Nick Mason

Interview

Floydian Slip (FS): Nick Mason is a founder and drummer of Pink Floyd. In fact, the only member of the band who appears on every Floyd album — from 1967's "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" to "The Endless River," released in 2014. "Unattended Luggage," a three disc box set of his solo projects, is out Friday. Nick, thanks for joining us. What prompted the boxset?

Nick Mason (NM): Initially it was Rick Fenn who said we really ought to re-release "Profiles," because he's been in Australia. Well, he's living in Australia these days. But I think he still has, as I do, great affection for the record. It's totally unavailable, so I undertook to see whether Warner Bros. might be interested in ... Is it called Warner Bros. still? Probably not. Just Warners. Whether they'd be interested in re-releasing it. And out of that, they more or less came back with ... I think it was their idea to say, "Well, why don't we do some sort of box set of all your solo stuff in one hit?" In thinking about it, I thought that was a great idea. This was probably started a year and a half, two years ago maybe.

And then just by chance, as this was coming to fruition, the idea of this band, new band surfaced, really, at the same sort of time.

FS: Saucerful of Secrets — I want to talk about that in just a minute. But tell me about the other two discs that're in the box.

NM: Okay. There's three discs in all. One is "Profiles," which is the album I did with Rick. The other is a film soundtrack called "White of the Eye," which was a film by Donald Cammell. It was made 25 years ago I guess now. Donald was a respected film director and had made this movie. I'd met Donald because he had been produced by the record company to do a video for "Lie for a Lie." For one of the tracks on the album. Rick and I ended up doing this soundtrack, which was interesting, fun and it's a very dark movie. I have to say I can hardly bear to watch it. But it was a good opportunity.

Then, the other album is an album I did with Carla Bley, which was actually made during or just after we'd finished recording "The Wall." Made in America in Woodstock at Carla's studio there. That was a very different kettle of fish. Very jazz orientated. Very jazz orchestra element to it. But great fun to make. Almost the juxtaposition that these entirely different albums with entirely different influences seemed like really quite a nice thing to do.

FS: When you say Woodstock, is that Woodstock, New York?

NM: Woodstock, New York. Yeah.

FS: "Fictitious Sports" and "Profiles" I've had in my collection a long time, but I had actually never heard "White of the Eye." But that wasn't the only soundtrack that you did with Rick Fenn. You did a few, didn't you?

NM: We did lots. We did ... But generally shorts, in some cases advertising for advertising things and others. We did quite a lot of short documentary soundtracks. Things like that. Some of those actually were developed into things on "Profiles."

FS: How long had it been since you'd really sat down and listened to some of this stuff yourself?

NM: Twenty-eight years, I guess. (Laughs) You know, you sort of tend to park these things up. You'd have to deliberately go and put them on. I very rarely ever think of putting on my own music.

FS: I'd think listening to this kind of stuff would be the equivalent of looking at old photographs of yourself or something.

NM: Yes. Absolutely. Yup, quite right.

FS: Have you stayed in touch with some of the players on these albums? You said Rick Fenn was the person that got this box set started. But what about some of the others?

NM: Well, really the one I've stayed in contact with the most is Mike Mantler. Because he was married to Carla at the time, but I've ended up over the years doing a number of different projects with him, which included some sort of assisting with one record that he did called Gorey Songs with Robert Wyatt again. Another one he did with I remember just the drummer was Jack DeJohnette, which was fantastic to listen to. Yeah, with Mike I've done ... Whenever he's occasionally gets bored and thinks I'll get Nick to come and do something for me. It's one of those sort of relationships. He's probably the one I've seen the most of.

FS: We should mention the box set is available on CD as well as LP. I just wonder where you come down in the whole digital versus analog sound debate.

NM: I'm a bit ambivalent about it. I mean, we spent so much time trying to make perfect sounds. The CD seemed to be the ultimate thing. It was for many years, and then suddenly everyone decided that actually when push came to shove they preferred the sound of the vinyl records, and I understand why. I mean, it's the idea of the vinyl does sort of slightly soften the edges.

