(Credits: Far Out / Raph_PH)
Thu 8 January 2026 19:15, UK
From the minute that Dave Grohl and Jack Black became friends, they were always fans of rock and roll before anything else.
Black may have been going for more of a comedic tone every single time he got a guitar in his hand, but whenever he got Grohl to play one of his albums, the common language always came back to the best moments that Led Zeppelin had on record, or which Who song was the better anthem of hard rock. And yet, compared to the other titans of the early 1970s, only a few artists were irreplaceable in their minds.
Granted, there were always going to be bands that needed to break up when one of the legends passed away. It’s unthinkable to imagine what Led Zeppelin would have sounded like without John Bonham behind the kit, and as much as Grohl loved playing the drums in Nirvana, there was no way that anyone would have approved of him and Krist Novoselic taking the reins and continuing on after Kurt Cobain passed away.
But not all legends are built the same way. Cobain had a knack for writing fantastic songs every single time he got a guitar in his hands, but there was also a certain class of rock star that was all about showmanship. The world of progressive music might not have been the most accessible genre in the world for most fairweather fans, but even for someone like Black, he knew something else was going on when he heard Rush play for the first time.
For one thing, the lyrics weren’t your typical sex, drugs and rock and roll tunes everyone was used to. They definitely had influences from the meat and potatoes of rock and roll, but Neil Peart wanted to write about the real problems afflicting the world on tunes like ‘The Spirit of Radio’ or ‘Limelight’. Then again, the moment he started playing the drums was was always going to be what turned Black’s head.
Compared to Bonzo lingering a bit behind the beat, Black felt that Peart was the kind of clinical drummer that no one could touch, saying, “It was just eerily precise. Everything was just right on the nuggets. I bet if you went in with a computer, Neil Peart would have been on the beat to like an atom. Or at least that’s how it sounds when you’re listening. You’re like, ‘He’s not even human.’”
So when a legend of that calibre suddenly passed away in 2020, Grohl said that hardly anyone in the world was going to compare with what Peart could do, saying, “I still vividly remember my first listen of ‘2112’ when I was young. It was the first time I really listened to a drummer. And since that day, music has never been the same. His power, precision, and composition was incomparable. He was called ‘The Professor’ for a reason: We all learned from him.”
That said, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson choosing to go back onstage for another tour with new drummer Anika Nilles was never meant to replace ‘The Professor’. It’s understood that those chops will never be copied by anyone, and since they are also paying tribute to their old friend’s memory every night, it’s clear that their decision to tour is about celebrating what Peart left behind for the rest of the world.
Grohl might have a more hands-on experience learning Peart’s drum parts than Black does, but the fact that someone that doesn’t play drums can hear the finesse says a lot about what Peart gave to the world. From swinging perfectly to making bold lyrics about the human experience, Peart had the vocabulary of someone like Bob Dylan while also being able to play like Bonham, Keith Moon, and Buddy Rich all at the same time.
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