It’s nightfall inside an empty Hollywood Bowl as David Gilmour friends out from the stage and delivers his track “Dark and Velvet Nights” to nobody specifically. A strutting psych-blues jam with visions of “great cities that toppled and drowned,” it’s a spotlight from the Pink Floyd veteran’s sturdy new solo album, “Luck and Strange” — and one of many latter-day cuts his followers will politely nod their heads to some hours from now between beloved oldies similar to “Wish You Were Here” and “Comfortably Numb.”
At 78, Gilmour has been at this lengthy sufficient to know what his viewers needs, which is as a lot of Pink Floyd’s ’70s-era songbook as he’s keen to play. Not that he particularly cares: “When I’m working, I don’t consider an audience member’s views because that’s the death of art, if you ask me,” he says after sound verify on the Bowl earlier than the second of three gigs there final week. “I’m sorry if it’s arrogant to call what I do art, but I’ll stick with it.” For him, performing his music is its personal reward — one cause he sings at near full energy, his voice brawny but lithe, as his dwell band test-runs just a few tunes behind him.
Gilmour’s tour behind “Luck and Strange” — his first studio album and his first street present in almost a decade — is restricted by way of its itinerary, with dates in solely 4 cities. However in every he’s enjoying multi-night engagements: After stops in Rome, London and Los Angeles (the place he additionally performed Inglewood’s newly opened Intuit Dome), he opened a five-show run Monday night time at New York’s Madison Sq. Backyard.
The bookings are a sign of Gilmour’s enduring reputation, whilst his relationship with Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters has hit an all-time low. Final 12 months, after his spouse and writing accomplice, Polly Samson, tweeted that Waters was a “Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy megalomaniac,” Gilmour wrote in a follow-up submit, “Every word demonstrably true.” For some time there, relations between the ex-bandmates appeared vulnerable to scotching a profitable deal to promote Pink Floyd’s catalog — a deal that ultimately went via this 12 months when the band handed over the rights to its recorded work to Sony Music for a reported $400 million. (Pink Floyd’s most up-to-date studio album, “The Endless River,” got here out in 2014, three many years after Waters’ departure and 6 years after the dying of keyboardist Richard Wright.)
Seated on a sofa backstage on the Bowl, his black pants matching his black T-shirt, Gilmour says he has little curiosity in addressing the drama with Waters. His ideas are consumed, he says, by “Luck and Strange,” for which he recruited a producer, Charlie Andrew, with no deep affinity for Pink Floyd’s traditional materials. “It was refreshing,” he says of the expertise with Andrew, who’s finest recognized for his work with the British indie-rock band Alt-J. Along with his spouse, who wrote the album’s lyrics, Gilmour enlisted his 22-year-old daughter, Romany, to sing and play harp on the LP; there’s additionally a observe constructed round an outdated recording of Wright from 2007. (Pink Floyd’s remaining founding member is drummer Nick Mason.) The album is good-looking and looking out and muscular, and after our discuss Gilmour performs most of it onstage on the Bowl whereas throwing just a few acquainted bones to the capability crowd.
What’s the toughest track in your set to sing?F—, I don’t know. “Coming Back to Life” begins kind of a cappella, so it’s bought to be spot-on. “Time” is sort of excessive for me today. “A Great Day for Freedom” is fairly uncovered. Clearly, we’ve bought different components occurring — harmonies and so forth. However no lip syncing.
Do you utilize a prompter?Yeah. I by no means used one till the final tour I did, in 2015 and 2016. I by no means wanted to. After all, the minute you begin utilizing one … Did you see at sound verify? The man hadn’t lined it up from the start of the track, and my thoughts went clean. Within the outdated days, you’re there strumming a chord, everybody’s enjoying one thing, you stroll as much as the mic and it simply comes out. It at all times did for me. There was a line in “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” that at all times bought me — I used to have these couple of traces on a chunk of paper on the stage in entrance of me. Polly ultimately stated, “God, just have [a prompter] — give yourself the security.” I feel I might do with out it, however it will take fairly some time to be ready.
To wean your self from that safety.Precisely. And I don’t suppose I need to do this. So I’ll take care of this explicit trick of the commerce.
Your daughter Romany seems on “Luck and Strange,” and now she’s touring in your band. I questioned should you’re aware of the time period “nepo baby.”I do know all about nepo infants, and I’m fully in settlement with the sentiment that it’s a foul factor to method. However I used to be mucking about with this track in my studio at dwelling — this track by the Montgolfier Brothers, “Between Two Points” — and the feelings of the lyrics simply weren’t working for me. I’m this large, sturdy, powerful particular person, and this was a really fragile type of factor. Polly stated, “Why don’t you try someone else? Maybe try Romany singing it.” So I stated to Rom, “Come on, have a quick go at this.” She stated, “Oh, Dad, I’ve got an essay to write.” “Gimme half an hour.” “Ugh, OK.” She got here within the studio in my barn at dwelling, she sang it as soon as, and that’s 90% of the vocal you hear. That’s not nepo child — that’s f— earned.
Final time you performed the Bowl, in 2016, David Crosby joined you for just a few songs. What was the preliminary seed of your lengthy friendship?Graham Nash, actually. I knew Nash somewhat bit in in London when he was nonetheless within the Hollies. In truth, he was in one of many studios and we have been in one other studio the night time that he flounced out. I used to play backgammon within the foyer there with one or two of these guys. Anyway, I’d go and see [Crosby, Stills & Nash’s] exhibits and say hello, and I turned very pleasant with David. He’d come over to the home, and we went on vacation collectively, boating within the Mediterranean. I used to be very keen on him.
Did his passing final 12 months come as a shock?His dying, I might name it.
