Pink Floyd biography

 

The story of Pink Floyd is a tale of two bands. One that lasted barely two years and had two hit singles, while the other went on to be one of the biggest grossing acts on the planet. Like so many psychedelic veterans of the swinging sixties, the reason for this career schizophrenia is rooted in that decades' equivalent of living fast and dying young - living fast and becoming an acid casualty. The Floyd's cosmic figurehead Syd Barrett is still, to many, the true source of the band's greatness, just as Peter Green was to Fleetwood Mac or Skip Spence to Moby Grape. Yet, like the Mac, true fiscal greatness arrived years after their resident genius burned out and was ejected. As to which story is more fascinating, the listener is left with a simple choice - the legend or the reality.

The roots of the band lay in bucolic post-war Cambridge. Roger Keith 'Syd' Barrett (guitar, vocals) and Roger Waters (bass) lived a few hundred yards from each other. Both having lost their fathers at an early age the two bonded quickly and, as they grew became part a circle of friends which included guitarist David Gilmour and future sleeve designer Storm Thorgerson. Barrett moved to London in 1964 to attend Camberwell Art College, while Waters went to Regent Street Polytechnic to study architecture. It was there that he encountered Nick Mason (drums) and Rick Wright (keyboards) and a band was formed. In the space of less than a year they tried numerous identities from Sigma 6 via the T Set, the Megadeaths, the Architectural Abdabs, and the Screaming Abdabs and finally, the Abdabs. At this point Barrett and another poly student, Bob Close joined the trio. With Barrett piloting the band, he also bestowed a name drawn from two of his favourite bluesmen - Floyd Council and Pink Anderson. The Pink Floyd Sound (as they were known initially) was born.

With Barrett taking control of the songwriting duties (and with Close jettisoned), the Floyd grew from an R'n'B combo into something far more interesting. Finding themselves at the very epicentre of the burgeoning counterculture, the band soon attracted a whole scene of young minds ready to experiment in both sound and light. Using Barrett's fertile imagination as their springboard, the songs developed into sprawling freak-outs accompanied by the largest sound system in London and the groundbreaking use of slides and lights (constructed by their first managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King) to create a total audio-visual experience. Spotted at London Free School in September 1966, by Joe Boyd, A&R man for Elektra Records and producer of the Incredible String Band, the Floyd became the house band at his UFO club on Tottenham Court Road. It was here that Jimi Hendrix, new in town, caught Syd at his experimental peak, creating noises on his Telecaster which undoubtedly rubbed off on the young American.

Finally signed to EMI, Boyd produced their first single "Arnold Layne" in early 1967. A quirky tale of a transvestite thief, it was banned by the BBC and sealed their notoriety. Their second single "See Emily Play" (celebrating their appearance at the Games For May event at the Royal Festival Hall) was a smash. Perfectly timed to ride out the Summer Of Love, the band set to work on their first album in the studio adjacent to the Beatles, who were working on a little conceit known as Sergeant Pepper… The resultant Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (1967) was nothing short of a masterpiece. All english whimsy meets west coast acid rock. Success was just within reach, and then things started to go awry.

Synonymous with the London freak scene was the copious consumption of mind-altering chemicals, and Syd was no shirker. While the other three members remained relatively abstemious, Syd's intake was incompatible with the work load demanded of what was now a 'chart' act. Exhausting tours of the hostile provinces, where psychedelia and 'freaking out' had yet to mean anything, started to unravel Syd's fragile psyche. A tour of the USA seemed the last straw when, famously, Syd was interviewed by Pat Boone on live TV and merely stared back in mute distress. Back in Britain, Syd was frequently replaced by the Nice's Davy O'List. Something had to be done.

Childhood friend David Gilmour was asked to provide a second, stabilising guitar to the mix but, within weeks, it was apparent that Syd was beyond any band activity. The band decided to carry on without their wayward muse. With only a small part of the next album completed and their chart success now a faint memory, things looked bleak. Roger Waters now took the helm and completing the second album A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968) they attempted to forge a new identity. Much of this was achieved through sheer hard work. Between 1968 and 1972 the band completed six albums and at least four world tours. This relentless gigging had a twofold effect. Firstly it allowed the band to become a byword for 'far out' shows where the lights became ever more 'trippy' and the P.As more sophisticated - pioneering quadrophonic effects with their 'Azimuth coordinator' (a joystick device which allowed sounds to be flung around a venue). Secondly it allowed what was a musically marginal act to become an adventurous unit who instinctively played to their strengths. The live half of double album Ummagumma (1969) fully demonstrated this point.

