Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason claims band members David Gilmour and Roger Waters will never be friends again – but believes AI could create songs instead
Nick Mason, the drummer of Pink Floyd, has said there is no way band members David Gilmour and Roger Waters will ever be friends again, after their decades-long feud.
Bassist Roger, 80, left the band in 1985 after unsuccessfully attempting to stop the remaining members from using the Pink Floyd name.
Despite the ongoing feud, Nick, 80, revealed how he belives AI could create music as if Roger had never lef
Speaking to The Mirror, Nick said: ‘It would be fascinating to see what AI could do with new music. If you tried to run it as a sort of, “Where did Pink Floyd go after?”
‘The thing to do would be to have an AI situation where David and Roger become friends again. We could be like ABBA by the time we’ve finished with it.’
Pink Floyd, known for albums like The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, last performed together at 2005’s Live 8 charity gig.
Original members Syd Barrett died in 2006, and pianist Richard Wright passed away from lung cancer in 2008.
Nick continued that he regrets how the feud overshadowed the band’s accomplishments.
He reminisced: ‘In a 55-year career, most of it was great fun. We were enormously privileged to be in a successful band and tour the world and hang out with really interesting people. It’s a gold card to meet all sorts of your favourite sportsmen and actors.’
Nick now plays early Pink Floyd songs with his band, Saucerful of Secrets, which features Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet.
He said that he finds joy in continuing the legacy, noting that time brings a ‘rosier glint’ to their history.
The band landed its name because two of Syd Barrett’s favourite Carolina bluesmen, were called Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, so he merged the two together.
The Dark Side of the Moon went on to be the best selling album in the world for a while and it is thought it shifted so many units, that one in 12 people is said to own a copy.
When Roger Waters left Pink Floyd, he immediately clashed with David Gilmour, 78, in a prolonged legal battle.
Roger issued a statement to EMI and CBS, invoking the ‘Leaving Member’ clause in his contract, and argued that Pink Floyd couldn’t continue without him.
In October 1986, he sought to dissolve the band through the High Court, calling it a ‘spent force creatively.’
David Gilmour and Nick Mason opposed Roger Waters, asserting that the band could continue making new music.
In 1987, Waters reached an agreement with his former bandmates and resigned, citing commercial pressures that would have otherwise led to significant financial loss.
Speaking to the BBC in 2013, he admitted that attempting to dissolve the band was not the right way to go: ‘I was wrong! Of course I was,’ he said, before adding: ‘Who cares? It’s one of the few times that the legal profession has taught me something.’
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