Drummer Nick Mason - "PINK FLOYD Wouldn’t Have Been Pink Floyd If (We) Hadn’t Had Rick"
September 18, 2008, 16 years ago
Entertainment Weekly spoke to PINK FLOYD drummer Nick Mason about the passing of fellow band-mate/keyboardist Richard Wright. Here are a few excerpts from the chat:
Entertainment Weekly: How important was Rick to Pink Floyd?
Nick Mason: "The reality is, like any band, you can never quite quantify who does what. But Pink Floyd wouldn’t have been Pink Floyd if [we] hadn’t had Rick. I think there’s a feeling now -- particularly after all the warfare that went on with Roger and David trying to make clear what their contribution was -- that perhaps Rick rather got pushed into the background. Because the sound of Pink Floyd is more than the guitar, bass, and drum thing. Rick was the sound that knitted it all together."
Entertainment Weekly: That seems to have been particularly true in the band’s early, musically adventurous, days.
Nick Mason: "Yeah. He had a very special style. He probably did more than I did in terms of not worrying too much about tempo, to the point where eventually we did produce arrhythmic pieces. That was, I think, probably rather ground-breaking in 1967."
Entertainment Weekly: What was he like on a personal level?
Nick Mason: "[Laughs] he was very like...Rick! Really. He was by far the quietest of the band, right from day one. And, I think, probably harder to get to know than the rest of us. But after 40 years, we probably felt we did know him quite well. We were just beginning to make inroads, perhaps."
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