An Evening with Nick Mason

[Applause] well a good crowd in so I hope I'm not too depressing a surprise for you I am no David tang so hello Nihao Nabu show Ching hua Ren hua boo showing Guarin there's the only bits of Chinese ever learned which just means hello I am NOT Chinese I am English absolute vital thing to point out now I am I took me to China twice a couple of years ago I did a documentary about football in China which is a becoming thing and there's a point to what I'm saying here and about 20 years ago I did a documentary which was a railway journey going from Hongkong through China to Mongolia and I end up doing that because we were trying to do something which is gonna talk about Hong Kong but everybody said no no nobody's to move done too much of this on the BBC so I luckily got to a meeting with Janet Street Porter who was head of the features at the time I can't do impressions but she had proof what you should do is while they're away journeys and she took a file off the thing and gave it to me they are Hong Kong through to China to Mongolia so and that's where I met David tang and he very kindly agreed to do an interview with me and he's got lots of places all around the world the China Club and we did an interview with him and lots of other people so generous report I think was right I'd never have a word said against her to allow me to do this fantastic documentary but the other people were also right and they decided that Hong Kong wasn't as interesting as the rest of the trip so nothing of Hong Kong appeared in the documentary and nothing of my interview with David tang so this is a bad precedent for so at least we're doing this live now NIC and therefore it can't be cut from anything because this is what it's in so now as those of you well all who have come along to to find out a bit more about Nick Mason but you'll you'll known awful lot already these are found a member ever-present member and drummer of Pink Floyd one of the all-time great creative progressive psychedelic underground rock pop music combos this country has ever I'll give a few basic facts to be corrected if I get them wrong formed in 1965 for five decades and perhaps three somewhat different combinations of the Floyd as I think we called them came through a number of crises but over the years enjoyed extraordinary critical and commercial success a very British band but which attracted worldwide fanatical support based on an array of intense songwriting music and performing talent but above all on the drumming skills yes okay twenty seven singles anyway let's sue so let's listen let's work out how you got going how I got going so a lot of people think that rock music pop music has to come from poverty and difficulty but you were all reasonably well-to-do people that got together and formed the band Pink Floyd yeah we're all good middle-class boys really I mean my background was my father was a documentary filmmaker I was born in Birmingham but I managed to lose the accident and I came to London with my parents and eventually decided to train as an architect because I couldn't think what else to do and it seemed to be good and a long course which is a very good way of putting off things like getting a job yes it just seemed important but actually it was a wonderful training out to thoroughly recommend it for anyone who wants to go into the music business and it was all going quite well actually I actually did a three years got a degree I had some very smart part-time lecturers in the shape of Richard Rodgers and Norman Foster so it all looked well and then I fell in with a bad lot which was basically Roger Waters and Richard Wright they were also on the same course and we started a band and we used our student grants I mean we were a sort of government funded initiative because either even even the well-off got a basic grant which was enough for a bass guitar or whatever was needed now why were you a drummer what cuz cuz you don't conform to some some drummers you know the Keith Moon that the wild men I have my moment you're still alive thing image no you're a few I mean some actually what you mean Ginger Baker twice and I'm I'm still here God you have yes just thinking about ginger yes enormous influence I mean the reason I'm here is because of ginger I saw the cream at the reason Street Polly which was where I was training and that sort of curtain went back and there was ginger in the middle of this band and I just thought oh no I'd like to do that I was playing drums by then but not that many drums and I went out the next day and bought the second bass drum and the extra TomTom looked like that but the main reason why I ended up as the drummer really is because when I was 13 or 14 we decided to start a band none of us could play the instruments and someone had already bought a guitar so that was left slightly reduced reduced opportunities people were saying so we couldn't really play we just sort of it was that the standard would you say in the sixties that people just he formed the band and then learn to play rather than learn to play first yeah absolutely and I mean more than that I think by the time we turned professional in 1967 the amount of time that would actually spent playing because none of us you didn't have lessons in electric guitar rock drumming it's very different now I mean I have I have a grandson who's now doing sort of grade I don't know what but he can certainly read faster than I can and I mean music it's it's extraordinary now you know you can do grades in electric guitar and you're doing red hot chili pepper tracks or whatever and we'll even Led Zeppelin tracks this just didn't exist so everyone was sort of self-taught