Roger had already intimated that he thought that Pink Floyd was finished, and his falling out with Steve had escalated. With
everyone feeling angry, we dug trenches to maintain our respective positions and refused to budge. Roger broke the phoney
war by announcing to the world that the band ‘was over’. This was a surprise to the rest of us. And it proved another incentive
to make the album.
The motivation was there in ample quantities. Now we turned our attention to the how, who and where of going ahead. When was
not really an issue. There was no record company obligation, and we had not committed to touring dates. The making of the
album could initially determine the pace of work.
The how centred primarily over David’s choice of writing and working partners. An early decision was made to bring Bob Ezrin
back in as co-producer. It was unfortunate that Bob Ezrin had been considered as a producer for Roger’s
Radio KAOS
album, which was being recorded at the same time. Bob maintains that he had established that he would not work on Roger’s
record because they could not agree a schedule that would suit both of them. Bob specifically wanted to avoid lengthy sojourns
away from home; Roger wanted to get on and finish the work. The fact is that Roger felt betrayed as Bob signed with ‘the opposition’
– according to Bob, Roger at this point designated the rest of us ‘the Muffins’.
In the event, Pat Leonard, who had worked with David previously, and was in the frame for our record, eventually worked with
Roger and was delighted with the opportunity, so perhaps honours were even. Andy Jackson was brought in as our engineer –
Andy had worked with James Guthrie on the soundtrack for
The Wall
movie. Knowing James we would have expected him to choose wisely, and he did not let us down.
After the experiences of recording
The Wall
in France, Bob proved to be completely sympathetic to the spirit of the project. One of his great qualities is an ability
to apply a specific mix of skills to a given situation. Now he quickly realised that on this album his primary function was
to support David by acting both as a catalyst and as a kind of musical personal trainer: Bob was particularly good at exhorting
David to keep on going.
As far as writing songs was concerned, David decided to experiment by working with a number of potential collaborators to
see what would result. Along the way he spent some time with Phil Manzanera, the Roxy Music guitarist, Eric Stewart of 10cc,
Liverpool poet Roger McGough and the Canadian musician Carole Pope. What materialised from these try-outs was that what David
was really looking for was a lyricist, and that person turned out to be Anthony Moore, who had been part of the band Slapp
Happy, which many moons earlier had been on the roster of Blackhill Enterprises.
The location we settled on for the early stages of recording was
Astoria,
David’s houseboat studio moored on the River Thames near Hampton Court. This curious vessel had been built in the early 1910s
(at a cost of £20,000 – at the time an enormous sum) for an old music hall and variety show impresario called Fred Karno –
the Harvey Goldsmith of his day – who entertained the likes of Charlie Chaplin on board. The
Astoria
measures ninety feet long, and has a facility for a seventy-piece orchestra to play on the roof should one so wish (we chose
not to). David had been living a couple of miles away when he bought it, almost on a whim, as an aquatic home studio.
For the late-twentieth-century musician, David, aided and abetted by Phil Taylor, had constructed a studio in the converted
dining room – a shade on the small side, but with sufficient room for a drum kit, bass guitar and electronic keyboards. The
control room, built in the main living room, had windows looking over the river on two sides and across the riverside garden
on the third. The boat also provided enough space for all the accompanying ancillary equipment.
The recording started out with us using an analogue 24-track machine with overdubs onto a 32-track Mitsubishi digital recorder.
This marked our first foray into digital recording on tape. This new technology had a number of benefits – including improved
sound quality and no degradation – as did the houseboat’s location. Phil Taylor remembers that during the recording for
A Momentary Lapse Of Reason,
David sailed upriver, stayed on board for one weekend and recorded the entirety of ‘Sorrow’ including all the guitar parts,
vocals and the drum machine, so that when we reconvened on the Monday, there was only a bit of spit and polish required.
