experience, an acid trip seemed to take me through a panorama of my whole life up to that time, turning my whole young brain inside out and allowing me to sift through everything in it. For some people, perhaps already fragile or unstable, that experience could be too much to endure, but it could also offer spectacular sensory experiences and mental adventures.
 * In the fall of 1972, in our Collier's Wood flat, Brad and I took a well-planned, carefully-orchestrated LSD trip. We locked ourselves into our flat on a Saturday night, filled the electric meter with coins, and settled back to listen to Moody Blues records, smoke cigarettes, and discuss the meaning of life.
 * Sometime during that timeless night, we came up with a phrase that made us smile, a phrase we continued to circle back to all that night, and we decided it was the ultimate Meaning of Life.
 * "You get up in the morning and you go to work."


 * ...turned me on to LSD for the first time, when I was sixteen or seventeen. The two of us spent a whole June night on the open deck above the porch of an old house on Duke STreet in St. Catharines, an it was a powerful experience. The world dissolving into patterns, my face touched by gentle rain, wide eyes enraptured by droplets on a perfect rose growing out of the vines on the wall, hearing the sounds of the night, the thoughts coming out of our mouths, all of it seeming alive in a whole new way.
 * - Traveling Music: The Soundtrack to my lives and times by Neil Peart