The David Gilmour Interview

hey everybody I'm Rick biato David Gilmore is one of the most influential guitarists and singers in rock history who is known for both his work with Pink Floyd and as a solo artist as a guitarist his Soulful phrasing emotive solos and iconic tone are instantly recognizable I said it wasn't going to happen but last week I had the pleasure of interviewing David in New York City here's my interview David welcome thank you pleasure to uh to meet you in person I saw you play twice on this tour I saw the into it the the show

out in LA and I saw you at Madison Square Garden last night last night of the tour how's it feel to uh to have this record out and be out playing it's um I tell you the tour has been amazing the the band that I have the team around me are just the best best ever um they give you that sense of security um that's been going on for how long we've been out there a couple of couple of months I guess but uh we wrapped it up last night so I've uh watched a bunch

of little clips of you where you're talking about the making of the new record luck and strange and I wanted to talk to you about your process as far as a songwriting I want to kind of get into a few things I'm going to play some tracks but when you're writing a song okay do you start with a wordless vocal over a track typically what is your process before you even hand it to ply to work on lyrics well yeah it's um the the lyrics usually come when it's quite progressed but I mean a lot

of this progressing is just me at home with you know what it's like in a studio you create something that is a a mockup of where you intend to go later with musicians when some of them some of them they turn out to be pretty good I just sing a tune going la la la la is is the usual now do you think about syllables for example in luck and strange in the chorus you sing really high B in there yeah there's certain syllables that are easier to sing high notes on is this something that

paully when she's writing lyrics takes into a that is something that we deal with later we think oh we shouldn't have done that one if it's really difficult but we don't we don't bother with any of that sort of thinking about whether this syllable or this this note is going to be too high for this syllable I mean there are moments I suppose in the studio when you just have a crack at something and you think I'm just not going to get there and you have to reconsider it but U it's not something we do

ahead of time it's amazing how your voice all you play all in the same keys of all the songs and you you've really your voice sounds as good now as it ever did I I I venture to AR prly see better yeah to me it's sounding um in the studio particularly and and live it's I can it's a bit Croy this morning but I've got excuses now with that particular song you have Richard Wright is playing keyboards on it and then you include the jam that it's from yeah from I guess 2007 or so yeah

so how did you take that which was a very well recorded jam session yeah and actually make a tune out of it mentioned Pro Tools and uh now is this something that you did yourself that you'll chop the things up yeah the song starts out with us thinking that the band was playing really well it was pretty hot so we thought we'd get everyone together for a few days in our barn I forgot that it was January and that the barn is wood with cracks in it and Howling Gales and we were freezing some of

the time anyway the first Monday morning um we had the core of the band um we didn't have a second guitar player cuz when you're doing that sort of stuff I don't usually do that we didn't have a second keyboard player it's just Rick so it's just four of us playing I think um and on the Monday morning that little guitar riff was been slightly bubbling in my head you know um and I just started playing it they all joined in um we played on it for 15 minutes that's it we never rehearsed it we

never re-recorded it it is what is the song it is and um and then you pop it into Protools later and I can't remember how much later it was and you do it yourself yeah yeah you cut and paste a whole chunk of stuff you know You' got a copy of it so everything is there all files are there you you erase a whole bunch of stuff go and um you sit with a guitar and write some new parts of bridges middle A Chorus sort of things and um insert them into the process did you

hunt for things that he played to kind of put in to to fill out the chord progression it's quite a while ago but now I listening to it there are piano electric piano that Rick was playing yeah parts that lead into these choruses and things brilliantly and I'm I I'll take the credit for it but uh I I don't actually remember remember that process exactly how it went but if you listen to it it Go and it just leads into a leads into a second part and that's luck and and and hunting a a few

bits yeah I've seen you do interviews where you're sitting in front of your computer and you can see Pro Tools open and I was thinking like he must actually work on Pro Tools himself well I you know I live out in the country I have the studio um in a barn we used this my sort of own Studio as the controll room around cables down into the barn which is next door um so I have to either have someone there which I don't favor all the time I I so I've become quite skilled at Protools

