Anika Nilles Opens Up About Stepping Into Neil Peart's Role With Rush

German fusion drummer Anika Nilles had a candid reaction when confronting the weight of Neil Peart's legacy: "Yikes — I don't know if I want to play this one." That admission, surfaced in a recent profile, is about as honest as it gets for someone who has just been handed one of the most scrutinized drum chairs in rock history, joining Rush for their first tour since Peart's death in 2020.

The path from solo artist to Rush touring drummer runs through Jeff Beck's 2022 European tour, where Nilles was behind the kit when Geddy Lee happened to be paying attention. In a November 2023 Guardian interview, Lee singled her out after name-checking Tool's Danny Carey and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: "I heard this drummer the other day, I think her name is Anika [Nilles]. She played on the last Jeff Beck tour and I thought she was terrific." That offhand compliment from a 72-year-old bass player who had spent years grieving his closest musical partner turned out to be the opening act of something much bigger. Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson ultimately chose Nilles as the touring drummer who would make a Rush reunion feel possible.

What made Nilles the right fit is also what made the job harder. Lee was direct about the paradox in that same Guardian interview: "I know it's hard to believe, and I like that, that she came to Rush music without any preconceptions. It also made it very difficult, because we had to explain nuances and work on subtleties, and she had to really try to get into Neil's headspace and his feel." He was careful to distinguish between technical reproduction and genuine feel. "A lot of drummers can play Neil's drum fills, but to combine that with the feel of those songs so that it feels the way you guys want to hear those songs. That's work, that requires work. So she's winning."

Before Rush came calling, Nilles had already built a serious career on her own terms. Her first solo album, Pikalar, came out in 2017, and she has released multiple records since, collecting awards from various drum magazines along the way. Her performances of "Wild Boy" and "Shine" have circulated widely enough to give any skeptic a clear picture of her dynamic range and compositional thinking.

That approach to dynamics is central to how Nilles talks about drumming. "For me, music is all about emotion," she told the interview site 15 Questions. "On drums, that emotion comes through in dynamics — playing with sound and silence just as much as with notes. And of course, it's also about the player's touch. When all those elements come together, that's when I really feel the beauty of music." It is exactly the philosophy Lee was describing, even if neither of them framed it that way at the time: Peart's parts were never just about the fills. They were about where the air went.

Lee called Nilles "a remarkable story," noting she is considerably younger than him and Lifeson. That generational distance is a genuine complication — learning the nuance of a catalog you did not grow up inside is different from replicating parts you absorbed as a teenager. But Lee's assessment, delivered with the weight of someone who watched Peart build those parts from scratch, was unambiguous: she is winning.