Rush’s Neil Peart: ‘A Three-Hour Show Is Like Running A Marathon’

Rush drummer Neil Peart recently gave insight into the fitness regimen which helps him to maintain his legendary skills as a drummer, just in case you’ve been curious. (What? You haven’t?)

We always love stories like this – for one, it gives an outlet like the Los Angeles Times the chance to use words like “lumbar” and “ventricle” when writing about music.

Peart reveals that it was drumming “that gave me the stamina to get into sports later.”

"Stamina is the force that drives the drumming; it's not really a sprint. The stamina aspect is great because you don't lose that with age so quickly. I know there will be a day when I just can't do it, but at 58 years of age it hasn't come yet. I can still play as fast and as powerful and as long as I ever could."

He compares playing a three-hour Rush show to the experience of “running a marathon while solving equations” and says, “My mind is as busy as it can be, and so is my body; full output all the time.”

Earlier this year, Peart explained how his drumming has evolved after 36 years and described the changes as “indefinably subtle” but said that “they were things that I’ve wanted to work on for 20 years.”

Watch Neil Peart's Drum Solo On The David Letterman Show