I mean I've been watching Charlie Andrew and Matt glasby are producer and engineer working on protols and they go into multiple layers of stuff and I'm just mind boggled but I use it just like a tape recorder really except that you can copy and paste and is this something that you could never have imagined in the past that you could do this so easily where you can move things around no I I couldn't I longed for it I mean I've I've had home Studios with 24 track machines in and every 5 minutes you're getting this

great reel off you threading up another one and it it's a nightmare we went onto something called Adat for a while oh yeah I can't really remember all the processes but when protols arrived I can't remember exactly when it was but it was certainly around 2000 something like that yeah 2000 that's my dream I absolutely love protols you know the pro you you don't want things to get in the way of the process that you are trying to do the creation that you are trying to make you want it to be as easy as it

can so you know when you've got engineers and people there they do all that stuff and they save you all that now will you do vocals yourself and just punch them in you'll just sit there right at the protols right half of these vocals are are self- engineered on the on this album The Romany vocal singing on between two points is self- engineered yeah now it's easy just plug in a microphone turn it up and S okay so this is something I've always been curious about when you're singing songs on the record they're typically the

songs that are that are really knew how often are you reading Off lyrics sheets always always even historically right going way back when you're in the studio most of the time you're you're reading off lyric she absolutely yes I wouldn't remember a whole new song I mean now on stage I have a a prompter um and prompter has meant that I wouldn't remember a single song up until 10 years ago 20156 to I didn't have a prompter and I managed relatively well Polly will confirm that there were a couple of moments here and there and

she said to me I think it's time for a prompter I want to play a couple things here [Music] a [Music] what am I hearing on this is the piano you or did you come up with the piano Riff on that piano is me later on I adjusted the timing between the phrases so the when the gap between the first phrase and the second one and the second one and the third one all of them is done by ear so I've taken a whole bunch of it and moved it a second or you know fractionally

so that just it has a flow that is not timable you could run a click through it wouldn't there's no click that would fit it yeah so um it's just done to the ear um it's done um self-recorded on a piano in my little Studio at home that's a real piano isn't it that's a real piano cuz it sounds phenomenal it's a lovely lovely piano it's absolute at the left hand bottom end it's got no base end at all and but the right hand just sings you know and so things like that leap out of

it occasionally on one thing way back when I can't remember I actually had to go to a different place to do the left hand J because and so that there's a couple of tracks where the right hand of the piano is done in one room on one piano another one is done miles away on this completely different Pian now that guitar sound there now is that a um what would that be have been recorded through I know that that people talk about the zoom 9030 is that a real thing that is it yeah that's amazing

so you've had this thing for what 20 years it's a little I've had it for over 30 years I tell you what I used it on at least part of coming back to life in 1994 wow so I've had it for 30 years years that same same unit I mean I've got two or three of them cuz I keep thinking one's going to break and you can download all your settings off them and plug them all into a fresh one so you'll just sit there you'll plug it in and you'll sit between the speakers and

just onun prot tools and play yeah that's exactly it I'd like to take a second to talk to you about this channel of the people that regularly watch my channel 58% are actually not subscribed so I encourage you to hit the Subscribe button now this will help me to get even more of my dream guests and continue to grow my channel thank you when I saw you play at the in it in LA right in the first so you did the first two songs you went and adjusted what I assumed was your amplifier I couldn't

tell from where I was where I was standing um is it because when people fill the room after soundcheck that it's sounds different um it sounded by the way that was one of the best sounding concerts I've heard it sounded phenomenal it's a strange room the in it Center um it I I believe someone told me there was some sound baffling built into it um and which is a good thing yeah but if it's the only building that you're doing that's got this baffling you've got to adjust things for it and um I found on

stage that it was sucking the high end out of what I was doing so um and I think in soundcheck I thought that that would come to life a bit more with the audience in but I did do have to go back to my amps and whack the old treble knobs up a tiny bit now you're playing through um you have a couple High Watts you played through uh there's one hiwatt one alesandro one alesandro um and a Yamaha thingy with the revolving speakers yeah and then you have two different cabinets right that one with

fs and one with celestian don't ask me speak of cabet when I hear this when I hear you're playing as soon as I hear one Bend MH I know it's you there's just so many things about how you strike the string that doesn't sound like anyone else I I admit yeah I don't know how that happens that's not anything deliberate or or worked on it's just my taste as to how you want it to sound how you want to bend things um yeah I mean if I ever hear sort of people doing the solo to

