Inside Out (35 page)

After
The Final Cut
was finished there were no plans for the future. I have no recollection of any promotion and there was no suggestion of any
live performances to promote the record. It would have been hard to imagine a show that could follow
The Wall,
anyway. But it was another factor in how David and I viewed the future. Both David and myself regarded playing live and touring
as an integral part of being in the band. If being part of a Roger-led Floyd meant that there would be no live shows (‘due
to indiscipline, all touring has been cancelled this term’) and only aggravation in the recording studio, the future prospect
seemed distinctly unappealing.

Consequently, David and Roger both went off to work on solo projects. David’s
About Face
album and tour concentrated more on playing and less on spectacle. Much of the material played was from his solo albums,
but the tour and album helped us later on in a number of ways: they showcased David at his very best as a musician, and the
strong relationship that he was able to build up with the press and the record company stood us in extremely good stead when
we most needed it four years later. It might also be the case that it brought home to him the necessity of putting on the
full theatrical show if one wanted to fill the big arenas.

Just before his tour reached the Hammersmith Odeon, David approached me and suggested it would be nice to have Rick and myself
make an appearance at the end of the last London show to join him on ‘Comfortably Numb’. It sounded fun, and I turned up in
the afternoon to have a run-through and check out playing someone else’s kit. This felt a little strange, particularly as
I hadn’t played the piece for four years, but Chris Slade, the drummer on David’s tour, couldn’t have been nicer. After years
of drummers grumpily surrendering their kit saying, ‘Don’t use the snare’, it proved the case that the more able the drummer
the more relaxed the attitude… The song sounded wonderful and we loved playing it. I hate to lapse into metaphysical parlance,
but I think we did feel some particular magic performing together again, and I think this was a moment that contributed to
the subsequent events of 1986.

Roger, meanwhile, was reviving the
Pros And Cons Of Hitchhiking
project that he had prepared demos for years earlier as an alternative to
The Wall.
The album was released shortly after David’s Hammersmith shows, following which Roger proceeded to put on what was his version
of a Pink Floyd tour, utilising new animation from Gerry Scarfe as well as elements from Fisher Park. I went to see his show
at Earls Court, and found the experience had an astonishingly depressing effect on me. The first half was made up of Floyd
numbers and gave me the impression of being a (rather elderly) Peter Pan at the nursery window – that was my part being played
by someone else. In retrospect this one event probably had as much to do in galvanising me as anything else. I realised I
could not quite so easily let go and watch the train roll on without me.

Rick was working with Dave Harris on a project called
Zee
(they released an album almost simultaneously with Roger), and I
became involved with a short documentary film that neatly combined music and motor racing. In fact it tied in perfectly with
a collaboration I had formed with a friend of mine, Rick Fenn, the 10cc keyboard player with whom I had set up a small company
to provide music for commercials and films.

The idea for
Life Could Be A Dream
involved a deal with Rothmans and their team of World Sports Car Championship Porsche 956 cars. I would drive with the works
team in some of the 1,000-km races with a camera on board. As an added bonus I would get a drive at Le Mans with René Metge
and Richard Lloyd (by pure coincidence, Richard had in a previous life been a Decca producer and had been responsible for
recording Rick’s first song with Adam, Mike & Tim). With a soundtrack, we thought this might have some commercial potential.
I must admit, sadly, that I had very little compunction about wearing all the tobacco company logos – and paid careful attention
as to how to field difficult questions about smoking. We then went on to make an album, which included a single called ‘Lie
For A Lie’ that David generously provided vocals on. Even with his help it failed to get close enough to the charts to tarnish
the paintwork, let alone dent it.

There was little chance of Pink Floyd performing together in this period, although in 1985 there was a vague possibility of
us appearing at Live Aid. Eventually David was the only one of us who made it, playing guitar with Bryan Ferry, which had
the added bonus of introducing him to keyboard player Jon Carin.

I used the greater amount of spare time to learn how to fly, finally conquering the fears that had been engendered by too
many knuckle-whitening flights on tour. This obviously set a trend and somewhere along the line David also got his pilot’s
licence – as did Steve O’Rourke. We ended up sharing planes for a number of years, and frightening ourselves far more than
we ever did on all those commercial flights.

This phase of solo projects – which might have offered the four of us a useful breathing space – in fact only served to create
another source of dissatisfaction. Roger had decided, around this time, that he would renegotiate his individual deal with
Steve, and he wanted to keep these negotiations confidential. Steve felt, both on moral grounds and also probably for financial
reasons, that he was obliged to inform the rest of us. This betrayal – as Roger saw it – coupled with his belief that Steve
had tended to represent David more strongly throughout the tetchy
Final Cut
negotiations, led Roger to want to replace Steve as his manager.

