Speak to Me
Their Last Hurrah?
"When and if the Pink Floyd breaks up, Roger will probably become another Chas Chandler, staying in the business to manage other groups. Syd doesn't care about money, and isn't worried about the future. He could be a great painter or a great record producer. Nick is the most detached from the group. It would not really worry him if the Pink Floyd failed. Ambition is to be very rich and very famous, and he would like to write film scripts. Rick's ultimate ambition is to be a Cole Porter (i.e. a very successful songwriter). He has written hundreds of songs that will never be heard because he thinks that they are not worthy." - Disc magazine, July 22, 1967
interviewer: Was there any thought at that time maybe of splitting?
Wright: Um...we didn't sit round, all four of us, and say we'd split.
interviewer: You'd thought about it?
Wright: I'm sure that...yeah. It could have happened I think after Dark Side Of The Moon. It could have happened. All pressures from the business, what to write now?, what to do?, we've succeeded in everything we wanted to do, personal lives not really going so well. And Roger's sort of going through a process of divorce at the time. And all these things could have resulted in a splitting up if you like. But luckily it didn't. - The Pringle Program, Montreal Radio, December 1978
Waters: I think it was that when Dark Side of the Moon was so successful, it was the end. It was the end of the road. We'd reached the point we'd all been aiming for ever since we were teenagers and there was really nothing more to do in terms of rock and roll... And Wish You Were Here came about by us going on in spite of the fact we'd finished. - "A Rambling Conversation with Roger Waters concerning all this and that" by Nick Sedgewick, 1975
Waters I think having made it--having become very successful--was the starting point. But having made it, if we could all have accepted that's what we were in it for, we could then have all split up gracefully at that point. But we can't, and the reason we can't is... well, there are several reasons. I haven't really thought about this very carefully, but I would say one reason is: if you have a need to make it, to become, a super-hero in your own terms and a lot of other peoples as well, when you make it the need isn't dissipated--you still have the need, therefore you try to maintain your position as a superhero. I think that's true of all of us. Also, when you've been in a band eight years and you've all been working and plugging away to get to the top together its very frightening to leave, to do something else. It's nice and safe and warm and easy... basically it's easy. If the four of us now got together and put out a record that didn't have our name attached to it, it would be bloody difficult. The name 'Pink Floyd', the name not us, not the individuals in the band, but the name Pink Floyd is worth millions of pounds. The name is probably worth one million sales of album, any album we put out. Even if we just coughed a million people will have ordered it simply because of the name. And if anybody leaves, or we split up, its back to our own resources without the name. None of us are sure of our resources; an awful lot of people in rock and roll aren't sure of their resources. - "A Rambling Conversation with Roger Waters concerning all this and that" by Nick Sedgewick, 1975
Wright: There'll come a time when people won't accept Mick Jagger as a 60-year-old man prancing around. But I can see now Pink Floyd playing into their 70s. Because a Pink Floyd show is not the individuals, it's the music and the lights. Musician magazine, August 1988
Waters: Let's be fair to our public, for pity's sake, and admit the group disintegrated long ago! - Penthouse, September 1988
Gilmour: Roger spent the rest, the next year or two trying, saying, "I think we should call it quits, I think we should jack it in and say enough is enough, we've had a very good run," and I said, "Well, fine--that's your opinion but it isn't my opinion. I've had a good run I know, but I still want to have more of a good run," being a greedy sort of chap. - Australian radio interview, 1988
Mason: Roger announced that Pink Floyd was creatively dead, and he was right at one level. - New Musical Express, July 9, 1988
Waters: I didn't decide that the band would have to die. I expressed my view that that would have been the best thing. I would be distressed if Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr made records and went on the road calling themselves The Beatles. If John Lennon's not in it, it's sacrilegious. I don't want to put words into Dave's mouth but from what I've read I have a suspicion his view would be that a lot of people would hold the view that it wasn't OK to go on calling the band Pink Floyd when Syd ceased to function. The body of work that the four of us produced together post-Syd has some of that connection to the same things that The Beatles' work has a connection to, and that for me makes Pink Floyd important. And to continue with Gilmour and Mason, getting in a whole bunch of other people to write the material, seems to me an insult to the work that came before. And that's why I wanted the name to retire. - MOJO magazine, December 1999
Gilmour: ...I'm forty-eight now and I don't want to be in the studio making Pink Floyd records all my life. There are a lot of people in this business who are workaholics, and I'm not one of them. But I'm not quite ready for retirement. I tried it for a year, and it's harder work than working. - Interview Magazine, July 1994
interviewer: Will Pink Floyd go on indefinitely?
Gilmour: God, who knows? When Pete Townshend said he hoped he'd die before he got old, that was in the infancy of rock'n'roll, although that statement wasn't purely to do with music. But the general feeling in those early years was that it was a young man's business because it was a young business. Now, to me, it's a there-are-no-rules type of business, so I guess I'd have to say that we'll carry on until we don't feel like carrying on any longer. - Interview Magazine, July 1994
Gilmour: What I say to these people that suggest that we gracefully retire and leave space for new bands is that the space is there and it's up to the new bands to fill it. I don't suppose I ever imagined in 1968 that at the age of 49 I'd still be playing with Pink Floyd on a world tour, but then I don't suppose I thought it would finish in two or three years either. I thought we would keep it going as a good career for a while and then one would retire or get a proper job. I've never had to... luckily. 1995 interview in Sydney newspaper On the Street
interviewer: So, we have to ask you this question: when is it going to happen, when is Pink Floyd going to get back together?
Wright: I hate to say when, because it may not happen when, but all I can say is that I am pretty sure, that within the next year we will be playing together in the studio.
interviewer: Really? The rumour that we've heard is that it'll be the year 2001.
Wright: Yeah, well... that's too long away!
interviewer: There was something that showed up, I don't know, in the paper somewhere...
Wright: Well, yeah, I did the calculations, and I maybe started this rumour that the band works in seven-year cycles, so if the tour finished in '94, you add seven and it makes it 2001. But I really think we will be doing it before then. - Vancouver radio interview, December 5, 1996
Wright: There has been no formal discussions, but I have a feeling that Dave is ready to do another album. We don't have anything to prove, but we still enjoy creating albums, we still enjoy going out on the road, I certainly do, so the future of Pink Floyd I think pretty soon will be recording the next album and out of that a tour would happen. I would not be content that the Division Bell was the final Floyd effort. I would like to see it carry on. - Canoe internet interview, December 1996
question: Nick, will be there a new Floyd album, or have you retired?
Mason: No plans for a new PF album, I hope we're still too young to retire. - public IRC chat., September 3, 1998
David Letterman:What is the current status of the group?
Mason: We're still together, but we're not working very hard at the moment. - The Late Show with David Letterman, 1998
fan: When's the next Floyd album?
Gilmour: Who gives a fuck? - June 22, 2001
interviewer: Have Pink Floyd split up?
Gilmour: I cant see anything in the near future myself, I've been enjoying doing things on a different scale, downsizing a bit. I feel no need to do a big tour again-if ever, at my hugely advanced age. - MOJO magazine, October 2001
Gilmour: I never want to say we're done completely, but we may be. With the length of time since we've done something together, it just doesn't feel like something I've missed very much. I don't want to be touring anymore. I'm fifty-five; it's a young man's game. - Rolling Stone magazine, November 13, 2001