comfortably num or something like that which obviously comes up on Facebook and things once in a while um there are things that other people just don't have quite perfect um if if you're talking about perfection in these matters yeah your Melody choices as a singer as a songwriter and what you play on guitar are both lyrical but they're lyrical in a different way you have a different vocabulary whereas your playing has Blues inflections through it and your singing is um has a a different style of Melody and it's interesting that you have two two different

voices yet your phrasing where you leave spaces is very similar yeah I I I can't pin that can't pin now exactly how that all works I'm you know I I don't overthink these processes I just do them as they feel natural at the time and in the past I think you know it's it's known I have on occasion found a solo a bit frustrating and I've then sung a a tune and then played the tune afterwards that I had sung um because it's easier with the voice to go off pieace and and and find new

Melodies and stuff sometimes my my friends that that were asking me after I saw the first show how did how did he sound how did the Bandon I said David sounds like he's playing guitar all the time sounded amazing are you playing do you play all the time I like anyone um I have a guitar at home like this acoustic um and I'm mostly sort of playing Little Tunes on the acoustic strumming the acoustic electric I don't really touch from month to month but you know I've been making this album for going back quite a

long time I can't remember the exact dates um and and so so during the process of making the album of doing the solos on these tracks and then the whole process of all the rehearsals month of rehearsals and the tour um some of that U facility comes back now you worked with Steve Gad on this record I saw a little clip where you're talking about this that when it came to making the record you're like well I'd like to work with Steve Gad yeah what's Steve Gad playing or what's uh when did you become a

fan of his and well you know when did I become a fan of Steve Gad I think it was on um Chuckies in Love by rookie Lee Jones back in 7879 and the absolute endless catalog of great tracks that he has helped to make more magical had you had you met him before you worked with him I had met him once before on a on a TV show I think it was a something like a Jules Holland later program and when he was play with po Simon I interviewed Steve um last year and he's from

we're both from Rochester New York originally and um when he was playing and you remarked to this in one of the interviews that you talked about he didn't bash the drums he played with a uh he he kind of pulls the sound out of the drums yeah it's um it's an extraordinary process when you sit in a room with him cuz you know sitting in a control room these great big speakers and he's just it's I don't I it's baffling to me still baffling to me how he manages to get that and and I've you

know been around a lot of drummers and a lot of them think that the power is where it's at and he just does the opposite so yeah I I had booked him for a week before we started I you know got a a week in a studio Martin KN studio and but I did booked him before I had the producer on board luckily when Charlie Andrew came on board he turned out to be a drummer as well so it was um sort of his dream as well so he was very happy with that but we

did a couple of tracks before we did that with uh Adam Betts um in a different Studio tell me about Charlie about working with him on the uh record so he's somebody that you didn't know before didn't know before um and had been through a long frustrating process of thinking about who would be good to work with on this occasion and there people I've worked with before who I'm very fond of and have the enormous respect for just nothing felt quite right um and during that frustration my ever helpful wife Polly started researching online and

looking up for people who had produced and who had won producing prize Mercury prizes Grammy those sort of things and um she was listening to a lot of music by a lot of people old Jay comes to mind you know it old Jay was the one that really turned it to him and Polly said you should listen to this band and listen to the production so we did and yeah then we gave him a ring and said come down see if you are interested and it's all gone on from there when you're making a record

do you um get involved are you there for all the all the things like for the mixing part of it how much are you involved totally involved I'm normally totally involved in it all the way um some of the processes I alluded to earlier are so complex on Protools and there are layers you know I don't know how they do this layering of stuff and and I have no idea how they keep track mentally or on paper or iPad or whatever of what bits they want to keep what bits so the process of assembling a

mix is long yeah there are times when there are a day or several hours go by and I'm not going to be sitting there through all of that um so you know they pretty much know what we are going for at the beginning and then when it's getting close I come back and cast my ear over what we're doing and uh and and put my or in what is your a go-to listening space is it the car is it on small you know things like this the car um the um cuz we live an hour