The Trout,
a 1930s Thames slipper launch, was moored alongside, available for anyone needing to get away, or indeed for anyone living
locally to get home should their road licence have been suspended. It still seemed quite radical to have a view of the outside
world – and a particularly attractive one (within a few years, however, it had become de rigueur to record in some equally
beautiful setting). It proved a successful formula, and such a pleasant environment that even if work had come to a stop no
one particularly wanted to leave in a hurry.
There was the occasional unnerving motion when large boats cruised past over the speed limit, but the only other passing traffic,
apart from the odd oarsman, were the hundreds of swans from the local haven. We did once have a visit from an uninvited television
news crew who, having failed to gain an audience, claimed to have donned scuba outfits and, in a scene reminiscent
of Above Us The
Waves,
recorded us at work underwater. They would have had to have been there so long, and been so cold in order to get even a snippet
of waterlogged sound, that I think the story can be filed alongside the one that maintains that we get our inspiration from
alien beings visiting from other planets…
A more serious threat was caused when the river started rising so fast that the whole boat began to tilt as it became snagged
up against one of the piers keeping it in place. The prospect of the
Astoria
disappearing into the foaming waters
Titanic-style
as the band played on was too ghastly to contemplate, although I like to think Leonardo DiCaprio could have successfully
captured my boyish charm in the made-for-TV epic that would doubtless have ensued. As it was, our faithful boatman and caretaker
Langley was on hand to release the offending clamp. In damp-browed gratitude, we later invited him to be a principal character
(as the rower) in the tour films. Since Langley lives on the boat, and rows every day, he’s the nearest equivalent to Ratty
in
The Wind In The Willows
that I’ve ever met.
Working life on board was greatly enhanced by the new technology available since
The Wall
and
The Final Cut.
In the intervening years, computer software and equipment had become standard in the control room. Like most technological
advances, the great advantage of computerisation was that all sorts of decisions could be put off while an infinite variety
of options for sounds and editing were tried.
This was the album where we first incorporated significant amounts of sampling; the samples were easy to manipulate and songs
could be developed out of the sounds themselves. For the drum parts, the tempo, drum fills and even bar-by-bar elements could
now be altered, with a deliberate variation in the tempo dialled in to make it a little more human. Obviously a computer still
can’t throw a television out of a hotel window or get drunk
and be sick on the carpet, so there is little danger of them replacing drummers for some while yet.
In fact, I found myself overwhelmed by the computers on this record. I hadn’t played seriously for four years and didn’t even
like the sound or feel of my own playing. Perhaps I had been demoralised by the conflict with Roger. Certainly I ended up
struggling to play some parts satisfactorily. With time pressure on, I surrendered a number of parts to some of the best session
players in Los Angeles, including Jim Keltner and Carmine Appice – an odd feeling, a bit like handing your car over to Michael
Schumacher. This was not only a defeatist attitude, but meant I then had to learn the damn drum part to play it live (an experience
to file under ‘never ever again’).
The guest artists were part of a general panic when – with Bob becoming homesick, and needing a bigger studio – we shipped
ourselves, somewhat against our better judgement, over to his native LA. In the A&M Studios, we were able to admire the talents
not only of Messrs Keltner and Appice, but also Tom Scott’s saxophone and the keyboard work of Little Feat’s Bill Payne. Bob
Dylan was recording at A&M too, so the whole experience felt like a return to the real world of music after the swans and
cucumber sandwiches of the
Astoria.
While we were in California, I encountered a new breed of human being: the drum doctor – not the venerable roadie who made
sure the kit was set up correctly, but a magician who coaxed unheard-of sounds out of the available resources. The drum doctor
would arrive with a van-load of equipment, sniffing disdainfully at my own kit, and proceed to erect an array of fabulous-sounding
material: a choice of half a dozen snares, full of subtle nuances, and myriad cymbals. It was a complete eye-opener, like
having Jeeves permanently on hand, laying out coordinated cymbals rather than ties.