European art cinema was always keen to involve the latest avant garde sounds in its productions and The Pink Floyd were employed on several soundtracks including Barbet Schroeder's More (1968), and Obscured By Clouds (1972) and Antonioni's Zabriskie Point (1970). These projects allowed Waters and Co. to experiment at length in the studio, a working method they took to their own albums. As Atom Heart Mother (1970) unfortunately demonstrates this often led to grossly dull stuff such as "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" (the sound of a man, err…having breakfast). However, by 1971, the work started to pay off.

Meddle (1971) featured the finely structured side long piece "Echoes", which was, in turn, spacey, funky and melodic. Live At Pompeii, a film at the time showed the band delivering such cuts amidst the ruins and also short clips of them working on their next project. Eight months and hundreds of hours in the studio produced paydirt. In 1973 they released The Dark Side Of The Moon.

Originally titled Eclipse and based around Waters' gloomy musings on insanity, the band's prolonged sessions produced a tighter concept which actually took in all the big issues - time ("Time"), money ("Money"), death ("The Great Gig In The Sky") and, of course, insanity ("Eclipse"). Session musicians and highly paid engineers (Alan Parsons, the Alan who had a psychedelic breakfast!) added a layer of sophistication. The sleeve - a sleek, minimal design by Storm Thorgerson's Hipgnosis group - along with the intriguing use of sound effects all added up to an album which both satisfied the band's hairy followers and crossed over into mainstream acceptance. The album's sonic sophistication meant that, for years, it was the demonstration record in hi-fi shops. It also sold in shed-loads, spending 724 weeks in the top 200 in America.

More touring followed, while anticipation for a follow-up album became almost unbearable. When Wish You Were Here (1975) arrived, it confirmed The Pink Floyd's status as number one 'heavy concept' artists. Enigmatic sleeve photography, songs drenched in studio sheen and, again, a gloomy subject. Strangely, for a band desparate to shake off the legacy of Syd Barrett (Waters was, by now responding with cries for Syd at gigs with a curt "Syd's not here"), the album was a tribute of sorts to the, by now, legendary outcast. He even appeared at the studio while they recorded "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" (a song about Syd) - fat, bald and still very much confused.

Water's cynicism seemed fuelled by The Pink Floyd's status as stadium-fillers. The next work, Animals (1977) - largely composed from offcuts from Wish You Were Here - was loosely based on Orwell's Animal Farm and seemed to be saying that we were all just sheep, pigs or dogs. It was probably more notorious for its cover shot of a pig floating over Battersea power station.

It seemed that Waters was experiencing his own crisis. The Wall (1979) was a sprawling concept album which detailed the loss of his father, his increasing alienation from his audience (hence the 'wall' between the crowd and the band) and his sense of, well, just how beastly life really is. By now Floyd shows were expected to be effects-laden but the tour to promote the album topped them all with a huge wall built in front of the band as they played! A somewhat tortuously pretentious film of the same name (featuring Bob Geldof as 'Pink') followed, but now Waters own alienation was becoming more tangible.

During recording of The Wall Wright was fired, only to be re-employed as a hired session man. Waters' ego was running unchecked. By The Final Cut (1983) (subjects, again, include loss of father, misery etc.) The Pink Floyd was billed as a support act to the bass player. An inevitable split followed and Waters disappeared in a petulant cloud to pursue a lucrative solo career. Gilmour helped steer the band through another ten years of fancy artwork and pyrotechnic shows (famously chronicled on the Pulse (1995) album, with its flashing red light embossed in the cover), but the days of experimentation and boundary-breaking were long gone. A newly active solo Gilmour has recently answered questions concerning the future of the band with a terse "Who gives a f***?"

In the final analysis, The Pink Floyd were responsible for the best and worst of rock's conceits. From truly innovative beginnings, their essentially middle-class suburban origins became a grounding for one of the greatest marketing concepts of musical history. Still felt as an influence on many of today's bands - Radiohead's OK Computer was cited as a Dark Side Of The Moon for the new millenium - their greatest legacy may still be the idea of a band as a commodity.