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28.02.2006: Schon
vor ein paar Tagen erschien ein David Gilmour Interview in einer
holländisches Tageszeitung.
A
Fleeting Glimpse zeigte den original Bericht. Clemens
übersetzte den Text ins englische. Wenn ich etwas Zeit finde werde ich
Passagen davon ins deutsche übersetzen.
Happy without
Pink Floyd.
Legendary guitarist David Gilmour from popicon to family
man.
Original Dutch article by Jean-Paul Heck.
Hampton- David Gilmour (59) is known as the least accessible of all
popicons. The shy guitarist/singer of Pink Floyd would need to have a
good reason indeed to look for publicity. Last summer the whole world
saw how he and his arch enemy Roger Waters stood on stage together at
live8 after more then twenty years. One day later Gilmour was working on
his solo album ‘On An Island’. Soon the highly anticipated album
will be released.
Still, we are going back for a moment to that memorable 2 july 2005.
Camera’s flash when Gilmour, Waters, keyboardist Rick Wright and
drummer Nick Mason stepped on stage together. Millions of Pink Floyd
fans went collectively out of their minds for those 15 or so minutes.
HOUSEBOAT
But in that small village Hampton, situated on the banks of the Thames,
everything is different today. David Gilmour sporadically invites
European journalists on his classic houseboat ‘Astoria’. According
to insiders this is the favourite place of the British royal family and
therefore strictly an area to live for people of royal blood, successful
businessmen and wealthy popstars.
Gilmour certainly belongs in the last mentioned category, owning an
estimated 130 million euro. For over thirty years he played in Pink
Floyd and making those millions selling out stadium concerts and selling
toprecords such as ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ and ‘The Wall’.
But talking about his success is a sin to this son of a Cambridge middle
class family.
Gilmour hates interviews and despite his somewhat ‘fake’ grin he
puts on his characteristic face, his bodylanguage speaks of resistance.
But he must. “I only give five interviews worldwide to promote ‘on
an island’. People who love my music, already know about the album
anyway.”
Talking to guests is preferably done in the room where the new songs
were recorded. On the stern of the Astoria is a small studio where the
album was recorded, which features famous friends such as Roxy Music
guitarist Phil Manzanera, David Crosby, Graham Nash, folk musician
Robert Wyatt and Jools Holland.
Surrounded by his guitars Gilmour looks a lot better then a few years
ago when he lived his life as a kind of Michelin puppet. He proudly
comments that in the last two years he lost about 10 kilo of overweight.
“I nearly didn’t fit in my double decker aircraft. For years I have
tried to go through life as unhealthy as possible, but it was time to
change that”, he says in an accent betraying his middle class origin.
A PERSONAL AIRSTRIP
The guitarist is a fervent pilot, who let build his own private mini
airport just outside of London. “I have dozens of classic aircraft,
and what is more beautiful then to fly to the sky everyday from your own
back yard? Those moments in the air give me the feeling that I don’t
even exist. It’s like playing the perfect note at the right moment on
your guitar…”
It’s clear that the front man of Pink Floyd is happy with his current
situation. The last few years, he and his second wife Polly Samson had
four children and that changed the man Gilmour. “In the period I was
with Pink Floyd, sometimes I was a grumpy person. Especially the
collisions with Roger Waters were an assault on my social behavior.”
Waters and Gilmour, they are mentioned in the same sentence often. When
Waters, creator and primary composer of the masterpiece ‘The Wall’
left the band, a hard ‘uncivil’ media war was waged. The arrogant
Waters thought he had the sole right to the brand ‘Pink Floyd’ but
the judge decided differently.
“As guitarist, singer and writer I had contributed just as much as
Roger to the success of the band”, Gilmour states. “The final
decision of the judge was no surprise to me”. To the frustration of
Waters, Pink Floyd raked in loads of money doing the ‘AMLOR and
‘TDB’ tours, this time not with him as the leader but with Gilmour.
That the three Floyds joined with Waters on Live8 is something Gilmour,
in retrospect, likes, but he is trying hard not to sound to enthusiastic
about it. “Roger was the one who never wanted a reunion. We even asked
him to join us in a new rendition of ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ in 1994
but he refused. I am someone who does not hold a grudge for very long,
but apparently Roger does and that’s why I was glad that he did not
say no to live8”.
SHAMING
By uttering the words ‘Pink Floyd’ Gilmour shifts uneasily on his
chair. Nostalgia is nice but you shouldn’t dwell on it too long. The
fact that he is able, after twelve years, to do a promotion for a
collection of new songs instead of the umpteenth Floyd compilation is
something Gilmour does like. “I think ‘On An Island’ is the best I
have done since the Pink Floyd album ‘Wish You Were Here’, but
actually that conclusion puts me to shame because that record was
released in 1975.”
“In Pink Floyd you have certain restrictions because you ‘have’ to
work with certain people and beside that you always carry the ballast of
the past. Open-mindedness is something you can’t maintain in a big
band with a huge fanbase, although I did always try to be that. In Pink
Floyd you do unconsciously make a record for all those millions of fans.
That the guitar legend, turning 60 next month, does not need Pink Floyd
anymore is caused by his fairly tender private happiness. “I remarried
and have four young children, of whom three were born after the last
Pink Floyd album. Because of them I’m extremely happy with the simple,
well organized family life, where I have to get up at 7 in the morning
to change my youngest diapers.”
“Besides that, my wife Polly is a gifted lyric writer, able to get the
best out of me. In the 18 months we worked on ‘On An Island’ we even
grew closer to each other”.
CAMPER
The title of his new album has more then one meaning according to
Gilmour. “As a human being you live on an island of the mind, but as a
rock star you usually are physically isolated too on top of that. But
the last part I have thrown off me. Last summer we went on holiday to
Southern France driving a camper moving from place to place. I got
recognized once… by a Dutchman of all people.”
You can’t call the Gilmour family entirely normal. For instance, we
don’t find a television anywhere in the houseboat. “If I look to
society on the screen, I’m truly ashamed of humanity. I don’t want
to expose my children to that. That why we rather watch dvd’s of the
Marx Brothers together, we can laugh very loudly about that.”
When Gilmour comes to Amsterdam he will be on stage with half of Pink
Floyd. Keyboardist Rick Wright, consequently called ‘Richard’ by
Gilmour joins the band on stage. “I really like to have Richard with
me. A very nice person and a true confidant.”
When we shake hands on the end of the interview I ask him if Pink Floyd
will ever be admired on stage again. He sighs “we will release the
PULSE dvd later this year. We will never tour again but there will
certainly be a moment that we will do another concert”. With Roger
Waters? “Who knows”…
Übersetzung Clemens (26.2.2006)
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