In London, you can't escape the eye. Nor can you escape Pink Floyd. The
graphically represented iris and dilated pupil on the cover of Floyd's new live
album, Pulse, is everywhere, like some sort of Big Brother. Every record store on
every street has window displays featuring the eye, while thousands of blinking
red lights strobe from the racks within. British TV channels run ongoing
interviews with the members of Pink Floyd and excerpts from the new concert
video. Even across the Atlantic, Pulse is omnipresent. New York City turns the
top of The Empire State Building into a skyscraping light show that celebrates
the record's release. A hundred stories below, Pulse posters and billboards line
the streets. For all intents and purposes, this live version of Dark Side Of The
Moon has been given all the trappings of the second coming of Christ.
For David Gilmour, however, all the excitement is post-mortem. He wants
nothing more than to simply retreat to the quiet of his London home and enjoy his
new son, who is less than two months old. The spectacle of publicity is mere
fallout, after all: It was Gilmour who orchestrated Pink Floyd's most recent
concert spectacle in the first place.
In the relative calm of West London, far from any spectacle and publicity,
Gilmour sits in the rooftop atrium of a small hotel just off of Hyde Park. It is a
typical London summer day, humid, overst, and grey, with the ever-present threat
of a thunderstorm. Below is an English garden, lush and green, with row after row
of brilliant flowers. It is atypically quiet here, as the noise of London fails to
pierce the tranquil veneer of either the atrium or the garden. In other words, the
setting is so British you almost expect someone from Monty Python to walk
across the yard and explode.
Gilmour sits at a table, looking out over the garden and sipping cappuccino. His
broad face betrays something of Jack Nicholson about it - the way he uses his
eyebrows and the way he smiles. His voice is as smooth as the vocals on
"Comfortably Numb" or "Learning to Fly." Surprisingly, it is a voice that sounds
like that of a very young man, perhaps one in his twenties. But Gilmour was in his
early twenties when he joined Pink Floyd, and that was nearly thirty years ago.
Today, David Gilmour is one of the few rockers that the British revere as one of
their royalty. He has become something of a nobleman - "landed gentry" in the
words of Brits - like Jagger, Clapton, and McCartney. His cool demeanor, low
profile, sophistication, proper schooling (very imporatant to British society) and
incredible success over the decades have afforded him a level of respect not
always given to longtime rock and rollers. By comparison, it's doubtful that
members of Slade or Motorhead will ever get the same treatment from British
society that Gilmour does.
Gilmour has also assumed his rightful place among guitarists as one of the
most unique, immediately recognizable, and enduring stylists in the history of
rock music. As such, he has been accorded near-legendary status in the guitar
community - this despite his personal reclusiveness and reluctance to play
anything that is too over the top. So why has Pink Floyd, under Gilmour's
direction, chosen to release such an ostentatiously lavish album at this stage of
it's career? Especially an album that features a complete live version of Dark
Side Of The Moon, one of the most popular recordings of all time?
"The reason for Pulse is Dark Side Of The Moon, obviously," says Gilmour,
stirring his cappuccino. "We weren't going to do a live album for this tour; it
seemed a bit superfluous having just done one a few years ago. But, as we started
out on the tour, we were looking for ways to change the show around and make
ourselves a little more flexible and have a little fun, and Dark Side Of The Moon
was one of the ideas that came across. We thought, 'That'll be easy, we're already
playing half the songs.' But it took us about three months to put all the bits of
sound-effect tape into it, besides getting all the old film and making one or two
new bits of the ones that were too ancient or damaged. So we did it on the end of
our American tour, and then when we carried it over to Europe, we started
thinking, 'Well, it would be nice for us - and for posterity - to have a live version
of Dark Side Of The Moon, which I always particularly wanted. We, in fact,
discussed it years ago - even when Roger was still in the band - about putting a
live version of Dark Side Of The Moon back together and recording it, because we
don't have a record of it ourselves. So, I thought that would be a very nice idea.
