“Something very different about it”: Nick Mason names his favourite Pink Floyd song to perform live
In an exclusive interview with Far Out, Nick Mason, the drummer and only constant member of Pink Floyd, discussed his relationship with surviving former band members Roger Waters and David Gilmour, touched upon some of his biggest drumming influences and pondered the question of artificial intelligence in the creative arts.
The interview arrives just weeks before Mason’s UK tour with his band, Saucerful of Secrets. As the name suggests, the band focuses on early Pink Floyd material but in a style reminiscent of the group’s most popular albums from the mid-to-late 1970s. “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,” Mason explained.
Mason could have chosen Atom Heart Mother or Ummagumma as viable names for his band. However, A Saucerful of Secrets seems to hold a special place in his heart. “I think Saucer’s one of my favourite albums because it’s got this extraordinary variety of things on it,” Mason said of the 1968 album. “It’s got a sort of ‘goodbye to Syd’ [Barrett] element, and then it’s got ‘Set The Controls [For The Heart of the Sun]’, which for me is still one of my favourite pieces to play live.”
Elaborating on his love for ‘Set The Controls’, Mason noted the influence of Ginger Baker’s jazz-infused drumming with Cream. “That was one track that’s got something very different about it,” he said, adding, “Funnily enough, Ginger, I think his mallets on ‘We’re Going Wrong’ [were an inspiration].”
Mason concluded his point by noting the song’s deviation from conventional 4/4 beat signatures. “For me, it’s such a different thing from just hammering out fours to being able to work the dynamics of the song backwards and forwards with mallets rather than sticks,” he said.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Mason offered his thoughts on the dawning age of artificial intelligence, showing a glimmer of hope to those fearful of the technology. He also discussed how his drumming style has changed over the years and his position in Pink Floyd during the band’s tumultuous spell in the late 1970s and ’80s.
Read the full exclusive interview with Nick Mason here.
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