Pedals Week 2026: Looper pedals are undoubtedly one of the best writing tools a guitar player can have in their arsenal, but they’re also invaluable for anyone looking to sharpen their skills as a soloist, both technically and theoretically.

You could take the chord progression from one of your favorite songs, for example, and start testing out new ideas – which will help you find your voice and identity on your instrument.

As any Guitar World reader already knows, it can be highly rewarding to learn your favorite solos note for note, but studying the chord progression underneath them will help you put your own spin on things. And this is precisely where a looper will come in handy.

Some of the world’s greatest solos were written over movements that allowed the players to create something truly astounding and unique. The more attention you pay to chords and rhythms, the more impactful your solo might end up sounding.

Play the chords into your looper and start experimenting with different sounds and feels. You might notice how some tracks stay in one key and allow you to build your story a scene at a time without any radical harmonic departures.

In other situations, you might notice that some of the chords you’re playing over allow you to add in other tonalities and venture outside of the key, with options for more ear-catching notes from a different scale – from the introduction of Dorian, Aeolian or Mixolydian flavors to more dramatic-sounding harmonic and melodic minor scales.

So, even if you feel like music theory isn’t a strong point, just a little bit of due diligence can go a long way to impress listeners and help you learn how to deliver a solo that truly soars and sings. Your ear is the most important thing here.

Here are 10 tracks that are great for looping, with repetitive progressions that give you plenty of opportunities to conjure up something extra special.

1. Eagles – Hotel California

It’s one of those songs that’s always in the running for the greatest guitar solo(s) of all-time, with Don Felder and Joe Walsh going head to head before joining forces for some lavish harmonized arpeggios at the end.

The minor chord progression underneath is what gives ample opportunity to create something dramatic, with the V chord being changed to dominant (F#7 instead of F#min) and the IV chord alternating between major and minor instead of staying minor.

This is what allows soloists to switch between B pentatonic and Aeolian to harmonic minor, especially on the substituted chords Ultimately, the goal here is to not stick with one scale – make your solo more fluid and unpredictable to catch listeners off-guard.

2. John Mayer – Slow Dancing In A Burning Room

If you’re looking for the perfect song to master your C# minor pentatonic chops, as well as its E major relative, this could very well be it. Unlike Hotel California, the progression is completely diatonic and therefore feels like it’s all in one key, so it’s more about phrasing and delivery than note choices when targeting chords.

With a laid-back tempo and slinky feel, it’s the kind of musical scenario that calls for big pentatonic bends, and therefore works as a practice tool for pitch accuracy. It’s worth asking yourself what note are you trying to bend up to and how close are you getting.

3. Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb

Often cited as one of David Gilmour’s greatest moments, this final single from Pink Floyd’s 1979 rock opera The Wall is an absolute masterclass in how to speak B minor pentatonic.

Pay attention to your vibrato and note choice, because these are two areas where Gilmour is known to excel, and see if you can find your own lines that feel natural and avoid over-complication.

The bar where the chords drop from G to F#min and Emin calls for something extra special – think about what you can play to emphasize the movement underneath you and have some fun with it.

4. B.B. King – The Thrill Is Gone

Anyone trying to master the art of 12-bar blues will undoubtedly come across this Grammy-winning hit from 1969. This is another B minor progression that’s all about the bends – know exactly what you’re aiming for and see what happens when you undershoot or overshoot to unlock “the in-between notes” on the fretboard, like the original blues masters.

The minor pentatonic will be your friend here, but if you’re looking to spice things up, try introducing B melodic minor or A# half-whole diminished scales over the dominant chord (F#7) to create tension before the progression returns to root. This resolution from the V chord to the I is often referred to as a perfect cadence.

5. Metallica – Wherever I May Roam

Arguably one of the most famous heavy metal tracks written using the Phrygian scale, the fourth single from Metallica’s self-titled landmark album of 1991 is a great way of introducing yourself to more outside ideas.

For his solo, Kirk Hammett chose to use a mixture of E minor pentatonic and E Phrygian Dominant – which is the fifth mode of A harmonic minor – to great effect. The big jump from a minor second to a major third is a surefire way of capturing people’s attention.

Use it too much, however, and it loses its effect. So try switching between Phrygian, which has a minor third, and its dominant sibling to mix things up – essentially swapping a G for a G# wherever you think it feels right. Follow your ears and have fun.

6. Led Zeppelin – Stairway To Heaven

Maybe don’t try this one while testing looper pedals in your local guitar shop, but if you’re hoping to explore the world of natural minor, this hit provides a perfect backdrop.

The A minor pentatonic scale will do the trick for most of the chords, but highlighting the F chord with an F note will add a sense of sophistication to what you play, showing everyone how you understand the song’s inner workings by targeting the sound of a minor 6th at exactly the right time.

