"Sadly, before Jeff passed away, he was on tour with him for a few years, and on the last tour, he was playing with this drummer named Anika Nilles, an incredible drummer, and he would come home, he would rave about her, What a brilliant player she was, and great person, blah, blah, blah..."
"So I kind of looked her up, and she's all over YouTube. She's fairly well known in her own world of music. And then we started talking about playing again, so I said, check her out. Maybe that's an interesting way to go. And so one thing led to another, and when we made the decision, we wanted to see if it would work."
RUSH announced a 2026 North American tour, marking the band's first live shows in 11 years. Anika Nilles was selected as the drummer to perform with the group, succeeding the late Neil Peart. Nilles gained notice from playing on the last Jeff Beck tour and received enthusiastic praise from a touring technician. Online videos and direct listening prompted the band to pursue her as a potential fit. Early rehearsals were treated as an experiment to evaluate musical chemistry before finalizing the decision to bring Nilles into the lineup.
Read at Consequence
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