Of course, discussing it, we finally thought it was daft to just put out Dark Side
Of The Moon - we might as well put out the whole thing."
Floyd's tour of the globe in 1994 may well have been the most elaborately
staged concert tour in the history of the world, incorporating film, lighting
effects, and a sound system that would make George Lucas cream his jeans, along
with more than two hours of music. And, it was bigger than the previous Floyd
show, which was bigger than the one before that, which was bigger than...and on
and on. With everything that went into this last show, could the Pink Floyd
concert spectacle ever get any bigger than it has gotten?
"I think the question is, well, can the spectacle get any better. I don't know.
Limits are there to be surpassed, I suppose, aren't they? People have been saying
that we would never be able to top the original Dark Side Of The Moon show in
1973. We're not trying to top previous shows, we're just trying to do a different
show each time as well as we could possibly do it. We've set the standards for
this kind of show, ever since the stadium shows in 1973. Obviously, the
technology is better, and it's easier to do many of the things: The lasers are of
better quality, so is the sound system. But we had the quadraphonic sound system
and the circular screen even back then." Gilmour is also not interested in going
backwards, in making the show smaller or more intimate. "I'm not big on playing
small places with Pink Floyd. I mean, when we'd been doing this tour for six months and
finally got back to London, we played Earl's Court, which holds about
18,000 people. That was a nice small club, like being in Madison Square Garden,"
he laughs.
As a guitarist, Gilmour has been singled out for tastefully melodic solos, rarely
cranking up the speed but always playing with just the right combination of
aggression and restraint. He is one of only a handful of guitarists recording today
who can be identified just by the tone of his solos. Pulse is rife with vintage-
sounding Gilmour. "My sound is what it is because of the way my hands and fingers
are made, and due to my musical taste as well. I can't sound like anything else.
That's just how I sound. I've never tried to make it like that, it's just the way I
am. The fact that it is distinctive to other people is something that at first - in
the early years - I was kind of unhappy about. I wanted to sound like other people.
I had my moments of wanting to sound like Hendrix, or Eric Clapton, or Jeff Beck.
Eventually, I got to like the way I sounded, and I think things got better from that
moment, really."
After 30 years of recording and touring, then, is he completely comfortable
with himself as a guitarist? "Sometimes I feel terribly uncomfortable with the
way I play, sometimes I feel comfortable with the way I play; it just depends on
the moment. There are moments on tour - especially after the 200 gigs on the
late 1980s tour and the 100 gigs on this last our - when I feel like I've played
every lick and every not there is to be played, and I get bored with myself. Then
the next night, I think, 'No, it's great,' and I find something new to explore,
someplace where I haven't been."
Gilmour has also explored those places on his own, in moments apart from Pink
Floyd. His two solo albums - 1978's David Gilmour and 1984's About Face - sold
approximately a million copies each, an amazing amount of records for someone
usually considered to be "part of a band." He also played as a sideman on several
albums, including Supertramp's Brother Where You Bound? , Pete Townshend's
White City , and Paul McCartney's Give My Regards To Broadstreet . One might
think that he could have had a respectable career away from Pink Floyd and the
well-publicized difficulties with Roger Waters. Was there ever a time when he
wanted to play his own music, unencumbered by everything that Floyd entailed?
Gilmour sits back and rubs his chin, thinking the matter through. "I have to
confess to a certain sort of jealousy of Eric Clapton's position, where he has his
wealth of material, and he's such a consummate blues player that he's got a
wealth of other people's material that he can play that's not so well known. He
can take out a new bad every time, and do his stuff - and that would be a nice
position to be in. But I'm not in that position. I have spent my entire adult life
working on Pink Floyd. I mean, I've done a couple of solo projects and I've
thoroughly enjoyed them, and learned an awful lot from them, but my life's work
has been Pink Floyd.
