Inside Out (26 page)

After his work on the tour, we brought Brian Humphries in as engineer. It was still highly unusual for anyone to import a
non-EMI
engineer in to Abbey Road, and Brian encountered a few teething problems as he familiarised himself with the set-up, once
accidentally and irreversibly flooding the backing track with echo, a track Roger and I had spent many hours perfecting.

There were a few niggling differences between us, none significant in their own right, but enough to make life in the studio
a lot less constructive than it had always been before. Punctuality became an issue. If two of us were on time and the others
were late, we were quite capable of working ourselves up into a righteous fury. The following day the roles could easily be
reversed. None of us was free of blame.

The success of the previous album had also brought its own dark side. We were all a little more conscious of how much had
been contributed by each member of the band, and the credit (and share of the benefits) being doled out. There was more money
involved now. Our publishing had been reorganised under the guidance of Peter Barnes with the setting up of Pink Floyd Music
Publishing in 1973. For a group to own its own publishing company was still unusual – even the Beatles only owned part of
Northern Songs – as was the ability to collect direct from overseas partners. This decision was justified when it was found
that EMI had forgotten to collect a six-figure sum in overseas income over the previous three years.

The royalties from the record sales of
The Dark Side Of The Moon
were starting to flow through, although it was a gradual process. Lindy and I upgraded our house, moving from Camden to Highgate,
but the fact we still had a relative lack of worldly goods was proved by the fact we managed the move with the help of a transit
van and one of the road crew – no fleet of pantechnicons required. As the four of us acquired larger properties, we were able
to draw on the skills of a group of creative designers, carpenters and artisans who not only worked on the
house improvements, but also became involved in working on our shows. I was also finally able to indulge my passion for motor
racing and started up a car restoration business with the Aston Martin specialist Derrick Edwards.

Despite any problems, we did now have the beginnings of a piece, ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, devised in rehearsal in 1974,
and developed during both rehearsals and shows that year. Roger had added lyrics to a poignant and mournful guitar theme of
David’s and the song had been a staple part of the autumn tour of the UK, opening the first half with two other songs of Roger’s,
‘Raving And Drooling’ and ‘Gotta Be Crazy’, which we decided not to work on, but set to one side for the time being – Roger
already had come up with the overall idea of ‘absence’ for the album, and it was clear that those two songs had no place within
the concept.

The intro to ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, the opening track of the new album, contained the only remnant from the ‘Household
Objects’ sessions: we had used an old party trick of filling wine glasses with varying levels of water and then running a
finger round the rim to create a singing tone. These tones were then put on to sixteen-track tape and mixed down in chord
clusters so that each fader controlled an individual chord. In fact, although we didn’t use it, the glass harmonica, an instrument
using a keyboard to control spinning glass plates, had been invented to achieve the same effect.

We took a break from the studio work on these new pieces to undertake a tour of the States in April 1975. Some lessons had
been learnt – our stage show benefited from a much higher professional input. Previously our special effects had been a dangerous
mixture of imagination and passing acquaintance with the pyrotechnic arts. During one earlier gig at the Cobo Hall in Detroit,
an over-enthusiastic application of flash powder coupled
with a stage weight containing an air bubble in the casting nearly ended our careers in one bang. At the salient point in
‘Careful With That Axe’, instead of the boom and flash we expected there was an explosion of monumental proportions which
blew out the cones of virtually every speaker we had, leaving the remainder of the show sounding rather thin. Alarmingly,
pieces of shrapnel flew overhead hitting at least one member of the audience who fortunately refused to be hospitalised, and
took a T-shirt in lieu of damages. Our road manager Chris Adamson remembers that the blast sent Roger’s bass speakers ten
rows into the empty seats behind the stage, and the road crew spent the following day rewiring all the cabinets before the
next show.

