Inside Out (24 page)

Unfortunately, Arthur had one major failing: his temper. Roger and I (his two principal contacts in the band) have not spoken
to Arthur in over twenty-five years following his final resignation. I’ve rarely come across anyone who could get so fired
up quite so quickly. Apart from sacking each venue’s own follow-spot operators on a regular basis, he would scream so much
abuse at them during the performance that it would have been foolhardy for him to linger after the show for a post-mortem
as it could have been his own. Arthur was also prone to leaving our employment in the middle of a show. Steve would frequently
arrive back in the interval to announce that Arthur had dashed his headset and intercom to the ground and left the building
in a fit of pique. Eventually we could no longer handle this level of unpredictability and Graeme Fleming, Arthur’s second
in command, and a far more phlegmatic character, took over. Arthur went on to become an enormously successful movie art director,
working with Ridley Scott and collecting a BAFTA award and an Oscar nomination for
Gladiator.

The release for
Dark Side
was set for March 1973, and we were delighted with the package. Apart from the additional posters and stickers the main image
was also perfect. Storm had turned up with a series of ideas and as soon as we first saw the prism design we all knew it was
the right one. However, we failed to attend the press launch at the London Planetarium. We were not happy that
the record label planned to use a sound system that we didn’t consider good enough. After all the work we had put in to
Dark Side,
we didn’t want it played to the press on a sub-standard PA system. The row probably all boiled down to a question of money,
but we refused to relent and missed the fun. We weren’t a favourite with the music journalists as it was, since none of us
had worked that hard to cultivate any kind of relationship with them.

So I have to rely on Roy Hollingworth’s report of the launch for
Melody Maker.
After cocktails at 8 p.m., the journalists were ushered into the Planetarium: ‘…like standing on the inside of a hollowed-out
concrete egg. The egg filled, and the lights dimmed. Laughter from one quarter. A bum pinched no doubt. And then it began…The
thick thump, the staggered bumping of a heartbeat filled the blackness, gaining in volume and intensity until it packed against
your whole body.’

So far, so good. But after fifteen minutes the audience seemed to be losing interest. ‘Quite a few people were beginning to
chatter and light cigarettes. And then, as people found more fun in being funny, the shape of a bunny rabbit appeared on one
wall. This was done by holding a cigarette lighter behind a hand, and performing tricks with the fingers. Later I witnessed
a swan in strangled flight, and a brace of doves. Then some enterprising fellow scooped the impromptu magic lantern show with
an enormous portrayal of a naughty thing.’ Our decision to stay away may have been wiser than we thought.

The record sold fast. We had a gold disc by April in both the UK and the US. Everything happened very quickly. That May we
presented a complete
Dark Side
show at Earls Court. All the elements came together, as we presented the piece in its most developed version. The music had
been rehearsed enough to be tight, but was new enough to be fresh. The lighting, thanks to Arthur, was dramatic. There were
additional effects including a
fifteen-foot spotlit plane that shot down a wire over the heads of the audience to crash on stage in a ball of fire in sync
with the explosion in ‘On The Run’. Films accompanied the music, including animation for ‘Time’ by Ian Eames and the
Crystal Voyager
surfing footage that we had first seen in Australia in 1971. Sadly, none of these shows was filmed or recorded.

Everyone has their own opinion about why
The Dark Side Of The Moon
sold – and still sells – so spectacularly well. Even for someone intimately involved with the album, the statistics make
staggering reading. For example, total sales have been in excess of 35 million and it has been calculated that one household
in four in the UK owns a copy in one form or another. At the time of writing
Dark Side
has been on the US album charts almost continuously since 1973.

My view is that there was no single reason, but a number of factors working together and multiplying the effect. The primary
reason – which is true of any great album – is the strength of the songwriting.
Dark Side
contained strong, powerful songs. The overall idea that linked those songs together – the pressures of modern life – found
a universal response, and continues to capture people’s imagination. The lyrics had depth, and had a resonance people could
easily relate to, and were clear and simple enough for non-native-English speakers to understand, which must have been a factor
in its international success. And the musical quality spearheaded by David’s guitar and voice and Rick’s keyboards established
a fundamental Pink Floyd sound. We were comfortable with the music, which had had time to mature and gestate, and evolve through
live performances – later on we had to stop previewing work live as the quality of the recording equipment being smuggled
into gigs reached near-studio standards.

The additional singers and Dick Parry’s sax gave the whole record an extra commercial sheen. In addition, the sonic quality
of
the album was state of the art – courtesy of the skills of Alan Parsons and Chris Thomas. This is particularly important,
because at the time the album came out, hi-fi stereo equipment had only recently become a mainstream consumer item, an essential
fashion accessory for the 1970s home. As a result, record buyers were particularly aware of the effects of stereo and able
to appreciate any album that made the most of its possibilities.
Dark Side
had the good fortune to become one of the definitive test records that people could use to show off the quality of their
hi-fi system.

