Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason on the most unique drum solo of all time: “It’s so different”
The legendary prog-rock band Pink Floyd boasts a vast and diverse catalogue, making it challenging for fans to settle on just one favourite. With such a richly intricate musical history, you could easily find a new favourite every day. Such a complexity transcends mere songs; it also extends to individual movements and pieces within their compositions.
The band’s drummer, Nick Mason, also faced this challenge. Surprisingly, however, his choice didn’t gravitate toward one of the band’s many heavy-hitting singles. Instead, Mason opted for something that resonates from the depths of Floyd’s unconventional musical spectrum—an area where the band feels most at home.
Mason served as Pink Floyd’s rhythmic bedrock, laying the foundation upon which the other band members crafted their iconic soundscapes. Collaborating with Roger Waters, Syd Barrett, David Gilmour, and Richard Wright, Mason played a crucial role in overseeing a diverse array of records that delved into nearly every imaginable genre. This gift bestowed upon the band an added dimension of power and versatility.
One genre in particular that left a significant imprint on Mason in terms of his favourite song is jazz. During a conversation with GQ, the drummer was confronted with the timeless inquiry, ‘What’s your favourite Pink Floyd song?’ To this, he responded: “I usually cite ‘Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun’ as my favourite Pink Floyd song,” adding, “It’s fun to play, and has interesting dynamics.”
In fact, the now-iconic utilisation of mallets in the solo of this Waters-composed track was directly inspired by jazz. “I know exactly where it came from in terms of the drum part, which was Chico Hamilton playing in a film called Jazz On A Summer’s Day,” Mason remembers. “He does a drum solo played with mallets. It’s beautiful, and so different to any other drum solo.”
With only a handful of noteworthy exceptions, jazz was a genre Pink Floyd generally steered clear of and showed little inclination toward. “No, we weren’t [interested in it],” Mason confirms before adding that keyboardist “Rick [Wright] was, and I went through a period of being interested in jazz. But then I realised you need to have far too much technique, so I moved on. When I watch very technical drummers, I still find myself thinking, ‘I wish I could do that.’ And I probably could if I put my mind to it, and stopped messing around with cars.”
The liberating embrace of free-form thinking and creativity played a pivotal role in propelling the band into uncharted musical territories. Mason’s favoured song serves as a vivid testament to the success of this approach. It is precisely through compositions like this that Pink Floyd earned their status as a colossal and influential musical force, the kind that defined the band’s identity and set them apart as trailblazers in the realm of progressive rock.
