From our first day, Norman encouraged us to get involved in the whole production process. He was aware of our interest in
the science and technology of recording when, in his words, ‘most bands at the time were just trying to be part of the Mersey
Sound bandwagon’.
At the time the Abbey Road Studios (officially the EMI Studios) were an odd mixture of conservatism and radicalism. The company
also had a huge engineering department where they built many of their own recording machines, mixing desks and outboard gear.
Recording took place on four-track machines,
which was then mixed down onto ¼” mono or stereo tape. All editing was carried out by trainees using little brass scissors,
in order to prevent any magnetism affecting the sound. The whole building was painted throughout in a shade of green that
I can only imagine was inspired by the KGB headquarters in the Lubyanka.
Very much like the BBC, this type of organisation produced a wealth of good engineers. They had become well versed in the
techniques required to record every sort of instrument and ensemble, and were unfazed by recording rock music one day and
Herbert von Karajan with an eighty-piece orchestra the next. There was, though, a sharp divide between classical and pop in
the upper echelons; although the pop releases were subsidising the classical recordings, the staff who created them were treated
like other ranks by the top brass. The chairman, Sir Joseph Lockwood, must take a lot of credit for bringing down this antiquated
hierarchy. To put things in context, two years before he joined EMI, the board had decided there was ‘no future’ in the long-playing
record.
One of the features of such a well-equipped studio as Abbey Road was that since electronic effect machines had still to be
invented, the empire owned vast quantities of instruments that were scattered around the studios. Bell pianos, Hammond organs,
clavinets, tympani, gongs, triangles, Chinese blocks, temple bells and wind machines were there to be used (and can be heard
throughout
Piper
and
A Saucerful Of Secrets,
as well as, I believe, numerous Beatles records). An extensive sound-effect library was also available, as well as purpose-built,
tile-lined echo chambers that we especially favoured for recording footsteps.
Although my memory is that the recording for
Piper
went pretty smoothly, that there was general enthusiasm from everybody and that Syd seemed to be more relaxed and the
atmosphere more focused, Norman Smith disagrees. ‘It was never easy on my part. I always felt I was treading on this ice the
whole time, and I had to watch exactly what I said to Syd. He was always terribly fragile. He would perhaps have laid down
a vocal track and I would go up to him and say, “OK, Syd, that was basically good, but what about blah, blah, blah?” I never
got any response, just “Hum, hum”. We would run the tape again, and he would sing it exactly the same way. We could have done
a hundred takes of the vocal track and it would always have been the same. There was a certain stubbornness in the man’s make-up.’
We were finishing songs in one or two days in the studio, where sessions were firmly regimented – three-hour blocks, morning,
afternoon and evening, with lunch and tea breaks strictly adhered to – and then heading off to do some gigs during the rest
of the week. The ease of recording was in part due to the fact that we were effectively recording our live set, and listening
to
Piper
now gives a rough indication of the set list we’d been playing at UFO and the Roundhouse, although the studio versions –
to fulfil the demands of the three-minute track – were inevitably shorter, with more concisely constructed solos.
However, some of the more whimsical songs on the album may have been advisedly dropped from the set when we faced the menacing
crowds at places like the California Ballroom: God knows what they would have made of the gnome called Grimble Gromble. Finding
replacement songs was not a problem, though. Andrew recalls, ‘Syd was writing at a rate of knots. Songs were pouring out of
him, as often happens; there’s a point where the writing suddenly erupts. Some people can sustain it, others cannot.’
‘Interstellar Overdrive’ is an example of a piece that on vinyl (as was) is a cut-down version of the way it was played at
gigs. ‘Interstellar’ had formed a central plank of our live shows ever since Powis Gardens. Based around Syd’s riff, the piece
would
generally be played with different elements structured in the same order each time. On the album it runs to less than ten
minutes; live it could have lasted as long as twenty minutes. The trick was to construct these songs again so that they worked
within the limitations of what was then a traditional song length. An added problem was that within a live performance there
would inevitably be good and bad moments each time the song was played, particularly with the improvisational sections. A
recording, on the other hand, has to be able to bear repeated listening. The two versions are of necessity very different
beasts.