If you listen to the last note of Jimmy Page’s opening line, you’ll hear how it creates an atmosphere of tension after the familiarity of more bluesy sounds.

7. Free – All Right Now

Some of the world’s greatest guitar solos aren’t strictly major or minor, with the player blending ideas from both worlds into one seamless package. This 1970 hit is one of those, thanks to Paul Kossoff’s iconic fretwork halfway into the song.

Maybe start off in A major pentatonic and work your way into A minor pentatonic as your solo builds towards its grand crescendo, or try using both in a ‘call and answer’ fashion. Kossoff’s vibrato also played a huge part in his solo’s overall feel, so experiment with how you shake the notes you’re choosing to let ring – there’s plenty of space to get creative and express yourself here.

8. Joe Bonamassa – Sloe Gin

The New York blues maverick is one of the undisputed titans of the long-form solo, and the title track from his 2007 album is the perfect example of why that is. Once you’ve recorded the chords into your looping pedal, begin with some simple phrases in D minor and slowly build your ideas in terms of intensity and dynamics.

The original solo is almost three minutes long and never outstays its welcome. Holding back is an art form in itself – and playing along to a progression like this is a great way of learning how to flow naturally through control and discipline, keeping the listener on the edge of their seats every step of the way.

The chords to Purple Rain by Prince would also work very well for this – look at it as telling a story with a beginning, middle and end, rather than going in all guns blazing.

9. Joe Satriani – Flying In A Blue Dream

If you’re mainly used to pentatonic scales, Lydian – which is the fourth mode of the major scale – can present some serious challenges when it comes to phrasing.

Jamming along to the chords from this title track on Joe Satriani’s third full-length, released in 1989, is a great way of familiarizing yourself with these shapes and sounds. You can look at C Lydian from a G major perspective, which is its parent scale, or think of it as C major with a sharpened fourth, or even C major pentatonic with the inclusion of a B and an F.

Ultimately, different ways of visualizing a scale can help you explore new sonic horizons. Experiment with every possibility, even the ones that feel more confusing and less natural, because they might push you in a completely new direction.

10. Gary Moore – Parisienne Walkways

Much like Moore’s most famous track Still Got The Blues, this late ’70s hit is a great way of getting used to cycle-of-fifth progressions, also typified by songs like Autumn Leaves and I Will Survive.

Parisienne Walkways is in the key of A natural minor but at the end of the main progression, the perfect cadence of a V chord (E7) into the I chord (Amin) provides an opportunity to use the A harmonic minor scale for extra tension, which is then released by resolving back to the root.

Like Stairway To Heaven, it’s a great way of learning how to change just one note over the right chord and provide more depth for the listener to appreciate, taking them on a journey that travels further and therefore exceeds expectation.

This is not the first time that Christie’s has played host to David Gilmour’s feted ‘Black Strat’ – the guitar he used on The Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, countless epochal live shows, and on Comfortably Numb.

Indeed, the first time many people heard of Jim Irsay was when he bought the Black Strat at auction at Christie’s on 20 June 2019 for $3,975,000, setting a new record for a guitar.

“No-one quite anticipated the amount of excitement it would cause among both fans and collectors – who are often the same people,” Amelia Walker recalls. “I think we had something like 19 unique bidders on that guitar, many of whom carried on bidding to a very, very high level.

“For so many people, [the Black Strat] is the [centrepiece] of the Irsay Collection and is David Gilmour’s calling card – its look is so distinct. I’ve spoken to a lot of people about it and so many of them think it will make more this time around, which is really interesting.”

It began life as a Fender 1968 to ’69 alder body Strat with a black finish painted over sunburst and originally featured a late-’60s maple neck with large headstock and 21 frets.

A switch to a rosewood neck occurred during its most famous studio stints, however, and it was in this configuration that it appeared on The Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here.

The neck swaps didn’t end there and at one point it even had a Charvel neck fitted. At present, the Black Strat is fitted with a 1983 ’57 reissue C-shape maple Fender neck with 7.25-inch radius fingerboard and 21 vintage-style frets.

The black scratchplate that gives the guitar its iconic look was fitted in 1974 and is not a factory part as Fender didn’t make them to this spec at that point. Sensibly, and like almost every vintage Strat not in collector-grade condition, the original three-way pickup selector was swapped out for a five-way as late as 1985.

Meanwhile, the neck and middle pickups date from 1971, while the bridge pickup is a Seymour Duncan custom-wound SSL-1C, installed in 1979, which replaced a DiMarzio FS-1 that represented one of Gilmour’s early attempts to get more beef out of the notoriously thin-sounding Strat bridge pickup position.

There are further electronics mods in the form of a mini-toggle just below the pots to allow the neck pickup to be switched in independently for a somewhat Jazzmaster-like tone.