and then you learnt on the job I mean there's a whole thing about hours of playing and whether you've 10,000 hours gives you the ability to you're pretty good by then by the time we turn professional I would have thought we don't need done I didn't know 100 hours maximum and after that and you thought that 10,000 hours since so that's the main thing yeah well being paid for it but so you're in training to be an architect you've done what five years or so yeah that I was starting my fifth and you decided that this is going world playing the bands going well sufficiently I'm gonna what put on hold my architectural we're all just abandoned altogether how why how could you be so confident that it was worth trucking away five years of study had the most brilliant year master a man called Joe Mayo and he invented the gap year for me yeah I mean it wasn't something and yes I am now in my 51st gap yards experience but he was he just said look take a year off give it a go because we'd got to the point where actually my friends were signing me in for lectures that I wasn't attending and I could see this was a heading for a bad place so I went in and said look we've got this band it appears to be sort of operating because the big thing then was if you had it almost any work at all he were an operating band and he said fine you can come back in the year well but I mentioned you've had some I mean I never ups and downs the right way of putting it but it wasn't your very first single Arnold Layne beer was reminiscing about it but that's a very it's a very unusual single I mean there'll be plenty people who know fully well but it was at the time it was an onion you know a song about a man stealing ladies underwear off shopping like that that wasn't the standard way of you know no wasn't boy meets girl that was boy meets girls underwear it's not the point they saying is it and generally we've spent the last 50 years not being able to do boy-meets-girl it's all been a bit more depressing than that no it was we had a very quirky songwriter and frontman in the shape of Syd Barrett and it's a it's a fairly well-documented now imagine most of you know the story of said really failing after about a year where I say failing it basically we'd still believed that it was to do with LSD and too much acid but he also maybe just realized he didn't want to be in a pop group actually and we couldn't believe that so we kept somehow assuming that everything would work out and eventually there was a point at which it stopped working out and we had to carry on without him and funnily enough the thing you asked about this extraordinary confidence that meant that we carried on we lost our main man and I've seen it in other bands I mean I think Genesis our being through that Fleetwood Mac have been to through that that thing where you somehow have a confidence in in the overall shape of the band rather than just the individual it's the group identity or even a brand which is stronger and it's you know a very I want to ask about another early record of yours before other people have even more precise questions but see Emily play it is the Emily in that is that Emily young who is now a sculpture the best respected sculpture in the country really it was that about the young Emily young I don't know oh okay it was I can't be absolutely certain of that one I've heard I've heard that that's the case did you know Emily young as no I think she was called the psychedelic schoolgirl wasn't sure something like that I'm not implying anything inappropriate nature I'm just good notes it's just it's just good for quiz questions if you'd say who is the Emily Emily one of the few people who might tend to know for the purpose of entertainment today trying to do this properly and not just making out okay okay so alright so so because the SID was no longer available for being in the band of for writing more to as you say you carried on but did you have a sort of were you worried do you doubtful all this presumably people around you managers and agents and record companies were thinking Oh blimey what's gonna happen now well we a couple of things that managers definitely were worried and decided to manage Sid and not us but fortunately there was someone else who stepped in we didn't want to worry the record company with this information so actually we went for about six months without bothering to tell them yeah which I think was the right decision yeah and so you had Dave Gilmour from that point or roughly that point onwards did that change it as far as you were concerned well after the problems of working with Sid who didn't really want to be there and the arrival of David was fantastic we did about five shows with as a five-piece and then finally he said was gone and we carried on playing Sid songs for the next four to six months I guess while we've made the next album which was mainly material that was written by either all of us who primarily Roger yes the Roger Waters kind of took over the yeah songwriting and that worked happily for a while it worked happily for quite a long time yes and I'm sort of racing through a bit but eventually he he wanted he wanted to he wanted to go his separate way or its a bit slower' slightly more sort of convoluted than that but he certainly wanted more and more control and probably should have maybe for his own sake going off on his own earlier but didn't but on the other hand that sort of friction of working together I think is part of the reason why we actually made the records we did know thanks um although everyone would love us to get back together and be the Monkees and run about a double speed it's it's not really an option and I think one has to