Neil Peart's widow gives her blessing to Rush drummer Anika Nilles

Rush's new drummer, German musician Anika Nilles, went through a five-day audition before Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson brought her onto the band's ongoing Fifty Something tour. She told Rolling Stone that mastering the material was only half the challenge, and that managing her own nerves once she took the stage was the harder part.

She said she had to coach herself through individual song sections early on so she wouldn't "fly away" mentally, a habit that kept her from dwelling on the size of the seat she was filling. Her approach settled into a simple mantra she repeated to herself: "be in the moment, be present, be focused."

She also had to decide how closely to mirror Neil Peart's own parts, unsure at first whether to nail every detail or leave room to improvise. The deeper she studied his playing, the more she found herself changing her physical technique too, trading her usual stick control for what she called playing "more out of muscle power."

That process left a lasting impression. "Now, I have a little bit of Neil in me," Nilles said, adding that studying his parts gave her a new appreciation for how meticulously he built each one, calling him "brilliant" at the craft.

Her nerves eased once Neil Peart's widow, Carrie Nuttall, sent her "a really lovely message" ahead of the tour's first show. "It was really nice to hear that she is on board and looking forward to this whole journey," Nilles said. After her first few shows, she described feeling relieved, summing up the milestone simply: "I made it through!"

Rush, once a tight three-piece whose chemistry defined progressive rock for four decades, has toured as a reshaped lineup with Lee and Lifeson since Peart's death in 2020, and the Fifty Something tour continues across North America, carrying his legacy forward one show at a time.