Nick Mason has dismissed his former bandmate Roger Waters’ claims that he was bullied in Pink Floyd, and likened Waters to Joseph Stalin for his revisionist takes on the band’s history.
Speaking with US music journalist Jim DeRogatis on The Coda Collection for a career-spanning conversation about his life in Pink Floyd and beyond, Mason appeared bemused when DeRogatis brought up a (recently recycled) old interview Waters gave to podcast host Marc Maron in which the singer/bassist stated “David (Gilmour, guitar) and Rick (Wright, keyboards) mainly were always trying to drag me down”, adding “They were always trying to knock me off.”
“I'm slightly flabbergasted by it,” Mason laughs when asked for his opinion on the statement. “But I think that's a slightly over emotional way of putting that there was some sort of division within the band… Because Roger was always looking beyond the music, in a way. I think it was artificial, but I think possibly there was the side that wanted to do inflatables and films, as well as music, and those who just wanted to do music. But, I don't think they were mean to him, particularly. It's hard to imagine being mean to Roger!”
“As he finishes speaking, Mason chuckles and says, “Stalin was bullied…”
Elsewhere in the interview, Mason speaks of his desire to bring his Saucerful Of Secrets band to America and Europe in 2022.
“All being well, we're going to start rehearsing the end of next week, in fact, with the idea of hopefully being in America the beginning of next year and UK and Europe after that,’ Mason says. “We don't do new songs. It's like going into an antique shop and saying, "I want something contemporary." No, we'd definitely like to increase the repertoire, though, for sure. There's a surprising amount of material there. The cut off is, up to, but not including Dark Side… And so with film tracks and early records and all the rest of it and singles, there's still quite a way to go. It's interesting as well, I think, that there is a difference between the USA and Europe, for sure. In that the Americans, I think because we were more successful in Europe, early on, and less so in the USA, so people are less familiar with the early records in America. And so you get people saying, ‘I've never heard this song. What is it?’ And so on. Whereas in Europe, you're more likely to have people going, ‘Oh yeah, I remember that.’”
You can listen to more of Mason‘s wit and wisdom in the Coda Collection interview below.
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