Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson perform Rush songs with three of rock’s best-known drummers in “Neil Peart: No One’s Disciple“, a new feature documentary premiering September 23 on Canada’s CBC.
Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stewart Copeland of The Police and Danny Carey of Tool each take Peart‘s place behind the kit for newly filmed performances.
The film comes from Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn, directing for Banger Films with Elevation Pictures co-producing. It airs as part of CBC‘s documentary strand The Passionate Eye.
Republic Pictures has picked up distribution outside Canada.
The documentary traces Peart‘s difficult beginnings as a young musician through to his standing as one of the most studied drummers in rock, drawing on rare archival footage alongside interviews with Lee, Lifeson and other drummers on what his playing meant to them.
The film includes archival interview material with Peart himself. One passage sets out how he approached the job.
“I think it matters for me to play better all the time, and to play my best all the time, to keep it fresh and changing. It’s kind of my responsibility, I see it, as a drummer,” he says in the film (via CBC).
Peart died on January 7, 2020 in Santa Monica, California, at 67, following a three-year illness with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. Rush announced his death three days later.
Speaking on the Canadian talk show “House Of Strombo” in 2022, Lee described what the band went through in the years before that.
“[Peart] didn’t want anyone to know [about his illness]. He just didn’t. He wanted to keep it in the house. And we did. And that was hard. I can’t tell you it was easy, ’cause it was not easy. And it was ongoing. His diagnosis was… he was given 18 months at the most, and it went on three and a half years. And so that was a constant flow of us going to see him, giving him support,” Lee said at the time.
He explained what protecting that privacy cost him and Lifeson in their dealings with fans.
“What his family had to live through was really difficult, so it was a lot of back-and-forth. And when you’re in that state, it’s very hard to function normally, because you can’t talk to anybody about it, ’cause no one’s supposed to know. And so people hear rumblings and they bring things up to you, and you deflect it. And so that feels, on one hand, it feels dishonest, but on the other hand you’re being loyal to your friend. So f**k the dishonesty part. That wins.”
He added: “I would say that was the most difficult time for us to move forward, during that whole thing, because we were in this bubble of grief sort of walking towards an inevitable and terrible conclusion.”
Peart had retired from touring after Rush‘s “R40” run, having dealt with chronic pain and tendinitis for years.
The documentary arrives while Lee and Lifeson are mid-tour for the first time in over a decade.
The “Fifty Something” tour opened June 7 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles — the same building where Rush played their final show with Peart on August 1, 2015.
German drummer Anika Nilles, who toured with Jeff Beck in 2022, occupies the drum seat. Loren Gold, a touring member of The Who and Chicago, has been added on keyboards.
The dates run across Canada, the United States and Mexico as “evening with” shows, two sets a night, with each night’s setlist assembled from a pool of roughly 40 songs.
When the first 2026 dates went on sale in early October 2025 they sold out immediately. The band doubled the length of the tour in response, then added further dates on top of that.