accept that some of that's one of the reasons why some of the good work gets done yeah well built around the various relationships going right or wrong within the group so maybe that is necessary but it but again I it sounds is good looking back and saying oh well this happened but presumably at the time you again you might have been thinking oh what's gonna happen now they're gonna be legal disputes and he wants to keep his songs where we still want to be Pink Floyd what was that a period of anxiety for you you know it was uh it was an interesting one because but it was the same thing that after after the fighting when you can just get on with making the music going on tour or whatever you really enjoy it I mean actually after Roger went the tour after that was probably wonder sort of lot it was certainly the longest tour we ever did I suppose your best know best if you are particularly known for the spectacular nature of your concerts are they as the years went by they got bigger and bigger can you describe why that was the case what was the most what was the reasoning behind that well I think the reasoning behind it was actually it was where we more or less started when when we were before we were even professional one of the the gigs that we had fairly regularly was providing music or sound effects for a course at Hansie College of Art which was run by a guy called Mike Leonard who was a part-time lecturer at the region story poly and so we'd sort of already done a little bit of work with light shows and light machines and so on I think when we started when we turned professional that was one of the things that we did we had these oil slides and we had various like lighting systems that became part of what we were and who we were and there was the whole thing about psychedelia and creating this extraordinary sort of visual aspect to it and it worked and we found really we found a niche for ourselves and it wasn't each because everyone else it seemed it was all about wearing tight trousers and gambling about on stage which we were never very good at so was it a way of distracting the audience into the show rather than concentrating I'm sure about distracting I think actually particularly in the big shows in by the time we got into the stadium situations what you're trying to do is get everyone to concentrate you know the biggest problem with a really really bigger audience is you've got five or six rows who are absolutely beside themselves with excitement and then gradually it ends up with the people who are doing drugs and playing frisbee yeah I wonder if you could stop doing that at the back there is a mirror we can see you it what about your other all that association with the the moon the dark side of the moon yeah I think you played live and you were on ER and during a moon landing on the television yes we did those sadly this is a bit like Emily young I absolutely have almost no memory of it whatsoever you don't remember playing live on television well the men landed on the moon I'm not sure dela day in your life shame really isn't it just hold that one big step for mankind actually I thought he'd gone out for a pizza how did you have the dynamic of the Pink Floyd work its various stages you're you wrote or co-wrote some of the songs you did was that a did you get together to write songs there everyone bring in things I think the co-written things tended to be improvised in the studio otherwise generally the way it worked was the Roger would go away and certainly would dioxide he went away once we decided what the what the issues were what what the subjects were and then sometimes the music was put together in the studio sometimes David or Roger or Ricky would come in with a with the song ready prepared it there was there was no formula we worked in whatever way we could and I think would have loved to have found a formula for working what would tend to happen is that we'd finish one one project and it took a very long time really to regroup and get back into the next one if you have any trouble from teachers you know from another brick in the wall we don't need no education teacher yeah I mean you highly educated people on stage singing about the horrors of Education I think it's if you see it in context it's about a style of teaching and in particular the business of corporal punishment many people have been to the exhibition at the V&A oh thank you so much I went to it knowing I was gonna be doing I hadn't gotten I winter on the second-to-last I couldn't get my naivety thought I could stroll in about three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon and say oh you know you waiting that queue over there for a return I didn't get in later that I could have got you in I know really good I've actually don't pass so does this mean I can't see it is it ever gonna be see it again this exhibition well good news clive no it has finished at the V&A but we are moving it to italy next all right opens in rome sometime mid-january january in rome and then it'll go to germany hopefully then on to New York and then you need quite a meticulous collector of memorabilia and things to do with over the years yes that's not in the not in a very expert way I just wanted to finish one thing about the business of teachers because one of the items that's on display in the exhibition is the cane that was used to punish Roger when he was a school yes and he never forgot it but how did he get the cane did he did he snatch it from the teachers hand no no it was supplied by the school I think kept it it wasn't on ebay they've banned corporal punishment you've got nothing to do with these canes and before I I'm gonna hand over to the room to ask