Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / The Story Behind Pink Floyd [Episode 326]

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The Story Behind Pink Floyd [Episode 326] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: It's a look back at the history of Pink Floyd,
0:03
Speaker 1: from Sid Barrett's visionary beginnings to the band's iconic seventies
0:06
Speaker 1: run to their enduring legacy in the post Roger Waters era.
0:10
Speaker 1: All that coming up next with author Mike Evans and
0:13
Speaker 1: Booked on Rock. We're totally booked rock and roll.
0:18
Speaker 2: I mean, I'll leave you.
0:18
Speaker 1: You're reading.
0:19
Speaker 2: Little Hands says it's time to rock and roll, roll out.
0:23
Speaker 1: I totally booked. Welcome back to book don Rock. This
0:31
Speaker 1: is the podcast for those about to read and rock.
0:33
Speaker 1: And we have a first time guest on the show.
0:36
Speaker 1: His name is Mike Evans. He is the author of
0:39
Speaker 1: Pink Floyd Behind the Music. Mike, Welcome to the podcast.
0:43
Speaker 1: Great to meet you.
0:44
Speaker 2: Thank you.
0:46
Speaker 1: You point out in the introduction to how Pink Floyd's
0:48
Speaker 1: a rarity among the bands who are part of the
0:50
Speaker 1: progressive rock genre. Unlike most of them, Pink Floyd has
0:55
Speaker 1: endured in the public consciousness. What do you think it
0:58
Speaker 1: is about this particular bit and that sets them apart
1:01
Speaker 1: from all the others that came up during that period.
1:04
Speaker 2: I think, unlike some of the progressive rock bands, they
1:06
Speaker 2: did they did developed with the times to a degree.
1:10
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously they didn't absorb every trend that would
1:14
Speaker 2: be that would be rather what we call phony, but
1:19
Speaker 2: they but they developed, and they absorbed various developments in
1:25
Speaker 2: both technically and and in the broad scope of rock music,
1:30
Speaker 2: which some of the progressive bands got stuck in a
1:33
Speaker 2: if you like, a progressive rut, and and they were
1:37
Speaker 2: very much in our minds now as bands of the
1:40
Speaker 2: seventies or whatever, whereas I think Floyd did spread out
1:46
Speaker 2: for a variety of reasons that that that they encompassed
1:50
Speaker 2: a lot more uh, I old say genres, but certainly
1:56
Speaker 2: techniques and and aspects of rock music. Then and some
2:00
Speaker 2: of the contemporaries.
2:02
Speaker 1: Do you think the return of the band after Roger
2:05
Speaker 1: Waters is a factor in continuing with the legacy among
2:08
Speaker 1: new generations of fans, Because me personally, I was a
2:12
Speaker 1: teenager growing up during the period of momentary lapse of
2:15
Speaker 1: reason and then in college during Division Bell and there
2:19
Speaker 1: was a resurgence of interest in Pink Floyd. Then do
2:21
Speaker 1: you agree with that?
2:22
Speaker 2: Yeah? I guess so. I mean, obviously it shows in
2:26
Speaker 2: their varying sort of record sales and so on, but
2:28
Speaker 2: also because they've been so enduring in one way or
2:35
Speaker 2: another there if you like an antidote to things that
2:40
Speaker 2: were more ephemeral, you know, trends that came and went.
2:43
Speaker 2: Whereas their bit of an antidote to that, because they
2:45
Speaker 2: became a fixture, even though it is never ever changing fixture.
2:51
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the three eras, the Sid Barrett era,
2:55
Speaker 1: the post Sid Barrett era, and the post Roger Waters era.
3:00
Speaker 1: Original Pink Floyd was a different band in the beginning,
3:03
Speaker 1: and they were led by Sid Barrett, and they had
3:05
Speaker 1: Nick Mason, Roger Waters and Richard Wright. David Gilmore wasn't
3:09
Speaker 1: in the band yet. They were lumped in with the
3:11
Speaker 1: psychedelic scene early on. Was that an accurate label to
3:15
Speaker 1: put on the band?
3:16
Speaker 2: Yes, because the psychedelic scene was. They were part of
3:20
Speaker 2: the creation of that psychedelic scene. I mean I was
3:25
Speaker 2: around in London at the time playing in a band,
3:29
Speaker 2: and I remember they were on the horizon. They were
3:33
Speaker 2: foooning around with various what became psychedelic gimmicks if you
3:38
Speaker 2: like light shows and distortion in the guitar playing, and
3:44
Speaker 2: let's say fantastical kind of lyrics which were mainly inspired
3:49
Speaker 2: at the time by Sid Barrett. I mean interesting They
3:55
Speaker 2: originated in Regent Street Polytechnica College in central London that
4:01
Speaker 2: uh and I was a student there at the same time,
4:03
Speaker 2: and I remember these guys practicing rehearsing in the basement
4:07
Speaker 2: of the of the building I was in. Wow, And
4:10
Speaker 2: of course I didn't know at the time they were
4:11
Speaker 2: going to be a famous rock band. There were just
4:13
Speaker 2: some guys that were in the architecture department I was.
4:16
Speaker 2: I was in the sociology department and these guys were
4:20
Speaker 2: in the architecture department. And it was only years later
4:23
Speaker 2: it dawned on me that that these these guys were
4:27
Speaker 2: they were they used to you know that they said
4:30
Speaker 2: they related this to historians, since that they actually rehearsed
4:34
Speaker 2: in the basement in this in this college.
4:37
Speaker 1: Did you ever bump into those guys, did you?
4:39
Speaker 2: I guess, I mean they were just you know, guys
4:42
Speaker 2: hanging around. I mean, you know, college full of people
4:45
Speaker 2: of similar age. You didn't take I must notice, but
4:50
Speaker 2: I remember there was some music going on. And then
4:53
Speaker 2: when I became involved in as a musician in the
4:56
Speaker 2: in the in the in the later sixties, that they
5:03
Speaker 2: became very a familiar, familiar face on the landscape. Even
5:09
Speaker 2: before they became as famous as they did, and it
5:12
Speaker 2: was the era, as I say, of people let's say,
5:19
Speaker 2: writing fantastical lyrics and sort of spacey kind of lyrics
5:25
Speaker 2: and psychedelic what became called psychedelic lyrics inspired either by
5:31
Speaker 2: drugs or by associated sort of literature and the kind
5:36
Speaker 2: of imaginative, imaginative subject matters which were Most of the
5:48
Speaker 2: bands that came out of that mid sixties scene in
5:50
Speaker 2: England were rhythm and blues bands, so they were R
5:53
Speaker 2: and B bands playing basic blues or derivations of basic blues,
6:00
Speaker 2: bands like the Stones and then later bands like Cream
6:05
Speaker 2: and so on, whereas the Floyd from the start had
6:10
Speaker 2: gone a step aside from that that they were blues
6:17
Speaker 2: musicians in their basic music, because most were at the time,
6:22
Speaker 2: they weren't school musicians, and Sid significantly was the only
6:30
Speaker 2: one that came didn't come from this particular college they
6:35
Speaker 2: were at. But he was an art student, as were
6:38
Speaker 2: a lot of our rock heroes in the sixties in England.
6:43
Speaker 2: Art school was a particular environment for people like John
6:46
Speaker 2: Lennon and Pete Townsend, Dave Davis. There was a whole
6:52
Speaker 2: kind of cultural melting pot because you know, he didn't
6:57
Speaker 2: have to be as articulate as a as a student
7:01
Speaker 2: of literature or something. So it LEDs itself to the
7:05
Speaker 2: kind of kind of guys who were very open minds
7:09
Speaker 2: to things. And and Sid Barrett obviously he was one
7:12
Speaker 2: of those kind of one of those kind of characters.
