{"id":9185,"date":"2026-03-05T14:06:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T14:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/we-felt-released-pink-floyd-on-life-after-roger-waters-153500\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T14:06:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T14:06:47","slug":"we-felt-released-pink-floyd-on-life-after-roger-waters-153500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/we-felt-released-pink-floyd-on-life-after-roger-waters-153500\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe felt released\u201d \u2013 Pink Floyd on life after Roger Waters"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This article originally appeared in Uncut Take 271 [December 2019]<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This article originally appeared in Uncut Take 271 [December 2019]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most drivers choking up the A308 near Hampton Court are probably unaware of the musical artefact moored on the Thames riverside just a few metres to their south. Hidden away near Tagg\u2019s Island, the Astoria<\/em> houseboat was built for music\u2011hall impresario and Chaplin mentor Fred Karno in 1911, with an interior bursting with prime Edwardiana and enough space on the roof for a full orchestra. Whether David Gilmour, who\u2019s owned the Astoria<\/em> since the mid\u2011\u201980s, has tried out that last feature is unclear; yet we do know he\u2019s used the boat, below decks, to develop much of his and Pink Floyd\u2019s work over the past 35 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe boat is moored at the bottom of a beautiful, sort of Capability Brown garden,\u201d explains Floyd collaborator Anthony Moore, \u201cwith a tunnel that goes under a busy road and comes up the other side of a beautiful brick wall that keeps the world at bay. It\u2019s all rather idyllic.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was in these bucolic surroundings that Gilmour embarked on the recordings that would become 1987\u2019s A Momentary Lapse Of Reason<\/em>, the first new Pink Floyd album since 1983\u2019s The Final Cut<\/em>, and first without Roger Waters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided [to continue],\u201d Gilmour told Uncut<\/em>, \u201cat the moment Roger sent his letter to the record company saying that he forthwith was no longer a part of this thing. That was in December 1985. Pretty much right after that we felt we were released from anything, and we could start making a plan to look forward to making an album.\u201d<\/p>\n