Some mods of the past have been reversed, such as routing for an XLR socket on the edge of the body and a visibly refilled cavity where a Kahler vibrato was fitted – and, in fact, it was this mod that caused the Black Strat to be retired, for a time, from Gilmour’s go-to guitars.

“It seemed to deaden the sound somewhat,” Gilmour’s long-term tech Phil Taylor told Guitarist in 2015. “It just fell out of David’s favour when the new ’57 reissue Strats came out. So David agreed to loan the Black Strat to the Hard Rock Cafe.” It did return to service later, but that, as they say, is another story.

• Christie’s will auction The Jim Irsay Collection: Hall of Fame, including the iconic guitars in this feature and others, plus some of the most important cultural objects of the 20th century, on the evening of 12 March. For more information on the four-part sale series, visit Christie's.
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

It’s easy to be envious of the talents of Eric Clapton, but a session guitarist, famed for his time working with Roger Waters, says the Pink Floyd bass player was “resentful” of Slowhand.

The comments come from Tim Renwick's new interview with Guitar Player. The guitarist, who has also starred in Elton John's band, was part of the group Waters assembled for his 1984 The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking album and tour, with Clapton and Pink Floyd collaborator Michael Kamen also part of the picture. Indeed, Clapton’s guitar solo exploits litter the concept album.

Like Kamen, who helped arrange orchestras for The Wall and played on its succeeding tour, Renwick arrived on the scene having already had previous experience with Pink Floyd.

Later, he would tour A Momentary Lapse of Reason for two years with the group, and record on The Division Bell a decade later. He says that Waters didn’t take kindly to how the audience reacted to Clapton’s playing.

“It wasn't as lighthearted as it could have been,” Renwick says of the tour, with Waters running a tight ship. “He took everything very seriously and tended to want everything to sound exactly the same as the record; he was very vigilant.”

“Roger was a bit resentful of the fact that whenever Eric Clapton got up and played a solo, the place would erupt,” he adds. “People would get their lighters out, and there would be a tremendous outpouring of applause.

“And that annoyed Roger quite a lot because, rightly or wrongly, he felt that the audience weren't actually listening to the songs. They were just watching out for what Eric was doing. So there was a certain amount of resentment there.”

Waters, however, surely knew what he was letting himself in for by welcoming the guitarist into his band. Nearly 20 years earlier, one superfan had graffitied “Clapton is God” onto a London wall – an honor Clapton would later tell Guitar World he deserved – and as the years went by, that hype around him never diminished. The reaction of the audience should have come as no surprise.

In related news, the acoustic guitar that Eric Clapton and George Harrison both wrote hits on went to auction late last year, just months after it was listed on Reverb for a cool $1 million.

Learning scales and patterns is perhaps one of the less exciting aspects of guitar playing – and, arguably, many of our heroes didn’t approach their playing in this way, either.

However, consider the process of writing and recording material, and rehearsing then touring, which obviously involves playing those same tunes night after night. This in itself can teach us so much about what works and what doesn’t, simply through an intense process of trial and error.

If the old adage about one gig being worth a dozen rehearsals holds true, what are the benefits of a long tour? It’s true to say that many professional musicians (myself included) come off tour able to play the set blindfolded, but feeling a bit rusty on anything else… However, this is temporary and the longterm gains are clear. But where does this leave everyone else?

It’s possible to transform your playing without repeatedly going through the album/tour cycle, but it does take discipline to play and practise every single day and perhaps record yourself (in private – studio quality is not necessary!) then listen back with as objective an ear as possible. Yes, we are often our own harshest critics, but you can make this work for you by taking notes and deciding on positive steps to improve in any weak areas.

This brings us neatly back to the idea of learning scales and patterns, with the emphasis on the latter. A slow minor blues like the example solo gives us plenty of time to think about note choice and phrasing. Some of the ideas in the examples are derived from chord tones or chord extensions.

But, if you prefer, they could also be regarded as embellished pentatonic/blues scale licks. Play these, or similar ideas, often enough and they will become part of your vocabulary. Hope you enjoy and see you next time!

Example 1

In the pickup to this first phrase, I’m spelling out part of an E minor scale, though you could also say it’s an E minor triad (G B E) with an F# added before the G on beat 1 of bar 1. This gives us more detail than sticking solely to the pentatonic scale.

The change to A minor then B minor in bar 2 is followed with an ear for their respective triads (A C E and B D F#) but without needing to change position on the fretboard.

Oddly enough, the last two bars feature more movement between positions over a static chord, playing a similar idea over two octaves using the E minor pentatonic scale.

Example 2

Shifting to A minor, this second phrase targets the 9th (B) in what would otherwise be a regular minor pentatonic phrase, albeit sliding between shapes 1 and 2.

The brief excursions to C and D don’t really ask anything too specific of us in terms of note choice, though perhaps it is worth experimenting with C and D triads? The next main chord is E minor.