On another occasion, at a gig at the Boston Gardens, squads of fire marshals were positioned around the venue to prevent us
letting off unauthorised pyrotechnics. Show time arrived with no pyro in sight. In fact, it had all been secreted in boxes
ready for individual members of the road crew to abandon their innocent demeanour and make a strategic dash to detonate a
particular charge. The marshals began to rumble this tactic, but the crew were one step ahead. As one sprinting roadie was
rugger-tackled by a hefty marshal, another explosion revealed that this had been a diversionary ruse. It was only our manager’s
Irish name and connections in Boston that stopped us all being locked up.

However, for the 1975 American tour we had fortunately acquired the services of Derek Meddings, the doyen of special effects,
who was responsible for some of the best ever explosions in the James Bond movies. It was invaluable having access to Derek’s
know-how. His Bond connection gave us so much more clout with the fire marshals: they realised we knew what we were doing.
His involvement also underlined the increasing sophistication and professionalism of the road crew.

In May and June we returned to the studios to push on with
Wish You Were Here.
We heard that the veteran jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli and the classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin were recording downstairs
in Abbey Road and someone offered to make the introduction. It seemed an obvious idea to ask them to play. We thought they
might have something to add to the title track, which – being essentially acoustic – seemed the most suitable vehicle. Both
were pleased to be asked, and Stephane volunteered to take up the challenge. Yehudi preferred to stand listening to Stephane’s
sinuous jazz violin. It was just an experiment, and instead of running anything off onto two-track to keep, we simply recorded
over the multi-track when we needed it for something else, once we had decided the addition of the violin didn’t work.

A more enduring guest appearance was by Roy Harper. Roy was a blend of poet and troubadour in the tradition of great English
eccentrics. He was part of Peter Jenner and Andrew King’s Blackhill stable and a fellow EMI artist, and he was recording his
album,
HQ,
at Abbey Road. We were having problems deciding how to sing ‘Have A Cigar’. Roger was not happy with his vocal delivery.
Rick and I thought David should sing the track, but he too was not sure he could do it justice. Roy had popped in to the control
room – we would occasionally drop in to each other’s sessions – and volunteered to sing the part. At the time, this seemed
a good solution, although I think Roger in particular later regretted not doing the vocal, especially as he was increasingly
feeling that it was important that he should sing the songs he had written.

It was during these sessions at Abbey Road, on 5th June, that we had one totally unexpected visitor. I strolled into the control
room from the studio, and noticed a large fat bloke with a shaven head, wearing a decrepit old tan mac. He was carrying a
plastic shopping
bag and had a fairly benign, but vacant, expression on his face. His appearance would not have generally gained him admittance
beyond studio reception, so I assumed that he must have been a friend of one of the engineers. Eventually David asked me if
I knew who he was. Even then I couldn’t place him, and had to be told. It was Syd. More than twenty years later I can still
remember that rush of confusion.

I was horrified by the physical change. I still had a vision of the character I had last seen seven years earlier, six stone
lighter, with dark curly hair and an ebullient personality. My memory was less of the wasted Syd who’d left the band in 1968,
but much more of the character we knew when he came down to London from Cambridge, who played that distinctive Fender Esquire
with its reflecting discs, had a wardrobe full of Thea Porter shirts and was accompanied by his beautiful blonde girlfriend.

Now he didn’t seem like a man who appeared to have any particular friends at all. His conversation was desultory and not entirely
sensible, though to be fair I don’t think any of us was particularly articulate. Why he was there I’ve no idea. He wasn’t
invited and I hadn’t seen him since he’d left the band in 1968, although in 1970 Roger, Rick and David had worked on Syd’s
two solo albums, Roger and David on
The Madcap Laughs
and David and Rick on
Barrett.
Syd was still living in London – he took a suite at the Hilton Hotel at one stage – and had obviously heard we would be at
work in Abbey Road. His arrival suddenly and unexpectedly brought back a whole part of the life of the band. Guilt was one
feeling. We had all played some part in bringing Syd to his present state, either through denial, a lack of responsibility,
insensitivity or downright selfishness.

To have met Syd in the street would have been disconcerting, but coming across him without warning in the studio environment
was particularly alarming. The fact that it wasn’t just
any studio but Studio 3 at Abbey Road, the site of most of his greatest work, and at one time his territory as much as anyone
else’s, added to the poignancy. It is very easy to try and draw parallels with any Peter Pan returning to find the house still
there and the people changed. Did he expect to find us as we had been seven years earlier, ready to start work with him again?

