While many top rock bands of the ‘60s and ‘70s have disappeared, Pink Floyd seems just as popular today as they were back then. And nobody’s more surprised at that than guitarist David Gilmour.
"It's always amazing to me that Pink Floyd didn't fizzle out the way others do," he tells The Sun. "In some way, it has kept going to the present day." But Gilmour says as a result, it's sometimes hard for him to get some honest feedback.
"After you achieve these dizzying heights, people tend to show you way too much deference," he tells The Sun. "It becomes hard to retrieve the setup you had when you were young. In the earlier stages of Pink Floyd, we could be as rude and insulting to each other about our personalities and our music as we wanted — and yet everything would be all right in the end."
"No one ever stomped off permanently — until that bloke did," he adds, referring to Roger Waters. Gilmour says after Waters left the band in 1985, "I was thrust into being band leader ... and, later, into being a solo artist. But I feel a more collaborative approach is better for me."
So it's no wonder that he enlisted many helpers on his new album, Luck And Strange. It features contributions from his wife, Polly Samson, his children, a new producer, a new arranger and some longtime musical collaborators. There's also a piece of music he recorded in 2006 with late Pink Floyd keyboardist Rick Wright.
Gilmour is thrilled with the result. He says, "There’s a wholeness to it that I can’t pin down. It goes all the way through without any concept album bulls***."