The packaging for the album by Storm and Po at Hipgnosis was clean, simple, and immediately striking, with a memorable icon
in the shape of the prism. The packaging also featured the Pyramids, which were, for Storm, a cosmic version of the prism.
It is one of Storm’s credos that photo shoots should ideally be real rather than faked, and so he set off for Cairo, with
wife Libby, baby son Bill and Hipgnosis partner Po in tow. Come the shoot, the entire party were struck down by the Cairo
cooking, leaving Storm to head out alone in the dead of night, since a full moon was a requisite part of the photograph. He
found himself in a restricted area, with a squad of machine gun-toting soldiers heading his way, frightening him with thoughts
of some kind of
Midnight Express
imprisonment. A small transfer of baksheesh resolved the problem, quieted Storm’s nerves, and allowed him to complete the
shoot unmolested.

The record companies handling the album (particularly Capitol in the States under Bhaskar Menon’s instructions) threw every
ounce of heavyweight marketing muscle they possessed behind it. A totally committed record company is a fearsome and powerful
machine and without doubt their efforts contributed to the album’s success.

And last, but possibly not least, one music critic commented that it was a great album to make love to – some sex clubs in
Holland and Sweden, so I am told, used it to accompany their own performances.

I think we all knew that
The Dark Side Of The Moon
was a very good record when we finished it – definitely much better as a complete piece than anything we had done before,
but I certainly had no real inkling of its commercial potential, and was as surprised as everyone else when it simply took
off.

When Lindy and I decided to move home from Camden to Highgate, I went along to my bank manager to request a bridging loan.
He asked me what I could offer as security. I said, ‘Well, I’ve got a Number One album in America.’ He was not impressed,
and said he was looking for something a little more concrete…

A
FTER THE
success of
The Dark Side Of The Moon
we were brought back down to earth when we had to start tackling yet another album. On this occasion,
Dark Side
actually added to the burden, since we were particularly anxious to avoid accusations of cashing in on the album’s success
by simply replicating it. We clearly felt that after one album was released, we really should get back into the studio to
start on the next one, even though at that point we were not locked into a contract that demanded we churn out one or two
albums a year. In fact we were under no obligation to deliver within any timeframe. I do not remember any huge pressure from
EMI to deliver
Dark Side II: The Lunatic Returns,
but this may well be a tribute to Steve O’Rourke’s managerial ability in deflecting brickbats and any other missiles sent
out by the record company.

We returned to Abbey Road in the autumn of 1973, following a tour of the States in June and a welcome summer break. Lindy
and I had stayed in a house near Vence in the Alpes-Maritimes, not far from L’Ousteroun where Roger would later stay during
the recording of
The Wall,
and close to where Bill Wyman had a house. It had been a complete change, incredibly quiet, and a chance to relax completely
with the family.

At Abbey Road we began work with a blank sheet: there were no fragments of songs or unused out-takes left over after
Dark Side.
The sessions started out quite well. Our suspicions should have immediately been aroused.

Preliminary discussions threw up the idea of a record created
entirely out of sounds that had not been produced by musical instruments. This seemed suitably radical, and so we started
out on a project we called ‘Household Objects’. The whole notion seems absurdly laboured now, when any sound can be sampled
and then laid out across a keyboard, enabling a musician to play anything from barking dogs to nuclear explosions. In 1973
it took us two months to assemble – slowly and laboriously – what could now probably be achieved in an afternoon. However,
the length of time involved was not a problem for us. In fact it was a blessing. We found the project was a brilliant device
to postpone having to create anything concrete for the foreseeable future, since we could busy ourselves with the mechanics
of the sounds rather than the creation of the music.

Almost everything we’ve ever recorded in a studio has been extracted by someone at some point and subsequently bootlegged.
However, no such recordings exist of the ‘Household Objects’ tapes for the simple reason that we never managed to produce
any actual music. All the time we devoted to the project was spent exploring the non-musical sounds, and the most we ever
achieved was a small number of tentative rhythm tracks.

We investigated the domestic sound world in a variety of ways: percussion was created by sawing wood, slamming down hammers
of different sizes or thudding axes into tree trunks. For the bass notes we clamped and plucked rubber bands, and then slowed
the resulting sounds to lower tape speeds.

Like some adult playgroup we set about breaking light bulbs and stroking wine glasses, and indulged in various forms of water
play including stirring bowls of water before pouring them into buckets. We unrolled lengths of adhesive tape, sprayed aerosols,
plucked egg slicers and tapped wine bottle tops. Chris Adamson remembers being sent out to local hardware shops to find brooms
of various bristle strengths, and asked to track down a specific
kind of elastic used to power the propeller of a model aeroplane. After a number of weeks, musical progress was negligible.
We could sustain the pretence no longer, and the whole project was gently laid to rest.

Group momentum was pretty well non-existent. The early days of total commitment were beginning to dissipate. Some of us had
started families and were experiencing the responsibilities and distractions that young children provide. In my case, my daughter
Chloe was two, while Rick had two kids, Gala and Jamie. In the extended Pink Floyd family, Steve O’Rourke had two daughters,
Katy and Shena. Peter Watts had two children, Naomi and Ben. Roger did not have children yet, but interestingly, he was one
of the prime movers in making sure that we never went on tour for too long. Three weeks away in the States seemed plenty.
The schedule and style of touring were hardly conducive to family life on the road. One rental car at the airport was still
enough for band and management to get to hotel and gig; even one additional person would automatically break up this tight-knit
unit, and require a second rental car, doubling transportation costs.