you questions but since we're here at the China exchange I just wondered a day in your world traveling's how many times or did you ever get to the Great Wall in China or no we never did I mean that's something I regret because we really did our last sort of big tour about 20 years ago and most of our touring was fairly uneventful I mean we did hardly any South South American touring very little we played Russia but very little of Eastern Europe and no I'd have loved it I think probably Japan was really the the only and so far east market for us at the time and as I say it's one my group regrets really though we didn't end up the opportunity and as I say just probably throw over to the room and now I the other thing people will know about you is you you've got a huge collection of motor cars cars roughly how many cars have you got 40 ish 40 years and these aren't minis and things no they're racing cars and Bentleys and Ferraris and suchlike yeah mainly older cars no it's not exactly this sort of collection of uber specials I was very lucky I started a long time ago and in fact with my ill-gotten gains from dark side more or less went straight to the car dealers yeah and at the time I looked like a complete idiot but now I look fairly smart they've gone up in value yeah they have yes so what do you do then just sort of polish them every day or do you have to sit behind the wheel going of room from what what's this do you do - I know you do drive them in you've been in LeMond and everything I've just really enjoyed the whole thing of running them and racing them my family all grace and I'm sort of heading for retirement now having spun one car particularly badly recently at Goodwood I think that that was a sort of marker that maybe time to slow down what was that a racing car or it was a racing car yeah yeah well they are built you know 25 year old yeah no one explained okay well having suggested there be questions from the audience we've got well people with Mike that's the first first hand up there not that'll be your second one or I would if you wait from home I'll come to you that we've got some microphones placed to those two questioners there so I'll do those two first and that and hey you would you ever consider working with a soprano again well seems like a really good idea Jackie st. Claire is a really good friend of mine she passes on a love she was also at the VNA and also muddled no good awesome Nicky won't remember you know it's be interesting to know if you would consider you know working in the future with the soprano because I know your music's very experimental well I think one of the one of the things has been great about the band and what we've done and so on is the business of working with other people that's one of the nice things about the VNA exhibition was an opportunity really to recognize that I mean less so that with music more with the graphics and the staging and so on all the great people we've worked with but actually all the people who've contributed musicians who played on till saxophone players singers and so on they always bring something extra to the party well that you've set a very high bar for the questioning no not everybody has to break into song there was there was another question right right by you yes Thank You Nick are you most creative when you're spaced out a reasonable question because everyone assumes that somehow everything was done under there well we were actually tripping and I think probably the most many ways extraordinarily straight because certainly performing I think it's not a great thing to be spaced out or or high or whatever anything some of the worst shows I've ever seen generally involved someone at least one person doing cocaine and someone else doing and some sort of downer so that there's this really quite extraordinary thing in particularly when it comes to tempo but how was it in pink pink floyd though very very staid but if your inspiration was hide your bacon and i'm not to speak badly everything behind his back but it's possible he's occasionally had a bit of ProPlus before i think even without the ProPlus he behaved appallingly okay there was it there was an enthusiastic hand up there that i we just avoided because of the microgram i'd like to ask you about that i've a concert was it an easy decision for you to get back with Roger Oh brilliant question okay remember that forty I loved it was absolutely terrific I was quite often say it was perhaps one of the the best shows we ever did not but in terms of musicality although the show itself but just for doing something for the right reason and I still feel that not only for the sort of greater audience but just even to just show my children that we were capable of doing of arguing and then actually getting together and doing something for the right reasons and tribute to Bob Gilbreath but he he sort of came up with the idea and actually managed to to get us all to to do it to do it so it was a quite a diplomatic job to get you all on board it was a hell of a diplomatic job to get us all on board well I say all of us what I mean is Roger and David basically David didn't really want to do it and what happened was that Bob very persuasive had absolutely failed with David and he rang me up and he said would I'd talk to David I said that will do no good whatsoever it said the only person I think who could persuade him to do it would be Roger and it said Bob said all right well I'll talk to Roger then what's his number so I told him then I felt that it was my duty to warn Roger that this was going to happen and I'm particularly good at sort of slightly diplomatic not exactly saying what's going to happen but just saying