SiriusXM paying tribute to Rush drummer Neil Peart | The Music Universe

Manny Sanchez

Peart passed away from brain cancer on Jan 7th

SiriusXM (SXM) is paying tribute to Rush drummer Neil Peart (pronounced PEERT) following his death on January 7th from brain cancer. The sat rad company is honoring Peart with a variety of programming on Monday, January 13th.

It all kicks off with a limited-time Rush Tribute Channel on Deep Tracks (Ch. 27). The Rush Tribute Channel features the classic music of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees, plus a two-hour exclusive special, Closer To The Heart — The Music of Rush’s Neil Peart, showcasing Peart’s career highlights and music with rock journalist and SiriusXM host David Fricke. The special airs on Monday, January 13 from 7-9 pm ET and will also be available On Demand.

Eddie Trunk will celebrate the drummer and lyricist on Monday during all five hours of Trunk Nation. He will be live on SiriusXM Volume (Ch. 106) from 2-4 pm ET with celebrity guests joining by phone, and then Hair Nation (Ch. 39) from 5-8 pm ET with mostly fan calls.

“Shocking sad tragic news today with the announcement that Neil Peart has passed away,” Trunk shared on Friday. “Like most I have been a lifelong Rush fan and been lucky throughout my career to do many interviews with the guys. But only once with Neil and it was for a TV shoot for VH1 Classic back in 2006. It’s amazing because over the years so many have asked me about that interview because Neil did so few for TV one on one. It’s something I’ve always felt so lucky and grateful to have done and it couldn’t have been a better day. He was such a grounded, nice, wonderful guy above and beyond the incredibly brilliant drummer and writer he also was. Like many I held out hope maybe one day we would hear him play again having no idea what he was battling. Neil, and the entire Rush family and management have endured some really sad losses over the decades, made even sadder by the fact that they are all such nice people.

“Condolences to his family, friends, many fans, Rush bandmates] Geddy Lee] & Alex Lifeson], and the entire Rush office. RIP Neil Peart. We will never see the likes of him again.”

Peart is long considered one of the greatest drummers in the world due to his style, precision and extravagant kit. He was also Rush’s main lyricist, often writing about science fiction, fantasy, and philosophy, inspired by his love of literature. He also authored multiple memoirs about his travels, including collaborating with Kevin J. Anderson on the novelization of Rush’s album Clockwork Angels.

Rush called it quits in 2015 following their final show in Los Angeles. The group had been together more than 40 years when Peart decided to retired due to chronic pain and tendinitis. Peart was determined not to perform again at the time, the group even turned down a Vegas residency in 2015-2016 that would’ve seen them play the T-Mobile Arena four to six times per year.

The Canadian rock trio has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide. They were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1994 and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013. Peart was the youngest member inducted into the Modern Drummer Readers Poll Hall of Fame in 1983.

He is survived by a wife, photographer Carrie Nuttall, and ten year old daughter Oli. Peart’s 19 year old daughter Selena passed away in a single car accident in August 1997. His common-law wife of 23 years and Selena’s mother, Jackie, passed away less than a year later due to terminal cancer. Peart nearly retired from music due to the devastation, but decided to embark on a solitary motorcycle trip across the United States. He remarried in 2000 and Rush continued in 2001.