On the other, more structured songs, Norman was able to bring his production skills to bear, adding arrangements and harmonies
and making use of the effects that could be engineered through the mixing desk and outboard equipment. He also helped to reveal
all the possibilities contained in Abbey Road’s collection of instruments and sound effects. Once we realised their potential
we quickly started introducing all kinds of extraneous elements, from the radio voice cutting into ‘Astronomy Domine’ to the
clocks on the outro of ‘Bike’. This flirtation
with ‘musique concrète’
was by no means unique – George ‘Shadow’ Morton had already used a motorbike on the Shangri-Las’ ‘The Leader Of The Pack’
– but it was a relative novelty at the time, and from then on became a regular element in our creative process.
Since Norman had worked with the Beatles it was predictable that at some stage of the recording we would get an audience with
their eminences. Apart from anything else, we were between us taking up unprecedented amounts of Abbey Road’s studio resources,
and consequently it had become almost a residency for both bands. When we realised that we wanted to spend more time in the
studio, we renegotiated our deal with EMI, taking a cut in our percentage from 8 per cent to 5 per cent in exchange for unlimited
studio time.
We were ushered into Studio 2, where the Fab Four were busy recording ‘Lovely Rita’. The music sounded wonderful, and incredibly
professional, but, in the same way we survived the worst of our gigs, we were enthused rather than completely broken by the
experience. It is hard to explain just how oddly confident we managed to remain, considering our inexperience and lack of
technical proficiency. There was little if any banter with the Beatles. We sat humbly, and humbled, at the back of the control
room while they worked on the mix, and after a suitable (and embarrassing) period of time had elapsed, we were ushered out
again. Whenever the Beatles took over Abbey Road, there was definitely a sense of occasion, as their entourage cocooned them
in an exotic micro-climate within the confines of the studio.
Piper
was released in August 1967. Peter Jenner was impressed by Norman Smith’s contribution: ‘Norman was great. He managed to
make a fantastic, very commercial record, condensing what Pink Floyd was doing into three minutes, without destroying the
weird musicality, or the quirky nature of Syd’s writing.’ However, Peter still does not know what the album sold. ‘I was only
interested in singles, no idea how the album did – a sign of my naivety.’ By the time the album came out, though, the underground
movement, which had helped us on our way, was starting to totter under the onslaught of commercial pressures.
The business community had latched on to the new craze for psychedelia and every pop show, dance and sing-song was now being
advertised as a freak-out. The alternative spellings alone were something to behold. By mid-April Peter, Andrew and ourselves
had felt obliged to run a spoof ad entitled ‘Freak Out-Schmeak Out’ to poke fun at them, but even so promoters who were jumping
on the bandwagon, or just plain dumb, failed to get the joke, and their ads were still blithely using the line ‘Turn up, shell
out, get lost’ – a variation on the LSD guru Timothy Leary’s
‘Turn on, tune in, drop out’. The original concept of everyone making their own entertainment had already gone to the wall
in favour of a commodity that could be sold.
The instigators of the underground were also under attack. In a heavy-handed show of force by the establishment,
IT
had been taken to court on charges of obscenity. Hoppy was jailed for possession of marijuana and sent down to Wormwood Scrubs
for six months, the severity of his sentence causing a considerable outcry. The crowd at UFO had changed: although Joe Boyd
– ever the sharp promoter – had the Move and the Floyd drawing huge crowds on consecutive weekends in June, the audiences
the gigs were attracting were now turning up to observe the phenomenon rather than participate.
An unexpected development was that the tabloid press had got hold of the notion of a dangerous counter-culture and put the
boot in. Earlier in the year a story ran in the
News Of The World
about the sordid goings-on at UFO – as a result of which the club ran into considerable difficulties – and mentioning those
dangerous subversives the Pink Floyd. Suddenly this was sex and drugs and rock and roll. What made it particularly galling
was that I hadn’t experienced any of this good stuff they were talking about. In fact, the article had failed to uncover anything
of importance and had mistakenly reported that we had referred to ourselves as ‘social deviants’. The word ‘deviant’ has frequently
been a trigger for tabloid journalists; in this particular case the reporter had got over-excited at seeing the phrase ‘social
deviants’ on one of our posters. What he had failed to realise was that this was not a description of ourselves, but the name
of our support band, a group led by Mick Farren. Lawyers were instructed, and eventually a meeting was held. We were subjected
to the Mr Nice and Mr Nasty routine and agreed meekly to the standard apology in type
this big
on the back page.