7:15
Speaker 2: And so he was in the first period he was
7:19
Speaker 2: the most imaginative of the band in terms of lyrics
7:22
Speaker 2: and so on.
7:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, he brought that originality to the Pink Floyd sound.
7:26
Speaker 1: You write quote from the start, since compositions featured distinctive,
7:30
Speaker 1: often whimsical lyrics influenced by a variety of sources. And
7:33
Speaker 1: you also talk about he had an edge to his songwriting.
7:38
Speaker 1: What formed that approach? What bands was a fan of?
7:40
Speaker 1: He read Lord of the Rings, that's right, yeah, right, yeah.
7:44
Speaker 1: What were the bands that he was a fan of?
7:46
Speaker 1: Was he more of an underground guy? He wasn't into
7:48
Speaker 1: the Well, let's it that.
7:51
Speaker 2: It became very quickly that there was a sort of
7:54
Speaker 2: division in that rhythm and Blue Seat, and there was
7:57
Speaker 2: a sudden division between the mainstream him blues if you like,
8:02
Speaker 2: and the kind of underground scene that developed simultaneously. Clubs
8:06
Speaker 2: like UFO in London was the main one, so there
8:11
Speaker 2: was where there was a lot more experimentation going on
8:16
Speaker 2: in a way. I mean, I suppose Cream were almost
8:20
Speaker 2: a parallel because they were all the three of Cream
8:24
Speaker 2: were solidly in that rhythm and blues scene, Jack Bruce
8:29
Speaker 2: and Claptain and Ginger Baker, but the Cream environment allowed
8:33
Speaker 2: them to expand instrumentally certainly into it's a lot more experimentation,
8:41
Speaker 2: and they started writing songs with Pete Brown, the poet
8:45
Speaker 2: who got away from the usual blues kind of twelve
8:50
Speaker 2: bar blues sequence of lyrics and so on. And I
8:53
Speaker 2: think that that expansive sort of attitude, experimental attitude, that's
9:02
Speaker 2: what became dubbed the underground in clubs like Upho and they,
9:11
Speaker 2: and that went along with things like the light shows
9:13
Speaker 2: developed at the same time, which was a visual manifestation
9:17
Speaker 2: on stage, and so the whole stage show I mean,
9:20
Speaker 2: who for instance, were experiment were pioneers of broadening the
9:26
Speaker 2: scope of stage shows, the way they presented their music,
9:31
Speaker 2: and the kind of pile of technics involved in the music,
9:33
Speaker 2: the actually dynamics of light and shade and the use
9:37
Speaker 2: of volume and the use of distortion, and so that
9:43
Speaker 2: old so called underground scene musically was a product of
9:47
Speaker 2: these various changes that were occurring and coming together with
9:53
Speaker 2: certain with certain key bands as Saying and Pink Floyd
9:57
Speaker 2: was at the forefront of that. I mean they contemporaries
10:00
Speaker 2: would people like Soft Machine and much if you're like,
10:05
Speaker 2: much more influenced by jazz than than Pink Floyd. So
10:09
Speaker 2: they're all part of that that melting pot.
10:13
Speaker 1: Had you been to that club, the UFO?
10:16
Speaker 2: Yeah?
10:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh wow? Are the stories true that they would
10:20
Speaker 1: hand out acid at shows? What was the pink guess?
10:22
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of it was just stories on
10:24
Speaker 2: in the rock press. You know, unless you were there
10:27
Speaker 2: at the time, you didn't know. But I mean my
10:30
Speaker 2: experience of playing the only played at once with we
10:36
Speaker 2: were all sitting backstage drinking beer. But I mean, this
10:43
Speaker 2: is like it was then. It was. It was a
10:45
Speaker 2: very mixed kind of scene. So you know, your indulgence
10:49
Speaker 2: might be alcohol, it might be drugs, it might be
10:53
Speaker 2: smoking pot or whatever. But there was no there was
10:56
Speaker 2: no strict divisions, so you know, you just kind of
10:59
Speaker 2: took it for grant. What happened?
11:02
Speaker 1: What became of the club? Is it still there? Is it? Oh?
11:05
Speaker 2: No? No? No, it's a bit. It came and went
11:09
Speaker 2: within within a matter of a couple of years. Oh Jesus,
11:13
Speaker 2: sixty sixty eight.
11:15
Speaker 1: It's got a legendary status among fans of Pink Floyd
11:19
Speaker 1: in that era because it's always part of some story.
11:24
Speaker 1: With Barret as their main songwriter, they did have two
11:26
Speaker 1: hit singles, Arnold Lane c Emily Play, and then the
11:29
Speaker 1: successful debut studio album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
11:32
Speaker 1: That was all that from nineteen sixty seven. And this
11:35
Speaker 1: was not something that said embraced. There's a highlighted quote
11:38
Speaker 1: in your book where Sid said, if John Lennon doesn't
11:41
Speaker 1: have to do Top of the Pops, why should I?
11:44
Speaker 1: His mental decline was pretty rapid. Was it due to drugs?
11:47
Speaker 1: Was it mental illness? Was it simply an artist who
11:49
Speaker 1: rebelled against commercialism? Was it all of that combined? What
11:53
Speaker 1: do you think?
11:54
Speaker 2: I think he's probably all of that combined. I mean,
11:56
Speaker 2: the drugs obviously didn't help, but physically they were the
11:59
Speaker 2: day were the main influence on his on his mental state,
12:05
Speaker 2: uh in, the main detrimental influence on his mental state.
12:11
Speaker 2: He wasn't the first and he wasn't the last, but
12:14
Speaker 2: to have that kind of mental history.
12:18
Speaker 1: But he.
12:22
Speaker 2: There's a there was an awful, fatal, almost fatal combination
12:27
Speaker 2: of sudden fame and and over indulgence. I mean it
12:33
Speaker 2: happened to a number of rock stars. But but but
12:36
Speaker 2: but with said, it was just more disastrous than than
12:39
Speaker 2: with many, you know, and uh, it was a combination
12:45
Speaker 2: of the of fame, and I mean without the fame,
12:48
Speaker 2: he probably couldn't have afforded so many drugs, if you
12:52
Speaker 2: like to look at it that way. And also because
12:55
Speaker 2: the whole scene is full of hangers on and made
12:58
Speaker 2: all that very easy. You know, it was very accessible.
13:01
Speaker 2: And it's like it's been like that forever, you know,
13:05
Speaker 2: on the kind of music scene, but fame, it's particularly
13:12
Speaker 2: on somebody's quite young and still feeling their own way
13:17
Speaker 2: in the world. I mean, these were just students. I
13:19
Speaker 2: mean they were like, you know, eighteen nineteen year old.
13:22
Speaker 2: They were kids, you know, comparatively speaking. And so if
13:26
Speaker 2: you couldn't quite handle that, and it had to you know,
13:32
Speaker 2: not just said Barrett, but you know, if you couldn't
13:34
Speaker 2: handle that quite could you could spiral out in the
13:39
Speaker 2: wrong direction, which unfortunately he did.
13:43
Speaker 1: David Gilmour's entrance into the band was somewhat transitional. He
13:46
Speaker 1: was brought in while Sid was still in the band,
13:49
Speaker 1: that's right. Now. He knew Sid Barrett already. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
13:54
Speaker 1: they were friends. They knew each other from the music scene, yeah.
13:58
Speaker 2: And from the art school. See I think, but because
14:02
Speaker 2: Gilmour wasn't at the the same cause as the other three.
14:07
Speaker 2: Uh and but he was already got a little name
14:10
Speaker 2: for himself as a session player around the music scene,
14:13
Speaker 2: so he already had his foot in the doors as
14:16
Speaker 2: it were.
14:16
Speaker 1: Do you think the guys in the band planned on
14:18
Speaker 1: him being a permanent member, David, was that part of
14:21
Speaker 1: the plan to transition him in.
