On an Island has a nice cinematic sound to it, and it gets better on repeat listens.
Well, good. I'm glad you agree with me [laughs], because I think that, too. I don't know how modest one has to be these days, but I'm really, really pleased with it. There wasn't really a master plan. I kind of blundered on, and it grew organically as we got more and more into it. And I really couldn't be more thrilled.

To me, the album's main theme revolves around partnerships, shared experiences, and the life cycle. It seems like it's about two people very much in harmony in life and how they deal with the positives and negatives moving forward.
I think that sums it up. It does have that sort of feeling and thread running through it. Though that wasn't the plan, it happened organically, and the theme grew with the record.

Was there any one particular song that got you thinking, "We're onto something here"?
Well, I had "Smile" for at least five or six years. ["Smile" first appeared on the David Gilmour in Concert DVD, released in 2002.] It's basically my original demo, with modifications — a bass got on there, and so did a drum kit and an orchestra — but the main part's the guitar, the voice, and the slide stuff, which is all from the original demo I did at my home studio.

And then I had the last song, "Where We Start," at least three years ago, maybe four. Most of the other things are pieces of music that I've had lying around for years. I tend to record little snippets onto an audio notebook — a MiniDisc recorder, to jog my memory — and then I work on them later. But sometimes I can't get to sleep if I've got one on the brain. And if I go to sleep, I can't remember it again the next day.

RESTORING iORDER

On most Pink Floyd albums, there's a deliberate unfolding of events in the way the music is presented to the listener, so I have to imagine sequencing this album must have been a bit of a challenge for you.
Yes. Sequencing is a very important thing. And I did have a running order for this record quite a long time ago, one I was quite sold on. I thought I had the whole album mapped out. My friend [and Island co-producer] Phil Manzanera had been living with that same order. These days, with CD burners, it's a lot easier trying out different running orders, since you don't have to worry about cutting tape. So he came in one day with a completely different order than I had, though it did end with the same track ["Where We Start"]. The rest he'd shuffled around. And I said, "Hmm, yeah, that's better." It hadn't struck me at all, but when he came up with it, it made a lot of sense. And that's the way it is now.

These days, especially with the iPod, a lot of people just listen to select songs and don't even go through entire albums anymore.
I think it is an experience listening to the whole album all the way through and getting what you can get out of it. If you get a quarter of the pleasure I got in making it, then it can't be all bad.

Speaking of iPods, when I got my first one, your 1978 solo debut, David Gilmour [scheduled to be reissued with bonus tracks by Columbia/Legacy on March 28], was one of the first things I loaded onto it. Do you have an iPod yourself?
I do have an iPod, and I used it briefly — but I didn't stick with it. I haven't found that I want to be with it all the time.

A lot of musicians put their demos on their iPods while they're working.
Yes, I did do that for a while. But I'm not really overkeen on wearing the headphones all the time. I've found that it rather shuts you off from the world. I spend a lot of time on headphones in my home studio, but for the rest of the time I tend not to.

Do you have a sense of freedom now that you can record at home and don't have to worry about booking studio time as much as before?
I do have that sense. It's very liberating, really. I can spend endless mucking-about time without worrying whether everyone else is getting bored.

ON SURROUND ISLAND

Had you given any thought to recording the new album in surround sound?
We did, actually. My initial intention was to release it in 5.1 at the same time as the CD, but we won't get around to finishing the mix until the tour and the summer holiday are over. We recorded all of the drums and orchestral stuff in surround. While I do like to keep the rhythm section more or less in stereo, I tend to bring some of the more fluid things — voices, keyboard textures — around from the front to the sides for a much wider effect. You have to get a feeling for the sounds that are possible and natural enough for your brain to deal with. I don't like to put too many instruments behind the listener.

Did [engineer] James Guthrie work with you on the mix?
No, James worked on the mix for The Dark Side of the Moon, but this one was done by Andy Jackson, who was sort of James's pupil and assistant years and years ago. I mean, I had to work with someone who's here in England. James is out in Lake Tahoe.

I think the Twin Peaks-y saxophone at the outset of "Red Sky at Night" will sound awesome in surround.
Yeah, yeah. There will be an orchestra all around you on that one.

And the opening track, "Castellorizon," should be amazing in surround with the orchestra, sound effects, and divebombs ...
It's all sort of designed for that. Unfortunately, we're stuck with boring old stereo for the time being. [chuckles]

How did you like the surround mix of The Dark Side of the Moon?
I think that one came out really, really well. Fantastically well. James Guthrie and I did "transatlantic mixing." He sent his mixes to me in England from his studio in Lake Tahoe, and I sent back copious notes. Believe me, that thing came back and forth across the Atlantic a number of times.

