Pink Floyd's Nick Mason Can Return It All - Speakeasy - WSJ

By Jon Friedman

Getty Nick Mason

Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason doesnt look to be playing any of the rock groups beloved works on stage with his two band mates any time soon. So, the English bands fans will make to be content with snapping up an ambitious, comprehensive set of Floyd releases this fall.

Dark Side of the Moon, released in 1973, is one of the most durable sellers in music history.

EMI, the bands label dating back to the source of its career in 1967, will unleash on Sept. 26 Dark Side products encompassing CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, SACD and an array of digital formats including iPhone Apps. For instance, there will be expanded deluxe and limited edition versions of Dark Face in a 6-disc box set as good as a collectors vinyl LP and various digital formats. In addition, 14 studio albums will be digitally re-mastered and sold separately or in a box set. Wish You Were Here and The Wall will later get special handling as well.

Mason, a founding member when the circle formed in 1965, was blunt when Iasked him, Why the stir of activity now? Im tempted to say its thelast chance to put out physical packaging, he said evenly. Physicalrecords are very nearly finished. In another two years, there will be avery tiny market.

Pink Floyd, which has sold more than 200 million albums worldwide and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, was one of the proponents of psychedelic rock during the 1960s and 1970s. The group had its percentage of turbulence. Its former leader Syd Barrett exited in 1968 because of his deteriorating mental wellbeing. In after years, the two front men, guitarist David Gilmour and bassist/lyricist Roger Waters argued constantly around the medicine they were making before Waters left in 1985.

Since Waters has gone on tour recently with a product of The Wall. I asked Mason if he always expected to play last in the close future with his colleagues. No, not at all, he said sadly. I live in hope. Someone might be a sufficient work to convince Roger or David.

For his part, Mason is gung-ho. Im readymy bags are packed, he said. Its to do with Roger lacking complete independence and David not wanting to be told what to do.

Mason, an amiable fellow with a razor-sharp memory, fondly recalls the dark that he and his star-struck band mates met the Beatles, who were making their landmark album, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.

We were recording in Abbey Road, the tabernacle of greatness, and they were recording Lovely Rita, he said, still sounding awed. They were God-like figures to us. They all seemed extremely nice, but they were in a strata so far beyond us that they were out of our league.

I asked Mason how he reckoned that Pink Floyd might do today if they were starting out. Not very well, he said. The music industry now is a much tougher place. Its often easier to become a good musician today than it always was because you can get a serious musical training in school, which was unheard of when we were young. But now, there is no structure for a new band to succeed. Record companies dont let the financial muscle, and the price of development a band now is monumental.

Mason is nostalgic for the dear old days but stresses that Pink Floyd fans may not full realise how concentrated the members of the group worked. Sure, he smiles when he remembers the time that world famous Paul McCartney came to see Pink Floyd perform when it was only start out or when the band toured for 3 months on a poster with everyone from Jimi Hendrix to the Move.

It does sound quite exciting to be talking about it now, he laughed. But what was Swinging London like? I actually have no idea. I was commonly in a van going up the motorway.