14:23
Speaker 2: No, I think the plan was just as a kind
14:25
Speaker 2: of not a replacement for Sid, but but somebody to
14:32
Speaker 2: deputize for him while he wasn't while he was being
14:35
Speaker 2: I feel like, unreliable. There were the hope was obviously
14:37
Speaker 2: that he would sort himself out.
14:39
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, the hope was he would get better.
14:41
Speaker 2: But there was a point where Gilmore, Dave Gilmour was
14:46
Speaker 2: in the band and Sid would still be on stage,
14:49
Speaker 2: but his contribution was becoming less and less reliable, and
14:53
Speaker 2: to the point where they'd switch they'd switch his amp
14:55
Speaker 2: off because he was playing nonsense, and and Gilmour already
15:01
Speaker 2: been started being a kind of reliable session player on
15:04
Speaker 2: the studio scene. He was just a reliable voice to
15:08
Speaker 2: have their often filling in on what Sid had done
15:13
Speaker 2: on the original records.
15:15
Speaker 1: Just yeah, there's a story. What's the talk show that
15:17
Speaker 1: they were on? When Sid would as soon as their
15:20
Speaker 1: cameras were on and they would ask Sid a question,
15:23
Speaker 1: he would go completely quiet and say nothing, and then
15:26
Speaker 1: they say cut hold on, and then they say, Sid,
15:28
Speaker 1: you just got answered the questions a little bit. And
15:30
Speaker 1: Sid was playing with him. He's like, oh, no, no problem,
15:32
Speaker 1: no problem, I'll talk okay, let's do this again. And
15:34
Speaker 1: then they turned the camera on and he would do
15:36
Speaker 1: the same thing, shut down, not saying yeah.
15:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just like like it was just it became
15:42
Speaker 2: a totally it became totally unreliable, especially if you're trying
15:45
Speaker 2: to handle that.
15:46
Speaker 1: There's been stories about years later where people would knock
15:49
Speaker 1: on his door because they found out where he lived,
15:51
Speaker 1: and he would open the door sometimes and be friendly
15:54
Speaker 1: and sometimes would say please leave me alone. Stories that
15:57
Speaker 1: he there was checks that would arrive and that he
16:00
Speaker 1: would never cash publishing checks, like he wanted nothing to
16:03
Speaker 1: do with the Pink Floyd past. What do you know
16:06
Speaker 1: about that? Yeah, you've heard those stories.
16:08
Speaker 2: I've heard some yeah, yeah, yeah.
16:10
Speaker 1: But he was very reclusive. Pictures of him around town
16:13
Speaker 1: going to the art shop on his bicycle. Yeah, privately,
16:17
Speaker 1: very sad because then people got intrusive pictures of him
16:20
Speaker 1: taking his trash out. You know, it's very They try
16:24
Speaker 1: to glamorize it almost like it was this fascinating story
16:27
Speaker 1: that there was people couldn't refuse to really invest themselves into.
16:34
Speaker 1: But like Roger Water said, it's a sad story. It's
16:36
Speaker 1: a tragic story.
16:38
Speaker 2: There was that situation where he appeared as recording session.
16:43
Speaker 1: I wish you were here, Yeah.
16:45
Speaker 2: And they didn't recognize him first when he came to
16:49
Speaker 2: the studio. I mean, he was like such a It
16:54
Speaker 2: reminds one of It reminds one of Jeremy Space, sir,
17:01
Speaker 2: who's a Fleetwood Mac you know. He he he went
17:07
Speaker 2: off at a tangent and joined the Children of God
17:10
Speaker 2: at one of those quasi hippie religious groups in Los
17:18
Speaker 2: Angeles and disappeared. You know, they never saw him agetting
17:21
Speaker 2: for months. I mean he just disappeared off after the
17:26
Speaker 2: music scene altogether.
17:27
Speaker 1: That's a tough position to be in if you are
17:29
Speaker 1: an artist and you do want people to enjoy your art,
17:32
Speaker 1: but you are not in any way interested in being famous.
17:36
Speaker 1: Like you like a certain amount of tension respecting your art.
17:39
Speaker 1: People come up to you and say, I really love
17:41
Speaker 1: what you did, and oh that's great, thank you, But
17:43
Speaker 1: then complete strangers coming up to you and feeling as
17:46
Speaker 1: if they know you. And at that point, like you said,
17:49
Speaker 1: he's only eighteen or nineteen, he doesn't really know himself yet,
17:52
Speaker 1: no exactly. You know, that's a it's a difficult position
17:57
Speaker 1: to be in, and some have been able to transition that. Now.
18:00
Speaker 1: He did do solo work. Sid and David produced it.
18:05
Speaker 1: He did two solo albums. His last one was the
18:09
Speaker 1: self titled or just called Barrett in nineteen seventy and
18:12
Speaker 1: that was it. And then the friction between David Gilmour
18:16
Speaker 1: and Roger Waters. I mean, I guess that started right
18:18
Speaker 1: away reading your book. There were signs of that way
18:21
Speaker 1: back on. There's a quote from David of his early
18:24
Speaker 1: rehearsal sessions in the book. He says, quote, I actually
18:28
Speaker 1: walked out of one of the first rehearsals, Roger had
18:31
Speaker 1: got so unbearably awful in a way that I'd later
18:34
Speaker 1: get used to that I stopped out of the room.
18:37
Speaker 1: They had such a great chemistry together musically. But what
18:40
Speaker 1: do you think was at the root of their battles
18:42
Speaker 1: ego creative control?
18:44
Speaker 2: I think he was the ego. I mean, I think
18:47
Speaker 2: Roger having formed the band, the very very earliest version
18:58
Speaker 2: of the band, pre the band, which didn't involve Sid,
19:03
Speaker 2: and then suddenly Sid appeared with this kind of great contribution.
19:07
Speaker 2: But but in a way it was. It was a
19:10
Speaker 2: Sid band when it first started making records, And and
19:14
Speaker 2: I think Roger suddenly the kind of control he had
19:18
Speaker 2: over the of the very very original concept when they
19:21
Speaker 2: were still in in the in the college basement, that
19:27
Speaker 2: kind of control slipped away because because Sid was the
19:30
Speaker 2: more immediate creative force that that that took over. And
19:34
Speaker 2: I think subconsciously, if not if not consciously, Walters probably
19:39
Speaker 2: resented that a bit, or at least missed the fact
19:42
Speaker 2: that he was it was his band, and and and
19:46
Speaker 2: when Sid, through his own problems, wasn't in the picture anymore,
19:52
Speaker 2: I think Roger felt it was his natural inheritance to
19:57
Speaker 2: take over, and and with the Gilmore being equally dynamic
20:02
Speaker 2: in the whole process, that became a bit of a challenge.
20:06
Speaker 2: So I think Roger Wilts has definitely had a problem,
20:10
Speaker 2: even though it wasn't self consciously a problem, a problem
20:15
Speaker 2: with that kind of challenge To say his authority is
20:19
Speaker 2: a bit of too strong a word, but certainly of
20:23
Speaker 2: his place in the whole creative process, you know.
20:26
Speaker 1: And by the end it seemed as if he did
20:28
Speaker 1: have complete creative control by the time you get to
20:31
Speaker 1: the final cut.
20:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, he.
20:34
Speaker 1: Wore the guys down. The classic Pink Floyd sound of
20:37
Speaker 1: that period when Roger and David and Nick and Richard
20:42
Speaker 1: are all really working together to put together that classic
20:46
Speaker 1: sound that we hear on Dark Side of the Moon
20:48
Speaker 1: and the Wall. That took some time. I mean, that
20:51
Speaker 1: wasn't like it just came out right away. There was
20:54
Speaker 1: a soundtrack album in nineteen sixty nine. More Umagoma came
20:58
Speaker 1: out in sixty nine as well. Adam hart Mother in
21:01
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy. David is quoting the book. When talking about
21:04
Speaker 1: Adam hart Mother, he says, it's shit. The lowest point
21:08
Speaker 1: artistically he had talk about those albums. What do you
21:11
Speaker 1: think about that period as we lead up to metal,
21:16
Speaker 1: you know, around that point when things start to shift
21:17
Speaker 1: with the sound and get popular.
