Inside Out (30 page)

There was a relatively small but over-excited group in the audience close to the stage, who were probably high on chemicals
and definitely low on attentiveness. Being right at the front they were audible and defined our sense of the audience’s mood.
During the break between a couple of numbers, this group were shouting out suggestions for songs. When Roger’s eye was caught
by one particularly vocal member of the claque yelling, ‘Play “Careful With That Axe”, Roger,’ he finally lost patience, and
spat at the offender.

This was more than unusual, it was weird. Roger had always been the spokesman on stage since Syd’s departure, and handled
the introductions, the gaps in proceedings when the projectors broke down or the hecklers with some aplomb, and often with
some droll observations. This incident just indicated that establishing any kind of bond with the audience was becoming increasingly
difficult.

Roger was not alone in feeling depressed about this show. Over the years we had evolved a definitive final encore, where we
played a slow twelve-bar blues while the crew gradually removed all the
equipment and instruments, leaving one lone, silent musician to walk off stage. On this occasion, David was so upset by the
mood of the concert that he refused even to take part in the encore.

Although the spitting incident was unnerving at the time, it did serve to set Roger’s creative wheels spinning, and he developed
the outline for a show based around the concept of an audience both physically and mentally separated from their idols. Whether
the confrontation in Montreal had any life-changing impact on the hapless spat-upon fan remains unknown; suffice to say that
he has never employed a lawyer, nor claimed any royalties for creative inspiration.

The Wall
as a piece represents a large amount of material spread across a range of media: the record, the concerts – enhanced with
film, stage effects and props – and a movie. This had been Roger’s intention from the outset. He had already shown his fondness
for exploring the possibilities of multimedia, but
The Wall
took things considerably further. The whole project also covered a large amount of time, a period of work that actually lasted
from mid-1978, when Roger was creating the initial version, until 1982, with the release of the movie.

Roger had learnt from experience that one maxim for work was to know when the time was right to push an idea ahead. At some
point during 1978 he clearly felt that it was that time and set to work in his home studio. By the time he played the results
to us – I remember going to his house on at least one occasion to listen to them, and he also brought the tapes into Britannia
Row – he actually had two records roughed out, one being
The Wall
and the other
The Pros And Cons Of Hitch-hiking.

Although it later underwent an enormous transformation, and in fact Roger ended up rewriting the whole piece in France, the
Wall
demo contained sufficient clarity and enough concepts – some only in outline form, others relatively well fleshed out – for
us all to understand that this had much more potential than just an album. Equally we all felt less inspired by
The Pros And Cons Of Hitch-hiking;
it seemed better left for Roger to do on his own (which he did in 1984).
The Wall,
it was obvious even then, was a major new work – and I think we could all imagine ourselves performing it. It was also a
huge relief for us to be presented with such a complete concept so early in the process.

On one of the demo tracks I could hear myself cursing down the phone. Roger had needed a ringing telephone tone as a rhythm,
and assuming I was out, had called my home number without bothering to check whether I was there or not. I had picked up the
phone and initially thought it was a crank call, since it seemed there was a madman crooning on the other end of the line
– hence my swearing. Some time later, it transpired that this had been Roger singing away. Meanwhile, both of us remained
confused for some time.

Steve O’Rourke also listened to the demos: he was the only one able (or honest enough) to remember selecting
Pros And Cons
as his favoured piece. This continued the time-honoured tradition of allowing us to sneer at the management’s musical taste,
but in Steve’s defence it must be remembered that the demos of
The Wall
did not yet contain any of the well-known songs, such as ‘Run Like Hell’ or ‘Comfortably Numb’.

The level of contributions by other members of the band would become a bone of contention. Perhaps the very completeness of
Roger’s demo made it difficult for David or Rick to contribute much. But certainly David later felt that his musical contribution,
especially to ‘Run Like Hell’ and ‘Comfortably Numb’ was not being fairly recognised. This potential volcano of future discord
was, however, still dormant when we started making rough versions of some of the tracks for
The Wall
at Britannia Row during the autumn of 1978.

