GILMOUR: We’d been doing bits and pieces for it and called these “nothing” at the beginning. By the time GILMOUR: it came to Son of Nothing and the Return of the Son of Nothing, it had a name so we couldn't change it GILMOUR: but we were getting keen on it by that point. POLLY SAMSON: It had a name, what was its name? GILMOUR: Nothing. POLLY SAMSON: Oh, see that was the name. WRIGHT: And then Son of Nothing. GILMOUR: That was the name. And then Son of Nothing and the Return of the Son of Nothing. GILMOUR: When it started actually taking shape was when GILMOUR: Rick played the piano, through a Leslie in Number Three at Abbey Road. GUY PRATT: So how did it- so, so how did it start? WRIGHT: So when they set it all up, I went, WRIGHT: “Oh, let's see what it's like.” WRIGHT: Ding! WRIGHT: And everyone said, “Yeah!” GILMOUR: And that started feeding back. GILMOUR: And then he thought, “that one note really pinged, I must try it again…” GILMOUR: “Yeah, it really does! Hang on, let me try it again.” WRIGHT: Then I thought “What’s this note sound like here?” WRIGHT: And that’s how it started. INTERVIEWER: Is there some tremendous musical rapport between the four of you, David? GILMOUR: Um… GILMOUR: I think on stage there is, yes. GILMOUR: Often doesn't really work quite that way in the studio. INTERVIEWER: What is your favorite Pink Floyd song to play live? GILMOUR: Echoes. GILMOUR: Echoes was terrific fun to play, particularly with Rick Wright. GILMOUR: I always look on that song as being GILMOUR: a duet thing between him and me. INTERVIEWER: How did it all begin? MASON: Hard to remember… WATERS: Yes, gosh, it was a long time ago. WATERS: We made a record called Meddle. WATERS: And on one side of it is a very long track called Echoes. WATERS: It has one verse in it that defines everything I've done since: WATERS: "I am you, and what I see is me.” WATERS: That thing about us all really being the same person. WATERS: We just played for fun when we were in college. WRIGHT: We played for fun, and we played R&B, WRIGHT: Rolling Stones numbers, Bo Diddley, WRIGHT: like all groups used to in those days. WRIGHT: I think Echoes stemmed, really from, the history of Floyd before. WRIGHT: Basically an improvised piece, and then constructed and put together. MASON: There's a very vague concept of what we’d like to do. MASON: In the studio, we made a proper record with songs. MASON: But, most of our live show were the very extended versions of these things. WRIGHT: That was in the days when the band were working well together. INTERVIEWER: The Pink Floyd. You're going to hear them in a minute and I don't want to prejudice you. INTERVIEWER: I want to ask one fundamental question. INTERVIEWER: Why has it all got to be so terribly loud? WATERS: Well, I don't guess it has to be but I mean, that's the way we like it. BARRETT: I mean, everybody listens. We don't need it very loud to be able to hear it BARRETT: and I mean some of it is very quiet in fact. WATERS: I think the first time I met Syd was nine or 10. WRIGHT: It's when Syd joined, with all his incredible songs, that it changed. WATERS: He was the key that unlocked the door to rock and roll. MASON: The music and the lyrics seem to flow from him. Overhead the albatross Hangs motionless upon the air And deep beneath the rolling waves In labyrinths of coral caves The echo of a distant time Comes willowing across the sand And everything is green and submarine And no one showed us to the land And no one knows the wheres or whys But something stirs and something tries And starts to climb towards the light MASON: He was distressed, really, by the way, MASON: the music became more commercial. WRIGHT: We were recording a show, and Syd didn't turn up. WRIGHT: And when they found Syd, they told us, well, WRIGHT: “Something's happened to Syd.” WATERS: The thought of losing the flow of songs was disastrous. MASON: Basically everyone was sort of thinking, well, “How on earth can we get this under control so we can carry on?” Strangers passing in the street By chance two separate glances meet And I am you and what I see is me And do I take you by the hand And lead you through the land And help me understand the best I can And no one calls us to move on And no one forces down our eyes No one speaks and no one tries No one flies around the sun GILMOUR: I would be playing Syd’s parts and singing Syd’s songs, GILMOUR: while Syd would be sort of standing there… MASON: - And standing on stage just detuning his guitar. WATERS: It was quite clear that he was no longer with us in any real sense. WRIGHT: By then, he couldn't perform on stage. GILMOUR: It was hard dealing with, sort of replacing one of my close friends. GILMOUR: Someone said “Shall we pick up Syd?” and someone else said “Nah, let’s not bother.” GILMOUR: And that was…the end. INTERVIEWER: Are there some difficult moments? WRIGHT: What do you mean by that? GILMOUR: