A few weeks ago, Nick Mason had an interview with ‘The Story Behind The Song’ podcast about Pink Floyd’s history and past work. Recently, he talked to Consequence and discussed the topic once again. This time, he revealed the band’s ‘most personal’ album and revealed how their anxieties inspired it.
Naming ‘The Dark Side of the Moon,’ the drummer said:
“Unlike almost any other album that we did, the great thing about ‘Dark Side’ was that we did actually meet and talk about what we thought this album was gonna be about, and there was this sort of idea that we would take the things that we were most anxious about ourselves, which was to do with money and mortality and so on.”
He went into detail about their recording process and continued:
“So, there was an actual sort of plan there right from the beginning. You know, we actually rehearsed in a way, playing live, which is a very, very good way of working. The problem with going into a studio is that you tend to, more or less, feel you’ve got it when you play it properly. You don’t develop it that much. You just wanna get it right, and once you’ve got it right, then you move on.”
Mason also admitted that making the 1973 album was easier than its follow-up. When asked whether it was hard to create ‘Dark Side,’ he explained:
“Definitely enjoyable and not particularly difficult. I mean, it took quite a while to do, but in a way, it was nothing like as difficult as the follow-up album, ‘Wish You Were Here,’ where we really cast around for quite a while to find any sort of starting point. We were fairly young and fairly sort of fresh and fairly anxious to get on with it all.”
Earlier this year, Pink Floyd’s former vocalist, Roger Waters, announced his intention to re-record ‘The Dark Side of the Moon,’ which marked its 50th anniversary in March. The drummer, who got to hear his former bandmate’s reworkings, shared his views on them during a Q&A session at London’s Dolby Atmos Immersive Studio.
“I heard the rumor that Roger was working on his own version of it. There was this suggestion that this was going to be a spoiler, and Roger was going to go head-to-head with the original version, and so on. He actually sent me a copy of what he was working on, and I write to him and said, ‘Annoyingly, it’s absolutely brilliant! ‘It was and is. It’s not anything that would be a spoiler for the original at all; it’s an interesting add-on to the thing.”
Waters released a sample of his controversial work in early March. Currently, he has a tour waiting to kick off in October, while Nick Mason is getting ready to hit the road with his band to tour Europe in July.
