Drummer Rod Morgenstein Talks Neil Peart, Winger, And Voices Of Extreme

I've never had the chance to speak with Rod before. He was great! I could've easily talked with him for another hour!

The reason for the interview was to give his latest project, Voices Of Extreme, some love, but Rod steered the conversation to other things like a tour he did with RUSH, Neil Peart, Winger (of course), and then some V.O.E. talk. Like I said, he's so easy to speak with, we could've gone on much longer.

I had to give Rod a chance to talk about his drum tool, Wing Thing. I'm not a drummer, so check out the video below for a full explanation of what this tool does.

As he talked about his drumming tool, he mentioned that the drum tech who works with Anika Niles, who's going to tour with Rush this year, so that opened up a lot of Rush talk.

Rod explained that he toured as an opening act with Steve Morse in the mid-80s, before joining Winger. "Winger happened in 1988. So I'd never been on a tour bus. And when we got to know, Neil, Alex, and Getty fairly well.
One day, they just put out the offer. They said, Hey, if, if one night as we travel to the next city, any of you guys want to come on the bus with us, you're more than welcome. So I traveled, you know, on their tour bus, which was just the three of them and their tour manager. And got that whole experience for the first time in my life. They're three of the nicest gentlemen, forget the musicianship, or in addition to just being the musicians that they are. They went out of their way to make us, as their support band, feel special."

I mean, I had to ask about being around The Professor. "I have so many Neil Peart stories because, you know, I got to spend a fair amount of time with him, too. He shunned being in the spotlight. He was, I don't want to say he was a shy human being. He just didn't want to have to, um, just sort of talk gibberish or things of non-importance to him."

What about a typical show day for Neil? That's wild - "So, a typical day on the road with Rush back then, again, I'm telling you, it's 40 years ago, Neil, in later years, he got into the motorcycle. But when I met him, he was riding his bicycle. He was a serious cyclist. And if the next show was within 150 miles, he would not go on the tour bus after the show to the next city. He would sleep in the town that we played and get up at the crack of dawn to get on his bicycle and pedal upwards of eight hours to the next city. So I would typically be in the arena throwing a baseball with Geddy Lee. And then, uh, and you would see this figure come riding into the arena, and then the bike would be put down and then it was time for their soundcheck. So they would do their soundcheck and then immediately following the soundcheck, a local French tutor was waiting for Neil to give him a one-hour lesson in conversational French. Because I, you know, sadly, he lost both his wife and daughter within the same year or within a year's time back in 97 and 98, I think. But his daughter was a young girl then, and they lived in Toronto, and his daughter learned to speak French as well as English. So Neil wanted to be able to converse with his daughter in both languages. So he would do that. Then they would do their two-plus-hour show. And then after the show, Neil would, he'd hang out for a little bit, and then he'd excuse himself to the bus because he was in the midst of writing his first literary work. So that was a typical day in the life of Neil Peart."

I had to ask Rod, since he's a seriously schooled drummer, if he ever felt that the band didn't get the recognition that maybe they deserved because of the time of the "hair bands" and the songs that became hits for them. "Totally.
Kip Winger is a bona fide classical composer now." Rod went on to speak to all of the classical concerts and songs Kip's been involved in. "So this is Kip Winger, the guy that when I think back to like Beavis and Butthead making fun, you know, Kip was chosen as the poster child of all things to make fun of with the hairband, so-called hairband movement. And, you know, he was so unfairly treated as a talentless hack, but he's having the last laugh because he's probably the rock musician who has taken the jump into the classical world further than anybody."

Rod's latest project is a band that's been around for a bit, but he just recently joined. Why join another band now? "It's just, you know, throughout the years, you get called by people you may never have met to see if they could hire you, uh, to do something. But now with Winger winding down, I've got, I'm kind of going through a whole soul-searching period myself. You know, being at the age that I'm at and trying to decide, do I still want to tour? You know, playing is still fine. I mean, good physical shape, knock wood. Um, and I love, I love music. I love to play drums, and I'm still playing at a pretty good level. But I hit my 50th year as a pro back in September. And, um, so I've, I've put in a lot of time. I'm not sure that I want to throw in the towel yet."

Check out their video for Stoned Babies below.

-Meltdown-