Are there some difficult moments, yes. GILMOUR: I mean, what do you want to know about it? GILMOUR: mean, obviously, they're all a gang of idiots but, GILMOUR: y’know, live and let live. WRIGHT: Y’know, we understand each other very well. We're very tolerant with each other, WRIGHT: but there are a lot of things unsaid as well. MASON: Because we've been together for such a long time, we've MASON: definitely passed various peaks of disagreement and MASON: worked out methods of living with each other. INTERVIEWER: But there are not any problems or strains? WATERS: Yes, of course there are. INTERVIEWER: How do you get around them? WATERS: We pretend they're not there. WATERS: We certainly don't face up to them in an adult way, WATERS: if that's what you mean. MASON: The musical direction of the band might be likened to four drunks wrestling for control of a car wheel. MASON: It has been a bit sort of mad scientist's laboratory on stage… WRIGHT: It's a danger that we could become slaves of all our equipment, WRIGHT: and in the past we have been. GILMOUR: I think we’re ever so progressive. WATERS: I mean they can say anything they want, can’t they? WRIGHT: Anyone who listens to us will know it’s…The Floyd. WATERS: I mean we're doing different material. WATERS: We've got a whole new piece together. WATERS: I think we've got a big future… WATERS: …unless we finally have our breakdown, of course. GILMOUR: We had actually been playing it, on tour for months before we even started in the studio. GILMOUR: But certainly, we knew we were onto something good. GILMOUR: Roger kept his lyrical thing. MASON: I mean we had quite a lot of discussions about the ideas that would go into Dark Side. WATERS: Maybe I learned from Syd that, WATERS: almost childish expression of feeling. WRIGHT: It touched a nerve. WRIGHT: It's like you need to hear it all the way through. GILMOUR We surpassed our entire record sale worldwide. WRIGHT: By this time we were on the road, I mean we were just, WRIGHT: 18 hours a day just, at it. WRIGHT: And that pressure was obviously affecting us all. GILMOUR: It was a very difficult period for us, I have to say. GILMOUR: All your childhood dreams have been sort of realized. GILMOUR: The girls and the money and the fame. GILMOUR: You had to reassess what you were in it for. GILMOUR: The pressure of following something like Dark Side of the Moon, you try it one day! WATERS: Pink Floyd fulfilled its necessary function with Dark Side of the Moon. MASON: And there were a series of dead ends, until we actually… MASON: …got some sort of musical end point. WATERS: I sort of knew that really, we were over as far as WATERS: the band of brothers. GILMOUR: Me and Roger were arguing so much… WRIGHT: I think that was the last album where we worked well together. WRIGHT: I think it's our best album. WRIGHT: Personally. WATERS: And if you ask Rick, I'm sure he'll still tell you he has no idea. WATERS: It might be something to do with what the record’s about. WRIGHT: As a musician, I haven't laid that much importance on lyrics. WRIGHT: I wasn't the writer, he was. MASON: The problem is if you didn't have those tensions, MASON: you wouldn’t have the albums. GILMOUR: What had been our strength GILMOUR: before Roger got into his stride as a lyricist. GILMOUR: It was the music. GILMOUR: Our personal problems in the band by that time GILMOUR: were sort of becoming more dominant. GILMOUR: Roger was becoming more dominant. WATERS: Can I put this down? WRIGHT: Roger had begun to think “I don't want anyone else to write.” WRIGHT: It was the start of that whole thing. WATERS: “Oh, he stop-- he wouldn't let us write.” WATERS: Y'know, I mean, that's just so sort of, stupid. WATERS: We were playing in stadiums, almost exclusively, for the first time. WATERS: And it became clear to me after doing one or two, that WATERS: this was no longer musicians, writing and performing songs. WATERS: What had become important was the worship of idols. WATERS: And I find it distressing. GILMOUR: It was wonderful to have all those people but, from that GILMOUR: moment on to this day, GILMOUR: they've never stopped shouting and making a lot of noise. MASON: Roger was pretty distressed at the fact that they weren't listening to the music. WRIGHT: But you can't ask people to do that in a stadium of 50,000. GILMOUR: It wasn't a hugely fun gig. I mean, that Montreal Olympic Stadium. GILMOUR: We didn't play particularly brilliantly and it was a rather GILMOUR: a poor note to finish a tour because it was the very last GILMOUR: gig of that tour sort of, sixth month of touring. WATERS: I got so angry with this kid who was screaming, that I spat. WATERS (1977 Audience Recording): “Oh, for fuck’s sake! Stop letting off fireworks and shouting and screaming, I’m trying to sing a song!” WATERS: When I came offstage afterwards, I thought, WATERS: what have I been reduced to? WATERS: What has happened to the relationship between the band and the audience? WATERS: Right from the word go, I knew that this was going to be a record, WATERS: three or four cities and a movie. WATERS: The Wall was something that I experienced very powerfully. GILMOUR: Roger had done a demo of the whole thing. WRIGHT: And when he said he wanted to build a wall, across the audience, WRIGHT: I thought this is absolutely insane. WATERS: By the time we got into The Wall, the band really didn't exist. WATERS: Really, it was my band. It was my work. WATERS: We did what I said, and the others did as they were told, and that was all there was to it. GILMOUR: The arguments and fights that myself and Roger had GILMOUR: making the album, were pretty intense. GILMOUR: That period, our relationship probably became irreparably damaged. WRIGHT: I made a decision then, well, I can't work with this guy anymore anyway, WRIGHT: but, I want to finish this and I want to play live, WRIGHT: the performances, and Roger was totally happy for me to play. WATERS: That was it. That was all that we could possibly achieve. WATERS: It was over. WRIGHT: I mean, that story goes that Nick was the next one to be thrown out, by him. MASON: We'd reached the point where Roger actually thought, MASON: “Hang on a minute, why am I working with these other people? WATERS: I'm not saying I did it all because I didn't– WATERS: obviously, Dave Gilmour's, umm, contribution to the making of The Wall was huge. WATERS: But we were not together unit. WRIGHT: The experiences of Syd would influence Roger and what he wrote. WRIGHT: Even some of the stuff in The Wall in a sense is about Syd. WRIGHT: And, Wish You Were Here. WATERS: The famous day when Syd came to the Wish You Were Here sessions he was shaved, you know. MASON: Finally someone said to me, “Do you know who that is?” MASON: And I had to say no. MASON: They said it’s Syd. MASON: And it really took a moment to sink in. WRIGHT: It was a real shock. I hadn't seen him since his breakdown. GILMOUR: That was in fact the last time I saw him. WATERS: Syd appears, obviously on Wish You Were Here, WATERS: and also in The Wall, a lot. My friendship with him and his illness WATERS: provide an enormous opportunity for… WATERS: ...grief. GILMOUR: Once it's established that Roger is the lyricist, GILMOUR: it becomes harder and harder to say, well, GILMOUR: "Do you think we need to go down this road?” GILMOUR: I'm not sure I can be bothered with The Wall really... GILMOUR: ...with talking about it. GILMOUR: I think we did a damn good job on it. But... GILMOUR: Sort of...slightly lacks soul for me. GILMOUR: It was less easy to… GILMOUR: to argue that the music had to… GILMOUR: ...stand on its own. WATERS: That wasn't much fun. WATERS: Because all I had was “what’s-his-name” sitting in the back playing Donkey Kong, WATERS: y’know, and telling me what a load of crap it was. GILMOUR: I felt that Roger was resurrecting tracks that we had GILMOUR: not accepted for The Wall album. GILMOUR: And I did say to him, “They weren't good enough then, why are they good enough now?” MASON: It was dreadful. It's not the way a band should make records. MASON: And I think we all thought that. MASON: Roger certainly thought it because he left the band shortly afterwards. INTERVIEWER: With Pink Floyd, what is the status, and then we'll move on from there. WATERS: Umm...It's over. I think. WATERS: Other people I think have other opinions about it, but you'd have to speak to them. GILMOUR: I see no reason whatsoever why I should give that up GILMOUR: just because one guy says he doesn't want to do it anymore. WATERS: If Ringo and George reformed and called themselves The Beatles, I personally would be extremely upset. GILMOUR: We’re not at all friendly really at the moment, no. GILMOUR: It's very difficult to remain on good terms when someone’s GILMOUR: trying to completely fuck you up, you know. NEWSCASTER: For Pink Floyd fans, who thought perhaps the departure of NEWSCASTER: longtime bassist Roger Waters would put a dent in the band's future: NEWSCASTER: Think again. GILMOUR: Obviously it was different, Roger not being there. GILMOUR: But, in some ways, we felt freed up. GILMOUR: The tensions of the last couple of albums, were gone. NEWSCASTER: The new Pink Floyd album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason is NEWSCASTER: climbing billboards charts fast, and the band has come to this country for their first US tour in a decade. WATERS: I'm playing in Cincinnati to about 2,000 people in a WATERS: 6,000 seat arena, and they're playing the next day to WATERS: 60,000 people in football stadium next door. WATERS: Playing all my songs. WATERS: That was hard to take. WRIGHT: I came in near the end of the process of making the album WRIGHT: and then went on tour with them. WRIGHT: On this one I've been involved right from the beginning. WRIGHT: Of