We did meet and talk; we even had a relatively relaxed meeting in 1984 at a Japanese restaurant, soothed by sushi and sake,
to discuss all the things we weren’t going to do – and then Steve joined us to hear about it. Roger was doubtless misled by
our general bonhomie and acquiescence into believing that we accepted Pink Floyd was almost over. David and I meanwhile thought
that after Roger had finished
Pros And Cons,
life could continue. We had, after all, had a number of hiatuses before. Roger sees this meeting as duplicity, rather than
diplomacy – I disagree. Clearly, our communication skills were still troublingly nonexistent. We left the restaurant with
diametrically opposed views of what had been decided.

I
N 1986
D
AVID
and I decided to try and make another album, without Roger. There had not been any specific single moment of revelation when
we resolved to go ahead. David had in fact made up his own mind quite early on, and had been working on a number of demos.
There then followed a number of half-conversations, when Steve O’Rourke might have said, ‘Do you want to…?’ or David might
have asked me, ‘Well, should we or not?’ Eventually these discussions gathered their own momentum, and we finally agreed,
‘Let’s do it.’ Once the decision was made it was irreversible. It was a little like losing Syd in 1968: the alternative options
only seem alarming in hindsight. We did not know exactly how it was to be done, but we felt it must be possible. Despite my
personal track record as rock ’n’ roll’s resident vicar of Bray, I was totally committed to the decision. I am still slightly
surprised by this show of will. So much of our previous work had consisted of Roger’s songwriting and direction, and yet I
had great faith in David’s ability to awaken any dormant abilities relatively quickly, as well as confidence in his vocals
and guitar work, which had contributed so much to the band’s sound.

I don’t think we considered whether there would be any legal ramifications, but we were certainly aware of the risks. At a
time when the press was still interested in the fight with Roger, there was a disturbing possibility that we might give them
a field day by releasing an album that proved the gainsayers correct by revealing ourselves as no more than money-grubbing
forgers. Another potential horror was that we might be defeated by our erstwhile
colleague in a shoot-out among the megastore shelves, always a significantly powerful drive, and a sad indictment of our real
motivations compared to the dream of bringing beautiful music to lovely people. The damage to our egos was potentially more
damaging than any financial disasters.

Throughout the recording process the ongoing struggle with Roger continued unabated, and provided its own roller-coaster entertainment.
Endless phone calls with lawyers were replaced by lengthy meetings, often held in the Dickensian surroundings of the Inns
of Court. In the hope of finding a clinching piece of evidence, hours of discussion revolved about the dullest aspects of
our history, namely the legal niceties of what we thought we might have agreed to verbally eighteen years earlier. Litigation
is a remarkable experience, as you select your gladiators for their fighting skills and then sit back to watch them perform.
It is probably the most overpriced form of entertainment I have ever encountered, and also the most nerve-racking.

Away from the legal front line, there had been some discussion and attempts at reconciliation. I had dinner one night with
Roger, who said that he would settle for being released from Steve’s contract. Unfortunately, Steve was a significant part
of our enterprise and I think we felt that we were bound together, perhaps more than necessary. Part of the problem was that
nothing was written down. There was a verbal agreement – just as binding as a written one, so the lawyers tell us – between
Steve and the band, which meant that any actions by one individual had to be ratified by the rest of us. Discussions were
muddied by a lack of understanding, certainly by me, of what the implications really were – as a result the issues remained
unclear and any trust uncertain. In retrospect, we should have settled with Roger then and there.

However, I did think I understood Roger’s predicament. On the
one hand he felt that he was Pink Floyd, and had carried the band on his shoulders for ten years or more as a writer and director
of operations. But as long as the band existed as any sort of entity, it represented a real obstacle to his solo career, since
the record company would always be waiting for a Pink Floyd release. Any of his solo work would be seen as intermediate filler
material and would be unlikely to receive the kind of promotional support that would accrue to a band album.

What Roger really needed was for the band to be formally dissolved to clear the way for his own solo career, and he probably
assumed that this would happen if he withdrew his services, given that Rick was no longer technically a member, I had done
little beyond motor racing and becoming a garage proprietor, and even David had become more of a producer and guest guitarist
with other musicians than a band member. What no one anticipated was David’s response to what I think he felt was the lack
of credit and exposure for his contributions and ideas. The division of spoils – and more particularly credit – is often unfair,
but he had perhaps suffered the most injustice. Even I, not prone to confrontation, felt aggrieved that after twenty years
I thought I was being told to quietly lie down, roll over and retire.

Although in the past I had usually sided with Roger, who was after all one of my oldest friends, I was mortified at the suggestion
that I had contributed nothing and was unemployable without him now. The quote I am credited with that I particularly like
is ‘Roger was fond of saying no one’s indispensable and… he was right’.

In retrospect, Roger probably made a tactical error in going to law – and at one point we were all set to go to court. However,
since ‘patience’ is not a word that appears in Roger’s thesaurus, his innate desire to act rather than wait meant he was driven
to bring everything to the boil – and achieved the opposite result to the one
he intended. For David in particular, one of the great spurs was the fact that Roger, hearing about the plans for a new album,
had told him ‘You’ll never do it.’