Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour has claimed that he was “bullied” into making the band’s final album The Endless River, which was released in 2014.
Speaking to the LA Times, Gilmour reveals that the record – which comprises mainly instrumental and ambient music composed of material recorded during sessions for their previous album, 1994’s The Division Bell – was not initially intended to be a proper studio release.
“When we did that album, there was a thing that Andy Jackson, our engineer, had put together called ‘The Big Spliff’ – a collection of all these bits and pieces of jams that was out there on bootlegs. A lot of fans wanted this stuff that we’d done in that time, and we thought we’d give it to them,” he says.
“My mistake, I suppose, was in being bullied by the record company to have it out as a properly paid-for Pink Floyd record,” Gilmour adds. “It should have been clear what it was – it was never intended to be the follow-up to The Division Bell. But, you know, it’s never too late to get caught in one of these traps again.”
During the chat, Gilmour also discusses Pink Floyd’s $400 million catalogue sale to Sony, and the reason he isn’t bothered about the band’s music being used in ways he doesn’t like.
“I’m an old person. I’ve spent the last 40-odd years trying to fight the good fight against the forces of indolence and greed to do the best with our stuff that you can do. And I’ve given that fight up now,” says the musician.
“The arguments and fighting and idiocies that have been going on for the last 40 years between these four disparate groups of people and their managers and whatever — it’s lovely to say goodbye to.”
In other news, David Gilmour recently released Luck and Strange, his first solo album since 2015, and is now on a world tour in support of the new record.
The musician has also slammed Oasis’ promoters amid the controversy over pricing for the Britpop band’s reunion tour next year, saying, “Oasis should put a price on tickets and stick to it.”
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