The press had missed the real story: that our front man, guitarist and songwriter was beginning to unravel in a serious way.
We weren’t oblivious to the fact, but from our point of view Syd was having good days and bad days, and the bad days seemed
to be increasing in number. Blinkered by our desire to be a successful band, we were determined to convince ourselves that
he’d grow out of this phase. Other people around us had a clearer view. June Child was matter of fact about it: ‘Syd took
a lot of acid. Lots of people can take some acid and cope with it in their lives, but if you take three or four trips a day,
and you do that every day…’
Syd was living in a flat on the Cromwell Road, which Peter Jenner remembers as ‘the catastrophic flat where Syd got acided
out’. We never ventured inside – just picking Syd up for rehearsals or gigs, and not coming into contact with the other inhabitants.
The rumour was that you should never accept a drink there, not even a glass of water, unless you poured it yourself, because
everything was spiked. It was not a world the rest of us frequented. At that point, Roger, Rick and I were still loyal to
the student culture of beer and occasional spirits. We were much more aware of the effects Syd’s lifestyle was having on our
performances.
At the ‘14-Hour Technicolour Dream’, Syd had been as tired as the rest of us, but his symptoms were much more severe. June
Child had looked after him: ‘First of all we couldn’t find Syd, then I found him in the dressing room and he was so… gone.
Roger Waters and I got him on his feet, we got him out to the stage. He had a white guitar and we put it round his neck; he
walked on stage and of course the audience went spare because they loved him. The band started to play and Syd just stood
there. He had his guitar round his neck and his arms just hanging down.’
Shortly afterwards, we were due to perform at the Windsor Jazz Festival. We were forced to cancel. Syd was suffering from
‘nervous exhaustion’, was the message sent out to the music press. When we
had to pull out they sent poor Paul Jones on instead. Paul had recently split from Manfred Mann and was enjoying a successful
solo career singing R&B. He mounted the stage to the cry of ‘Do you like soul music?’ A roar of ‘NO!!!’ came back from the
assembled flower children, along with a hail of love beads and beer cans. Meanwhile, the rest of us reacted to these cancellations
with embarrassment and fury, while the management tried to formulate a plan.
After lots of talk and not much action, mainly because there was hardly any information around on how to deal with drug problems,
Peter arranged an appointment for Syd with the eminent psychiatrist R.D. Laing. I think Roger drove Syd up to North London
for the consultation, but Syd refused to go through with it, so Laing didn’t have much to go on. But he did make one challenging
observation: yes, Syd might be disturbed, or even mad. But maybe it was the rest of us who were causing the problem, by pursuing
our desire to succeed, and forcing Syd to go along with our ambitions. Maybe Syd was actually surrounded by mad people.
Roger also called Syd’s brother, saying we were extremely worried about him – he came down to London and went to see Syd,
emerging to say he thought everything would be all right. This was a recurring reaction. There would be a lot of talk about
Syd’s condition, but then he would have a good, focused period and we would think, great, he was back to normal.
Eventually it was decided to send Syd off to Formentera, a small island just off Ibiza, along with the recently qualified
Doctor Sam Hutt, who was going there on holiday to consider his own future. Sam was the underground’s very own house doctor,
sympathetic to drug users and musicians: as Boeing Duveen And The Beautiful Soup and later Hank Wangford, Sam was able to
introduce a performer’s perspective. ‘I was a very hip doctor. The gear I wore in hospital in the summer of love – instead
of the white coat, the
sleeveless, coat-length jacketeen in pink Indian silk with what looked like sperms on it in purple with a gold moiré silk
lining. And the William Morris flares.’