When David Gilmour slammed Roger Waters’ bass playing: “His own limited, or very simple style”
There can be doubt that David Gilmour played a crucial role in transforming Pink Floyd from an eccentric psychedelic band to a mainstream sensation. While their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, was a major success and pivotal in the rise of the genre, the space rock created by the band’s leader, Syd Barrett, was niche and time-specific. This rough and edgy style began to evolve and soften with the arrival of their new guitarist.
When Gilmour arrived in 1967 to help the group navigate Barrett’s rapidly deteriorating mental health and complete their highly anticipated second album, A Saucerful of Secrets, it became clear that his presence would lead them in a new creative direction. Although Pink Floyd continued to experiment extensively after the album, they began to smooth out the rough edges of their sound, evolving towards a more polished and monumental style.
It’s interesting that Gilmour had such an impact on Pink Floyd, considering his background in R&B cover bands, which favoured an improvisational style quite different from the freak-out jams that characterised the ‘See Emily Play’ group. In fact, Gilmour has admitted that he wasn’t initially impressed by the quartet’s improvisations and needed time to understand their artistic direction. Since those early years, Gilmour has explained that the songwriting process evolved in two ways after he joined: he tried to influence it, and it, in turn, influenced and changed him in the process.
Ever the realist about his whole body of work, Gilmour has never been one to mince his words about the highs and lows of his time with Pink Floyd. Regarding the band breaking off from the past and moving towards the majesty of masterpieces such as 1973’s The Dark Side of the Moon, he said they knew they had hit upon a new area with the title of track of A Saucerful of Secrets.
Following that moment, Gilmour started adding what he understood of harmony to the mix and making their sound more mainstream-oriented as the group also impressed upon him with their approach. He told Musician in 1992: “The way they worked certainly educated me. We passed on all our individual desires, talents, and knowledge to each other.” This back-and-forth is what created a period of undisputed brilliance.
It was a period of immense positive change for all involved. It wouldn’t be until after the world-beating success of their 1973 masterwork that things started to fracture for the band. This led to Gilmour and Roger Waters’ eventual schism, which is still ongoing following the latter’s acrimonious departure after 1983’s The Final Cut.
When talking to Musician, the wounds of Gilmour and the group’s split with Waters were still raw, which had naturally changed the dimension of Pink Floyd’s work for the former. Asked whether his old songwriting partner was a persuasive bass player back in the heady days of A Saucerful of Secrets, in his typically eloquent style, Gilmour recalled the “limited” approach of his arch-nemesis.
The guitarist said: “He had developed his own limited, or very simple style. He was never very keen on improving himself as a bass player, and half the time, I would play the bass on the records because I would tend to do it quicker. Right back to those early records, I mean, at least half the bass on all the recorded output is me anyway.”
It was then revealed that Gilmour played the fretless bass on ‘Hey You’ from 1979’s The Wall. He said: “Yeah. Hmm. Roger playing fretless bass? Please!”
There is also no way of telling the validity, particularly given their bad blood at the time, but Gilmour also claimed that Waters would sometimes thank him for winning him bass-playing polls. They always were a cynical bunch, even in the good old days.