from my mixing studio atoria um and that's time to listen to the whole album and song so that's what we would do every time driving in and out listen to the thing as it developed changing the order of the tracks um listening to new mixes um they only really frustrating part about doing it in the car is that you can't really make notes I haven't worked out how exactly to make notes as you're driving along but I all sorts of other places sitting room at home you know my studio at home obviously the control room

on the boat atoria that's got these great big ATC monitor speakers and we listen to that my tendency is to want to turn it up and listen to these things quite loud whereas the engineers and producers are tending to cuz they are bombarded by it so much that they want to protect their ears I guess yeah and I've not I've been a bit dumb about that so over the years but so I still tend to listen quite loud so I can't do that as much as I'd like to when we're doing it in the room

nowadays since you can mix in Pro Tools yeah how handy is that compared to historically when you were making records and you'd have to and the process to change a mix would be so complicated if you wanted to change one little thing and you be like H we'll just have to leave that well in the old days you just do the whole mix again and just rehearse your fader moves and they would be very complex there were times many many many many years ago and there'd be three people standing on a desk with a hand

on faders each and it be these moments of would you take your own instrument typically that or other things neb but yeah now Protools it's it's great and and the process of me doing the um the demo recordings is made enormously Easier by that cuz you can just I found techniques I tell you know I don't actually use the automation on the Pro Tools very much I don't use midi on Pro Tools either I go through get a bit of thing cut it and it's got a little de BB thing down in one corner I

pull that up and down so I can always go back to something and I see where it was taken down a bit and and adjust it I do most to it myself in my process with um changing the levels on the on on the tracks without the faders and without the automation so when ply gets a wordless vocal from you what how long does it typically take for uh for her to come up with something and and how does she present it to you well um often usually the process is probably has it on the

phone and goes to headphones and she goes for walks and listens and waits for some idea to come I mean it's awkward she's sitting over there you could ask her I trying to explain it as best I can but um that's um but eventually a lot of walking and and and discussions but after the walking and then more walking and then more discussions and so she'll finish a lyric and then you will you sing along with it and and uh will there be Parts where you'll say this is um what do you think about this

or will she kind of say I want to rewrite this part or how does that work all those things all those things I mean there are obviously moments where I say I just can't fit that word in can and we just adjust that so that we can make things fit and but it's um it's a congenial process and it it it works brilliantly how do you keep track of your ideas do you use voice memos on your phone yeah and you probably have I have cataloged over a thousand okay on voice memos and there's and

I'm very bad at labeling them mhm um labeling and that sort of office work of getting things into folders I've just have done it with all of these things into years and into months and years and going back as I said I've got over a thousand some of them I have no idea what they were or what I recorded sometimes just hold a the phone up to a a radio that's playing track me thinking that's got a sort of a Groove maybe one day so these are things are lots of them are just throwaway ideas

I would think that 90 95% of the things I don't understand what on Earth they're doing there when I listen to them back and Chuck them away and then it's the other little very rare moments that you hear something back and think there's something in there that I can pursue do you play piano ever to come up with ideas I'm a truly rotten piano player but I mean High Hopes I wrote on the piano boat lies waiting I wrote on the piano in any tongue I wrote on the piano I I've written quite a few

songs with the piano but they are very very simple I've also seen you play drums on I've seen videos of you playing drums now do you ever come up with grooves uh on the drums and think of it that way or Pro program a drum part well I program drum parts and I I think of what um what it should be and I put a guide in yeah I'm quite definite and specific about how this things should be I mean I played um drums on fat old son on the record originally in' 69 and and

on um obscured by clouds the track I think I've played so I've always loved drumming but I'm again don't want to put myself down too much but my timing on the drums mostly isn't usable I mean certainly not Steve G it's I think I'm doing something perfectly and you listen afterward and it's just pulling and pushing and you're going no it's just I'm just not a drummer but a lot of ideas yeah I have drumming ideas that are quite good Sor again I played the drums on but I played it on a pad kit um

and then we added samples later and we um you know shunted it all onto the bar by quantized we quantized it that's I Wasing for um so that uh it's interesting because on last night fat old son and sorrow are two songs that you play yeah at your show and the uh sorrow like the the tone your guitar tone during the solo that's your big muff right yeah yeah that thing sounds so powerful I mean it's really the big muff is a is the killer Distortion it's not subtle no it's not subtle at all it's

