Rush had to be “dishonest” to fans about Neil Peart’s cancer diagnosis
nme.comRush’s Geddy Lee has revealed that bandmate Neil Peart wanted to keep his cancer diagnosis a secret prior to his death.The visionary Hall of Fame drummer died on January 7, 2020, after quietly battling brain cancer for three years.Speaking in a new interview, Lee and Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson discussed Peart’s final years and how he wanted to keep his illness quiet, which forced the band to protect his privacy by keeping fans in the dark.“[Peart] didn’t want anyone to know [about his illness],” Lee said on Canadian talk show House Of Strombo. “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 then explained that the band had to be “dishonest” to fans in order to protect Peart’s privacy.“What his family had to live through was really difficult, so it was a lot of back-and-forth,” he said. “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.
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