Pink Floyd was always about surround sound. We were doing live quadraphonic sound live right from when I joined the band in 1968, and a lot of our albums, like Dark Side, were based on elements that were already integrated into our show. Unfortunately, at the time, we weren't able to do the quad mix ourselves, though Alan Parsons [who originally engineered the album at Abbey Road Studios] did do one himself.

Pulse, the live show from the last Pink Floyd tour in 1994, is coming out on DVD later this year. What were your goals for that surround mix?
I wanted it to sound like you're right in the hall — which means the band is pretty much upfront, and the noise, room sound, and spill are coming from the rear. I would never put you, the audience, in the middle of the band. That wouldn't feel right. We also incorporated the quad tapes we've always used live to help draw you into the whole experience.

THE NOT-SO-DELICATE SOUND OF LIVE

You're heading out on tour to promote Island. What are your plans for the live show? Would you consider playing the album straight through in its running order?
At the moment, I'm leaning toward playing the whole album as a piece, yes.

How will the show unfold? Is there an opening act?
I think I'll stick with the well-known Pink Floyd "system" — two halves, with a break in the middle. I don't really like having a support act very much. I've done it on some of my solo tours before. But I tend to think you're better off creating your own atmosphere and sticking to it.

Is there an elaborate stage setup, or is it pretty stark?
It's pretty much just me and the band. I've got Mark Brickman, who did the lighting on the past two Pink Floyd tours, out with us, so I'm hoping he'll come up with something that's nice.

I bought my tickets for the first show at Radio City Music Hall in New York [April 4] right away. You've played there before, right?
Yes, Pink Floyd did Radio City once, years and years ago. [March 17, 1973, actually.] We did a midnight show, I think. [chuckles]

I'm guessing that, during the second half of the show, you'll pick your favorite Floyd songs to highlight.
To be honest, I've got a list of a lot of songs I'm considering. We'll see how much we get rehearsed and what we want to achieve, and how brave I am to branch out into new areas that haven't been done as much. In a way, the best stuff kind of chooses itself, and that's why we've done it. You don't want to do all of the lesser-known stuff; it's lesser known, and deservedly so. You just have to try and strike the right balance between pretty interesting and not quite predictable, but still have a lot of stuff that you enjoy and the people really enjoy.

LIVE 8 POST-OP

I guess you could say that you had the perfect setlist at this past summer's Live 8 event. [On July 2 in Hyde Park, Pink Floyd performed "Speak to Me," "Breathe," "Money," "Wish You Were Here," and "Comfortably Numb."]
It was good, yeah.

Were you expecting the type of reaction that people had to your performance?
I hadn't really thought about it all that much. Obviously, it was a really newsworthy story that Roger [Waters] was coming to join in with us on that occasion — and I wasn't foolish enough not to expect that sort of "When are they getting back together for good?" stuff, you know? It's what I knew would happen but was hoping wouldn't.

How sad that MTV cut away right in the middle of your performance. I couldn't believe it. I immediately went upstairs to my computer to watch the rest of it on AOL. Were you even aware it had happened?
No, no, I had no idea it had happened until days after the event.

How do you feel about the idea that so many people watched you on their computers and not their TVs?
They're lucky that it's a possibility these days. But that's typical TV — they've got to cut away to an advert just at the good moments, you know. Nothing much changes there.

How did you feel about your Live 8 performance overall?
I think it all went off really well; no complaints. I rehearsed pretty hard. I made myself a CD of the set and practiced it myself at home with a guitar and microphone several times a day for a couple of weeks to get myself up to scratch, because I didn't want to be forgetting words. On show night, there's not much time to relax or enjoy it — for me, particularly, being the main voice and guitar pretty much all the way through. It demanded very high concentration. But I really did enjoy it.

IT'S A WEB, WEB, WEB, WEB WORLD

You have your own Web site now, davidgilmour.com. Do you like it?
I do like it. I particularly like the blog thing, which changes every day. I pass messages to the Web masters constantly to change this or do that. I really like it if it keeps moving. I can't stand these sites that stay absolutely static.

How do you feel about having such a degree of "closeness" with your fans?
It's interesting to know what they suggest — though it seems like the same small group of people put up the suggestions every day. [laughs] But I do think about them.

Back to Homepage
What's New on S&V