The obstacles in Gilmour\u2019s way, though, were numerous. For a start, he wasn\u2019t used to working on Floyd songs as the sole writer, and he struggled with lyrics. What\u2019s more, he and Nick Mason were the only remaining members of the band, and Mason was these days more into sampling than drumming. Perhaps most damagingly, the pair weren\u2019t even sure they would be allowed to work under the Pink Floyd name after Waters instigated legal proceedings against them in 1986.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Us and Roger] are not at all friendly,\u201d Gilmour told an interviewer backstage at the band\u2019s Pearson Airport show in Toronto in August \u201987. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to remain on good terms when someone\u2019s trying to completely fuck your life up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRoger was such a powerful force in the band,\u201d says the Floyd\u2019s long\u2011time engineer Andy Jackson, \u201cparticularly in terms of lyrics, so there was a degree that the new album was a voyage of exploration at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was aboard the Astoria<\/em>, incidentally, on December 23, 1987, that Waters and the Floyd agreed a settlement, paving the way for Gilmour, Mason and Wright to continue with what would become an extraordinary final act. These post\u2011Waters records \u2013 A Momentary Lapse Of Reason<\/em>, 1988\u2019s Delicate Sound Of Thunder<\/em>, 1994\u2019s The Division Bell<\/em> and 2014\u2019s The Endless River<\/em> \u2013 have now been collected, remixed, remastered and even replayed on a new boxset, The Later Years<\/em>, along with audio and visual extras. They reveal a group examining the existential themes of their \u201970s work with a new maturity, and a stately gait almost as pastoral and relaxed as the riverside surroundings of the Astoria<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat place has this atmosphere of peace and quiet about it,\u201d explains the Floyd\u2019s creative director, Aubrey Powell. \u201cIt\u2019s just what David needed, and it gave him a chance to contemplate and think about what he really wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d have to be a bit mad to go on when you know that it\u2019s a difficult thing to do,\u201d Gilmour told Uncut<\/em>. \u201cGetting Rick back in and Nick back in were all things that I thought were important. It was a tricky old period\u2026 But it\u2019s a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Final Cut<\/em>, released in March 1983, had been a Roger Waters solo album in all but name, but it was followed by a brace of actual solo records the next year: David Gilmour\u2019s About Face<\/em> and Waters\u2019 The Pros And Cons Of Hitch\u2011Hiking<\/em>. In the bassist\u2019s view, Floyd were over, but he had neglected to inform the others.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy 1984, Roger had very obviously decided that enough was enough for him,\u201d Gilmour said, \u201cand I hadn\u2019t decided that enough was enough for me. So I imagine I thought, \u2018Yes, we\u2019ll go back to doing [Floyd].\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In December 1985, Waters announced his departure, but Gilmour was keen to begin a new album. The legal wrangling escalated throughout 1986, until Waters took his fight to the High Court in October. As Mason recalls, \u201cI think David led on the idea [of continuing]. It wasn\u2019t that I didn\u2019t want to carry on \u2013 I did \u2013 but I don\u2019t think I cared as much as David did. We\u2019d be partly in the studios and partly in the lawyers\u2019 office \u2013 \u2018Was Roger going to injunct?\u2019 And the answer was, of course he couldn\u2019t, because he\u2019d left the band, and the one thing clear in all our contractual arrangements was that if someone left, they left, and the band continued without them\u2026 That gave David and me the authority to carry on.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the spirit of continuity, the duo had enlisted The Wall<\/em> producer Bob Ezrin and begun work at the Astoria<\/em> in early 1986. It was a risky move, for more than just legal reasons: Waters\u2019 solo tours, featuring a good helping of prime Floyd material, had performed much better than Gilmour\u2019s About Face<\/em> shows.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole thing was a bit of a gamble,\u201d says Aubrey Powell. \u201cIt was naturally daunting to have the responsibility of carrying on Pink Floyd. I think financially it was an anxious time, too\u2026 but David is a very confident person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid was very determined not to be told that he can\u2019t do it any more,\u201d explains Andy Jackson. \u201cIn some ways you could interpret Roger saying, \u2018There is no more Pink Floyd\u2019 as [from David\u2019s point of view], \u2018Well, you can\u2019t tell me that\u2026\u2019 He had the desire to carry on as a band, so he had to make that work really.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mason, however, was out of practice, and Wright couldn\u2019t be brought back into the band officially due to the ongoing legal issues \u2013 his contract of departure had included a clause preventing him from ever rejoining. \u201cIt probably wouldn\u2019t have mattered,\u201d says Mason, \u201cbut it was just one more possible avenue for litigation. So initially it was just David and myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was no way the duo and their guest keyboardist were going to be able to ape the fire of Waters\u2019 contributions to The Wall<\/em> and Animals<\/em>, so they sensibly took a different tack, with Gilmour following his own muse; now the Floyd could fully explore his more tranquil yet muscular sound. What he did need, however, was a creative foil, especially when it came to lyrics, and a collaborator was found in Anthony Moore of Slapp Happy, who once featured on the Blackhill management roster alongside the Floyd.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe initial contact was to do with talking about sound and production more than lyrics,\u201d remembers Moore. \u201cI wasn\u2019t given a brief and told to hit the target or piss off \u2013 it was a much more friendly affair than that. Did David need to hook up with an \u2018eccentric\u2019 to compensate for his lack of eccentricity? No, that doesn\u2019t sound right. But to a certain extent his focus is on musicianship and melody, and I\u2019ve always been more engaged by timbre and sonic textures. So it was probably brought to David\u2019s attention that there was this lunatic roaming around who\u2019d come out of working on underground movies and soundtracks and experimental work with Revoxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moore began to visit the Astoria<\/em> each day, either setting himself up under a pagoda on the riverbank or joining Gilmour in the studio. \u201cI found myself sitting on this wonderful boat, eye\u2011to\u2011eye with the swans swimming past the windows. The lyric\u2011writing seemed to grow out of our talks in a fairly natural way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the words that Moore co\u2011wrote, those for \u201cOn The Turning Away\u201d were especially strong, hinting at the need for protest and vigilance against personal, political or social injustices; Gilmour handled the lyrics on some of the new tracks, though, with \u201cLearning To Fly\u201d tackling his and Mason\u2019s rock\u2011star hobby but also alluding to his new role as the group\u2019s leader. As fluid as the working process on this floating haven sounds, though, legal worries had a habit of surfacing to disrupt the sessions.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was absolutely unpleasant for David,\u201d says Moore, \u201cand probably equally so for Roger. There were phone calls in the same room on the Astoria<\/em> that one couldn\u2019t help hearing, but David soaked it up in a very calm way. He\u2019s one of the most equilibrated people. But yes, I\u2019m sure it was driving him mad.\u201d<\/p>\n

