‘Oasis should do what’s right for them’: David Gilmour on a Pink Floyd reunion

As big band reunions are hitting headlines, Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour explains what that could mean for his band

There is nothing Rock ‘n’ roll about the building on the Sussex coast, but as I approach I can hear the unmistakable sounds of David Gilmour on guitar.

He has a particular sound that is his, and I am meeting him at a particular moment in his life.

After nine years, he has recorded a new album, and what’s more, he is preparing to take it on tour. Luck and Strange is the name, and it finds the former Pink Floyd guitarist in contemplative mood.

“It’s a place I’ve been in, since I was about 13, always thinking deeply, perhaps overthinking,” he tells me.

We are sitting in the vast hall that he and his team have transformed into a rehearsal studio, his beloved Fender guitars lined up, as well as his team comprising experienced ‘been there, seen it’ sort of engineers and musicians.

His wife, the novelist Polly Samson, is there, as is his daughter, Romany. Currently at university, she sings on the album, while Polly wrote the lyrics. One of the backing singers has her tiny baby in tow, and the Gilmour family’s pet dog, Wesley, is happily running around.

It is a family affair born out of the time they spent together during lockdown. David Gilmour was delighted to find out his daughter had a lovely voice that harmonised well with his. Listen to the track Between Two Points on the album and you’ll hear what I mean.

The guitarist said it is an album that reflects on the past and how lucky he was as a musician to be around then, how things were easier in the industry in the ’60s and ’70s. He bemoans the apparent decline in rock bands coming forward today, and the singles charts so dominated by solo artists.

There has been been some dismay at reports that since 2020 only three bands have topped the singles charts, and one of them was The Beatles.

Why are record companies seemingly not looking for the next Pink Floyd, I ask? Greed, he suggests – or at least the lack of effort to do what was commonplace in the past, namely companies going out to find the next big thing, in clubs and small venues. The decline in the number of small music venues has made this more difficult, I suggest.

He concedes we are living in a different age where people consume and discover their music online, but many will agree when he tells me that the process of buying vinyl albums, which dominated the era when bands like Floyd ruled the musical world, was a golden era. The feeling of the album, the words on the sleeves were a joy for those who bought them.

Pink Floyd have sold more than 250 million records over the past six decades, and their albums remain amongst the highest grossing in history. But he is firm when it comes to asking, well, what many ask: with big band reunions in the headlines right now, what about Pink Floyd?

His long running feud with the band’s co-founder, Roger Waters, has turned very nasty, with claim and counter claim. But he tells me all the remaining three members are not particularly on talking terms. So, a reunion? Dream on.

“Oasis should do what’s right for them,” he says, though the ticketing scandal has him baffled. “Chose a ticket price and stick to it.”

He may yearn for some things in the past, but that is not to say he is not leaping into the present and future. He is going back on tour, playing publicly for the first time in eight years.

There will be a six night residency at the Royal Albert Hall next month, and similar stints in Rome, LA and New York.