I think Bob might be going to call you and Roger rang David and said look really I'm up for it let's do it and that was it and I have to say we've rehearsed we rehearse quite hard for it and the rehearsals were as much fun as the show itself but did it did any of the sort of rivalry or whatever was it split your part did it bubble up again so oh you always come in too fast on that not really there was a good line from when rec turned to Roger and said something like well you know the way we do it now as we play it at this tempo or whatever yeah Roger looked at reckon he said what you doing your private life is in 200 meters and at the end I mean who obviously worked really well did you all sort of hug each other and feel yeah what have we done we should have been together because you didn't know no no we didn't but I think we were pleased to have done it everyone was and we enjoyed playing it and it was it's obviously great for the audience and it was interesting that Led Zepplin also did a sort of get together and then did not go out on tour yeah for the next 10 years okay yes very good question and gentleman though with the what would have sent me a watch I can see I think it may be attached to you or not I don't know yes yes sir this one did Iver you David or Richard shared a same kind of verb melancholic opinions and the human condition as Roger I think Rogers view of the world is is unique and his and his writing is extraordinarily powerful and I don't think I mean some of the David songs work really well high hopes for me as was still one of my favorites of of our catalogue but I think the really extraordinary thing about Rogers writing is that he wrote some of the elements of dark side when he was a 20-something year old and almost more relevant to a 50 or 60 year old than they are to a young younger man and I think on a more general level there's an interesting thing that both from the cambridge of connection David's pet David's parents Rogers mother my parents were all fairly left-wing my dad was a member of the Communist Party in the 50s but I think Roger absolutely is a product of a perhaps a more extreme life story you know with a grandfather who was killed in the first world war and her father killed in the Second World War I think that has some element to play on how he writes which is it's an unusual approach I supposed to better some aspects of popular music well as you said normally it's boy meets girl and I love you love you love you or all the sadness of breaking out rather yes yes sir yes I'll come to you in a minute hello dick do you get the same highs no pun intended from playing live for Pink Floyd's you do from driving around the mall in a classic racing car they complement each other they're very different it's not the same at all I mean unless the audience is particularly angry they're not nearly as dangerous as the risk element is higher motor racing but I'd really like the the the difference almost and I think perhaps because of the drama aspect of it drama cannot operate with on his own well he can but chances of selling tickets for a 2-hour drum solo at remote and so to do something work which is entirely about you on your own in a car it's a rather good way of because I say of complimenting what's going on the rest of your life but to enjoy motor racing do you need to have that thrill of possibly crashing if you've got to have that danger I don't know it must be some small part of it because you are trying to you are trying to go as fast as possible and go to the limit yes yes but but you'd well obviously if I thought it was gonna crash I probably wouldn't do it so there's a sort of sense that you're in control okay finding do you do you keep in touch socially with with David and Roger dropping text or is it just bad news yeah I you know I mean funnily enough I probably see more of Roger than David although I'll probably see David know next week but Roger when I am in America I'll nearly always make the effort go and find him or go and see him they asked you know they are still my pretty well my oldest friends well that's what sometimes fascinates the rest of us when groups come together you generally are friends and if there's a falling-out it's it's more like a lot of lovers TIFF exactly but it's more intense than just work mates not working together again so how do you how do you cope with that as a great difficulty it's for many years yeah you just I suppose you find a way out of it eventually well or you don't L mean there are plenty of burns around you haven't spoken to each other the last 20 years or whatever but yeah I think you look for an opportunity to build some bridges okay you could do without a microphone oh no it's coming anyway Justin hello I'm curious to know what type of music you like listening to now or if you have a favorite album at the moment and I think I'm rather stuck in I think like a lot of people that you tend to get stuck with a period of music where you first discover it or it has a major influence on it so I still tend to be stuck with Jimi Hendrix cream Joni Mitchell whatever and I'm really not very good at listening to new music and young bands and so on Bruce Hornsby in the range I still like and I still have a hankering for modern jazz and people who can play things that I can never hope to emulate which is particularly those sort of bebop drummers and so on and which period of Pink Floyd's music do you like the best I'm keen on all of it really i ppppp I don't really have a favorite learning and now we got it to a blistering period and then we went off at you just the whole range is good no Fraser and I recommend this product absolutely I think funnily enough and I