21:19
Speaker 2: Well, I think they there was that period when they
21:22
Speaker 2: were showing various aspects of both what had been and
21:26
Speaker 2: what was to come. I always felt that Adam Hart
21:33
Speaker 2: Mother it was one of the defining albums of the
21:40
Speaker 2: whole idea of the concept album. I mean, if only
21:42
Speaker 2: because of the first side, which was just a sequence
21:45
Speaker 2: of it was one it was you know, logged as
21:49
Speaker 2: one number with various parts in it if you remember,
21:53
Speaker 2: and and that just even that concept was like quite radical, uh,
22:01
Speaker 2: and it this is what progressive rock was supposed to
22:05
Speaker 2: be about. It. It was a kind of if you like,
22:08
Speaker 2: for want a better word of thinking, thinking man's rock.
22:11
Speaker 2: You know it it was quite sophisticated and having things
22:15
Speaker 2: in uh, in movements if you like, like like classical
22:20
Speaker 2: music might be. It was in those movements on the
22:23
Speaker 2: on the first on side one, uh in a way
22:29
Speaker 2: that kind of typified, uh, the seriousness, for one of
22:34
Speaker 2: a better word of the progressive rock that that that
22:40
Speaker 2: they took to composition and so on, and.
22:45
Speaker 1: They were all under the label Harvest up until Dark
22:48
Speaker 1: Side of the Moon. Yeah, Yeah, so did Harvest support
22:52
Speaker 1: that kind of creative ambition?
22:54
Speaker 2: And yeah, because Harvest started off as a as a
22:56
Speaker 2: kind of progressive label, and it started off to it
23:00
Speaker 2: started off as EMI's attempt or success to absorb this
23:07
Speaker 2: new progressive music on a separate label. You know, wasn't
23:11
Speaker 2: it wasn't a rhythm blues rabel, It wasn't a pop label.
23:13
Speaker 2: It was a progressive label.
23:17
Speaker 1: Is it With nineteen seventy one's Metal where we start
23:21
Speaker 1: to hear the band gel particularly the song Echoes is
23:25
Speaker 1: one that we could point to as the moment when
23:28
Speaker 1: Pink Floyd makes that shift.
23:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. The thing was with them
23:33
Speaker 2: with Metal that was highly experimental because they didn't prepare
23:39
Speaker 2: anything beforehand, and they went in and each kind of
23:44
Speaker 2: played a contribution which didn't know is work. But it
23:48
Speaker 2: was this very idea of this kind of improvisation for
23:51
Speaker 2: its own sake. If you like.
23:53
Speaker 1: One of these Days is another song you could point
23:56
Speaker 1: to the darker side of Pink Floyd where things start
23:59
Speaker 1: to to go. Obscured by Clouds was released in nineteen
24:03
Speaker 1: seventy two. Interesting Country Field to most of that album,
24:05
Speaker 1: and three four was the single which I remember here
24:08
Speaker 1: in the States, classic rock radio played it from time
24:11
Speaker 1: to time. But it sets up the album Dark Side
24:15
Speaker 1: of the Moon, which I've said many times. I think
24:18
Speaker 1: it's the greatest album ever just musically it's beautifully put together.
24:22
Speaker 1: Of course, the music's gorgeous, it's brilliant, but the lyrics
24:26
Speaker 1: they connect with everybody at no matter what age you are,
24:30
Speaker 1: and as you get older you will connect with parts
24:33
Speaker 1: of it even more so. You write, quote the genesis
24:36
Speaker 1: of Pink Floyd's next album and their first non soundtrack
24:39
Speaker 1: album since Metal in nineteen seventy one, flew in the
24:43
Speaker 1: face of rock music convention.
24:45
Speaker 2: When you first heard themselves like Money and so, they
24:47
Speaker 2: were so spectacularly memorable just in their own right. There
24:55
Speaker 2: was nothing before or after it was quite the same.
24:58
Speaker 2: It was a bit like a new beat album was
25:00
Speaker 2: there was nothing to it wasn't even comparable to the
25:04
Speaker 2: Beatles' previous album. It's a bit like that. So it's
25:07
Speaker 2: kind of it's at a kind of uniqueness of its
25:10
Speaker 2: own aways as if it was done by a different band.
25:12
Speaker 1: Right the time. Signature and Money.
25:14
Speaker 2: Exactly, and yeah, and the whole sound of it.
25:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, and lyrically the the whole concept. Roger I think
25:20
Speaker 1: had that in mind at some point coming in that
25:24
Speaker 1: he wanted to put something together about the human condition,
25:29
Speaker 1: the fears that we have, the insecurities that we have,
25:31
Speaker 1: the desires for things like money.
25:34
Speaker 2: Well, yes, and he referenced in his own way the
25:38
Speaker 2: mental problems that that siddered. Yes, he actually obliquely mentioned
25:45
Speaker 2: and referred to all that.
25:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the first album where we start to
25:48
Speaker 1: get the influence of Sid Barrett's experience start to enter
25:53
Speaker 1: into the lyrics of the music.
25:57
Speaker 2: That's right, and in a way it was Roger's own,
26:02
Speaker 2: even though he wouldn't admitted at the time his own insecurities,
26:06
Speaker 2: if you like, or came out in that way that
26:12
Speaker 2: that he was aware of his own failty or maybe
26:20
Speaker 2: all our failties in the sort of context of this
26:26
Speaker 2: bubble they are now in.
26:28
Speaker 1: I can't imagine anybody predicting what would become of the
26:31
Speaker 1: album in terms of the long term success, the long
26:35
Speaker 1: term chart success of this album. You know, it stayed
26:39
Speaker 1: on the charts or was it on the album charts
26:41
Speaker 1: for however many years, I don't know's it's insane the
26:45
Speaker 1: record that it's set. When you first heard it, what
26:49
Speaker 1: was your response, did you think, Wow, I'm listening to
26:52
Speaker 1: something really special here.
26:54
Speaker 2: It certainly sounded special, It sounded I mean, there was
26:57
Speaker 2: so much going on in the early seventies that it
27:04
Speaker 2: didn't mean you didn't immediately assume this is more special
27:07
Speaker 2: than various other things that were happening. But it was
27:10
Speaker 2: certainly the actual sound. Its own sound was unique.
27:14
Speaker 1: It was.
27:16
Speaker 2: And it was certainly the most special thing that they'd done.
27:19
Speaker 1: Okay, do you believe any of the Wizard of Oz story?
27:23
Speaker 2: Do I know this story? Oh?
27:24
Speaker 1: My god? So if you play, and you could go
27:27
Speaker 1: to YouTube and you'll see this online and you can
27:30
Speaker 1: watch for yourself, watch and listen. But if you start
27:32
Speaker 1: Dark Side of the Moon at the third War of
27:34
Speaker 1: the MGM Lion, there's all of these similarities. So like
27:38
Speaker 1: when Dorothy's standing on the she's standing on the fence,
27:42
Speaker 1: and you hear the lyrics balance on the biggest wave,
27:45
Speaker 1: or as soon as you go into the song time
27:47
Speaker 1: you hear them the cash register sounds. It's exactly when
27:51
Speaker 1: Dorothy opens the door and everything turns to color. Who
27:54
Speaker 1: knows which is which? And you see the two witches
27:57
Speaker 1: I mean, there's all these things right right, and all
28:00
Speaker 1: the band members have just said there's nothing. You know,
28:03
Speaker 1: we had no idea, no idea behind it. But I
28:06
Speaker 1: I always, I always say that they didn't do that intentionally.