Nothing too fancy going on here, but there is a bend from F# to G in bar 3, emphasising the 9th in the key of E minor. Watch out for sneaky staccato notes!

Example 3

Switching to the bridge pickup for dramatic effect, this final example is perhaps the most obviously pentatonic, switching between shapes 4, 1 and 2. Somehow, the unembellished pentatonic sounds ‘tougher’ for this rise in dynamic…

That’s where we stay, being pretty and melodic sidelined in favour of a few more flourishes, before a short chromatic run up to B at the end. We don’t always need to spell out each chord, but it’s good to know what’s going on harmonically so we can pick and choose.

Allow yourself a bit of leeway for timing; this is transcribed as faithfully as possible but need not be set in stone.

Hear it here

John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers – A Hard Road

After Eric Clapton had recorded the infamous ‘Beano’ album and moved on to form Cream, there was a vacancy to fill. Enter Peter Green. On this 1967 release, he shows himself very able to channel the spirit of Clapton on tracks such as The Stumble and Another Kinda Love.

However, on The Super-Natural we really hear him coming into his own, having a profound influence on Carlos Santana, Gary Moore and many others in the process.

Santana – Abraxas

Released in 1969, this second album from the band features a cover of Peter Green’s Black Magic Woman, alongside the well-known tracks Samba Pa Ti and Oye Cómo Va.

In fact, we could probably have cited any of Santana’s albums here, as his distinctive playing remains the centrepiece of his music, combining American and Mexican influences, while frequently using pentatonic lines but just as often adding melody via chord tones, arpeggios and long held notes.

Pink Floyd – The Dark Side Of The Moon

David Gilmour is a very obvious name to put out there when thinking of melodic-blues-influenced players. Like Santana, you could approach any of the Pink Floyd or later solo material and find lots of examples.

Of particular interest here, though, is how he fits his blues-based style into tracks such as Time and Any Colour You Like where he trades licks against himself in stereo. Money contains some more obviously bluesy licks, though still with lots of memorable melodic lines.

• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Most Pink Floyd fans were aggrieved when the highly fruitful Gilmour–Waters partnership – the one that gave the world albums like Wish You Were Here and The Dark Side of the Moon – came to an end.

And while David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason still own the name, and the band still owns the publishing rights, the two have “absolutely no intention” of reviving Floyd.

This is partly due to the fact that Gilmour and Waters still seem to be on no-speaking terms.

As reported by The Telegraph, in February 2023, Polly Samson, Gilmour's wife, wrote on X that Waters is “anti-Semitic to your rotten core. Also a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy megalomaniac” – to which Gilmour added, “Every word demonstrably true.”

From his end, Waters “refutes entirely” Samson’s “incendiary and wildly inaccurate portrayal”. In a new interview with The Telegraph, Samson explains her reasoning behind making that comment in the first place.

“The reason I did it was because Pink Floyd are quite a faceless band. Everywhere I went, there’s a chance that people thought I was married to the one who said things like that. And it wasn’t a great feeling.”

She continues, “If they knew you’re married to someone from Pink Floyd, half the time people were giving me quite strange looks and it was really uncomfortable and I just wanted to draw a line and make it clear that these were not views held by me or the person I was married to.”

So is there ever a world in which Gilmour reunites with Waters, for one last time? “Nothing,” he tells journalist James Hall. “There is no possible way that I would do that.”

And for those nostalgic for Pink Floyd's heyday, Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII, the newly restored version of the band's groundbreaking Live At Pompeii film, was released earlier this year.

David Gilmour may have written two iconic guitar solos for Comfortably Numb, but when it comes to playing it live, he says he’s “never learned” one of them.

His comments relate to the track's second showing. It's near-faultless on the record. But, like a true artist, Gilmour isn’t one for repeating things robotically. Instead, his approach is far more intuitive – he plays what he feels on the night.

“I'm not thinking about the audience and what they want, to be honest,” he admits to Rick Beato (via Guitar Player). “I just like it starting the way it starts, and the rest of it is so ingrained in me that the various parts of it are going to find their way into what I'm doing.

“But I've never learned it. Yeah, I've never learned that guitar solo.”

This is a stylistic decision that Gilmour has decided to take. It might not go down well with all Pink Floyd fans, but as far as the guitarist is concerned, there will be a large faction of fans who would prefer a more natural display of his soloing skills.

“I mean, there are a lot of guys who can play that. But I don't play it,” he laughs. “It's different every time. Why would I want to do it the same? Would it be more popular with the people listening if I did it exactly like the record? Or do they prefer that I just wander off into whatever feels like the right thing at the time? I don't know.

“I suspect they like they prefer it to be real, and to be happening, you know?”

