The Pink Floyd Biography - From Arguably the greatest band in the world!

Pink Floyd are in indeed a great rock band, they experimented with different sounds and equipment to create progressive sounds, psychedileca and space rock with meaningful lyrics and outstanding lighting and visual effects.

The Pink Floyd Biography – Before they were called Pink Floyd. The Early Years

The Pink Floyd started in 1965 with the members Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Richard Wright.Some of the members of the Pink Floyd band started out in previous other bands such as Sigma 6, The Meggadeaths, and The screaming Abdabs all formed in 1964. The members of this band such as guitarist Bob Klose, lead guitar and bass player Roger Waters, drummer Nick Mason, and future keyboardist Rick Wright joined a new band called The Tea Set with Syd Barrett which then changed the band name to The Pink Floyd sound. They got their name from two blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. The new Pink Floyd band covered blues and rhythm music without the member Bob Close who had left the band to become a photographer

Pink Floyd Biography – Pink Floyd with leader Syd Barrett!

Syd Barrett became the bands leader, vocalist, guitarist, and song writer. The bands direction was British psychedelic rock and they had toured the London underground scene with live improvisations and cool lighting effects.

Pink Floyd then released two singles called Arnold Layne and Emily Play reaching number twenty and number six in the English chart during 1967. These songs would be part of a first new concept album called Piper At The Gates of Dawn. The band at this point was very talented with creating music on the spur of the moment, right there on the spot. They were very musical and quite different from most other bands.

Pink Floyd Biography – Syd Barrett’s Drug Problem

As Pink Floyd had increased in success, Syd Barrett had been tied with mental problems from excess LSD drug taking so much that it would affect his time with the band quite heavily, both in absence and on stage performance. This meant that a new face would come along, David Gilmour who was invited by Roger Waters of Pink Floyd to come fill in for Syd Barrett on a part-time basis. Barrett then became unworkable and eventually had to leave the band due to his bad state.

Pink Floyd Biography – The arrival of David Gilmour, the  band's new direction

David Gilmour now became the newest member of Pink Floyd and would act as the band’s vocalist and guitarist whilst Roger Waters would became the band’s lyricist and leader. For the other two members Nick Mason would remain Pink Floyd drummer and Richard Wright would continue as the keyboardist.

Pink Floyd eventually moved away from the old psychedelic sound and more into blues and rock with each member contributing effectively within their roles. Each member would play their own playing style. Waters played Jazz melodies, Wright psychedelic keyboard tunes, and Gilmour would concentrate on blues jams with simple lyrics. With this sound, during 1968-1970, the band would release four albums such as A Saucerful of Secrets, More, Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother.

Pink Floyd Biography – Superstardom and living legends

The band now still very much hungry for success with Roger Waters still the lyricist, the vocals very much belonged to David Gilmour along with his great guitar contribution. During 1971-1975, Pink Floyd released two more albums such as Meddle, Obscurred by Clouds and then.......

something great and spectacular happened….they released a masterpiece, The Dark Side of The Moon totally lifted the band’s success. This album was got to number one in the USA and spent a record of 741 weeks in the charts. And if that wasn’t enough they sold 35 million copies which transferred the band into a new whole league.

Pink Floyd Biography – Pressure on the band

Following the success of Dark Side of the Moon, the pressure was on the band to produce more successful albums. However, that was soon to come when they released Wish You Were Here an album mostly about Syd Barrett which contains the great song Shine On You Crazy Diamond. Due to the band’s recent success, Pink Floyd was on top of success and became one of the best selling acts of all time.

Pink Floyd Biography – Roger Waters full control of the Band

Not long after Wish You Were Here, Roger Waters started to grab hold of the reins and take full control over the band and demanded his ideas and opinions. This was shown in their next album Animals where he wrote and sang brutal lyrics which expressed the life of politics in the context of “Animals”.

Waters and Gilmour in this era would argue about each others ideas. Waters would show his arrogance at times and he would eventually always get his way in the end.

Waters then started to steer the band into a different direction. He had an obsession with war mostly because his father fought and died in the World War which inspired him to create the band’s next album, The Wall which gives the context of War along with aspects of Syd and Roger’s own feelings between himself and the audience all in the context of Rock Opera. From this album, the band released their first number one single, Another Brick in the Wall and had spent about eight consecutive weeks in the number one spot in the States.

At the time of this album, Roger Waters sacked particular members of the band such as Rick Wright for unfair reasons. Waters didn't think that Wright was contributing enough and demanded that he give up full band membership status. Wright did so, and ended up leaving altogether in 1982. The band was starting to fall apart.

Pink Floyd Biography – Band break-up during the Roger Waters era

At this point, the band was hanging by a thread in terms of keeping it together. Roger Waters ordered the band to end following the release of their next album, The Final Cut in 1983 with ‘final cut’ meaning the last era of the band. During this era and the making of this album each member of Pink Floyd would never meet altogether in the recording studios. Each member was clearly told what to record by Roger Waters and they would go into the studio and record their bit individually.

Pink Floyd Biography - The David Gilmour Era

After Roger Waters announced his break-up from the band in 1985 demanding that the band would end, David Gilmour would fight back with numerous law sites and court battles to reinstate Pink Floyd.

David Gilmour and Nick Mason won back Pink Floyd with the return of Rick Wright whilst, Roger Waters won legal rights for The Wall.

With David Gilmour now being the leader of Pink Floyd his intension was to bring back the Floyd sound that he thought had lately disappeared. The band did this by releasing two new albums A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell. Both of these albums had the lyrics written by numerous outside members including Gilmour’s girlfriend Polly Samson because the bands writing talent was lost due to the absence of Roger Waters. Lyric writing was never Gilmour’s talented area.

Pink Floyd Biography - Live Tours

After releasing A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Pink Floyd kicked off a world tour in 1988-89. Pink Floyd then started a second tour called PULSE following the release of The Division Bell. An album was then released covering a collection of live songs taken from their numerous dates of the PULSE tour. A video VHS copy can be bought showing all footage of their live tour. A DVD version is also soon to be released covering songs taken from the PULSE concert at Earls Court on eight dates

Pink Floyd Biography - The future for Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd’s extremely successful PULSE world tour was the band’s final fair well and marked the end of Pink Floyd. However, they did reunite at Live 8 for a one day performance only, but they do not intend to do any tours or release any albums in the future. Who Knows!!!!!

Pink Floyd have been around for over 30 years they have been touring and making many albums and there is so much to be said about there time within this legendary and iconic band….They are simply one of the greatest bands of all time there is no doubt!

How can I find more about this iconic band?

You can find out loads and loads more information from this band by reading Nick Mason’s Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd.....

If you are a die hard Pink Floyd fan or just a rock fan, this book will tell you everything about one of the greatest rock bands of all time. This book gives you much more than the Pink Floyd biography. And who knows better about the band than the Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason himself. The person who wrote this book, Nick Mason, stayed with Pink Floyd throughout their existence! And in his book he has included all the never before released news, comments and photos…

‘laughed out loud so many times my wife thought I had Tourette's. It's so well written, full of detail, self-deprecating and funny. A seminal book - an intelligent, literate rock and roll memoir full of candour and wit.' Alan Parker

'There cannot be many stories left in rock that are as big as Pink Floyd's. And I doubt whether anyone could tell this story so well as the patient, witty man who watched it all unfold from his perch behind the drum kit.' Paul du Noyer

Great content at an affordable price. Great value for money!

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