The main draw of The Later Years<\/em> box is the new version of A Momentary Lapse Of Reason<\/em>, a subtle yet extensive reworking of this formerly very glossy record. Much of the programmed drums and mid\u2011\u201980s synths have been removed, with Nick Mason recording new drum tracks and additional Rick Wright parts spun in from later live recordings for more of a classic Floyd sound.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were trying to make something that sounded very much of the time,\u201d says Andy Jackson, \u201cwhich means of course that as time progresses it ends up sounding dated. As Bob Ezrin was prone to do, at the start of the album he came in with a stack of CDs and said, \u2018This is what\u2019s happening now.\u2019 In \u201986, digital was very much at the forefront. [Dire Straits\u2019] Brothers In Arms<\/em> had just come out and that had a very particular sound, and that was one bar Bob said we should be aiming for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anthony Moore also brought in a host of cutting\u2011edge technology, from Akai samplers to MIDI sequencers, but the group still utilised the classic VCS3 that had been so central to The Dark Side Of The Moon<\/em>. \u201cWe sort of laid everything on it,\u201d says Mason. \u201cThere was a sense of trepidation over what it would be like without Roger, so we slightly over\u2011egged the pudding in terms of lots of session players. Some of it\u2019s overproduced, far too much stuff on it\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it didn\u2019t really sound like a Pink Floyd record,\u201d says bassist Guy Pratt, who joined the band in 1987 for their live work, \u201cbut it was a very good record. It\u2019s very of its time \u2013 Floyd were suited to \u201980s bombast.\u201d<\/p>\n

The meat of the songs was a little more timeless, though, painstakingly developed over their year at the Astoria<\/em>. Gilmour was very much at the tiller, creatively \u2013 one story has it that he recorded much of \u201cSorrow\u201d on his own over the course of a weekend, even the programmed drums.<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid can do everything himself,\u201d Phil Manzanera, who co\u2011wrote Momentary Lapse<\/em>\u2019s propulsive \u201cOne Slip\u201d, told Uncut<\/em>, \u201cbut it\u2019s pretty boring to do that. Also you do need somebody to say, \u2018Is this any good? Or am I just heading up the complete wrong path?\u2019 David came over to my studio, and we spent a couple of days doing two tracks. One of them became \u2018One Slip\u2019. The original demo is nothing like how it ended up, because the sequencer part was actually done on a guitar, with some echoes. I\u2019ve never been able to repeat it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMomentary Lapse<\/em> started as bits of music that I was working on,\u201d says Gilmour. \u201cThere was no stated intention in my mind for where they were going to go. I think it\u2019s a good album. There are one or two moments that I would now not put on, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Momentary Lapse Of Reason<\/em> was completed and mixed in Los Angeles \u2013 where the doomy guitar intro to \u201cSorrow\u201d was recorded at high volume in the city\u2019s Memorial Sports Arena \u2013 and released on September 7, 1987, by which time the Floyd were deep into their first large\u2011scale tour for years. The Wall<\/em> spectacular, despite looming large in legend, was only performed 31 times due to its high\u2011concept unwieldiness, but here Mason, Gilmour and the returned Wright were strapped in for almost 200 shows. The success of the tour was hardly assured: with no sponsors forthcoming, Gilmour and Mason had to fund production themselves, one sacrifice being the drummer\u2019s treasured 1962 Ferrari GTO. Yet despite his automotive loss, Mason admits: \u201cDavid carried most of that tour on his shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shows were a huge success, with the group, joined by an army of auxiliary musicians and backing singers, selling out stadiums across the globe. \u201c[The fans] are just so relieved that Roger\u2019s gone,\u201d joked Gilmour in the backstage Toronto interview, before adding in mock solemnity, \u201cI didn\u2019t mean to say that\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Across these 198 dates, Pink Floyd seemed to become a band again, buoyed by the return of their natural musical interplay, the acceptance from their fans and the sheer joy of playing their older songs: among others, \u201cShine On You Crazy Diamond\u201d, \u201cComfortably Numb\u201d, \u201cTime\u201d and \u201cOne Of These Days\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs always with Pink Floyd,\u201d says Anthony Moore, \u201cthey throw themselves heartily into the putting on of very spectacular shows. They were in it, heart and soul. It wasn\u2019t just some money\u2011making thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was putting stuff together for The Later Years<\/em> with David recently,\u201d says Aubrey Powell, \u201cwe were watching the new Delicate Sound Of Thunder<\/em> film. He said, \u2018Boy, was I playing well\u2026\u2019 He was so relaxed. He was absolutely at the top of his game. You know how to do it, but will you be accepted? And they were, big time.\u201d<\/p>\n

