Nick Mason claims it would be “fascinating” if AI made new Pink Floyd music
While the music industry is divided over the involvement of artificial intelligence, drummer Nick Mason has given his blessing for AI to make new Pink Floyd music.
Despite Mason’s green light, it’s impossible to imagine a scenario that his fellow bandmates David Gilmour and Roger Waters would agree to let Pink Floyd release new songs without any human involvement. However, the drummer does believe that AI is a more likely scenario than Gilmour and Waters entering the studio together again.
The hostility between Waters and Gilmour led to a legal fight in the 1980s, when Waters tried to stop his former bandmate from using the Pink Floyd name following his departure. Although they reunited in 2005 at Live Aid, a full-blown reunion tour never occurred, and now, their relationship is seemingly damaged beyond repair.
Notably, Gilmour’s wife, Polly Samson, said in 2023: “Sadly, Roger Waters you are antisemitic to your rotten core. Also a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy, megalomaniac. Enough of your nonsense.” Gilmour then supported Samson’s comments by sharing her post on Twitter with the caption, “Every word demonstrably true”.
In light of these comments, Mason has given up hope on Pink Floyd reuniting, but did optimistically add to The Sunday Mirror: “It would be fascinating to see what AI could do with new music. If you tried to run it as a sort of ‘Where did Pink Floyd go after?’”
The drummer continued: “The thing to do would be to have an AI situation where David and Roger become friends again. We could be like ABBA by the time we’ve finished with it.”
In an exclusive conversation with Far Out earlier this year, Mason admitted to understanding the fears surrounding AI in music and how it could potentially impact creativity, revealing, “Obviously, what everyone’s worried about is that AI will enable people to actually dispense with creativity, which is a very bizarre concept.”
Although Mason is interested in the possibilities that AI could generate, it seems unlikely that his curiosity will lead to him using the technology to aid his songwriting. Currently, the drummer is occupied with his band, Saucerful of Secrets, which performs Pink Floyd tracks from the Syd Barrett era of the group.
“When we first started five years ago, one of the things that came up was this thing about trying not to be in competition with tribute bands and actually to do something a little bit more interesting than trying to recreate what we did 40 or 50 years ago,” he told Far Out of the project.
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