don't certainly don't listen to things that we've done unless there's some reason that if we're going to play it again or whatever and I need to actually relearn it which happens I'm quite interested in the second album so full of secrets because I think that's a lot of ideas there that we didn't either almost didn't recognize at the time there's one song set of controls that I think was an extraordinary transition for Rodgers writing in terms of the one song he'd done on Piper at the Gates have donned this song and then the title track which is really quite a complex piece of music and I think is a pointer to where we were going to go further much further down the line do you think he always would have been a songwriter even if sit at stade writing songs stayed with you good question under answer I don't know I suspect so yeah I think he probably wouldn't because I think if Sid had stayed we probably would have heard a shorter shelf life and Roger would not have wanted to go back to architecture well just the thought of and you mentioned Bill Collins I think in passing and you know he he was drumming and then because they didn't have a singer he stepped forward and took over this young I never had the opportunity with this one no I know there are two aspects are two parts that were stressful that was the opportunity happened to open up him and it might not have been the case he might have carried on being the drummer never being the singer but as you hinting at there's another part of that what about you had wood had the opportunity arisen would you like to have step forward and taking over the vocals no absolutely not having to stand out no I'm very happy very happy with apologies for the question have you ever made love your songs before have you ever made love while one of your songs no I don't say that because it would have been such a distraction Oh drum part again making me a little giddy thinking about it hmm maybe Division Bell wouldn't be a particularly no but but that's a weird question that's a yes and I'll come to you later but my question coming there we go what advice would you give to young bands who are starting to take music seriously well first of all I have to start with the the most wonderful piece of advice that was given to young musicians by nil writing who was the bass player with Jimi Hendrix and if you've heard me say this before sorry but he said study law and buy a gun he had he had a particularly tough time yeah what I would say is I think the the the landscape now makes it far more difficult for young musicians and young bands than it ever was 50 years ago there was such a sort of straightforward Vlada almost oh you needed the three cards which were the management agent and record deal but the records the record companies were constantly looking for new ideas new music and it didn't cost them very much to invest in in putting a record out so that was the way forward now the record company is simply where they will invest but they won't invest until you're already halfway there it's as though someone's pulled half the wrongs out the ladder I think you have to you have to be very apart from making good music you also need to entrepreneurial skills because you need to find new ways of getting people to listen to your music and that's really hard because it's fine you can put it on put it on the web very easily but how you then tell people it's there is really difficult so I suppose the answer is you have to just try and investigate every possible way of getting that music listened to but the one thing I suppose modern musicians have music makers know is that they they can see that people have had a career and have a long career was when you started art I mean could you foresee that you that anybody was gonna be still playing music in in a in a group or something yes absolutely you're absolutely right I mean I there's recently been a movie out eight days a week about the Beatles a lot of early Beatles material and there's Ringo saying that he's going to open a chain of hairdressers no and I would seriously thought a year or so and not be back at college right it was unthinkable that all these funny old pop groups would last for longer than a year or two but I suppose your modern point is that nowadays you can't make the money immediately I don't need had you already made a lot of money out of the first couple of singles was that enough to know we didn't make any real money until five years it took five years and dark side was when we actually really saw some royalties ourselves because before that we would we tended to be putting money back in equipment in particular but also touring America the first American tours near to making making money it was sort of investment and did you have people you trust it yes we trust it rather unwise two questions the first one is you said that you spent your money on on a 250 GTO or whatever but Roger Walters also bought at the Daytona was that down to you or I don't remember Roger buying a Daytona it's burnt out anyway he went up in flames last year in Australia no I definitely this is well questioning if I may say to see me put it in my book no I think I definitely was buying unsuitable cars quite a long while before the others I think David had a couple of cars later on everyone it was sort of necessary pure in a rock band you need to country house and you needed some cars going the garages there was a trout farm you're supposed to have oh yeah I'm do that you said your two questions but that was did a lot of things to keep the to keep you all talking together during the latter stages your career with Roger Waters yes I mean okay well basically he sort of tried to manage