David Gilmour: "I
still think some of the
music is incredibly naff, but The Wall is conceptually brilliant. At
the time I thought it was Roger listing all the things that can turn
a person into an isolated human being. I came to see it as as one of
the luckiest people in the world issuing a catalogue of abuse and
bile against people who'd never done anything to him. Roger was
taking more and more of the credits. In the songbook for this album
against Comfortably Numb it says Music by Gilmour and Waters. It
shouldn't. He did the lyrics. I did the music. I kept finding
hundreds of little things like that. Shouldn't bitch, but one does
feel unjustly done."
Nick Mason: "The recording was very tense,
mainly because Roger was starting to go a bit mad. This was the
record when he fell out badly with Rick. Rick has a natural style, a
very specific piano style, but he doesn't come up with pieces
easily, or to order. Which is a problem when other people are
worrying about who did what and who should get the credit. There was
even talk of Roger and Dave elbowing me out and carrying on as a
duo. There were points during The Wall when Roger and Dave were
really carrying the thing. Rick was useless, and I wasn't very much
help to anyone either."
David Gilmour: "Generally Nick worked hard
and played well on The Wall. He even worked out a way of reading
music for the drums. But there was one track called Mother which he
really didn't get. So I hired Jeff Porcaro to do it. And Roger
latched on to this idea, the way he always did with my ideas, and
began to think, is Nick really necessary?"
During the sessions for The Wall, Richard Wright was basically
forced out of Pink Floyd.
Rick Wright: "Roger came up with the whole
album on a demo, which everyone felt was potentially very good but
musically very weak. Very weak indeed. Bob [Ezrin], Dave and myself
worked on it to make it more interesting. But Roger was going
through a big ego thing at the time, saying that I wasn't putting
enough in, although he was making it impossible for me to do
anything. The crunch came when we all went off on holiday towards
the end of the recording. A week before the holiday was up I got a
call from Roger in America, saying come over immediately. Then there
was this band meeting in which Roger told me he wanted me to leave
the band. At first I refused. So Roger stood up and said that if I
didn't agree to leave after the album was finished, he would walk
out then and there and take the tapes with him. There would be no
album, and no money to pay off our huge debts. So I agreed to go. I
had two young kids to support. I was terrified. Now I think I made a
mistake. It was Roger's bluff. But I really didn't want to work with
this guy anymore."
David Gilmour: "We had a studio in the south
of France where Rick was staying. There rest of us had rented houses
20 miles away. We'd all go home at night, and we'd say to Rick, Do
what you like, here all these tracks, write something, play a solo,
put some stuff down. You've got all evening every evening to do it.
All the time we were there, which was several months, he did
nothing. He just wasn't capable of playing anything." |