Indeed, Gilmour, who confessed that he prefers a “vocal” style of lead playing due to the fact that he can’t shred, has always been feel over firepower. But that’s not to say what he plays each night is completely removed from the version that starred on 1979’s epic concept record, The Wall.

“There are cues within it, which I use to tell the band, 'We're going to end,' or, ‘We're going to do this,’” he explains. “And so, they crop up as being the same every time, pretty much.”

Granted, it’s Comfortably Numb’s first solo that gets most of the plaudits, which gives Gilmour more room to maneuver second time around.

Back in October, Gilmour handled the track’s lead lines while simultaneously battling his Jimi Hendrix guitar strap, which broke mid-solo.

Elsewhere, Gilmour has addressed what it was like the first time he saw Jimi Hendrix play, and what happened when one of his Animals' solos got erased forever.

Have you ever written an awesome guitar part that, for one reason or another, disappeared into the ether? Well, in David Gilmour's case, it was one of his solos on Dogs, from 1977's Animals. Of course, keen-eared Pink Floyd fans would know that this song has a number, of solos – one of which was mistakenly deleted during those sessions.

“On Dogs, the original solo did get erased,” Gilmour confirms in his latest interview with Rick Beato. “We had the whole first half of the song. Then we had a middle breakdown bit, which became all that weird stuff, and that was filled with white two-inch leader tape [used to separate cues on tape].

“And then eventually the rest of the song was tagged on there while we were thinking about and working out what to do with it. And there was something on the first half that we wanted to erase, and Roger [Waters] and Nick [Mason] put it into “erase,” and then forgot it was in “erase,” and it went right through the leader tape by two minutes, and then took away my second guitar solo.”

While the actual, recorded solo was – in Gilmour's own words – “completely erased, gone, forever, done,” the guitar part wasn't, as thankfully, he had it saved elsewhere.

“Luckily, I do take mixes home and I'd taken a mix of that home, so I had to go and recreate it from my rough mix. [However] you never quite feel 100% satisfied, though every note has been learned and rehearsed and played, you need to think, ‘Oh, there's something about the feel that had before that it's gone forever.’”

As for Animals, there was another guitarist who played a role in the making of that album. With the birth of his first child, Gilmour wasn't as involved as usual, and discussions were held about employing another guitarist on tour. As legend has it, Snowy White swooped in and was offered a gig as a touring guitarist. However, what he didn't expect was an invite to play a solo on record.

“It was just after they offered me the gig that I recorded the solo for Pigs on the Wing,” White recalled in a Guitar World interview. “David [Gilmour] and I went back into the control room, and he said to Roger [Waters], 'Snowy has agreed to take the gig,' and Roger said, 'Well, while you're here, you might as well play something.'

“So, Roger swivels around and puts on Pigs on the Wing,” White continues. “And then he said, 'Why don't you do a solo in the middle? Go ahead and pick up any of those guitars out there and have a go at it.' So, I picked up this white Strat, plugged it in, fiddled about, and then did the solo in one take. I know one take sounds impressive, but honestly, I got lucky that I did such a nice one right away.”

In the same Rick Beato interview, Gilmour looks back on the first time he saw Hendrix play – in the company of the Beatles and Rolling Stones.

Guy Pratt has had an over-four-decade career holding down the low-end for an awe-inspiring list of names, including Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry, Gary Moore, Michael Jackson, Debbie Harry... and the list goes on – not to mention his side hustle as a TV, film, and theater composer.

However, the bassist's career over the past 38 years has largely been taken up by David Gilmour, who handpicked him as his go-to bass player. Yet, this solid working relationship very nearly didn't happen.

“The first thing was, I was playing for Dream Academy, and David had produced them. He needed a support band for this one show in Birmingham,” he recounts in a new interview with Premier Guitar.

“He [Nick Laird-Clowes from Dream Academy] said, ‘David’s heard your playing. He thinks you’re amazing. He can’t wait to meet you’ – which of course was just bollocks. So we get up there in Birmingham. I’m terrified.”

But the meeting didn't turn out as planned… “I went in and just stood in his dressing room, and it was awful. We both stood there with nothing to say until one of us had to walk away. David, being the ranking officer, got to be the one who walked away. And that was the end of it.”

Thankfully, the awkward first meeting didn't sour the budding relationship, as Gilmour was still adamant about recruiting Pratt as his bassist. “I went on holiday to Thailand and I came back, and there’s all these messages from David.”

He continues, “The first one saying hi, he was doing an Amnesty International concert, the Secret Policeman’s Ball, and he wanted me to play with him and Kate Bush. And there’s another message and another message. ‘Hi Guy, just wondered, it’s next week you know.’ And then, of course, he had to get someone else. I’m like, ‘My god, that was my one shot.’”

