The Pink Floyd album that ruined Nick Mason’s confidence: “Wasn’t sounding like himself”
No artist is immune to insecurities about their instrument. While most people worry about their nine-to-five jobs, even those who live their dream and get to do what they love every day might occasionally feel anxious, wondering when the bubble will burst. Pink Floyd usually didn’t need to worry about anything when making a new record, but Nick Mason’s musical confidence was shattered while working on The Final Cut.
Then again, there was little room for error when going into an album like the rock opera. Roger Waters already had a clear idea of what he wanted his magnum opus to sound like, and with the help of Bob Ezrin and a few token songs from David Gilmour, he was going to do everything he could to make sure it turned out the way that it sounded in his head.
That kind of determination might be admirable, but it’s not necessarily something that endears you to your bandmates. For all of the great ideas that Waters had bringing the album together, he didn’t bother paying attention to the little things like, for instance, if the rest of the band were actually going to perform on the final record.
Since everything had to be right on time, exactly how Waters wanted it, Mason started questioning whether his style was right for the song. In fact, there were already a few times when it wasn’t, like when the song ‘Mother’ had to be played by session legend Jeff Pocaro after Mason said that there was no way he could play the intro correctly.
After Wright was pushed out of the band on The Final Cut, Mason was also being tested when it came time to hit record. Even though the album stands as a more theatrical and less interesting version of The Wall, Waters’ insistence on keeping everything tight left Mason on shaky ground, never feeling the urge and letting a lot of his chops fall by the wayside after not practising for years.
Mason did end up walking away as a full-time member of the group, but the greatest damage for him was how damaging it was to his self-confidence, with Ezrin remembering, “Roger worked on everybody’s confidence. In Rick’s case, it destroyed him. With Nick it had been a matter of him being marginalised on The Final Cut. He hadn’t been practising, and he just wasn’t sounding like himself.”
Even when Waters left the group following The Final Cut, it would take years before Mason found the confidence to play again. Despite having a hand in programming the drums, he’s virtually invisible on A Momentary Lapse of Reason, with much of the percussion being replaced by drum machines and heavily sequenced beats that make the whole thing sound like a bad 1980s commercial.
Once he did get his chops back up, hearing him perform on The Division Bell alongside Wright returning on keyboards was the kind of reunion most of the fans had been hoping for. There was no way for the classic lineup with Waters to come back together, but it at least got Pink Floyd back to feeling like a real group instead of just Waters’ or Gilmour’s glorified solo outfits.