But the trouble is actually, I suppose I have a bigger beef really with the fact that people simply don't listen to music on good equipment anymore. They just rely on earbuds. You're never going to get quite what's gone into the recording off a tiny ... Off an MP3 player and a pair of cheap earbuds.

FS: Exactly. Take the compressed MP3 file and add it to the earbuds and what have you really got?

NM: Yeah. No, I come from a generation that believes that in every living room there should be two enormous speakers the size of giant coffins lurking in the corners ...

FS: I like it ...

NM: ... Waiting to bombard you with endless bass rumble.

FS: We're talking with Pink Floyd's Nick Mason — drummer and co-founder of the band. Let's play some music from the new box set "Unattended Luggage." This is a track originally from "Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports." We'll have more with Nick after "Can't Get My Motor to Start" on "Floydian Slip."

(Music)

FS: "Floydian Slip," an hour of music by Pink Floyd and solo works, including "Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports." That's "Can't Get My Motor to Start." Nick is joining us on the show this week. I think you have threatened in the past to go on a solo tour. That's not exactly what you're doing. You're bringing some guys along with you.

NM: Well, I absolutely believe there is no room for a drummer doing a solo tour on his own. Drum solos as far as I'm aware is something that is put into a concert in order to let the rest of the band go off and get a drink and have a cigarette. Unfortunately quite often, the audience take that as a cue to also go off and have a drink and have a cigarette. (Laughs) No, the way forward was to find good people who would come and support the whole idea.

FS: How did you put these people together? Guy Pratt is a name and face that Floyd fans know. But who are the rest of these guys?

NM: Okay. Well, Lee Harris was with a band called The Blockheads, who were the band for Ian Dury. "Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll," if you remember that.

FS: Sure.

NM: Dom Beken was actually someone they found when we agreed that we obviously had to have a keyboard player to do all the difficult bits. The other character is Gary Kemp, who is still in the band called Spandau Ballet. Clearly we thought we needed a new romantic, a blockhead, a very old drummer and a humorous bass player, which is sort of what we got.

FS: You premiered in London May, and now you're touring Europe in September, starting this weekend.

NM: That's right.

FS: Are we looking at the same set list as you played in London?

NM: We played the same set list on the four shows in London, but that was really where we'd got to. I think there are opportunities to sort of open up a bit. I mean, there's lots of material from that early period. But in terms of what we all would like to play, and what we think would suit us properly, is another matter. There's a lot of suggestions flying around at the moment. I'm sure we'll have some more and the ability to switch things around a bit maybe night to night.

FS: I'm guessing that most of this music you probably haven't played in front of an audience in 40 to 50 years.

NM: Well, in some cases, never played in front of an audience.

FS: Yeah, well what's that like?

NM: Great actually because they can't tell you how it should've been played, because they've never heard it before which is always an advantage. Which is not true if we were playing things like "Comfortably Numb." They'd all be shaking their heads and going, well, the Australian Pink Floyd do it better.

FS: Yeah. Exactly. Please tell me that you're rolling tape on some of these shows.

NM: Well, we will do, yeah.

FS: Is there a chance that that will be made public at some point?

NM: Yeah. Although I think we'll leave it for a bit, just so we play ourselves in a bit. (Laughs) You know, I mean for a new band to have done four shows and then start talking about the live album seems a little premature.

FS: Yeah, yeah. I'll ask you what probably everyone in the U.S. is asking you. Are you planning on bringing the show to the United States?

NM: We'd definitely like to bring it to the United States. Absolutely.

FS: Do you have any concrete plans? Any idea of where in the US you might go?

NM: No. Good God, no.

FS: No.

NM: Well, no. We're just a burning desire to get back over to America. No. I think we'll do the European tour. See what we need to do. Whether we need to correct things, or whatever ...

FS: Sure.

NM: ... And look to bring it over next year.

FS: This is a little off-topic, but I wondered, Their Mortal Remains — that huge Pink Floyd exhibit. That wrapped up in Rome, right?

NM: It wrapped up in Rome, but it moved and opens in September in Germany.

FS: Okay. Any plans to bring it to the U.S.?

NM: Yes. That is ... We're definitely intending to bring that to America next year.

FS: Nick, thanks for talking with us and break a leg in September.

NM: Thank you.