The drummer has described the doubt she felt on day four of rehearsals, the night she spent working it out on a hotel pillow, and the five seconds before the most scrutinised fill in the set.
Anika Nilles knew exactly what was coming. So did 17,000 other people.
The Rush drummer has described the moment before she played the fill in “Tom Sawyer” at the band’s first show of the “Fifty Something” tour, at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California on June 7. Speaking to David Frangioni of Modern Drummer in an interview filmed in July, she recalled the crowd’s reaction and what was going through her head just before it.
“Yeah, I was a little bit, like, ‘Oh, what’s going on?’ But, yeah, it felt really good to just bring that one out off the table. That was the most important song, I think, for the fans, and also for me to just nail that. And that was such a relief. Five seconds before the fill, I was, like, ‘Okay, let’s go. Don’t f**k it up. And let’s go.’ Maybe that was the thought to fans too. I don’t know,” she said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
The pressure was not new. Nilles has now given her own account of the rehearsals in which Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson privately wondered whether the arrangement was going to work and it turns out she was wondering the same thing, on the same day, over the same song.
“There was a moment where I also thought on day four [of our first rehearsals], ‘I’m not sure if I’m up to that task.’ Because we talked about the feeling, and I think it was day four with ‘Tom Sawyer‘, where I had to learn about Neil‘s feeling really quick, like within that one session I had to learn what they really require from me feeling-wise, and I had to understand what Neil‘s feeling really was to them — to them. And I went back to the hotel after this session, and I just went through all the talk we had and tried to figure it and really internalize what they told me. And I listened back. I sat in the hotel room on a pillow to replay the parts — no practice kit; pillows. And I also had a talk to my producer, a guitarist, and he is a big Rush guy. He listened to Rush a lot as he was younger. He gave me also confidence: ‘You will nail it. You just have to listen to the songs a couple of times more’ and apply the feedback [I got from Geddy and Alex]. And then the next day, it was there. I think I got it. Sleeping one night over everything definitely helped,” Nilles recalled.
Lifeson described the same 24 hours from the other side of the room, telling Classic Rock: “We rehearsed for four days, and on the fourth day Ged and I sat down and we weren’t sure. It wasn’t quite working with the three of us. We were thinking that maybe we should continue with someone else, just to see how that might feel. And on the fifth day, on the last day that we rehearsed, she took all our comments about feel, about Neil‘s feel and the way he played, and being very cognizant of the ability that he had, and — bang! She nailed the songs all day. It was a real ‘Wow!’ moment.”
Lee has separately described that rehearsal as the turning point and has since called her a perfect fit for the band.
Part of what made the preparation so involved is that Nilles came to the catalogue cold. Asked by “Thomann’s Drum Bash” whether she knew the band’s music before being approached, she was straightforward about it.
”Actually, I was familiar with Neil as a drummer, especially in combination with the song ‘Tom Sawyer‘. That’s a classic in the drum community, of course. But I haven’t really listened to Rush music, even if I was growing up with rock music and progressive music. But for some reason I never stumbled into the Rush catalog,” Nilles said at the time.
That meant starting from nothing on every song, and deciding, one at a time, where to reproduce Peart exactly and where to play as herself.
“I treat the music with great respect to the guys and also to Neil‘s parts, because Neil is a big part of the music,” Nilles continued. “And so I try to make careful decisions with a great deal of sensitivity of what I’m playing original and where there is room for me to play more free or more me or more improvising. But I go from song to song and make these decisions. And this [was] actually my preparation at home. So my homework [was], first off, to learn the songs because every song is kind of a blank page to me. So I really [had] to start from zero, learning the arrangements and learning the drum composition within the actual song arrangement. So Neil‘s way to play the drums is basically an own composition, and this is what I mean. I treat it with great respect because that’s a huge skill he brought into it, and I wanna honor that. And so I have to make these decisions really careful song by song, what I’m playing on original and where I go more free. And this [was] my preparation at home, but when we rehearse[d], then it [was] kind of a thing that we [had] more attention to the energy and to the feel of the song. And then we look[ed] back if my decisions were working out or if there [was] anything to adjust.”
Asked which song gave her the most trouble, she declined to single one out: “Every Rush song is complex and difficult to learn. It’s so rich of details in every way. I mean, the arrangement itself is full of details, but the drum parts are full of details, so it’s complex and a lot of things to learn and to memorize.”
Nilles said the study has fed back into her own writing.
“To be able to play Neil‘s parts needs to have a research on his playing and really study his playing and his feeling and the way he organized himself on the drums. Like, if it’s the colors he’s using, like the different drum sounds he’s using or the musical approach to this instrument. And while studying all of that, I learn a lot, of course. Especially about his way of composing the drum parts is really interesting to me, because I love doing that on my own music, too, and he is really, really good in that, and I learned a couple of things already which I might adapt to my music at some point. So, yeah, [I was] definitely learning things while studying his parts and the music,” she explained.
She was equally clear about why the working relationship settled as quickly as it did.
Nilles said: “If you know those two guys, they are so funny and they’re so human. And that made it really easy to connect to each other. So they treated me immediately, from first minute on, on the same level. I mean, they are legends. They could be whatever — whatever, arrogant or whatever. They are not. They are funny. They are so human. And this is a way where you have easy access to each other. But also they love to play music. They are very enthusiastic when it comes to play music. They love working on details. They are detailed when they work together, and you see them having fun and the energy they both have together, and I really can connect with that attitude. So I love energetic music. I love when someone is really focused on music and working on details. These are all points where I see myself also with my music. So it’s a way, I think, which made it all easy for us to connect with each other. And that happened, actually, I would say immediately.”
Nilles toured with Jeff Beck in 2022, which turned out to be his final run, and it was that work which brought her to Lee‘s attention. She joined Rush alongside keyboardist Loren Gold, previously a touring member of The Who and Chicago.
The “Fifty Something” tour is working through Canada, the United States and Mexico, with the band playing two sets a night and no support act, drawing each show from a pool of around 40 songs so no two nights match. The first batch of dates announced in October 2025 sold out immediately, the run was doubled, and further shows were added after that.
