Nick Mason: ‘I’m Not Entirely Sure Pink Floyd Is Over’
Nick Mason truly loves Pink Floyd. The drummer is the only member of the band to play on every single album, and ever since the group went on hiatus in 1994 he’s been the one out there promoting the reissues and keeping the flame alive. He’s also the only one to have written a book about his experiences in the band, and the upcoming release of the group’s new disc The Endless River gives him a chance to add a final chapter to it. We spoke with Mason about the creation of The Endless River, why he refuses to ever admit the band is dead, his dreams of a Pink Floyd documentary and why the box sets will never, ever stop coming.
I never thought I’d get to hear a new Pink Floyd record.
I think I feel roughly the same, actually. It’s slightly curious to be back in a world where you’re curious about whether or not someone likes your new record. It’s been a long time.
How did this project begin?
Essentially, when we recorded The Division Bell 20 years ago the idea was to make a double album. We thought we might do one disc of songs and one disc of ambient music, a throwback to jamming. As so often happens, we ran out of time. There was a tour coming up and we’d got the songs finished. We’d probably also run out of steam. It seemed like too much of a mountain, that second element of it. It just got shelved. It stayed shelved for a very long time.
I don’t think we would have done anything with it had it not been for Andy Jackson, our engineer. He said, “Why don’t you let me fiddle around with it and see what I can do?” He spent some time and worked quite hard on it. It was interesting, but it still felt like a collection of unfinished demos. He persevered and did some more, and eventually it got to the point where it felt like something. David and I were still unmoved, though, and David didn’t want to spend much time on it. Then getting Phil Manzanera involved came up, and that moved it on. Eventually, Youth also got involved, but still at this point we hadn’t made any real commitment to it to do very much with it.
A little less than two years ago, Phil and I met to go meet with the Wachowski siblings. They are working on a new movie and it seemed like that might be a place where the music could wind up. We’ve always liked the idea of film music. Maybe fortuitously, it didn’t work out and it was back to the drawing board.
How did it start gaining momentum?
Once Youth had done some work on the thing, I went in to do some drum parts and then David came in and he picked up a guitar. I think that was the point at which he got involved and decided to really put some time in it.
As you listened back to the songs, was there a lot of material you’d forgotten about after all these years?
Completely. I have to say, there’s a lot of throwback in there, but hopefully there is nothing wrong with it.
It does sound like you’re drawing little bits out of the band’s whole history.
It’s a very funny thing. You sit down to play and it’s a blank canvas, and somehow you end up retreating into familiar phrases, or in my case, familiar drum fills, no matter how hard you try. Eventually you settle into it. You realize, “This is what we like doing. This is what feels comfortable. Carry on.”
Did you know from the beginning you wanted it to be all instrumentals until the final song?
Initially, we hadn’t made a decision about that at all. If some of the material had been more suited to vocals, that might have been the way forward. Once we worked out there was really only one real song on it, I quite liked the idea. At one point we thought, “No songs.” But “Louder Than Words,” in a way, really helped link the album to The Division Bell. That seemed quite important. It is important for people to understand where it came from, that this wasn’t new music that’s just been created in the last year. It is, by definition, very connected to something that was done 20 years ago.
It’s nice to hear so much Rick on the record. It’s a great way to remind people how integral he was to the band.
I think that’s really important. That was one of the big things on listening that came across, the realization that this was some great Rick stuff. Over our history, Rick is the least recognized considering his input into our sound and what we are. It was a good opportunity to maybe redress a bit of that balance.
It must have been emotional to hear so much of his work through the speakers as you worked on this.
Yeah. It makes you stop and listen and ago, “You know what? There’s nobody else that plays anything like that.”