28:11
Speaker 1: Which makes it even more fascinating to me, is that
28:14
Speaker 1: the fact that you can have these synchronicities, these coincidences
28:18
Speaker 1: without even trying. Then you start to wonder if there's something,
28:21
Speaker 1: if something bigger out there that's all in the strings.
28:24
Speaker 1: You could check it out on YouTube back in the day.
28:27
Speaker 1: I had to go to eBay and somebody put it
28:29
Speaker 1: on a VHS and I watched it. It's pretty fascinating. Yeah,
28:34
Speaker 1: Pink Floyd Behind the Music is the book we're talking
28:37
Speaker 1: with author Mike Evans. While the band was personally very
28:41
Speaker 1: enthusiastic about what they had created, they were apprehensive as
28:45
Speaker 1: to the reaction from critics and fans regarding Dark Side
28:48
Speaker 1: of the Moon. We know the overwhelming response, but why
28:51
Speaker 1: do you think it still connects today with such a
28:54
Speaker 1: huge audience.
28:55
Speaker 2: The sums for all that complexity very accessible, you know,
29:02
Speaker 2: they don't. They didn't. They weren't trapped into one genre.
29:07
Speaker 2: They'd gone past just being progressive rock. You know, this
29:12
Speaker 2: is this is clever, this is whatever. They were very
29:16
Speaker 2: accessible songs. You can actually huld them in your head,
29:19
Speaker 2: which is always a kind of that was the old
29:23
Speaker 2: formula for good pop tune. But but you know, you
29:25
Speaker 2: could actually hear them in your head, and they're accessible
29:32
Speaker 2: in that way. And and as I said, production wise
29:37
Speaker 2: and everything that was so strong they stood the test
29:41
Speaker 2: of time. You know.
29:45
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, thanks so much for checking out the book
29:47
Speaker 1: down Rock podcast. If you've just found the podcast, welcome.
29:50
Speaker 1: If you've been listening, thank you so much for your support,
29:53
Speaker 1: and make sure you tell a friend, a family member,
29:55
Speaker 1: share on social media and let people know about Booked
29:59
Speaker 1: on Rock. And if you do like the podcast, make
30:01
Speaker 1: sure you subscribe, give a five star review. Wherever you
30:04
Speaker 1: listen to the Booked on Rock podcast, run Amazon, Apple, iHeart, Spotify, Spreaker,
30:09
Speaker 1: tune in, and on YouTube music. You can check out
30:12
Speaker 1: the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
30:15
Speaker 1: episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
30:18
Speaker 1: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
30:22
Speaker 1: to the show. The album cover done by Storm thorguson
30:26
Speaker 1: Aubrey Pollen Hypnosis and I believe they did twelve of
30:29
Speaker 1: the fifteen studio album covers for Pink Floyd, most notably
30:33
Speaker 1: Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, another
30:35
Speaker 1: one with the two businessmen on fire, and I would
30:40
Speaker 1: also put the iron Beds on the beach for Momentary
30:44
Speaker 1: Lapse of Reason up there as well, another classic cover
30:47
Speaker 1: and some great stories behind that. I think the first
30:49
Speaker 1: day of shooting it was a storm, so they literally
30:52
Speaker 1: had to take all of the iron beds off the beach.
30:55
Speaker 1: I'm back on again the next day, and it wasn't
30:57
Speaker 1: like photo trickery. If Storm Ferguson came out today, during
31:02
Speaker 1: the streaming era, where album covers are just not as
31:06
Speaker 1: significant as they once were, would people even know about them?
31:09
Speaker 2: Well exactly. I mean it was an era when album
31:14
Speaker 2: covers were almost as memorable as the music, the music inside.
31:21
Speaker 2: I mean they were again, they were of the time
31:25
Speaker 2: where the whole concept, or if you like, the whole
31:33
Speaker 2: piece of work, the music therein and the album cover
31:37
Speaker 2: were one and the same. I mean, you know, we're
31:40
Speaker 2: all familiar with the Beatles and the Stones and their
31:43
Speaker 2: album covers that held that kind of significance but stoked
31:50
Speaker 2: aoguson technically, the interesting thing is that as computerized technology
32:00
Speaker 2: became more and more apparent or more usable, and what
32:05
Speaker 2: you now is out of date anyway, things like photoshop,
32:09
Speaker 2: and that you never used any of that. He refused
32:11
Speaker 2: to use that. He actually he actually made the things
32:16
Speaker 2: on the cover happen. I mean, you know, by ways
32:19
Speaker 2: and means a bit like in movies. You know, you
32:22
Speaker 2: had special effects before, you had before you had computer
32:26
Speaker 2: generated effects before CGI.
32:29
Speaker 1: Those two guys are actual people, you know, the two
32:33
Speaker 1: guys on Wish You Were Here?
32:34
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
32:37
Speaker 1: And I think maybe one of the guys said, even
32:40
Speaker 1: though they put something on them to protect them from
32:42
Speaker 1: getting burns, I think they did get a little bit
32:44
Speaker 1: of a burn and it was all these crazy stories
32:46
Speaker 1: about it.
32:47
Speaker 2: Did it like a filmmaker would in those at that time.
32:50
Speaker 2: You know, you've got a stunt man. You didn't create it,
32:53
Speaker 2: you didn't do it by CGI. And he was of
32:58
Speaker 2: that of that school. If you like, Let's talk.
33:02
Speaker 1: A little bit more about Wish You Were Here from
33:05
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five. You write quote Roger Waters made it
33:08
Speaker 1: clear very early on in the process that shine on
33:11
Speaker 1: You Crazy Diamond, which would be the key composition on
33:13
Speaker 1: the new album was closely related to his affectionate reflections
33:17
Speaker 1: on the band's old comrade said, Barrett, you did talk
33:20
Speaker 1: about it a little bit before, about what happened with Sid.
33:24
Speaker 1: He showed up out of the blue one day. Right now.
33:29
Speaker 1: Nick Mason wrote about it in his book, and he
33:32
Speaker 1: puts a picture in the book too of the day
33:34
Speaker 1: that Sid was there. So he just showed up.
33:38
Speaker 2: It was seven years after he left the band.
33:40
Speaker 1: Seven years and they're literally recording a song about him
33:44
Speaker 1: and he walks in. Correct.
33:46
Speaker 2: Nobody knows whether it's coincidence that he happened to Pum,
33:52
Speaker 2: happened to Pum the moment they were doing that particular song,
33:56
Speaker 2: or whether he just wandered in the studio and that
33:58
Speaker 2: was coincidence, or whether it's a bit of a myth
34:01
Speaker 2: and he wandered in. But that was one of the
34:04
Speaker 2: songs that they were doing. You know, it could have
34:06
Speaker 2: been the myth, could have been slightly manipulated, so he
34:13
Speaker 2: didn't actually walk in when they were in the middle
34:15
Speaker 2: of Crazy Diamond. But who knows, But it was certainly
34:24
Speaker 2: remarkable that he appeared at all. You know, that's the point.
34:29
Speaker 1: They tried talking to him, right, But it really wasn't
34:33
Speaker 1: getting far. He wasn't really connected to reality at that point.
34:37
Speaker 2: No, I mean, I'm often I can't remember that whether
34:42
Speaker 2: Nick Mason ever mentioned how he got in there in
34:44
Speaker 2: the first place. I mean, he couldn't. He didn't just
34:46
Speaker 2: wander in the door, you.
34:47
Speaker 1: Know, somebody had to let him in.
34:50
Speaker 2: Yeah.
34:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's a story that he was he had
34:53
Speaker 1: a tooth brushing his hand, he's brushing his teeth while
34:56
Speaker 1: his wife's perform. He was overweight, he had shaved his head,
35:01
Speaker 1: and he looked unrecognizable. It's a very eerie story. And
35:06
Speaker 1: again the fact that they're recording that song or how
35:09
Speaker 1: much of truth there is to that, but still the
35:11
Speaker 1: facts there.
35:13
Speaker 2: Exactly that song came out of that session put it
35:15
Speaker 2: that way.
35:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, and his condition just left a lasting impression on
35:20
Speaker 1: the band to this day, all the surviving members in
35:23
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy seven Animals is among my top three
35:25
Speaker 1: Pink Floyd albums. Not an album that would have any
35:28
Speaker 1: FM rock friendly songs on it. There are three songs
35:32
Speaker 1: clocking in at seventeen minutes, eleven minutes and ten minutes long.
35:36
Speaker 1: That's Dogs, Pigs and Sheep, and then their book ended
35:39
Speaker 1: by two short one minute, twenty four second songs titled
35:42
Speaker 1: Pigs on the Wing Parts one and two. Roger's concept
35:46
Speaker 1: was inspired by George Orwell's Animal Farm. It's a skating
35:52
Speaker 1: critique of ruthless businessman corrupt leaders in the exploited masses.
35:57
Speaker 1: Rick Wright is quoted in the book talking about how
36:01
Speaker 1: Roger wouldn't let reccontribute any songwriting. Is this where Roger
36:07
Speaker 1: tries to take over the band or is really starting
36:09
Speaker 1: to take over the band?
36:10
Speaker 2: I think it was. Yeah, there was so much tension,
36:14
Speaker 2: particularly between Roger and Rick right at the time. And
36:21
Speaker 2: I mean Roger's concept was as you say, it was.
36:27
Speaker 2: It encompassed his growing critique of both the rock business
36:34
Speaker 2: and the politics that surrounded I mean the political free
36:38
Speaker 2: market kind of politics that were that was rampant in
36:42
Speaker 2: the UK at the time or just emerging in the
36:44
Speaker 2: UK that became the kind of entrepreneurship in the in
36:51
Speaker 2: the eighties which that many saw has been creatively destructive.
37:00
Speaker 1: Uh.
37:01
Speaker 2: And it was it was Roger Waters if you like,
37:08
Speaker 2: reaction to that, but but also to the to the
37:15
Speaker 2: again their own position. I mean, he was very frustrated
37:18
Speaker 2: by the fact that this was a bit like sid
37:20
Speaker 2: in a mirror image of said that it was the
37:24
Speaker 2: fame and the glory didn't sit comfortably with somebody who
37:29
Speaker 2: was that critical about the rock business. He couldn't. You
37:32
Speaker 2: couldn't have it both ways. That you were, you were,
37:35
Speaker 2: you were having enjoying the It's a bit like the Beatles.
37:38
Speaker 2: You were enjoying the artistic freedom that success created. But
37:43
Speaker 2: then again, the success, from one point of view, restrainer
37:49
Speaker 2: limited your artistic freemom because you felt like you had
37:52
Speaker 2: to you have to. Your next alb might have be
37:55
Speaker 2: a as big a seller as the last one. So
37:58
Speaker 2: there was artistic pressure which was impinging on your creative freedom.
38:03
Speaker 2: But that success had allowed you that creative freedom and
38:07
Speaker 2: certainly their technical freedom too.
38:09
Speaker 1: And Roger was also now as a result of the fames,
38:13
Speaker 1: He's started to feel alienated by the fans. During this
38:15
Speaker 1: period too, there's a spinning incident. Talk about that, right,
38:19
Speaker 1: the spinning incident, And how did Roger's childhood also inspire
38:25
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine is the War?
38:27
Speaker 2: Well? Again that the War was his whole wonderful album,
38:32
Speaker 2: and this whole thing, that the whole image of the
38:34
Speaker 2: tyrannical school teachers and the pressures on kids when they
38:40
Speaker 2: were you know, not quite teenagers yet, and that whole
38:45
Speaker 2: thing it was. It was certainly as an iconic an
38:50
Speaker 2: album as Dark Side of the Moon in a different way.
38:56
Speaker 2: I remember my I mean, I remember my kids. My son,
39:00
Speaker 2: he was a huge fan of the war, and he
39:04
Speaker 2: would have been where were we seventy nine, he would
39:08
Speaker 2: have been, I know, in his in his early teens,
39:13
Speaker 2: you know. And it hit home. It hit home, you
39:16
Speaker 2: know when they brought that single out with the kids chorus.
39:20
Speaker 1: On it, or we don't need no education, we don't.
39:22
Speaker 2: Need no education. That was that was like, that was
39:27
Speaker 2: a wonderful anthem for kids his age, you know.
39:30
Speaker 1: Same here I was seven, eight years old, and there
39:32
Speaker 1: there were kids in school that would sing that.
39:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. They And so it was a great It was
39:42
Speaker 2: a great album, and it came out to Roger Waters's
39:46
Speaker 2: own if you're like frustrated youth and whatever. Great great
39:50
Speaker 2: stuff though.
39:53
Speaker 1: Find the Bookdown Rock website at Bookdown Rock, Dark Calm.
39:56
Speaker 1: There you can find all the back episodes of the show,
40:00
Speaker 1: episode in video and audio links to all of the
40:02
Speaker 1: platforms where you can listen to the podcast, plus all
40:05
Speaker 1: the social media platforms were on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
40:10
Speaker 1: and x. Also check out the Booked on Rock blog,
40:13
Speaker 1: find your local independent bookstore, find out all the latest
40:16
Speaker 1: hot rock book releases, and before you go, check out
40:19
Speaker 1: the Booked on Rock online store. Pick up some booked
40:21
Speaker 1: on rock merch. It's all at booked on rock dot Com.
40:26
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty three is the Final Cut, the last Pink
40:28
Speaker 1: Floyd album to feature Roger Waters, the only without Rick Wright,
40:31
Speaker 1: who left the band under pressure from Roger after the
40:34
Speaker 1: Wall Sessions. You lead the chapter with a quote from
40:37
Speaker 1: Nick Mason. Nick said, it may be that in Roger's
40:40
Speaker 1: head he was already moving into a solo career and
40:44
Speaker 1: merely wanted David and me to assist him in his aspirations.
40:47
Speaker 1: How much truth is there to next quote.
40:50
Speaker 2: I think it's a lot of truth in that. Yeah,
40:52
Speaker 2: that that I think Roger goes to the stage way
40:55
Speaker 2: it was. It was the bad, The albums were his albums,
40:59
Speaker 2: The Bad was his band, and the three other players were,
41:04
Speaker 2: as he says, assistance in achieving that. Achieving that that result,
41:10
Speaker 2: you know not now, John, is my only personal highlight
41:13
Speaker 2: from the album.
41:13
Speaker 1: I'm not a huge fan of the album. What is
41:16
Speaker 1: your opinion of the final cut?
41:18
Speaker 2: I think it's a bit messy. You know, there was
41:20
Speaker 2: a there was a lot of there was that, there
41:23
Speaker 2: was a there was material on it that that that
41:26
Speaker 2: that was intended for the Wall, and so that makes that,
41:31
Speaker 2: you know something. It made it a bit messy anyway,
41:34
Speaker 2: I think, And it was in many ways. It didn't
41:37
Speaker 2: stand up against most of the other albums in that way.
41:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, The Fletcher Memorial Home is another good one, I
41:44
Speaker 1: should say, but it's not Yeah, it's it sounds like
41:46
Speaker 1: a band on its way out, like there there. Yes,
41:49
Speaker 1: there's clearly something wrong here, you're write quote. Following the
41:53
Speaker 1: release of the final cut, Pink Floyd as a unit
41:55
Speaker 1: was in complete disarray. There was about a four year
41:59
Speaker 1: gap between the final cut and the next album, nineteen
42:02
Speaker 1: eighty Seven's Momentary Lapse of Reason. This is with Gilmour,
42:05
Speaker 1: Mason and Wright. I believe Rick Wright was under a
42:08
Speaker 1: contract deal. He wasn't officially a member of the band,
42:10
Speaker 1: but really he's there. He's part of the recording process.
42:14
Speaker 1: Gilmour and Mason never intended to end Pink Floyd, but
42:18
Speaker 1: Roger tried to stop that. How does that war in
42:20
Speaker 1: the High Court ultimately come to an end. What because
42:25
Speaker 1: I think this has to do with ultimately years later
42:28
Speaker 1: Roger being able to tour off of the Wall. I think,
42:32
Speaker 1: right then they say that can be your thing.
42:35
Speaker 2: That's right, yeah, yeah, Okay. There are a lot of
42:38
Speaker 2: there are a lot of kind of copyright issues and
42:43
Speaker 2: these legal battles, which is, you know, it's not the
42:45
Speaker 2: first band it happened to, it's not the last band
42:47
Speaker 2: it happened to. But the legal battles over copyright and
42:50
Speaker 2: who who's responsible for certain work, it get very messy
42:57
Speaker 2: when it ends up in the courts. I mean, when
43:00
Speaker 2: you write a song with and you're not a professional songwriter,
43:04
Speaker 2: but you're a musician and you're writing a song with
43:07
Speaker 2: a bunch of other musicians, it's very hard to find
43:10
Speaker 2: that divide in the line between who wrote this, who
43:12
Speaker 2: wrote that. Okay, you could say he wrote that lyric,
43:17
Speaker 2: but certainly the music and as it appears on the record,
43:21
Speaker 2: is everybody's in the sense that they all contributed, but
43:25
Speaker 2: it's they don't come out as songwriters, right.
43:30
Speaker 1: But also keep in mind it wasn't Rogers band to
43:32
Speaker 1: begin with.
43:33
Speaker 2: It was no exactly. I mean, you know, Lennon McCartney
43:36
Speaker 2: made twice as much more than twice ten times as
43:39
Speaker 2: much money as the other Beatles, but purely because they
43:42
Speaker 2: wrote all the songs. But the contribution of the other
43:46
Speaker 2: members in the recorded tracks was was twenty five percent,
43:54
Speaker 2: you know, of the four Beatles.
43:55
Speaker 1: You could say, Yeah, Roger's an interesting guy. You know,
43:58
Speaker 1: I'm a fan of his, but it's hard to be
44:00
Speaker 1: a fan sometimes with the things he'll say. You know,
44:02
Speaker 1: he made those comments about Ozzie Osbown when he passed away,
44:05
Speaker 1: just you know, terrible things say about a guy who
44:07
Speaker 1: just died. You know, you might as well just say,
44:09
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm sorry to hear he passed away.
44:12
Speaker 1: But in said, you know, he's taking shots at Ozzie
44:14
Speaker 1: and he was a weird guy. And yeah, that's but
44:18
Speaker 1: that's Roger here. That's he's always been that way. He
44:20
Speaker 1: always seemed like a super serious guy.
44:23
Speaker 2: Yeah.
44:24
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's combative by nature, but you
44:27
Speaker 1: can see I kind of feel for David Gilmour. I
44:29
Speaker 1: can imagine what he and those guys, you know, we're
44:32
Speaker 1: up against, especially as they became a huge success. They
44:35
Speaker 1: had to keep that machine going and it wasn't easy
44:39
Speaker 1: to get along with them.
44:41
Speaker 2: I mean put it this way. He was probably like
44:44
Speaker 2: a lot of highly creative people. He's probably a night
44:47
Speaker 2: man to work with, you know. Yeah, it's it's it's
44:53
Speaker 2: not unusual that that. You know, you get very creative
44:56
Speaker 2: people who if it's difficult for to be in a
45:01
Speaker 2: cooperative kind of environment workwise, they've got they've got to
45:05
Speaker 2: be dominant or or they by nature of their contribution,
45:09
Speaker 2: they become dominant and it's and it's difficult for the
45:13
Speaker 2: other sometime too. Uh do you feel comfortable with that?
45:18
Speaker 1: The story of Bob Adrin, who produced The Wall, and
45:21
Speaker 1: Bob Ezrons showed up like five minutes late for recording
45:24
Speaker 1: session and Roger's standing there waiting for him outside and
45:27
Speaker 1: he's pointing at his watch like late, and Ezrin blew
45:31
Speaker 1: up on he said, don't you ever do that to
45:34
Speaker 1: me again. That's Roger. He is who he is. But
45:38
Speaker 1: he's a brilliant musician and you can't argue that momentary
45:42
Speaker 1: Laughs of reason a huge commercial success, top five album,
45:45
Speaker 1: Learning to Fly, number one single on mainstream rock radio.
45:48
Speaker 1: The ensuing tour a massive success, and they pulled it
45:51
Speaker 1: off again with ninety four as a Division Bell number
45:54
Speaker 1: one in ten countries. Here's my question to you. I'm
45:57
Speaker 1: a child of the eighties. I love the Poe's, Roger
46:00
Speaker 1: Ara Pink Floyd. Do you have to be of a
46:03
Speaker 1: certain age to feel that way? Is that those who
46:05
Speaker 1: grew up during the Roger Waters era, is it impossible
46:10
Speaker 1: for them to embrace what came after?
46:13
Speaker 2: Certainly not impossible to embrace it, obviously, I think. I
46:15
Speaker 2: think the fads that grew up, if you like, into
46:20
Speaker 2: an earlier era of the Floyd of there's a stronger
46:26
Speaker 2: pull of you know that. The comparison is.
46:32
Speaker 1: There's an emotional attachment too, if you're of a certain
46:34
Speaker 1: exact Yeah, yeah, there's a certain age period where you
46:37
Speaker 1: connect with music.
46:38
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, He's the dark side of the moon.
46:40
Speaker 2: It'd be very hard to find anything else that was
46:43
Speaker 2: just in your own minds have as much impacted.
46:48
Speaker 1: Sure, what do you think of those two albums, Momentary
46:50
Speaker 1: Laps and Division Bell? Are you a fan of them?
46:53
Speaker 2: Yeah? But they're not my favorite Floyd albums.
46:56
Speaker 1: But any beans Now, I think that's the response that, yeah,
47:00
Speaker 1: that's common. You know of a certain age group, you
47:01
Speaker 1: grew up and you made that attachment to Some will
47:04
Speaker 1: even say the sid era is really the best era,
47:08
Speaker 1: but you know, but most will say yeah, without Roger,
47:12
Speaker 1: forget it. But again that's you know, I'm born in
47:16
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two. I'm coming up at a time that
47:19
Speaker 1: watching MTV and I'm seeing Learning to Fly and I'm
47:22
Speaker 1: hearing it on the radio, and I'm hearing all the
47:23
Speaker 1: singles on radio, and I just fell in love with it.
47:27
Speaker 1: I love the sound of David's voice. I love the
47:29
Speaker 1: sound of his guitar playing. I love the whole concept
47:32
Speaker 1: of the Pink Floyd's sound that they were able to
47:34
Speaker 1: put together, which is interesting too because momentary laps of
47:36
Speaker 1: raising the story is David put together some songs at
47:39
Speaker 1: first that just didn't sound Pink Floyd enough for the
47:43
Speaker 1: record label, and they said, you got to go back
47:45
Speaker 1: to the drawing board on this, and they did because
47:48
Speaker 1: they said it doesn't sound Pink Floydish enough, which I
47:52
Speaker 1: find that very interesting. It's like, all of a sudden,
47:54
Speaker 1: now David Gilmour's finding himself in this position where he's
47:59
Speaker 1: created it. You know, he's part of a creation of
48:02
Speaker 1: this monster that he has to now continue. When Roger
48:06
Speaker 1: rejoined Pink Floyd in two thousand and five for Live eight.