um it's raw power it feels like it's got a compressor built in but it hasn't but it's just the way it seems to work um yeah it's it's sort of sound that when you get it going you could you feel on stage like you can just lean back and the sound coming from behind you would prevent you from falling over backwards how loud is your Stage Sound most of the set it's certainly you know in the bounds of reason I mean there's a real uh dyn incredible dynamic range from song to song there's some songs

where you play really quietly and then you'll increase your level as the intensity yeah uh goes up but um do you ever use compression with your Distortion sounds cuz yeah nearly all of the time okay I was going to say not with a big muff yeah but um with um the tube driver things yeah which are lovely little yeah talk talk about those you've been you've had those for long time had those for use these arcade Butler um tube drivers um and I A lot of people do the driver first and the compressor afterwards I

do it the other way around and I compress the sound going into the driver usually um and you know I've got two or three compressors and two or three tube drivers and uh in various different combinations for these songs like the Black Cat 5 a.m. there's a tube driver it's my number one tube driver with a compressor on the lowest setting I can get the tube driver yeah we work all this time to get the cleanest most pure sound going through these amplifiers you want these perfect pure amplifiers and then you put artificial distortion into

the line on nearly everything you do to some extent so tube driver number one is the most subtle tube driver number three is the least subtle and do you use the tube different tube drivers for different guitars typically or will you just if you want it a a you Mor gain you just use one or you kind of have them set up for for the Strat or the Les Paul whatever playing set up for the for a general thing for any guitar you came up with what I consider considered to be the most famous chord

in rock history on a shine on technically speaking I'll ped you but yeah I'll take it how did you come up with that [Music] chord I was in a rehearsal room in King's cross in London um we the four of us the band Pink Floyd you play something you're doing all sorts of little things and that one comes out and you your something in your brain goes that's that's there's something to that so you do it again and you do it again and after a while people other people in the room stop you can see

you can see this thing in people's on people's faces this this Awakening moment when they people are going there's a possibility here there's something here there's something and that happened like there are other moments where that has happened but that it was a very clear moment um and basically the whole of shyon grew out of that moment so David I've coined a term which I call the Gilmore effect and the Gilmore effect is not a guitar thing it's not a pedal it's when I make a video with any guitar player and interview no matter who

it is there's always hundreds of comments about how people prefer your playing to whoever it is no matter no matter who it is well I prefer David Gilmore's playing and I call that the Gilmore effect maybe they should keep it to themselves on those occasions I mean it's lovely thank you I mean it's just that it's it and it what they're talking about is this the lyrical playing yeah I my I wasn't gifted with enormous speed on the guitar um and there were you know years when I was younger when I thought I could get

that if I practiced enough but just wasn't ever really going to happen and you know some of the influences um on on me like even the Shadows back in the 60s you know just yeah playing a tune yeah and uh I think I come from there really just I just want to play a nice tune obviously when you're racked up to 150 DB and you're leaning against that wall of sound on stage it's the tunes change a bit now I noticed last night like uncomfortably numb for example where the use your well use your bar

a lot speaking of Hank Marvin for for vbr and people I think sometimes think that you're Ving now you do V with your fingers as well yeah but I think people might be surprised at how much you use your bar yeah that's just a natural thing that's developed over a long career um and I do both and I have no idea what I'm doing at any given moment I'm they're both working hopefully in cooperation with each other but there are moments when you put get right up here somewhere and you've got a note and quite

fussy about um overeager vibrat when we getar um and sometimes I just think a little thing just gives it a little bit of tone and I hesitate to use the word refinement but it's interesting because I was thinking last night about what a rock show it is watching you cuz long guitar solos I mean it's really exciting and it uh reminds me of of my youth going to shows like that where people really stretch out yeah I often think God I'm just going on too long here time to stop no do I have no idea

of how long a lot of these things go on for I just sort of play until I think oh maybe we'll end now just and do you have cues for for with the band for when you're going to when you're going to end yes I a lot of them have a musical queue yeah and there's one in comfortably know which is just the [Music] rising and they all know the next one's going to be the end one and so yes there are musical cues I want to talk to you about uh Romany your daughter who