For their next trick, the Floyd went back to the kind of free\u2011form jamming they hadn\u2019t attempted since at least 1977\u2019s Animals<\/em>. Holed up in London\u2019s Britannia Row in January 1993, they generated stacks of improvisations, the plan being that these could then be combined to create songs for their new album.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was definitely more recognisably Floyd,\u201d says Guy Pratt. \u201cDavid had relaxed into his role. We did two weeks of noodling, just the four of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ended up with this big pile of 60 or 70 pieces,\u201d says Andy Jackson, \u201cand separated them into Bob Ezrin\u2019s somewhat arbitrary categories of \u2018acoustic\u2019, \u2018blues\u2019 and \u2018cosmic\u2019 \u2013 A, B and C. So we had things called \u2018Acoustic 14\u2019 and \u2018Cosmic 7\u2019\u2026 \u2018Marooned\u2019 was originally \u2018Cosmic 13\u2019. And we glued the ideas together in clusters, which is where the \u2018Cluster One\u2019 title came from.\u201d With the songs outlined, recording proper began, mostly at the Astoria<\/em>. Mason was looking after the drums on his own this time, and there was a renewed sense of Floyd\u2019s history at play \u2013 the group even tried bringing back the unmistakable tones of Wright\u2019s Farfisa Compact Duo, not heard for decades, and recorded on analogue tape rather than the digital format that had captured Momentary Lapse<\/em>. Among the tracks they were working on, there was gorgeous new\u2011age drift (\u201cCluster One\u201d, \u201cMarooned\u201d), punchy blues\u2011rock (\u201cWhat Do You Want From Me?\u201d) and propulsive, cosmic pop (\u201cTake It Back\u201d). Gilmour, meanwhile, had found the perfect songwriting partner in his new girlfriend, Polly Samson.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI always want to write my own songs, my own lyrics and everything. It just doesn\u2019t happen very quickly,\u201d the guitarist told Uncut<\/em>. \u201cI have yet to find the key to open that particular door which would allow me to get a little more busy in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the first time in decades, too, there was a Rick Wright song on a Floyd album, \u201cWearing The Inside Out\u201d, co\u2011written with Momentary Lapse<\/em> collaborator Anthony Moore. \u201cThe whole sonic underpinnings of Floyd to me,\u201d Moore says, \u201cseem to be all to do with Rick. He had a way of inverting the chords and emphasising certain notes that wouldn\u2019t normally be emphasised. I can\u2019t imagine a Pink Floyd with an absent Rick, whether in physical presence or in spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

By January 1994, the album was complete but had no name; enter writer Douglas Adams, a friend of the band, who suggested The Division Bell<\/em>, a reference to the bell rung in the House of Commons to summon MPs to vote. The album was released in March 1994 and became their biggest seller since The Wall<\/em>, topping charts around the world.<\/p>\n

The band \u2013 as a fully operating entity anyway \u2013 came to an end as \u201cRun Like Hell\u201d clattered to a close at London\u2019s Earl\u2019s Court on October 29, 1994. The work they created for The Division Bell<\/em> sparked another album, The Endless River<\/em>, 20 years later, of course; this set of loose collages was a fitting encore for this strangely self\u2011conscious, retiring incarnation of Pink Floyd. Yet, in the \u201990s, the success of The Division Bell<\/em> sowed the seeds for the end of the band: how could anything else top that for scale and grandeur? It\u2019s little wonder Gilmour has retreated to his solo albums \u2013 2006\u2019s On An Island<\/em>, particularly, could almost have been Pink Floyd \u2013 and Mason and Guy Pratt have recently rediscovered the joys of the pre\u2011Dark Side<\/em> era with their Saucerful Of Secrets group.<\/p>\n

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\u201cPink Floyd is very, very big,\u201d Gilmour reflected to Uncut<\/em>. \u201cThere are an awful lot of people who want to\u2026 buy tickets to those shows. You can\u2019t help thinking that some of the people just want to be part of the party. I find it hard to quite imagine how many of them actually really love everything about it. I don\u2019t know. Maybe that\u2019s fatuous. But that huge scale is intoxicating \u2013 it fuels\u2026 your ego and all that sort of stuff. But it\u2019s never quite ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough Roger is very dismissive of it all, I think some of the songs on the post\u2011Roger stuff are as good as anything,\u201d says Mason, looking back on their final act. \u201cBut it really wore David down, this thing of having to lead. It was the rebirth of Syd, of [one] guy doing the writing, being the frontman, being the guitar player \u2013 and that means you end up doing it all.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post \u201cWe felt released\u201d \u2013 Pink Floyd on life after Roger Waters<\/a> appeared first on UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This article originally appeared in Uncut Take 271 [December 2019] This article originally appeared in Uncut Take 271 [December 2019] Most drivers choking up the A308 near Hampton Court are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2993,31,35,4768,3090],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-david-gilmour","category-features","category-interviews","category-nick-mason","category-pink-floyd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}