Today's Sunday Telegraph newspaper in the UK features a revealing interview with David Gilmour on the eve of his three concerts in London.
The interview finds David in
reflective mood, looking at his own life, and his career with Pink
Floyd.
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David Gilmour in Sunday Telegraph, 28th May 2006 |
"With Pink Floyd we packed a whole career into two or three
years, now it takes me a decade to do one bloody album. I think I've
grown lazy in old age. Bits of music do nevertheless keep arriving
serendipitously at my fingertips whenever I pick up a guitar and, after
10 years of jotting them down and not doing anything with them, it was
starting to feel a bit rude to one's muse."
And so his new album came about.
Gilmour: "It's hard to put into words, but I feel more proud of On an
Island than anything else I've done. We've got a nice system in this
room and we like to sit in here of an evening and play the whole album
through, pretty loud, and it definitely still gives me a thrill. I
rarely listen to albums after I've released them. Normally one has been
over every note of every instrument so incessantly and anally that one
is sick of it."
A fascinating sequence has David
talking candidly about the wealth that he - and others in the music
business - has accumulated over the years, and how out of step it is
with the real value of what they do for a living.
"I do feel
uncomfortable about the degree of wealth that comes with the territory
I occupy. We live in a capitalist society, I suppose, and it is a
matter of supply and demand. And I do look at other bands and think,
well, we are a f--- of a sight better than them. But it is
extraordinarily perverse that I as a musician am paid so much more
than, say, a doctor, or a nurse, or a teacher. [My father] worked hard
and did something of great value to the world, researching genetics. It
felt obscene the way I was treated compared to him. There were moments
when we were both embarrassed by it all."
The full interview can be read through this link and is a fascinating insight into David's views on life, family, money, and the ups and downs of Pink Floyd...
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