an impossible situation but that's what managers do okay moved on for you now for a first yeah it's a gentleman there with his hand up microphones coming into the from the back of you which is not the best way to one album that didn't seem to feature very largely in the V&A exhibition was assam heart mother and i just wondered whether there was a particular reason for that not run Giessen are you know mmm i think i think we covered to my heart mother I think there's who have quite a lot of reference to the fact that it it the the album were before before we actually made the album we actually played the piece live quite often without an the orchestra sections on it which was sort of interesting in its own way I suppose I do feel slightly that both ummagumma and autumn art mother was sort of cul-de-sacs for us and they were interesting but they weren't part of our would had called general development I was in education no I sort of felt as though that it was recognized and it was interesting I mean it was it's easier to see the flaws in an atom heart mother than most of our other Outlands and just to give you an example of that what why it doesn't come high on my favorite list is that we knew we were preparing to lay the orchestra sections down on the backing track but when we made the backing track EMI had just taken delivery of these new tape machines with this two-inch tape on them and a directive was issued that said these tapes must not be edited this meant that Roger and I had to do the entire backing track in one take which was I'd describe it as erratic we didn't use a click track because we thought that would make it too too severe so we set off on this sort of 20 minute journey of bass and drums more or less on their own and I can still hear it sort of tempo moving around a bit in a way that makes me feel very vaguely seasick I don't think any more well how was that work how do you find working with the orchestral players was that good fun or a good challenge or what initially it was hard work because we're talking quite a long time ago now and session players rather look down on these pop groups and there was that feeling that because we didn't read the notes we weren't sort of proper proper players so they could be a bit stuffy I think the right word and there's still there's still a no brass players particularly have a reputation of being tricky and I'm still rather fond of little while ago I was doing something with Jools Holland and we were doing a version of interstellar overdrive' and it's got this it sort of works its way around sort of verses and chorus of verses and choruses and I'd said two jobs well we'll just we'll keep it rolling sixteen bar sequences and until we get bored and this brass blare looked at me and he said oh just once then hello Nick hi I really would like to congratulate for the solo you joking is there a gig you like particularly for a certain reason like particular gig a particular gig well we did we talked about Live Aid I think anywhere that's slightly unusual slightly interesting I mean one would have to mention Vernis as perhaps the most extraordinary event but it it was quiet it was a fairly epic business to get it actually done properly we managed to fall out with both City Council and the gondoliers which didn't really help but it was still lovely to have done that show and Shanti I suppose the other one would probably be something like the first times we played dark side and actually utilized film and fireworks and part you know and the aircraft that came from the back of the auditorium crashed into the stage something something why we took it step forward as always the memorable ones we ever find of being overwhelmed by all these effects and visual display yes there was an element of physical danger occasionally when the pyro got out of control but otherwise no because you you it's it's it's your show it's so actually the bigger the bang the more the audience might go what's that the more you feel it works again as I as I said earlier you want them to focus on what's happening on stage whether it's that you know the Magnificent drummer or whether it's a piece of film footage doesn't matter and when you go past Battersea Power Station do you desert hole deep I always check the sky yes yes so they go to you first and then you use the back offered to the mic friends coming here yes thank you whose idea was it for Pompeii and whose was the poor dog wasn't a poor dog it's a perfectly happy dog but I've met a number of dogs since who who always enthusiastic to join in for anyone who doesn't know that he's referring to a track whether we have a dog howling along with the Blues track and I'd love to be able to say that Pompeii was my idea but rather sadly it wasn't it was actually Adrian Marvin the director of the movie who came up with the idea and we were all a bit sort of sniffy about it couldn't quite see it working but and now it's I think it's the most wonderful thing because there's almost nothing of us playing together in in that sort of period because no one had video cameras or would say they had I guess super 8 with no sound on so there's virtually nothing of us playing in period whereas that is actually properly recorded and properly filmed and it was a very clever balance because the the venue of Pompeii was sort of gritty with the wind and the the air full of dust and so on so they gave it a sort of live flavour without the problems of having to work to an audience who would not have been happy if you were going to cut an edit and stop and start again and so on so Adrian Marvin there's a man who has to take credit for that and the dog royalties from where are we going now you know