That wasn't the be-all and end-all of Pratt's run-in with Gilmour, however. “A while later, David, Rick [Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright], and Nick were saying they were doing a new Pink Floyd album, and I didn’t think any more about it until I got a phone call from L.A.,” he recalls.

“It’s David going, ‘Hi. We’re putting Pink Floyd back together.’ He said, the tour was gonna be a year, and would I be interested and available? So I went, ‘Yes!’ And he said, ‘Oh, not working much, then?’ And that started our relationship of him ribbing me and me constantly falling for it. That’s been the hallmark of our relationship for the last 38 years.”

As for how he typically works with Gilmour, Pratt notes that what he always finds interesting when rehearsing with him is “what he [Gilmour] remembers from bass parts.”

He clarifies, “A lot of the music is so slow and so big and there’s so much space in it. Very often, it’s actually the length of the notes rather than how many notes you’re playing that matters more. With David, and this is something I get with the wisdom of years, every note does count.”

As he aptly points out, in Gilmour's music, “there’s no need for a sixteenth note on the bass anywhere in this music, ever.”

In other recent Guy Pratt news, the bass phenom has recently talked to Bass Player about what it was like to work on hits such as Madonna's Like a Prayer and Michael Jackson's Earth Song.

When Peter Green left Fleetwood Mac in 1970 and disappeared into obscurity, many guitarists – including Snowy White – felt his recording days were over. However, White, best known for his work with Thin Lizzy and Pink Floyd, eventually played a key role in bringing the blues rock electric guitar hero out from the dark.

In a new interview with Guitar World, White discusses how their surprise guitar tandem came about on Green’s comeback album, In the Skies. At the time, it was Green’s first record in eight years and one that lifted him out of obscurity and back into the limelight.

White says work began in 1977, two years prior to the album’s release, with White fresh off the Animals sessions with Pink Floyd. The record may not have been possible without him.

“Peter rang me one day and said, ‘I'm doing an album for a small record company that my brother is involved in, can I use you and your band?’ So, we went into a studio and basically just jammed.”

Green founded Fleetwood Mac in 1967, and his slick, timeless, blues-y playing is evident in their earliest releases, including tracks such as Oh Well and the seductive Albatross.

But his exit wasn’t all that amicable and in 1970, against a backdrop of drug use and mental health issues, Green left the group. Almost a decade later, he would re-emerge professionally, with his passion for jams and connecting with other musicians returning.

“Peter was in a good mood and it was a fun session,” White continues. “He started playing rhythm stuff and asked me to play lead. I said, ‘Pete, it’s your album, you play some lead.’ In the end, we both did a bit of each.”

Despite his deep-rooted connection to the Les Paul, Green wielded an unassuming 1965 Fender Duo-Sonic on In The Skies, which was the sound of Green finding himself again. It had been a turbulent period, and Snowy White was there to help him find his musical feet again.

“Of course, I was very happy to be recording with Peter,” White reflects. “I’d known him for a few years and didn’t think he would ever record again. Then he took away the tracks and worked on them, put some lyrics on.”

Green and White returned to the studio, setting up at The Who’s Battersea, London, location. The album would prove a success, but White does have one niggling regret about the experience.

“Unfortunately, I’d put in some of my ideas but in the end, I wasn’t credited with any songwriting,” he explains. “That was a pity but I didn’t make a fuss about it, as I figured that Peter was still pretty fragile and unsure about dealing with the business side of things, so I let it pass.”

Elsewhere in his Guitar World interview, White reveals how both Moore and David Gilmour would come to feature on his 1994 solo album, Highway to the Sun.

Little did a young, impressionable Phil Manzanera know when he first crossed paths with David Gilmour in the ‘60s that the pair would strike up an enduring friendship, lasting over half a century and then some, that saw him work with the Pink Floyd legend on a score of albums.

The Roxy Music guitarist recently recounted some of those experiences with Guitar Player, detailing how those collaborations allowed him to understand the secrets of Gilmour’s heart-stirring guitar tone, and how it’s not all about the gear he used.

Manzanera was 16 when they first crossed paths, and would go on to form Roxy Music, the band with which he’d make his name – with the help of his red Gibson Firebird – several years later. All the while, he kept a close eye on Gilmour’s career as Pink Floyd became heavyweights in the progressive rock world.

While Roxy Music were working on their second album at London’s Air Studios, Manzanera encountered Chris Thomas, who was mixing The Dark Side of the Moon at the same time, prompting the pair to reconnect.

“I went in to the control room of Studio Two, and none of the Floyd were there,” he tells Guitar Player. “It was just Chris, and he played me the song Money. And when I heard the guitar solo, I thought, ‘Jesus, this is amazing!’

“So I sent David a telegram saying, ‘Remember me? I'm in a band now called Roxy Music.’”

It proved to be more than a fleeting meet-up, and Manzanera, now part of Gilmour’s inner circle, saw his talents blossom close hand.

