Neil Peart TIFF doc sort of a 'zeitgeist moment' occurring same time as Rush's new tour
· Toronto Sun
See more Toronto Sun on Google — save as a Preferred Source
The “brotherhood of drummers” is nowhere more apparent than in the new documentary, Neil Peart: No One’s Disciple , which will have its world debut on Thursday night at TIFF.
Visit forestarrow.rest for more information.
Peart, the much-admired drummer-lyricist for Toronto prog-rock trio Rush, died in 2020 at the age of 67 from a brain tumour, but his friendships with and inspiration to other drummers – as well as his two surviving bandmates – live on in the touching and funny film, which will get a nationwide broadcast on Sept. 23 on CBC/CBC Gem.
The documentary finds Rush bassist-singer Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson playing songs like Working Man and Dreamline with other drummers like Danny Carey (Tool), Stewart Copeland (The Police), Gavin Harrison (King Crimson & Porcupine Tree), Doane Perry (Jethro Tull) and Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), and it becomes obvious very quickly just how demanding Peart’s drumming parts are to play.
Responsible for it even happening were Toronto’s Banger Films and its two co-founders, who were collectively behind the 2010 documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage and the 2023 Paramount+ series Geddy Lee: Are Bass Players Human Too?
“It’s been a long history (with Rush) going all the way back to our first film, (2005’s) Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey,” said Scot McFadyen, seated beside co-director Sam Dunn on a Zoom call.
“When we interviewed Geddy in 2004, and it was really Neil that was the one who got convinced in the room to let us do that doc. He’d been super open and embracing of us from the beginning, which has been great.”
Then Paramount started showing interest in a new project at the beginning of 2025 and it developed organically.
“(Lee and Lifeson) had done the (the late Foo Fighters drummer) Taylor Hawkins (2022) tribute and they had played with other drummers that first time they had played together (since Peart’s death),” said McFadyen.
“They didn’t have an opportunity to do a tribute to Neil because of COVID, so we thought, ‘Well, maybe they could play.’ And then we talked about morphing it into a doc about Neil and having them play with other drummers.”
The performance parts were filmed last fall in an L.A. film studio.
The big surprise was that, just before that, Rush had decided to go out on a 2026 tour with new German drummer Anika Nilles (the only person in the documentary who never met Peart) on their Fifty Something Tour that just played four nights in Toronto last month.
“It was something that happened after we started this documentary,” said McFadyen.
“And then we were like, ‘Well, how do we put that into the doc as well and make that part of the Rush universe?’ ‘Cause it would be odd not to mention it. They were reluctant. They wanted it to be about Neil, not to be about them really. But the way it turned out, it really is a tribute. So it was kind of a weird zeitgeist moment.”
Peart liked to play with other drummers
While the documentary shows Peart’s “flaw” to be his dislike of being a public figure, the brotherhood of drummers getting together for sessions in Peart’s so-called “cave” space was the bigger revelation to the filmmakers.
“I think that it’s well known that Neil was uncomfortable with the Limelight (also a Rush song), to name it,” said Dunn.
“We didn’t really know the closeness of this group,” added McFadyen. “And how he had kind of sought out these people, and reached out to them and built these friendships with other drummers, and his relationship with (Jethro Tull’s) Doane in the film. Just the idea that he’s a polymath and they would have all these kinds of conversations about astrology and science.”
Keen-eyed Toronto viewers will notice that Lee and Lifeson are initially interviewed together (before separately at various locations) in the basement wine cellar at Barberian’s Steak House in Toronto, where they toast Peart by pouring “two fingers of Macallan” (the single malt Scotch whisky) in a glass in front of an empty seat.
“Bringing them together, I think was really important and we also know that when they’re together, they’re really hilarious,” said Dunn.
“So the Barberian’s interview was the first thing we did and we just had a gut feeling that it might be a nice way to kick off the story.”
For Peart’s own images and words in the documentary, McFadyen said, “More than 50% of were interviews that we had done in the past, whether our first film and then the stuff at Le Studio (in Quebec) was for another project, and then we had filmed him motorcycling.”
The documentary is getting a big U.S. release via Paramount in about 1,000 theatres in January-February next year but so far there is no soundtrack planned.
“Great question,” said McFadyen. “(Producer) Nick Raskulinecz did mix the sound and it sounded great actually. I was really happy with the way it came out.”
Added Dunn: “Only time will tell.”
WHAT’S NEXT
Next up for Banger Films’ co-founders Scott McFadyen and Sam Dunn is the 2027 TV and theatrical release of the documentary, The Ballad of Judas Priest, which premiered in Berlin last February, and producing a documentary about Hole-Smashing Pumpkins’ bassist Melissa Auf der Maur’s photo exhibition, currently at the AGO in Toronto.
“How it’s a window into the ‘90s alternative culture and talking with a bunch of musicians in those photos about what that moment to them,” said Dunn.
They are also making their first scripted music series, a co-production with South Korea, based on a family friend’s real-life story about the father being a former Korean rock star who left the country during its dictatorship and moved to Toronto and started up Lee’s Palace, originally called Oriental Palace, in the early ‘70s.
“It’s proof you can do something about Korean music that isn’t K-pop,” joked Dunn.