Interview breaks down walls

The juxtaposition between education and thought control may naturally seem strange to college students, but it is one that is well known to fans of Pink Floyd, the English rock band that became successful for its mixture of psychedelic rock and avant-garde experimentation. For nearly three decades, fans of the band have been chanting, "We don't need no education / we don't need no thought control" - chorus lines to the band's song, "Another brick in the wall." Despite the band's popularity, the members of Pink Floyd eventually went their own ways. David Gilmour, the singer and lead guitarist, established a successful solo career. Last year, the artist released his third solo album, On an Island. A double DVD set, Remember That Night: Live at the Royal Albert Hall, which records one of the album tour's performances, was recently released. The following interview took place between Gilmour and several universities in relation to the DVD release.

Oracle: The DVD contained special guest appearances from David Bowie, Robert Wyatt, David Crosby and Graham Nash, who are all great musicians. However, they vary stylistically. Do you have some kind of criteria that you use when choosing who to collaborate with and do you have any plans to collaborate with younger musicians in order to attract a younger audience?

DG: Firstly I, you know, I hope that my stuff will appeal to younger audiences, but I'm not going to go out of my way to try and force you, the younger generation, to listen to it. It's there for you if you want it and I can do my best to sort of publicize it and make people know that it's out there.

But I don't know about going to younger musicians. I mean, certainly I would go to musicians much younger than myself if I felt that was the right thing to do and I was turned on them. But most of the people I think about when I'm thinking about getting people in to collaborate, (are) all the people that I grew up loving. And that's Crosby and Nash and Bowie and these people.

It's hard to say really, but you can't rule anything out. The thing about me going out on my own and not going out with Pink Floyd is that I do feel that there's a relaxation of the rules and I can do whatever I really feel like doing. And I would feel uneasy inviting David Bowie to come on and do something with Pink Floyd, for example, but with me, I figure that my audience is really there to listen to me and what I do and accept my taste and judgment on these things.

New York University: Having established such a successful and long-lasting career, how do you keep yourself interested in making music and where do you look for new inspiration and challenges?

DG: You know, music just comes. It just comes and you open up your receptors to it better and better as you get older, I think. And you just let it come through you. I don't know where it comes from, but it just sort of arrives and what you do with it once the basic idea has arrived is where the skill is, I guess you could say. But I don't seek it. It just arrives.

(inaudible) College of C.U.N.Y.: What do you want to achieve with your DVD in terms of fan reactions and just the overall perception?

DG: It's for me more than for anyone. It's so I've got something to look at and enjoy, and share with my children and so on and so forth, more than anyone else. I hope a lot of other people will come along for the ride, too, and enjoy it, but I don't really have any notion of what I want to give to fans or anything like that. It's art, and I think music is art. And it's something that you just are compelled to do and it comes out how it comes out. So, it's just something that happens to you and you hope that other people will come along for the ride.

U.C. Berkeley: What is your opinion on the state of modern music - modern rock in particular - and what do you see as your role in influencing or shaping modern music? Is there anything that excites you in modern rock or modern music in particular?

DG: Well, I just get some stuff that my sons play to me from time to time, but I don't spend an awful lot of time listening to rock music - it has to be said these days. I'm little older than you guys.

U.C. Berkeley: Is there any old music that you find never loses its relevancy that you continue to go back to?

DG: I go back to Neil Young and I go back to Leonard Cohen and I go back to Bob Dylan of course, and Joni Mitchell and a number of other people that, strangely, I suppose you could say, I don't go back to progressive rock very much. I go back to more the sort of single balladeer.

Northwestern University: What spawned the idea for the DVD?

David Gilmour: Well, really I suppose you could say that the amount of touring that I tend to do these days is a little bit limited. And when I came to the States last year, I only did five cities and I'm just hoping that this DVD will be something that the people who have a good home system and a good surround sound speaker system will invite a few friends over and enjoy with a glass of wine or something. And so, I'm hoping to cover a lot of the places that I didn't actually get to, because this DVD is the next best thing -- I can tell you, I saw it in a cinema last week -- the next best thing to going to a gig.

Boston College: I notice that the DVD does not include any material from your previous solo album. Is there a reason for this and then also just looking at the set list, too, are there certain you know, Pink Floyd songs that you're more comfortable playing over others? And I do notice that you do include the ((inaudible)) song as well. Can you comment on that? Thank you.

David Gilmour: Well, one thing at a time. I guess the solo albums you know, the songs that I really like on those solo albums are the ones that seem to have lost their relevance a little bit right at the moment. You know, there's a couple of songs on the second one called "Cruise" and "After the Blue" for example, which are rather about the Cold War and the nuclear proliferation that was going on at the time and the threat to peace in the West from the Soviet Bloc. And those things have become -- they don't really affect people anymore, they're not relevant to your lives anymore. So, they just seemed like -- it seemed like singing about something that was no longer relevant, so I didn't bother going there.