“[Original Floyd guitarist] Syd Barrett was more off the wall, but David brought a sort of blues sensibility to Pink Floyd, and then had to do the experimental stuff as well, too,” he feels. “He evolved in his own way of creating weird and wonderful sounds.”

Gilmour turned to Manzanera to help produce his 2006 solo album, On an Island, and did likewise for Rattle That Lock nine years later. He even had a hand in Floyd’s final LP, The Endless River, and joined Gilmour's solo band for a short spell. Working with him so closely lifted the lid on where his sound comes from.

“One of the things about David's playing – and in some way it's a bit like me – is that while it seems to be about distortion and echo, it is actually about the way he plays the notes and bends them, along with the strength of his hands,” he says.

“And he's got a fantastic sense of tuning. He's very, very hot on tuning. So often when I was recording him, I would have a tuner right there with me to check on the tuning. But he would come in to listen to a take or something, and if a note wasn't bent or pulled or pushed to the right tuning, he'd want to redo it.”

He admits that such an intricate ear for pitch had its problematic moments, but it shows the sheer degree of accuracy that lives behind the emotiveness of his lead playing.

At one point while working together, Manzanera looked to relearn the main riff of the 1978 Roxy Music track K-Scope – which had recently been sampled and given a new vibe by Kanye West and Jay-Z – only for both guitarists to be left stumped by it.

After releasing his latest solo album, Luck and Strange last year, Gilmour has hinted that more music is in the works as he looks to continue momentum built from what he believes is his best album since Dark Side of the Moon.

In Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII – the newly restored version of the 1972 film directed by Adrian Maben – a clip of the band recording what would become The Dark Side of the Moon at Abbey Road Studios has been unearthed from the depths of the Floyd archives.

Perhaps most interesting are the band's thoughts on the criticisms they were receiving at the time – that they depended too much on their gear and new technologies.

In the clip, David Gilmour can be seen saying, “I don't think equipment could take over. We do rely on it a lot. I mean, we couldn't do what we do as we do it without it. We could still do a good, entertaining, musical show, I suppose, without it. But all those things are down to how you control them and whether you're controlling them, not the other way around.”

Roger Waters, on the other hand, ponders, “It's a danger that we could become slaves of all our equipment, and in the past, we have been.” However, he clarifies that it's just a question of using the tools “that are available, when they're available.”

“More and more now, there's all kinds of electronic goodies which are available [for] people like us to use.”

And in true Waters fashion, he doubles down on his argument, asserting, “It's like saying, ‘Give a man a Les Paul guitar, and he becomes Eric Clapton,’ and it's not true. ‘And give a man an amplifier and a synthesizer, and he doesn't become whoever.’ He doesn't become us.”

Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii was filmed in October 1971 and captures a band finally finding their footing after years of experimentation in the wake of the departure of their founder, Syd Barrett.

The movie has now been meticulously hand-restored, frame by frame, after being discovered in five dubiously labeled cans in the band’s own archive. Under its updated title, Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII, it is set to be released in cinemas worldwide starting April 24.

David Gilmour later returned to the Amphitheatre of Pompeii in 2016, where, for two nights only, he performed for just 3,000 lucky concertgoers – with a Live at Pompeii album and concert film released in 2017.

Last year, Corey Feldman set the internet abuzz with his shredding – which was plagued by “fake playing” accusations, despite Feldman, Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst, and many internet sleuths insisting otherwise.

He even set the record straight with Guitar World, asserting, “If we’re able to reach millions – and I mean millions – of people with this stupid solo, then obviously we’re doing something right.”

Now, Feldman is opening up about his long road to recognition within the music industry – and how his 2010 Pink Floyd-esque album helped set him on a path to being taken seriously as an actor-turned-musician.

“I've been doing this for a very long time. I've been putting out music for 35 years, and it's been a very slow build,” he tells Billy Corgan on The Magnificent Others podcast.

“I like to say I'm an overnight success after 35 years [laughs] but, literally, nobody cared. And I was just making these songs for film soundtracks and putting out these little indie albums. I had a small little following and every show we played was sold out, but we could never play bigger than a 1,200-seater.”

In 2010, Feldman released Technology Analogy with his band, Corey Feldman's Truth Movement, which he describes as a “very poignant, very powerful album that's very similar to the sound of a Pink Floyd album.

“[It's] got that vibe. It's got that feel. In fact, we got Storm Thorgerson [the English art director and music video director who worked closely with Pink Floyd] as his last concept album piece of artwork.

But Feldman took the Floyd association a step further.

“To make it even further accentuated, I went to David Gilmour and went to Roger [Waters] and I got their blessings,” he reveals. “I gave them both a copy of the CD, [and] made sure that they weren't offended or mad at it.