When work began we were short of an engineer. I think we felt that Brian Humphries was now completely exhausted, and suffering
an extreme case of Floyd burn-out. Alan Parsons was now the Alan Parsons Project and Nick Griffiths was felt to be still a
relatively unknown quantity, so we started looking and asking round for a young but talented engineer with a track record
who could bring a different approach to our sound. In the end Alan recommended James Guthrie, who had been producing and engineering
a number of bands including Heatwave, The Movies and Judas Priest as well as a band called Runner. James’s track record, particularly
an instantly identifiable shimmering audio edge he had brought to his work with Runner, suggested that he could add a fresh,
brighter feel to our work.

Steve O’Rourke asked James to come in to his office. James had little knowledge of who Steve managed or what he wanted to
talk about. He says that Steve had two projects he wanted to discuss. One was Tom Robinson, the other Pink Floyd. ‘I calmly
picked my jaw up from the ground, composed myself and nodded professionally, but my heart was racing. Steve said that the
band had listened to some of my work and were interested in meeting me. He stressed that this would be a co-production. I
thought, “These guys have been producing themselves since I was in school. I have no problem with that.”’ James met Roger
whom he recalls as ‘courteous and serious, carefully analysing my every word and gesture’. They discussed Roger’s concept
for
The Wall
and James was sent a copy of the demo.

The infinitely patient James was a complementary counterbalance to the extremely energetic and often irascible Bob Ezrin.
Although we had produced
Dark Side
and
Wish You Were Here
ourselves, Roger had decided to import Bob as a co-producer and collaborator. Bob was an established producer who had worked
on a number of Alice Cooper albums and Lou Reed’s
Berlin.
He had been introduced to us via Roger’s second wife Carolyne, who had worked for Bob, and in fact had taken him along to
the show in Hamilton, Ontario, where we exploded the scoreboard.

On the same occasion Bob had also brought along a friend who was a psychoanalyst as well as a fan of the band. After seeing
Roger cut his foot after the show in a mock fight with Steve, the psychoanalyst had suggested it might be a good idea if he
joined the tour as a permanent crew member… James Guthrie has astutely remarked that once he had been deemed trustworthy,
it was like becoming accepted in a family, ‘albeit a very dysfunctional family’, as he recalls me once saying.

Bob clearly remembers his first visit to meet us at Britannia Row. He was late, because not thinking to lay on a car from
the airport for him, we had simply told him to rent a car and fight his way across central London. Eventually locating the
studios, the first person Bob met was a haggard Brian Humphries, coming down the stairs. Brian looked awful; he saw Bob and
said,
‘They
did this to me…’ When Bob entered the room we were in, he was greeted by the sight of Roger pointedly tapping his watch.
Bob maintains he later took Roger to one side and said, ‘I already have a father; don’t ever do that to me in public again.’
Steve O’Rourke arrived to find a somewhat tense atmosphere, a whole conference of producers, and Bob threatening to walk out.
Oil was poured and Bob placated.

As we settled into recording, we started looking for new ambiences. We tried to achieve something of a live auditorium sound,
by recording some of the drums in a vast open space at the top of Britannia Row, the glass-roofed, wooden-floored room which
housed Roger’s precious billiards table. Since the room was totally lacking in any soundproofing or noise deadening, the other
occupants of the building may not have totally appreciated the
experience. Not only could they hear nothing but the drums, deprived of any backing track and out of any musical context,
but once the drums started, they had no idea of how long this devilish racket would last.

Still, unlike early rehearsals, we owned the building and so were not receptive to grievances, rather like the guy in the
Continental Hyatt House in Los Angeles (known as the ‘Continental Riot House’) who after a request to his neighbour to turn
down the noise found three men trying to break down his door in order to kill him. A phone call down to reception elicited
the rather unhelpful advice that, ‘This hotel caters to the music business. We don’t accept complaints.’