We tried to continue the recording session, playing back the piece we were working on (legend has it that this was ‘Shine
On You Crazy Diamond’ – the track most influenced by Syd’s presence, or absence – although I’m not sure it actually was),
but all of us were a little disturbed by his arrival. Syd listened to the playback, and was asked to comment. I don’t remember
him voicing any particular opinion, but when it was suggested that we run the track again Syd asked what the point would be
since we had only just heard it…

Phil Taylor was there on the day Syd visited. He found himself in the canteen at Abbey Road, sitting at a table with David
and Syd. David asked Syd what he was up to. ‘Well,’ said Syd. ‘I’ve got a colour telly, and a fridge. I’ve got some pork chops
in the fridge, but the chops keep going off, so I have to keep buying more.’ Later Phil, driving away from the studios, saw
Syd looking for a lift, but wasn’t sure he could handle the conversation and ducked down as he went past.

Apart from the weirdness of his arrival at that stage and in that environment, we should credit his presence as a catalyst
to the piece. The lyrics were already written, but Syd’s visit underscored the melancholy of them, and maybe influenced the
final version of the song. I still find the most affecting moment on the whole record is where the last notes fade out and
Rick introduces a wistful rubato line, on high notes, from ‘See Emily Play’.

After the success of
Dark Side,
we were able to pursue some more elaborate ideas with Storm and Hipgnosis. Storm presented
four or five ideas tying into themes contained within the album – including the man swimming through sand, the frozen dive,
the burning businessman and the flying veil – and rather than have to plump for one we decided to retain them all.

When the recording was complete, we turned our attention to the live shows. Deciding that we would bring in a director to
shoot more specific footage for the back projections, we signed up the Hungarian director Peter Medak, whose previous films
had included
A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg
and
The Ruling Class,
and he reshot ‘Money’ and ‘On The Run’. Using a professional film director reflected our desire to move up another gear,
and we used the same logic in asking Gerald Scarfe to create the animation.

We had first met Gerry through his brother-in-law Peter Asher, who we had known since the Sixties, when he was part of the
duo called Peter and Gordon which had a hit in America with ‘Lady Godiva’ and ‘World Without Love’. Peter was always helpful
when we asked his advice, even if we didn’t follow it; after his own performing career ended he became a very successful manager
looking after James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt.

I had seen a wonderful hand-coloured piece of animation that Gerry Scarfe had done called ‘Long Drawn-Out Trip’ for a BBC
programme, and when we were looking for new ideas for film he immediately sprang to mind. As Gerry is a very civilised man
with clear opinions on politics and life, and the kind of black sense of humour that fitted in with ours, we soon established
a good working relationship. He created images and film sequences amongst which were a human figure being eroded by the wind,
and a surreal armadillo-like monster, both of which accompanied ‘Welcome To The Machine’. As with Derek Meddings, Gerry’s
involvement was proof that commercial success had given us the chance to work with the best people in their fields.

During June 1975 we had returned to America on tour. We were
trying to incorporate more and more complex effects. Of these, the inflatable pyramid was perhaps our most spectacular disaster.
Roger, drawing on the architectural education the British taxpayer had kindly funded, had conceived a pyramid-shaped stage
with an inflatable roof, thus solving all the design problems of the size of stage we required as well as providing protection
from the weather at the same time. We applauded his vision, and thought it would look marvellous. The icing on the cake was,
that as a climax to the show, the pyramid would gracefully ascend into the heavens on the end of a rope cable, delighting
the assembled multitude below. Roger’s design demanded pillars at each of the four corners reaching over forty feet high,
a base size of some six hundred square feet (the size of a decent house), an overall height of eighty feet and a volume of
helium sufficient for a Zeppelin. The slightest breath of wind would set the entire structure shuddering and wobbling in a
manner not dissimilar to the way London’s Millennium Bridge flexed when it was first opened.