"I did songs from my albums on my solo tour in 1984, but there was never a
time when I didn't see us doing another Pink Floyd record - ever. Even right before
Momentary Lapse Of Reason . It was difficult to do another Pink Floyd record until
Roger actually said, 'I am out of here, I am leaving.' When he declared that, it
actually made it easier to get on with it. Because, you know, the last five official
years with Roger, from 1980 onwards, were torture for all of us - including him. I
couldn't see us putting it back together and going in [to the studio] and seeing
whether he'd show up, and seeing whether he'd be helpful or destructive or what
it was going to be like. I always thought that we would carry on, and when he said
in December 1985 'I am leaving,' it actually sort of opened the door for us. So,
while I can certainly see myself doing another solo project, I certainly didn't then
- or now - see that I should be forced to start my career again as a solo artist."
Is it coincidental that Gilmour's first solo album appeared at the same time
that his guitar playing was taking a more defined role in the band's sound? His
increased presence was most obvious beginning with Wish You Were Here and
moving into Animals , which featured some of Gilmour's most impressive and
diverse playing. Prior to that, the guitar had just been one of many elements in
the overall Floyd sound, a sound which included tape loops, sound effects, ambient
noise, and "synths and all that, right?" finishes Gilmour. "I hadn't - and haven't -
thought much about it, really. I think the use of more guitar shows the gradual
shift in the way we were doing things, and different people's influences on what
we were doing. With Roger not being a soloist or an instrumentalist, really, it
was left to me to do all that sort of stuff - along with a bit of saxophone here
and there."
Yet despite his gradual rise to the position of overseeing all that is Floyd,
Gilmour's sound and playing have remained virtually unchanged for two decades.
This has won him devoted guitar adherents who feel he embodies all that is
melodic and emotional in guitar playing. Yet there are Gilmour critics who feel
that he has simply used his minimalism to the point of overkill via Pink Floyd.
David appears not to be bothered in the least by anyone's accounting of his guitar
skills.
"I have a certain style, you know, because I was given these particular fingers.
They are the ones I got, and they are not terribly quick," Gilmour holds out his
hands, palms up, and splays his fingers. "There are some things they can't do, and
there are some things they do better than anyone else, thank God [laughs]. I can
rehearse and I can practice for months, and I don't get any quicker. I've given that
up years ago. And I can't be bothered with too much practicing, I'm afraid. I
should, but I'm terribly lazy about it."
His belief in what he can and cannot do, however, prompts him to seek out other
guitar players who possess the skills he claims not to have. This is hardly the
way most recording guitarists think. "The limits of what I can think of, or what I
can write or think about for a guitar, are greater than my own personal playing
limits. So if it comes up, which it does once in a while, that I can't play the part
that I want to play - not having the technical proficiency in some areas - then I'll
get someone else in to do it for me. To me, it's simple: Since there are some
things I don't do, then there's no reason why I wouldn't get someone else to do
something I thought of but I couldn't do.
"We've had a lot of people doing guitar parts for us. Tim Renwick played a bit on
Pulse . I've know him since he was a kid, since he was 13. He was from Cambridge,
where I'm from, and he's always been a damn good guitar player. We'd have been
willing to go for him on any project, but he was never available. Especially during
the Wall years, he was too busy doing other stuff. On A Momentary Lapse of
Reason , we had Michael Landau play on the opening parts of 'One Slip.' Lee
Ritenour was on 'One Of My Turns,' from The Wall . He played the rhythm guitar
part on the second half of that. Basically I couldn't come up with a good part for
that song, so I think I threw my guitar down and said, 'I can't get anywhere with
this, I don't know what to do on it. Get someone else to play it. In the case of 'One
Of My Turns,' I didn't even think of the part. I've sort of modified it and adapted it
for the way we play it live. I think we also double-tracked the high-strung
acoustic guitar on 'Comfortably Numb,' so he may be playing one of those.