who's who um is featured on the record between two points I want to play a little bit of [Music] that top end there's only two Co g at the bottom G in the bottom yeah put trust in an unknown you at the [Music] bottom fell head into the arms of the F that St me unsteady to steady heart and took me to a place I've never been a place I've never been [Music] since I heard you say I heard you say that she came in and just sang that pretty much one take oh this is

a song that poie and I have known forever we we we've argued and discussed exactly where we got it we think a friend of ours gave us a playlist that in those days you'd put on your computer or somewhere and you listen to it and so that song has come up all the way through her life occasionally I mean we don't actually sit and listen to those play this all the time but subliminally she must have known the song a little bit and um I had done the whole track um but in a different key

mhm to suit me and just didn't feel like I should be the person singing this song paully suggested we try Romany um so I redid the instruments on the track some of them I just strike through pitch thing on on Pro Tools you know um and thought I'll do those again properly later one of the great things to digress you know you can do demo versions of things in two minutes by just taking a whole track sometimes and dropping it a tone and saying right anyway yeah so I said to her on a I think

a Sunday afternoon Ro come come over to the studio and sing a song for me she was moaning and graning still got an essay to write and my Train's in an hour she has sung with me in the studio since she was born basically pretty much what 2 years old and um anyway she came in I gave her the sheet of paper and said sing this she as I say she subliminally must have vaguely known it but that's what that vocal is I mean obviously a couple of repairs and things went on afterwards but 90%

of that was just her and then I drove her to the station now that must be great to have her on stage singing with you Romany and I and everyone else would sing along to songs mostly Leed Co things where in the same Barn that we did the luck and strange track in eventually it boiled down to mostly me and Romany and she would go on at the beginning she'd had about I don't know three four heart blessons she'd go on at the beginning and play Heart for a little while while we got ourselves running

and had another glass of wine and sat ourselves down and um her voice with mine on some of those songs just had one of those magical things to it that you you you can't buy they just they're they're there or they're not there and it's a family thing right that that you have well you know we've got the Everly Brothers we got the Beach Boys um all sorts of people who um we I mean the Everly Brothers prime example those two voices just perfect fit like magic so I'm yeah I'm a believer in in that

sort of thing if you had to say can be any song what is a perfect song to you well I bet a lot of people would say waterl Sunset and I think that would certainly be up there for me um um Heartbreak Hotel I mean Heartbreak Hotel as a a song and as a recording it's like three instruments or something right just so perfect every every bit of it is just it couldn't be more alive and give you the atmosphere of something more perfectly than that there's a lesson to be learned in there somewhere that

I haven't learned yet but I want to play another uh another track off here take my arm and walk with me once more down this Dusty old path the sunset cuts the hill in half a Shadows stretch back to touch The Night the Lights fading you say but these darkening [Music] days flow like honey [Music] these days slowing down What What In the Beginning there that sound that keyboard sound is that you playing that too yeah that's me yeah that's um My Piano in the studio plugged through a Leslie um it's me trying to get

pretty much the same sound as we Ed on Echoes yeah way way way back yeah and you just yeah put a microphone on a piano run it to a Leslie in the same room cuz you what created the thing that Echoes came out of was the fact that the microphone was a little too loud and you know every time Rick hit a what a c sh or whatever it is Bing it sort of went and so he kept kept going back and hitting that same note just a cuz he was curious about the sound ofing

and anyway um you want that to be sort of not quite feeding back but verging on feedback um yeah very simple just a kind of through a Leslie there's a beautiful this lyric this first lyric and all these precious things you gave things I've been holding in my hands these grains of sand a man stands in a river pushes against a stream time is a tide that disobeys it disobeys me that's beautiful lyric yeah t isn't it beautiful lyric also what you're singing with the the the the chords the um and how they move with

those lyrics and those little dissonant notes that you go to in the melody that just really captures love that song yeah that was actually your closing song just the closing song yeah we closed the the show with it yeah apart from the legendary Encore um yeah the I wrote lyrics for it first um but I my lyrics went in too many directions at once and then we got Charlie our son said Charlie do you want to have a go at writing seminar so he wrote lyrics as well um but in them he included a couple