What’s the excellence?I hate the phrase “passing” — “passing away.” Why can’t individuals simply name issues as they’re?
What was it wish to be the heartthrob in Pink Floyd?I do not know the best way to reply that. Perhaps it’s best to ask Roger that query — I imply about me, clearly [laughs].
I’m curious since you clearly had a powerful look. But Pink Floyd didn’t ever appear to be promoting intercourse.No.
Which made it totally different from different bands of that period.I wouldn’t say all different bands. I feel our audiences have been largely male, and although I don’t rely myself within the nomenclature of prog — hate that phrase — I might suppose one thing within the audiences might need been related.
What nonetheless excites you in regards to the guitar?I simply need it to offer delivery to new tunes. The precise enjoying and melodies and stuff, they’re up right here [points to head] and also you simply switch it onto the strings. However I need an instrument to offer me the beginning of a track. And, usually, getting discomfited barely helps that course of alongside. I’m a very rotten piano participant, however I’ve written fairly just a few songs which I feel are fairly good on the piano.
Being dangerous helped you?It’s the constraints. Whenever you get a guitar and it’s bought a unique tuning, you discover one thing new. The consolation zone may be too comfy.
Does that apply to the conveniences of contemporary recording expertise?That eliminates the obstacles in the best way of doing belongings you get in your head. However sure, it’s totally different from the way you develop issues within the framework of a band that’s been working collectively and is aware of one another telepathically from 50 years in the past. How does one put this delicately? The reverence that individuals have round me signifies that the equality of a band that comes up out of faculty collectively — can shout at one another and even punch one another, then the subsequent day you’re again and the whole lot’s high quality — you’ll be able to’t replicate that. That’s most likely why what we used to know as supergroups got here alongside. Equality is tough to refind.
As a world-famous rock star, you imply.Yeah.
You ever discover that your viewers is simply too reverent?That I can’t actually inform. However I imply, all over one’s life and profession, you do that factor of going onstage and coming off on the finish of a gig and going, God, that was s—, after which individuals are available and say, “God, that was great!” You suppose, You f— a—gap, what are you aware?
The brand new album’s title observe ponders the optimism of a postwar technology that noticed itself as ushering in a golden age. Perhaps I’m simply hardwired to say this as a Gen X-er, but it surely’s been exasperating to see that optimism harden amongst some boomers right into a form of deluded self-regard.I agree. The boomer postwar factor — there was some pretty stuff, and it was an harmless age, however there was a f— of so much that was not proper. If you happen to study the political opinions, racism, misogyny, all of the issues — they’re all there. There have been individuals making an attempt their finest to maneuver ahead — that’s the factor I like about it — however a whole lot of them have been f— it up as nicely.
David Gilmour performs final month at Inglewood’s Intuit Dome.
(James Carbone/For Los Angeles Occasions en Espanol)
Just lately we’ve seen quite a few culturally distinguished boomers take quite a lot of reactionary stances: your outdated bandmate Roger, after all, but additionally Eric Clapton and Van Morrison. Why haven’t you drifted to the fitting?I’m simply not like that. I’m horrified by the division and the polarization of this world we’re in at the moment. It’s probably the most harmful second — worse than the Bay of Pigs. There’s no center left. They’re all means on the market throwing brickbats at one another.
In your view, you’re within the center.I’m, yeah. I used to explain myself fairly fortunately as left of middle, and I nonetheless suppose that I’m in the identical place. However this spectrum of left and proper is such a bizarre factor to get one’s head round today. The left goes to date round on the spectrum that it meets the far, far proper on the again someplace. I’m staggered on the stupidity of people that bandy round harmful phrases with out having appeared them up within the dictionary.
Equivalent to?I’m not going to offer you an instance proper now. Sorry. I’m a pop musician, and I’m not desirous to go off into a significant dialogue on all this stuff at this second.
Thanks to your time.Hope you want this album higher than “The Endless River.”
I went again and browse my evaluate of that file. It was somewhat snotty.I’ll let you know: Once we did that album, there was a factor that Andy Jackson, our engineer, had put collectively referred to as “The Big Spliff” — a group of all these bits and items of jams [from the sessions for 1994’s “The Division Bell”] that was on the market on bootlegs. Numerous followers wished these items that we’d accomplished in that point, and we thought we’d give it to them. My mistake, I suppose, was in being bullied by the file firm to have it out as a correctly paid-for Pink Floyd file. It ought to have been clear what it was — it was by no means meant to be the follow-up to “The Division Bell.” However, you already know, it’s by no means too late to get caught in one in all these traps once more.
Properly, to that time: You’re not anxious that the sale of Pink Floyd’s catalog may result in different cases the place the music is offered in a means you don’t like?No.
Why not?It’s historical past — it’s all previous. These things is for future generations. I’m an outdated particular person. I’ve spent the final 40-odd years making an attempt to struggle the great struggle in opposition to the forces of indolence and greed to do the most effective with our stuff that you are able to do. And I’ve on condition that struggle up now. I’ve bought my advance — as a result of, you already know, it’s not recent new cash or something like that. It’s an advance in opposition to what I might have earned over the subsequent few years anyway. However the arguments and preventing and idiocies which were occurring for the final 40 years between these 4 disparate teams of individuals and their managers and no matter — it’s pretty to say goodbye to. And I haven’t bought the publishing rights.
Why maintain onto these?That’s a really, very totally different situation. You need to have an settlement about synchronization licenses and all that type of stuff. [Sony] purchased the data, the recordings, and might do what they need. But when it comes on an advert, I’m not gonna give a shit. I’m simply not going to. There are all kinds of issues which are simply as distasteful as that.