The day after Wright’s death, talked to Floyd drummer Nick Mason about his colleague and friend of more than 40 years.

How important was Rick to Pink Floyd?

NICK MASON: The reality is, like any band, you can never quite quantify who does what. But Pink Floyd wouldn’t have been Pink Floyd if [we] hadn’t had Rick. I think there’s a feeling now -- particularly after all the warfare that went on with Roger and David trying to make clear what their contribution was -- that perhaps Rick rather got pushed into the background. Because the sound of Pink Floyd is more than the guitar, bass, and drum thing. Rick was the sound that knitted it all together.

 

That seems to have been particularly true in the band’s early, musically adventurous, days.

NICK MASON: Yeah. He had a very special style. He probably did more than I did in terms of not worrying too much about tempo, to the point where eventually we did produce arrhythmic pieces. That was, I think, probably rather ground-breaking in 1967.

 

What was he like on a personal level?

NICK MASON: [Laughs] he was very like...Rick! Really. He was by far the quietest of the band, right from day one. And, I think, probably harder to get to know than the rest of us. But after 40 years, we probably felt we did know him quite well. We were just beginning to make inroads, perhaps.

 

Would this be an example of the British stiff upper lip at work?

NICK MASON: Well, we did talk to each other. But we spent an awful lot of time sort of teasing each other, really, and winding each other up. It’s that curious thing. You form a gang. And so, to the outside world, you mount a united front. But four guys in a car, you spend an awful lot of time arguing and bickering and not being very creative.

 

Do you have a particularly fond memory of Rick?

NICK MASON: I have to say that I think a number of our memories have to do with the ways that we all dealt with money. The first meeting with Roger I wouldn’t lend him my car and Rick wouldn’t give him a cigarette. And really we just carried on exactly like that for the next 40 years.

 

And Roger’s been punishing you ever since.

NICK MASON: Yeah, absolutely. But he’s beginning to get over it we think.

 

Can you remember the first time you met Rick?

NICK MASON: Well, it was '62 because we were all (studying) architecture together. He looked like an architect but he had no interest in architecture whatsoever, and within months, as far as I remember, he was off to music college, which is exactly where he should have gone in the first place.

 

What was he like back then?

NICK MASON: Exactly the same. Of course, with the people you really know, no one changes that much. Roger was a rather sort of forbidding presence in 1962 and he hasn’t changed at all. He’s just got a bit more grizzled. And Rick was the quiet one then, as it was throughout.

 

He also wrote a fair amount of songs for the Floyd.

NICK MASON: Something like "Us And Them" was absolutely a Rick piece. It’s almost that George Harrison thing. You sort of forget that they did a lot more than perhaps they’re given credit for.

 

Well, you have our condolences and sorry to bother you at a time like this.

NICK MASON: No, it’s absolutely fine. I’d rather talk about him, I think, than not.