Nancy Peart Burkholder, sister to the late RUSH drummer, Neil Peart, recently shared her reflections on his passing over three and a half years ago. She disclosed that she and the family had a span of “three and a half years to prepare” for his death.
Neil Peart succumbed to glioblastoma, a rare and aggressive brain cancer, on January 7, 2020, in Santa Monica, California at the age of 67.
The news of Peart‘s death was made public by RUSH three days later, causing a global wave of shock and mourning among fans and fellow musicians.
During a new interview on “Etcetera With Kelly Barrett,” Nancy provided insights into her family’s readiness for Neil‘s passing.
When asked if she and the rest of the family were prepared for Neil‘s passing, she said: “We had three and a half years to prepare, so we knew it was coming. And then once it happened, we had that week of radio silence where we couldn’t tell anybody. And then we got — I think we had 10 minutes notice before it was going live to the world. So we had 10 minutes to tell everyone that we hadn’t told in three and a half years that, ‘Sorry, we lied. Everything’s not okay.’ So, yeah, it was a really hard — that week was the hardest week that we went through because we knew and couldn’t share it.”
Asked about the respect for the family’s privacy during that period, Kelly asked Nancy if the fans and others had honored the request made by the remaining members of RUSH in the announcement of Neil‘s demise.
“Oh, our messages were blowing up,” Nancy responded. “My daughter finally turned her phone off. She’s also a musician. She’s in the [music] world. And she actually wrote a song that week called ‘Radio Silence’ because we were under radio silence. It played at ‘A Night For Neil’ [memorial event which was held in October 2022 at Meridian Centre in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada]. It was incredible.
“So, yeah, it was a very surreal week. But that 10 minutes was, like… I can’t even remember who I called in that 10 minutes. Everybody I knew, well, I had to message them all at once, ’cause we knew we had 10 minutes. And then just as one of my best friends got my message, it was on the radio. And then all of them, of course, were getting called because their families all know the connection and that — the same thing — had 45 years with him, technically. So, yeah, it was a shock that went around the world, that’s for sure.”