course, very good to be back and, for me, particularly, WRIGHT: a lot, lot better. WRIGHT: We decided– how to start this one, we'd all go and jam, WRIGHT: you know for a week or so. WRIGHT: A true sort of Floyd writing partnership again. GILMOUR: Out of that grew The Division Bell album. GILMOUR: My later to be wife Polly Samson became, quite a large part of it. NEWSCASTER: This is from their recent album The Division Bell. NEWSCASTER: The rock music Juggernaut, that is a Pink Floyd tour has rolled into London. NEWSCASTER: 51,000 fans packed Jack Murphy’s stadium. NEWSCASTER: The Earl’s Court shows featured a return to Pink Floyd's history, NEWSCASTER: with a performance of the complete Dark Side of the Moon. MASON: I mean we hadn't played it as a piece for, MASON: I suppose since ‘75. GILMOUR: It’s kind of odd doing the last two songs, Brain Damage and GILMOUR: Eclipse, which are the two songs that Roger sang. MASON: I think playing to an audience is one of the best parts of the whole business. GILMOUR: There was no attempt to make it sound like anything we've GILMOUR: done before. But I mean, we sound like we sound, and GILMOUR: it does tend to sound a bit like Pink Floyd. MASON: In some ways, I think we’ll all miss it when we stop. WRIGHT: I'm also sad because I don't know when the next tour will be. GILMOUR: We're not retiring, GILMOUR: but that's about enough for me, for the time being. VOICE: Roger on the phone. GILMOUR: How’s it going? WATERS: I think Dave was a bit surprised when the phone rang, and it was me. GILMOUR: It’s been an awful long time since we've all played together, so y’know… WRIGHT: I was thinking, how's it going to work? WRIGHT: Which way is it going to go? Cloudless everyday you fall Upon my waking eyes Inviting and inciting me to rise And through the window in the wall Come streaming in on sunlight wings A million bright ambassadors of morning And no one sings me lullabies And no one makes me close my eyes So I throw the windows wide And call to you across the sky GILMOUR: I just thought I’d probably regret it if I didn't. WRIGHT: It’s going very well. WATERS: It's something I've been looking forward to. WATERS: And I was sort of kind of curious to see what the vibe would be, WATERS: and, it's been– It's been great. WRIGHT: It’s really good actually to be playing with Roger for this one show. MASON: Even if you've had the big arguments with people or whatever, MASON: they shared the experiences. MASON: It's life affirming, I suppose, it's that thing about MASON: witnesses to your life. WATERS: It's actually quite emotional. WATERS: Standing up here with these three guys after all these years. WATERS: We’re doing this for everyone who's not here, WATERS: and particularly of course for Syd. MASON: We do all carry quite a lot of guilt about the fact that MASON: we were unable to help Syd. MASON: What was so important was to not write him out of history. WRIGHT: The difference between Pink Floyd tours and this tour is WRIGHT: I actually hear every note he's playing. WRIGHT: It’s like the first time I've really heard him play. GILMOUR: I think we have successfully commandeered the best of what there is. GILMOUR: This is it. WATERS: “Is there anything that you regret during your years in Pink Floyd?” No. MASON: *laughs* WATERS: What’s funny about that? MASON: I just… WATERS: Okay… WATERS: 30 years ago, when David and Nick and I first did this, with Rick, WATERS: I was a rather grumpy person as young David will attest. WATERS: Well all that's changed! GILMOUR: It's a place of ghosts and I couldn't help but think of GILMOUR: playing there with Rick and GILMOUR: this sense of revisiting history, from a long, long time ago. INTERVIEWER: How is the relation with you and Roger? GILMOUR: We get on fine. I emailed Roger last week. GILMOUR: He’s been touring his Wall show, and I'm doing new music. GILMOUR: I don't think either one of us wants to go back. WATERS: About a year ago, I convened a sort of “Camp David” for the WATERS: surviving members of Pink Floyd. WATERS: It bore no fruit, I'm sorry to say. WATERS: David thinks he owns it. WATERS: I think he thinks that because I left the band in 1985, that he owns Pink Floyd, that he is Pink Floyd. NEWSCASTER: Members of Pink Floyd have just released their first new music together in almost three decades, NEWSCASTER: and it's to raise money for the people of Ukraine. WATERS: The Russian invasion of Ukraine was not unprovoked. WATERS: If we shout the lie, loud enough– WATERS: “Roger Waters is an antisemite!” – We’ll be alright. MASON: I found a way of existing in this world and… MASON: that's where I was, that's where I am. MASON: Sometimes it's just entertaining I'd say almost. INTERVIEWER: Do you prefer doing a solo album over working with the band? GILMOUR: Uhh…What band? INTERVIEWER: There's a band called Pink Floyd– GILMOUR: There was a band called Pink Floyd, yes.