of stanzas you know verses of of mine and then Polly joined in the process so it's all three of us have um contributed did but the the man in the river is a thing that Charlie came up with that just got magical visual thing to it and other brilliant bits about the grains of sand and things that Polly put in I it's one of those strange ones it's very hard to tie down the whole process and how it got to where it got to but it certainly seems to work so I always ask people this

how do you know when a song is finished oh when you've left the control room and you think that's brilliant and there's always I mean there's what you think is finished at the time and there's what you think would have been finished a year later when you think actually I could have done that I you know there's always little things I'm not sure there'll be many with this record cuz I think this record um has a sort of cohesive wholeness to it you'll keep a list of things like with Charlie who's producing on this record

and say okay so I think we have these sng the song the song I want to take a look at this and you'll go through your whole checklist before the record's done yeah yeah yeah well we have we put a big whiteboard on the wall with all the titles and little columns for what to do and um but you know that that's some of it but every every listen you have little things which I make notes I send myself texts on my phone of of little notes things that I would like to look at or

change and will you ever go back and say you know I'd like to resing this one line or something I haven't really had to do that because Charlie is um Charlie Andrew is pretty picky on that and he makes sure that we get it right before we we head off and was he a fan of yours before or was he not really familiar with had no knowledge of me or of Pink Floyd whatsoever interesting and that's um to me that was so great you know no respect for this past that is both a wonderful joy

and a bit of an anchor you know at times um yeah he had no idea he had all sorts of strange questions and said why does this one have to fade out and you go well just what we usually do you know don't really and and he makes you think about things that are your habits of a lifetime and think well don't doesn't have to same about guitar sellers do you need another guitar solo here yes well I think he's come around to guitar solos a littleit since then is it fun to get out and

play and to to play with a band like this cuz you don't get to do it you don't tour that much no I don't I Haven the last one was 15 16 so it's nine years ago it is um this band is special these guys are brilliant um they understand the music they're not um rigidly going to make things sound exactly like the record there's a general you know map there of what we're doing that they all obviously all look at but um I've left them Freer than I've ever done before um I guess I've

left them Freer because they've um come up to the plate you know and and shown that they are worth putting trust in so it's things have changed you you know and are better they're Freer and everyone is enjoying themselves and the egos have all been left of the door and that it feels more like a team than anything I've done in centuries you've been working with guy as your bass player he's the longest person in the band what 30 years or so you guys been working together something7 I think yeah 80 he told he keeps

telling me it's 37 years is it fun having some like that that you that you have that long of course with yes I mean guys a a lot of fun the song sings Yeah there's this lowf part that you kind of had up on the screen that's in there and you kind of you do this a lot where you bring in things that were recorded yeah all parts of demos and things like that what is that from that's a that's the demo of what became the chorus of that song and that's the moment that I

was writing it and I was sitting in the city sing room at home in 1997 just strumming that little [Music] thing it's me doing that sitting in the sitting room strumming it and um my son who's 2 years old Joe is singing along and then he goes sing Daddy sing Daddy sing and um you know these these demos last forever you know digitally they're just there and you and and years after that I mean probably nearly 20 years after that anyway in the within the last seven or eight years I put that chorus into this

other piece of music that that song was and um we we were playing that demo back and think it's got a magic to it we'll just we'll just stick it in there why not we'll do it so it is my son Joe um doing most of it my other son Gabriel who's to who was really tiny at the time probably a year or under um he's you can hear him squawking a bit on there as well do you think that um that you'll work together and make any more music with the band that you have

right now I see no reason why I wouldn't yeah absolutely I'd love to cuz it's to me it's like you guys are just kind of getting going and I was thinking like this is be a good maybe make another another record you know obviously that's what I do and um Polly and I are intending to go back to work as soon as we can to you know starting off with other bits of music that I've got and and that's process of listening back to Old demos and things usually starts a process of new ideas rising

to the surface as well that's what we hope for anyway so yeah we Our intention is to get on with that well I really appreciate you making the time for me today and it's such an honor to meet you thank you so much David pleasure thanks i' like to once again thank David for being my guest today remember hit the subscribe button leave a comment thanks for watching