"There was another guy, whose name escapes me, who played the Spanish
classical guitar part on 'Is There Anybody Out There?' because I felt I couldn't do
it quite cleanly enough or well enough for the record. Onstage, of course, I ended
up doing it, and it wasn't a problem. I can't quite remember how we came across
Snowy White [second guitarist for the Wall tour ]. He was a great guitar player,
but I honestly can't remember who recommended him, or why, or when. I don't
think at that time I was too used to hiring other musicians, so I can't remember
how we went about it. Since then, I've started noticing other musicians with an
eye to using them, from the point of view of who I might use in the future. I've
been keeping a little book on musicians of all sorts who I thought were
interesting, not just guitar players."
Have any of the younger, more speed-oriented players ever interested him?
Gilmour scrunches up his face, frowns, and looks up at the ceiling as if he has
lost something. "Ah yes...and where are they now?" he asks, before laughing loudly.
"There aren't many of the speed merchants that I have any great curiosity about.
Eddie Van Halen is great, a brilliant guitar player. Some of his own stuff and on
the Michael Jackson piece are short, concise, brilliantly crafted solos. They're not
just about speed. He can do a bit of something that's quite gentle and then throw
in something that just blows you away because of the sheer pace of it for a
second. And then he goes back to something else. There are moments when I would
like to be able to do that, but, as I said, you get what you're given.
"I mean, Jeff Beck is still my sort of guitar hero, really, I suppose. He's the one
that I think pushes the boundaries. He's consistently exciting. Jeff can play damn
fast, he can do speed, but he chooses not to most of the time and that's what
impresses me. It's what he chooses to leave out rather than what he chooses to
stick in." Ever get the urge to record or perform with Jeff? "I played with him
once, doing a Jan Hammer song, I'm not sure where now, but I played the bass and
Jeff played the guitar. That was a bit of fun."
Gilmour does not see himself as having reached the pinnacle of his playing,
despite his use of studio musicians to handle certain guitar parts. To keep from
getting into a rut, especially when writing, Gilmour is willing to try new things
on his instruments. "I use new tunings quite a lot. I like to disorient myself a
little bit, so I'll use a different instrument or a different tuning. I'll even use a
piano, which I'm not very good at, because it's too easy to fall into established
patterns on the guitar. For example, with an acoustic guitar, I'll just strum a
chord mostly. That will lead me into a song, but it won't lead me in a particular
guitar direction, if you know what I mean." He grins, admitting, "I also get a bit
folksy when I play the acoustic."
What about his belove electrics, especially the prized Strat that bears the
serial number 0001? "I'll use the old Number One once in a while. It's a beautiful,
beautiful guitar, but, you know, it's been about and it feels quite delicate. You
wouldn't want to thrash that around, especially not on the road. I actually don't
like taking any of the older ones out on the road because there's always the
possibility that things like that get stolen. The Strats that I do use, which are
sort of early 1980s '57 vintage [reissue] Strats made in California, with one or
two minor modifications to them, are so good that I'm comfortable with them,
and they're all I use most of the time, even in the studio." When Gilmour mentions
the studio, he's talking about a refurbished houseboat moored on the River
Thames, a boat that he converted to a studio in time for Floyd's last studio
record, The Division Bell .
For the time being, there are no plans to use the houseboat for any new
recordings. In fact, Gilmour is not quite sure what the future holds. "When I joined
this band, I was 21. I don't think I had any inkling of what I'd be doing at 49 when
I was 21. I didn't give it a thought. I didn't anyone ever got to that stage. But there
are a lot of black blues players in their eighties and nineties who are still going
strong, and, well, luckily there's no rules, and no one to tell us what we can and
cannot do - except the public, who support us and buy our records.
"I don't know what I'll be doing for the rest of forever. This tour - and this
project - is finished with this album, and I've been working on the music and the
video ever since the tour finished, as well as dealing with personal and family
matters. With the birth of a new son, it's a new time of life for me, very nice,
very refreshing. So I haven't had a minute to think about the future. We don't have
any plans at the moment, but it might be something completely different next
time. Who knows?"
Transcribed by KevinGuitar September 1995 Volume 12 No. 11
Inside the Mind of Pink Floyd: David Gilmour, The Guitar Interview