An Hour with Nick Mason: September 29, 2011
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This week, Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason came by the Sirius XM studios to talk with Ron Bennington about one of the most resonating and important rock albums ever made– Dark Side of the Moon. Pink Floyd just released the Immersion Series of the album– a box set which takes the listener through the creation process with a remastered edition of the CD, as well as live performances, early demos of the songs, a documentary about the making of the album, reproductions of collectibles, and so much more.
Ron and Nick spent an hour going through the Immersion set, talking about the album, listening to demo tracks and taking calls and questions from listeners. Over the course of the hour, they talked about the genesis of the album, how some of the more unique contributions to the album came into existence, (like the recorded voices, and bringing in Clare Torry), the different influences on Nick’s playing style, his passion for race cars, the effect of massive success, his possible plans to write a new book, and so much more.
A few excerpts from the interview appear below, and you can hear the full interview on Ron Bennington Interviews, on Sirius XM’s Stars Too Channel, and also on Classic Vinyl.
About the new Immersion Series:
Nick Mason: This particular collection represents 3 or 4 years out of our working life, because it kicks off in ‘72 with tracks that later appear on the record, but in their very early versions. For people who are really interested in how Dark Side developed there’s really some quite unusual bits of music– stuff that actually I didn’t remember ever playing.
About the Rolling Stones article due out this week, “Is Dark Side the Album that Doomed Pink Floyd?”
Nick Mason: Yea, I think I would take issue with the Rolling Stone concept. I wouldn’t say that a successful record was necessarily the problem. I think given what happened afterwards, which was Wish You Were Here, and The Wall and so on…I wouldn’t say it… It may have shown some first cracks but they would have shown up anyway sooner or later.
On the possibility of more re-releases:
Nick Mason: Well the idea I think is to see how much people enjoy it. To do it with perhaps the three major albums initially which is obviously the Dark Side; and then Wish you Were Here, and then do the Wall. But if people do respond well to it, and like the concept. I’d really like to do maybe the early albums, for one thing. And maybe not just built around one album, but take two, “Saucer” and “Piper” and do more about how that all came about. Because we had a few very early demos, for instance, that were made even before we had a record contract, with early Syd songs which would be great to put out.
Nick Mason: I think that one of the driving forces that led to this coming out …There was a sense that it is going to be goodbye to the physical product and all the artwork and graphics that go with it. And there was sort of a sense that it would be great to sort of celebrate all the work that Storm Thorgerson and Hypnosis have done for us.
On drummers who had influenced him:
Nick Mason: Well I think there are quite a lot of drummers who influenced me without me being able to really pick up any of the things they could actually play which are sort of the bebop drummers, you know, Art Lake in particular. Chico Hamilton, definitely, in particular for a piece he plays– he does a drum solo in Jazz on a Summers day, if anyone’s ever seen that movie– a pretty elderly movie now, but very nice, has some very good sections in it, one of which is this solo. And that was a huge influence on the drum part on Set the Controls. And after that, the people who really influenced me, I mean the guy who absolutely put me where I am now, is Ginger Baker. Because the night I saw Ginger, playing his double bass drums playing with Cream is the night that I thought, that’s what I’d like to do.
On band mate Rick Wright:
Nick Mason: I think they’re uniquely imperfect. Rick is perhaps a particular example, I think he is the unsung hero of the band. The quietest perhaps of us all. He has a truly unique style and it’s a very odd style. It wanders around in the most extraordinary way, in fact, again going back to this Immersion version thing, there’s some live sections of Rick playing where the chord sequences… he’s improvising and they go from church music to barrel roll at one point, and then get out of it again. Its remarkable! And he did have this unique style where he could sort of layer music on, so he was absolutely ideal for operating in a multi track recording studio, because he could put a little bit on, and then he could put a little bit more on, and so on. I think that its such an important part of the sound of the band.
On differences between Syd Barrett and the rest of the band:
Nick Mason: I think we felt psychologically we were very different to Syd. Because Syd was already thinking he didn’t want to be in a commercial band whereas the rest of us were absolutely determined to be in a commercial band. That was our aspiration and that was really part of the problem. Syd wanted to be an artist, and we wanted to be a successful rock band.
On the solitary nature of the years with the band, and meeting The Beatles:
Nick Mason: We met the Beatles for the first time when we were recording Piper at the Gates of Dawn in studio 3 at Abby Road and they were in studio 2 working on Sgt. Pepper. Basically they were at the peak of their career and we were just starting so it was a bit like meeting God or meeting a number of Gods. They were absolutely charming. But this was not a meeting of equals. People like Led Zep, curiously we hardly knew them at all. I only really met them much much later on. Most of us were always working – we’d always be in different cities, because they’d be coming into a stadium the week after we had been there. Most of us didn’t work with support acts so it was curiously a solitary life in that way. We didn’t hang out with lots of musicians. Curiously a lot of the friends I have now were made really quit late on.
Listen to this interview in its entirely on Sirius XM. The hour will rerun on the Classic Vinyl channel Friday September 30, at 6:00pm, Saturday October 1, at 9:00 am and Sunday October 2nd at 9pm est. It will also air on Ron Bennington Interviews on Stars Too on Sunday October 2nd at 2pm again on The Virus Channel at 9pm est.
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To hear this interview in its entirety see the replay times listed above. Don’t have Sirius XM? Click here to sign up today for a free trial subscription.
You can purchase the new Pink Floyd Immersion Series of Dark Side of the Moon by clicking on the link below.