what I've had enough trouble with the Islington Green kids let alone the dog does not have a lawyer the him or managers amazing green school is kept funded so yes your question there I really enjoyed the interview that Brian Johnson from ac/dc dudes with you recently a couple of questions did you let him drive any of your cars and also who had the better rock'n'roll stories would you say oh I'd have to say bran Johnson he's got terrific stories all told in a Geordie accent when cackling along as he tells them he's no he said full-on entertainer that Brian I've been very happy to actually I would have been happy to have let him drive any of the cars because it's reasonable driver oh that's what I thought at the time since then he managed to roll roll the car at Silverstone that belonged to a friend of mine and in the a35 race but since my daughter also managed to roll the similar car what can one say yes any more questions you're pointing out but let's let's go with that whoever that is yeah yes sir yes going back to your set designs um as a former architectural student were you ever tempted to get involved in mark Fisher's designs well not really tempted because mark was so good at it I think the cleverest thing we ever did was with sort of discover mark and start working with them because mark Mark Fisher who very sadly died a few years ago but mark not only did the most fantastic stage designs for us but was involved in the way the wall worked and the way the rule was assembled and then collapsed he was also involved with inflatables pyro whatever we did he'd have a view of and was able to add something more to it so it's one day again it comes back to what I said about working with other people and one of the great things about any sort of success is the more successful they are the better the quality of the people you can work with and Mark absolutely was one the great assets to us yes yes sir question there and then you just wear the microphone is there places - yes thank you hi I see Roger is headlining there DST festival Hyde Park are we going to see any more Pink Floyd's shows in the future who knows well you might [Laughter] as yet no I have no idea whether what what the future holds and ya know I love playing I love playing with Raj I love playing with David and I'm ready you know bag packed and I spoon for the catering and but whether those two will ever be how people working together as I say I'd rather say no idea than unlikely I live in hope the question I got the feeling that you know the pink floyd had stopped performing together that was their input but apparently not necessarily them oh i think one has to say yes we have but you never know I did so I say I would have when we did live eight it never crossed my mind that would be seeing Roger and David on stage so there could be another live a I would hope if there was that would work again anyway the three of you yes you had a question yeah it wait just so we'll bring your microphone just a second yes hi Nick is there one particular person from history that you really admire and if there is why these are great questions these wish I'd ask you that myself from history that's buzina warrior princess doesn't count No it's the wrong wrong sort of admiration I think I don't know wonder I suppose more recently I would say Nelson Mandela world someone who is capable of generating sort of goodwill on a global scale and and capable of marshalling that amount of support words sadly lacking Mandela there's not a huge number of people capable of bringing people together to select from but Nelson but your question there hi I wanted to ask and about a little bit about the creative process and every song that became recorded and I could now YouTube how many songs only made it halfway through so how many songs are sort of part of the Lost Tapes we're very short on Lost Tapes I mean we absolutely scour the vaults for things that we might have done that we might be and to some extent the endless River is a massive of those sort of lost tapes and we were always a little bit short of ideas so more or less anything God if it wasn't good it would be made good and if every scrap in the larder was taken out one was chosen no we we we've always found it it was quite a slow process so I'd say finding material and making it good enough to to get onto the record well no we've we've run through our time I was told of awesome go be on top of this time for maybe one more question so if yes so it's the last question so it's really got to be a good one I don't want I just don't down the front here please yes just so it doesn't make a good question just to make a good end point firstly I'd like to say how fantastic the exhibition was Vianney absolutely wonderful but I would like to know what song do you like to play live the most and why what song and why it's got to be comfortably numb it's the best because the dynamic so and it's it's musically it's the it's one of the most interesting songs we've done and it's because of the dynamics in it that actually the first verses and choruses oh they're actually almost half a drum part rather than a whole drum part that's all sorts of bits missing which I really like that's of emptiness and then by the end of it it's a full-on thrash along guitars anthem which what drummer could resist that thank you very you did very well with your last question and thank you everyone for listening thank you to Nick Mason [Applause] you

Channel: China Exchange

Views: 35,383

Rating: 4.8945055 out of 5

Keywords: Nick Mason, Pink Floyd, China Exchange, Clive Anderson

Id: j3V5veeGRB8

Length: 62min 25sec (3745 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 09 2017