Since being announced as Rush's new touring drummer back in October, Anika Nilles has not discussed her new role in any interviews up until now. Dutch drumming magazine Slagwerkkrant was given the distinct honor of being the first to chat with Anika about the gig, how it came about, the challenge of filling Neil Peart's shoes, and how she reacted when Rush gave her a call:
... "I was surprised, of course. There's no drummer in the world who thinks he or she could ever become the drummer for Rush, and when you get a call from one of the Rush band members, your world is turned upside down." ... "Of course I knew Neil as a drummer, especially because of the song Tom Sawyer, which is a real classic in the drumming world. But I'll be honest, I never really listened to Rush's music. I grew up with rock music and progressive symphonic music, but I hadn't really delved into Rush's repertoire. When I was asked, I first focused on the songs they wanted to try. Then I dove into their catalog, but right now it's all about the set lists for the concerts we're going to do." ...
Here she is discussing her first rehearsal with the boys:
... "They invited me to see if it would work with me on drums. I had to learn a number of songs that I'm not allowed to mention yet, haha. I can't leak anything... We just started playing and talked a lot. The theme of how Neil approached his drumming and, of course, the feel often came up. You know, it was less about what I had to play and much more about how Neil played it at the time. We did that mainly to get to know each other better." ... "The first thing I noticed was how human they are. They're legends, but neither of them has any ego whatsoever, and they're also incredibly funny. They made me feel comfortable right away, which helped me enormously. Look, again, they're legends, but arrogance is completely foreign to them. They're really nice guys." ...
You can read the entire interview online here, and check out Anika in action in this new music video she released last week for her song Fou Fou from her 2025 album False Truth.