For the first time the drum sound on
The Wall
was kept intact throughout the recording process. The drums and bass were initially recorded on an analogue 16-track machine,
and mixed down to two tracks on a 24-track machine for the overdubs, retaining the original recording for the final mix. This
avoided the inevitable degradation that occurs with the tapes being constantly played for the addition of the other instruments
and vocals.

However, although Britannia Row had been adequate for recording
Animals,
it now became clear that it was not up to the task for
The Wall.
We had already installed a large quantity of replacement equipment. This was primarily due to Bob and James wanting to upgrade
it to their own demanding standards, and it seemed that everyone who arrived to work on the production side also brought along
their own preferred piece of kit. We soon had a new Stephens 24-track in place, and the existing monitors were also swiftly
replaced.

After all this work and respecification, we had to up sticks and change our recording venue anyway, as external events overtook
us. This was the period when our business affairs outside the band exploded. We had brought in a financial adviser in the
shape of
Norman Lawrence to administer the Britannia Row studios at the suggestion of Norton Warburg, the company who had been handling
our investments. Norman, although ostensibly a Norton Warburg man, began to notice that there was something very wrong in
the whole set-up, and started to investigate.

The truth that emerged was that Norton Warburg had been siphoning off funds from their investments company, an apparently
gilt-edged set-up, to underwrite the disastrous venture capital side, all those skateboards, pizzas and dodgy cars. Eventually
the company founder Andrew Warburg fled to Spain, returning to England in 1982, where he was arrested, charged, and served
three years. A lot of people lost their money. Because Norton Warburg had been approved by reputable organisations such as
American Express and the Bank of England many people had put their entire life savings or pensions in. The widows and pensioners
were not going to have any further opportunities to go back to work. We were lucky that we still had the potential to work
again.

All of these business problems had little to do with our music. But the ramifications had a significant impact on the decisions
we had to make about our next album. We discovered that we had lost in the region of £1 million between the four of us. The
losses in the venture capital companies were frighteningly large, and since we had been investing pre-tax funds – the whole
point of the exercise – we now had a huge tax exposure, which, according to our financial advisers, could have been anywhere
between £5 million and £12 million.

The problem was exacerbated by the fact that rather than having a single venture capital company, we had decided that each
of us would have our own individual one. The ramifications of that decision quadrupled – at the very least – the tax implications.
The suggestion was put to us that we should become non-resident
in the UK for one year so that we could earn some money and replenish the dwindling coffers, and provide some time for our
accountants and tax specialists to salvage something from the wreckage. The whole experience cast an enormous cloud over us.
We had always prided ourselves on being smart enough not to be caught out like this. We saw ourselves as educated, middle
class, in control of everything. We had been utterly wrong.

The answer was exile. Showing an alacrity that the Great Train Robbers might have admired, within two or three weeks we were
packed and on the way. It seemed by far the best option. The tax residence rules meant we had to leave the UK before 6th April
1979 and not come back until after 5th April the following year, not even for the briefest of visits. This exile option was
actually seized on with glee by a number of rock bands, who were grateful to benefit from the government’s apparent largesse.
In our case, it was simply essential. On later tours we were able to take advantage of a rule that involved staying abroad
for at least 365 days, but with some visits back allowed (a wheeze originally introduced by the Labour government of the 1970s
to encourage exports and benefit oilmen working out in the Middle East).

The prospect of not only one year of tax-free income to pay the debts, but also the opportunity to make a new start on our
music without the distractions of lawyers and accountants, was irresistible. In any case Bob felt that the comfortable family
home life that we were all enjoying in the UK was another factor in slowing down the process of making a hard-edged rock opus.
We almost welcomed the chance to go overseas to escape. Like naughty children abandoning an untidy playroom, we were able
to leave the financial mess behind for the professionals to clear up.