Rick joined proceedings quite late in the day and was quarantined from any costs or legal repercussions from Roger. This was
mainly a practical matter. There was some confusion over Rick’s position within the band. When David and I first wanted to
talk to Rick we discovered that buried in his leaving agreement from 1981 was a clause that prevented him rejoining the group.
Consequently we had to be careful about what constituted being a member of the band; only David and I appeared on the cover
of the album.
Most of the songs on
Momentary Lapse
had been complete before we started recording and as a result there really is very little filler. When I went over to Los
Angeles to hear the work in progress on the initial mixes, I was slightly taken aback. It seemed as if there was too much
going on aurally. We had recorded a lot of material and most of it seemed to be in the mix. Generally we had tended to lose
material in the mix. We agreed that it wasn’t sounding right and the final version had much more space and air.
A couple of things strike me about the finished album. In hindsight I really should have had the self-belief to play all the
drum parts. And in the early days of life after Roger, I think David and I felt that we had to get it right, or we would be
slaughtered. As a result it is a very ‘careful’ album with very few risks taken. These things together make me feel ever so
slightly removed from
Momentary Lapse,
to the point that it doesn’t always sound like us. However, ‘Learning To Fly’ does for some reason – it feels very much like
a ‘home’ track.
We spent the obligatory three weeks agonising over the album title: each choice had to be given more than one test. Did we
like it, was it suitable for the music, and would Roger and the critics use it against us? Eventually it dawned on us that
there was no word or phrase in existence that someone couldn’t make fun of, so, having settled on A
Momentary Lapse Of Reason,
a phrase taken
from a lyric created by David with Phil Manzanera, we reverted to worrying about the other elements.
For the album cover, we turned again to Storm Thorgerson. In keeping with the river setting of much of the recording and a
lyric describing a vision of empty beds, the concept evolved into a river of beds, photographed on Saunton Sands in Devon,
where most of the war sequences for the film of
The Wall
had been shot. All the attendant problems of fast tides and rotten weather ensued. A bonus was that with all the alternative
formats at our disposal – CD, vinyl, cassette, minidisk, versions for different territories – we could make the maximum use
of good design ideas we might otherwise have had to discard, neatly avoiding lengthy arguments and difficult decisions.
By now we were preparing for a tour. Michael Cohl, the Canadian promoter, proved to be a tower of strength, at a time when
we were grappling with the final stages of the album, and the legal aspects. Michael had been promoting shows since the late
1960s, concentrating initially on his native Canada and then expanding to North America. He became heavily involved with the
Rolling Stones, promoting their
Urban Jungle/Steel Wheels
tour, and thereafter
Voodoo Lounge, Bridges to Babylon
and
Forty Licks
tours.
Michael was confident that a tour could happen, and taking the risk that Roger would injunct any promoter selling tickets,
began advertising our shows. At a time when we did not know ourselves what would happen, support like this was priceless and
ensures Michael a place in our personal Hall of Fame. Early ticket sales were strong; now all we had to worry about was whether
we would be sued, whether the audience would be outraged when Roger failed to appear, and how to pay for the set-up of the
sort of show we wanted to produce…
Since the early 1980s, sponsorship had become a major element in tour financing, but although attractive, this was not an
option
that was available to us. With all the unknown elements facing our reception – and the potential of a dramatic pratfall –
there was no queue of cola or trainer shoe manufacturers outside the door. We couldn’t put all the tickets on sale and use
the money up front. The only viable way to do it was for David and me to fork out.
In my particular case I was a bit short of ready cash for the millions required, so I eventually went down to the upmarket
equivalent of the pawn shop and hocked my 1962 GTO Ferrari. Probably my most prized possession, and an old family friend (I
had bought it in 1977) this car yet again added to its distinguished competition history. Because the car market had recently
gone berserk, with this model at the top of the madness – one car reputedly sold at the time for $14 million – I had little
trouble in financing my half of the tour set-up costs.