You don’t sell 250 million albums without earning a few quid, but Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason has admitted to feeling “a little embarrassed” by just how much money his band have banked.
“Our rock generation was more than blessed,” Mason acknowledges in a new interview with the Telegraph. “I think we all get a little embarrassed about the wealth we have. And how we use it. My carbon footprint is appalling.”
These days Mason is, very successfully, revisiting Pink Floyd’s early music with his band Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets: the band’s Live At The Roundhouse album recently debuted at number 5 in the UK charts. In the same interview with the Telegraph, the drummer confesses that he and his original bandmates – Roger Waters, Richard Wright and Syd Barrett – “jumped on the bandwagon” of psychedelic rock in the 1960s, in a bid to tap into the genre’s rising popularity.
“I still don’t quite understand how we got to that point of such free experimentation,” Mason admits. “We thought of ourselves as an R’n’B band, playing hits. It was just a bit of fun.”
“We were floundering around. We wanted to be a pop group. We wanted to meet girls and have a wild time and be famous. I think we jumped on the bandwagon. All of those A&R guys at record companies were searching for the next big thing, and it looked like it was a toss-up between psychedelic music and reggae. And you should hear us play reggae. So, so bad.”
“The interesting thing is how unpopular we were with our funny old psychedelic music,” he adds. “We used to go up north and the crowds would boo. They hated us. I can’t understand why we didn’t just fold it there and then.”
Nick Masons Saucerful Of Secrets will tour the UK again in April/May 2021.
Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets 2021 UK tour
Apr 13: Leicester DeMontfort Hall
Apr 14: Guildford G Live
Apr 16: Croydon Fairfield Halls
Apr 18: Nottingham Royal Concert Hall
Apr 19: Portsmouth Guildhall
Apr 20: Sheffield City Hall
Apr 22: London Royal Albert Hall
Apr 24: Plymouth Pavilions
Apr 26: Brighton Dome
Apr 27: Bath Forum
Apr 29: Oxford New Theatre
Apr 30: Ipswich Regent Theatre
May 01: Cardiff St David's Hall
May 03: Liverpool Philharmonic
May 04: York Barbican
May 05: Newcastle O2 City Hall
May 07: Birmingham Symphony Hall
May 08: Manchester O2 Apollo
May 09: Edinburgh Usher Hall
