In a November 2023 Guardian interview, Rush‘s Geddy Lee famous that we have been dwelling “in a time wealthy for nice drummers.” He name-checked Software‘s Danny Carey and Chad Smith of the Crimson Scorching Chili Peppers.
Then he talked about a far much less acquainted participant: “I heard this drummer the opposite day, I believe her identify is Anika [Nilles]. She performed on the final Jeff Beck tour and I assumed was she was terrific.”
Whether or not Lee knew it or not a that point, it seems Nilles is the one who would assist him and guitarist Alex Lifeson really feel assured sufficient to reunite for the primary Rush tour since Neil Peart‘s 2020 demise.
Rush’s touring profession appeared to have reached its finish after the ultimate date of their career-spanning R40 tour, which passed off Aug. 1, 2015 in Los Angeles. Quickly after, Peart introduced his retirement from the highway.
“He was struggling all through that tour to play at his peak, due to bodily illnesses and different issues that have been occurring with him,” Lee informed Eddie Trunk in 2018. “He’s a perfectionist, and he didn’t need to exit and do something lower than what individuals anticipated of him. That is what drove him his complete profession, and that is the best way he wished to exit, and I completely respect that.”
After a troublesome and personal three-and-a-half-year battle with most cancers, Peart died in January 2020. Six months later, Lifeson mentioned the loss had left him with out the inspiration or motivation to even play his instrument.
“Each time I decide up a guitar, I simply aimlessly sort of fiddle with it and put it down after 10 minutes,” he informed WFAN. “Usually, I might decide up a guitar and I might play for a few hours with out even being conscious that I am spending that a lot time.”
Though Lee and Lifeson instantly started receiving a slew of “inappropriate” messages from drummers hoping to hitch the group, they wanted time to course of their grief first. “Dude, wait two months. At the least two months, if ever,” Lee later defined.
5 years after Peart’s demise – and with some useful nudging from none apart from Paul McCartney – the time has arrived. “Alex and I’ve performed some severe soul looking out and are available to the choice that we fucking miss it,” Lee mentioned in an October 2025 press launch asserting their 2026 tour. “It’s time for a celebration of 50-something years of Rush music.”
It helped {that a} member of the band’s inside circle had positioned the proper drummer. “My bass tech, Skully was working with Jeff Beck and he was on tour,” Lee revealed throughout an Oct. 5 press occasion on the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame. “Sadly, earlier than Jeff handed away, he was on tour with him for just a few years, and on the final tour, he was taking part in with this drummer named Anika Nilles, an unimaginable drummer, and he would come dwelling, he would rave about her, What a superb participant she was, and nice individual, blah, blah, blah…
“So I sort of appeared her up, and she’s throughout YouTube. She’s pretty well-known in her personal world of music. After which we began speaking about taking part in once more, so I mentioned, verify her out. Perhaps that is an attention-grabbing strategy to go. And so one factor led to a different, and after we made the choice, we wished to see if it could work.”
Born right into a household with a number of drummers in Aschaffenburg, Germany on Might 29, 1983 – that is roughly midway between the discharge dates for 1982’s Alerts and 1984’s Grace Beneath Strain – Nilles started taking part in herself at age six.
Round 2010, she left a gradual profession in social training to pursue her goals of a musical profession. “It was actually dangerous,” she informed Fashionable Drummer in 2017. “I all the time knew that I wasn’t pleased at that job, however while you get cash and you’re secure, it is not straightforward to stop.”
After spending the following few years brushing up on her abilities, making ends meet with music classes and gigs, Nilles recorded a video of her unique track “Wild Boy,” which immediately went viral and helped her change into a star on the worldwide drum competition and clinic circuit. Her subsequent launch, “Alter Ego,” reached a fair wider viewers.
Watch Anika Nilles Carry out ‘Wild Boy’
“For me, music is all about emotion,” Nilles informed the positioning 15 Questions. “On drums, that emotion comes via in dynamics—taking part in with sound and silence simply as a lot as with notes. And naturally, it’s additionally concerning the participant’s contact. When all these components come collectively, that’s after I actually really feel the fantastic thing about music.”
As her fame continued to develop, Nilles launched her first solo album Pikilar in 2017, received a shelf full awards from numerous drum magazines, and carried out with Jeff Beck on his 2022 European tour, which (as talked about above) is what introduced her to the eye of Rush’s inside circle.
After all, the prospect of changing Peart is a very difficult one, each for Nilles and for Lee and Lifeson.
“Regardless of who the drummer is, all of them have their very own notion of what it is wish to play a Rush track, they usually could not line up with the best way we play Rush,” Lee defined on the October Corridor of Fame occasion. “So whoever we have been going to decide on was going to be troublesome, and there was going to be like a translation. And so we very secretly introduced Anika to Canada, and we did it wasn’t an audition, as a result of at that time we weren’t actually positive that we have been going to tour. It was all an experiment.”
Fortunately, this experiment proved extremely profitable. “I am very pleased to say that she is incredible to play with, and we have had now various classes along with her, and we’ll go on the highway along with her,” Lee declared.
“I believe she’s a exceptional story. And , she’s a lot youthful than us,” the 72-year-old bassist and singer identified. “I do know it is arduous to consider, and I like that, that she got here to Rush music with none preconceptions. It additionally made it very troublesome, as a result of we needed to clarify nuances and work on subtleties, and she or he needed to actually attempt to get into Neil’s headspace and his really feel. You realize, you’ll be able to play a drum fill. A whole lot of drummers can play Neil’s drum kills, however to mix that with the texture of these songs in order that it feels the best way you guys need to hear these songs. That is work, that requires work. So she’s profitable.”
Watch Anika Nilles Carry out ‘Shine’
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Gallery Credit score: Matthew Wilkening, besides as famous beneath.