48:11
Speaker 1: I got the goosebumps when I saw What was your response?
48:15
Speaker 1: Was there a part of you that thought, maybe maybe
48:19
Speaker 1: we'll get something more than just this, maybe we'll get
48:22
Speaker 1: some recorded music. What was going through your mind when
48:26
Speaker 1: you saw this?
48:27
Speaker 2: I think, I I'm not trying to be clever or
48:31
Speaker 2: sound clever, but I think I assumed it was a
48:34
Speaker 2: well off you know, or it.
48:36
Speaker 1: Was you knew enough. Yeah, yeah, chuse chause. The stories
48:40
Speaker 1: are they didn't get along even that day. Although it
48:43
Speaker 1: was a picture in your book where they're hugging. I
48:44
Speaker 1: was like, what hugging?
48:46
Speaker 2: It was a nice well off you know, it wasn't
48:50
Speaker 2: gonna it wasn't gonna.
48:51
Speaker 1: Be I think Roger seemed to be excited more so
48:54
Speaker 1: than the others. I think he was. I think Roger
48:57
Speaker 1: was a little bit more exciting.
48:58
Speaker 2: I think, except he's back in the fold.
49:01
Speaker 1: Right of course, if that were going to be allowed,
49:04
Speaker 1: then he's probably thinking I'll be back in the fold
49:07
Speaker 1: and back in charge, you know, And David's like, no, no, exactly.
49:12
Speaker 2: It's a nice it was a nice event. It was
49:16
Speaker 2: a nice little period. But he didn't want to go
49:20
Speaker 2: back to those.
49:22
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I wondered too. Sid Barrett at that time
49:26
Speaker 1: was still alive. He would pass a year later, but
49:28
Speaker 1: I was thinking, man, is he watching you know, just
49:31
Speaker 1: all those things as a Pink Floyd fan going through
49:33
Speaker 1: my mind. But yeah, sadly Sid died in six and
49:36
Speaker 1: then Rick Wright passed away two years later. The Endless
49:40
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight. The Endless River came out in
49:43
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, mostly instrumental music that came from the sessions
49:47
Speaker 1: from the Division Bell album. It's a tribute to Rick,
49:50
Speaker 1: a nice tribute and an end to Pink Floyd and
49:53
Speaker 1: Roger as we know, has had a resurgence, huge resurgence
49:56
Speaker 1: with his tours. There was a period there where he
49:58
Speaker 1: was playing small arenas and you know, in the same
50:02
Speaker 1: town or city Pink Floyd's playing, you know, in a
50:05
Speaker 1: huge stadium. So he's he's really he's really come a
50:10
Speaker 1: long way since then as a solo artist and continuing
50:13
Speaker 1: with the Pink Floyd music. David Gilmour put out an
50:16
Speaker 1: excellent solo album a year ago, Luck and Strange. Yeah,
50:21
Speaker 1: there's some you know, of course, there are great Pink
50:22
Speaker 1: Floyd tributes out there. The Australian Pink Floyd show is
50:26
Speaker 1: one that's great. What should Pink Floyd's legacy be defined
50:30
Speaker 1: by in your opinion from this point forward, what is
50:33
Speaker 1: the legacy of Pink Floyd.
50:35
Speaker 2: I think the legacy as if you like, the epitome
50:38
Speaker 2: of what used to be called progressive rock rock, the
50:41
Speaker 2: other vision, a technical vision and a lytical vision over
50:48
Speaker 2: a good span of time. You know, they were they
50:51
Speaker 2: weren't around for eight years like the Beatles, they were around,
50:54
Speaker 2: you know. I think they epitomized progressive rocks as it
50:59
Speaker 2: was called back in the day, and the technical expertise
51:05
Speaker 2: really opened up the possibilities of what you could do
51:09
Speaker 2: within the context of rock music. I mean, I'm a
51:12
Speaker 2: great jazz fan, but the great thing about jazz is
51:15
Speaker 2: that you didn't there were there were there were technical
51:19
Speaker 2: changes in the studio obviously from the very earliest days
51:23
Speaker 2: to now, but they didn't exploit the technical changes in
51:26
Speaker 2: the way that rock musicians did. Really, it was more
51:30
Speaker 2: about the musicians how good they were on and still
51:33
Speaker 2: is how the good they are on their instruments, which
51:35
Speaker 2: is wonderful in itself. Different art form, totally different art form.
51:42
Speaker 2: But but Floyd did epitomize what the best of that
51:47
Speaker 2: progressive period that went far beyond just just the nineteen seventies,
51:53
Speaker 2: which is when the phrase was coined.
51:56
Speaker 1: Pink Floyd behind the Music. The book is out now,
51:58
Speaker 1: it's been out I think came out in the summer.
52:01
Speaker 2: June or July, yeah, beginning of July.
52:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's available wherever books are sold, and you
52:06
Speaker 1: can find it at your nearest bookstore, look forward at
52:09
Speaker 1: your nearest independent bookstore. You can find your nearest independent
52:12
Speaker 1: bookstore at bookdown rock dot com. I'm glad that we
52:15
Speaker 1: were able to talk to you about this book, and
52:18
Speaker 1: I would love to have you back on again. You've
52:20
Speaker 1: got any books that you're planning for any in the
52:23
Speaker 1: future that you're.
52:23
Speaker 2: Gonna be Yeah, yeah, I mean I've got my latest book,
52:28
Speaker 2: which won't be out until I guess next next spring,
52:32
Speaker 2: which I've just finished, which is a history of the blues,
52:36
Speaker 2: which has been done time and time again, but it's
52:39
Speaker 2: it's called the History the Story of the Blues in
52:42
Speaker 2: fifty songs, so it's just fifty blues numbers, but going
52:46
Speaker 2: from the very first blues records to very contemporary stuff
52:54
Speaker 2: now and blues in a fairy broad sense of the word.
52:59
Speaker 2: You know. You know, there's there's rock and roll, h
53:03
Speaker 2: him and blues, big bands, Bob Dylan and various people
53:11
Speaker 2: who played blues, but they're not all necessary what we
53:15
Speaker 2: call blues musicians.
53:16
Speaker 1: It's John Lee Hooker in there. That's my favorite. Oh yeah, yeah,
53:19
Speaker 1: he's my personal favorite.
53:20
Speaker 2: I actually actually JOm Do Hooker once.
53:23
Speaker 1: Did you really in.
53:24
Speaker 2: The CAVN in Liverpool? Yeah, back in the day, huh,
53:27
Speaker 2: because I played sax.
53:29
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm very fortunate to have had his son on,
53:34
Speaker 1: Johnny Hooker Junior, who oh yeah, played with his dad
53:38
Speaker 1: for a while there and went through some personal struggles
53:40
Speaker 1: and just came out of it. And he's he's just
53:42
Speaker 1: a wonderful man. I mean, I got I mean that
53:45
Speaker 1: since I mean, he's just such a nice guy. And
53:48
Speaker 1: I was telling him, I I said, your dad, and
53:50
Speaker 1: he's my favorite, you know, hands down.
53:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, Hooker sixty sixty five.
53:56
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to that book and I would love
53:58
Speaker 1: to have you on to talk about it and get
54:00
Speaker 1: the word out about it. You have an open invite, Mike.
54:03
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on to talk about this Pink
54:05
Speaker 1: Floyd book.
54:05
Speaker 2: Pleasure. Thank you very much.
54:16
Speaker 1: That's it, it's in the books,