“I really did everything I could to keep it as authentic as possible, as an extension, or a sister band, or whatever you want to think of it as, is some connection to my tribute to Pink Floyd without stealing from them in any way.

“And then after that, I think people kind of started to get like, ‘He's serious about music. He's not playing.’”

Last year, Feldman spoke to Guitar World about his deep admiration for Gilmour – and how his guitar idol even influences the gear he employs.

In a way, the origins of Pink Floyd's original live performances of The Wall in 1980 and 1981, at that time the most ambitious rock concerts ever staged – at least on the arena scale – are a bit ironic.

The concept of The Wall itself was meant to symbolize the great chasm Floyd's bassist and chief lyricist, Roger Waters, felt between himself and the band's fans – especially during the band's previous tours of enormous football stadiums.

Nonetheless, it could be argued that the The Wall tour only made it bigger. After all, what other band of that era could stage such a show? Complete with the absolute cream of the crop of visual and practical effects of the time, the production was hammered home with an enormous, literal wall.

In any case, the show was quite the spectacle, and added many new elements to the workload of not only the band's crew, but the band members themselves.

Reflecting on the experience in a 2000 interview with Guitar World, David Gilmour lauded the show as being “terrific fun,” adding that it was “really an achievement for everyone involved, particularly Roger.”

With that said, though, Gilmour also found himself playing a much more regimented role in the band's live shows than he had previously.

“I had to take on the role of music director and deal with a lot of musical details onstage so that Roger didn’t have to think about that,” he said. “It was really tough at first. Later on it got a little easier, once we all got into it.”

On the intricacies of his duties, the guitarist explained, “I had a huge cue sheet up on my amps, because we had all these cues coming up on monitors or on screen, and there were different DDL settings which I had to transmit with very primitive equipment to all the delay lines onstage. Very tricky.

“Except for the Comfortably Numb solo, there were virtually no moments where I could say, ‘Forget everything. Just play.’ You know?

“It was very rigid,” Gilmour went on. “On all the previous tours – Wish You Were Here, Dark Side of the Moon – there were moments that could be extended longer or made shorter if you liked. The Wall, quite reasonably, because it was a different kind of project, didn’t have that.”

The first nights of tours always bring kinks that need to be ironed out, hiccups that resolve themselves as the show gets rolling. The Wall, as Gilmour said, was no different, as he juggled with his many new music director-esque duties.

As if that weren't enough, though, the guitarist, his bandmates, and the crowd were all also treated to a, shall we say, fiery, surprise on opening night.

Speaking to Guitar World in 2000, Roger Waters remembers, “Andy Bown and Snowy [White, who served, respectively, as the band's bass and second guitar players on the tour] and those guys did their thing,” Waters recalls, “And then this drape went up to reveal us. Fireworks had gone off beforehand and one of the Roman candles had gotten into this drape and set light to it.

“I was singing away and I kept hearing this noise and I thought, ‘God, the P.A.’s going off.’ 'Cause I could hear this strange noise. Eventually I looked up and saw one of the riggers, a guy called Rocky, leap about six feet through the air, with no safety harness or anything on him, from one drape to another.

“He had a fire extinguisher in one hand and he was trying to put the thing out,” Waters continued. “And then lumps of burning drape the size of tennis balls started hitting the stage all around us. And the auditorium was beginning to fill up with smoke.”

As Waters tells it, it took a few minutes for all involved – absorbed as they were in the show – to fully comprehend what was happening.

“I stopped singing and just shouted ‘stop!’ through the PA,” Waters recounted. “Throughout rehearsals, the guys out at the mixing console were so used to me constantly yelling ‘stop’ – if something wasn’t right, you know. So when I did it during the actual show they must have all thought they were hallucinating. ’Cause they just carried on. So I shouted ‘stop!’ again. This time, they said, ‘Okay, he really does seem to be saying stop. I guess we have to.’

“I said, ‘Look, we’re going to have to lower this drape, because we’ve got a fire. Everything’s cool. We’ll put it out, go back five minutes and pick up from there.’ Which we did. But it was quite a hair-raising beginning to the first show.”

Having worked with a veritable list of musical legends – most of whom feature in his 2007 book My Bass And Other Animals, if he were stranded on a desert island with any of his previous employers, living or dead, who would bassist Guy Pratt choose to be stuck with? Surprisingly, his choice is immediate.

“Number one, David Gilmour – because he’s the most consummate musician l've ever met,” Pratt told Bass Player. “Number two would be Robert Palmer, because of everything about him: he lived his life on his own terms and he was the only person l've met who could say, ‘Listen to this Ozzy Osbourne track, it's amazing,’ and you would have to sit back and agree that he was absolutely right.”

With so much studio work behind him and a highly impressive list of credits, Pratt is the ideal man to ask about how he comes up with basslines in the studio.

“On a session you have to have ideas and come up with things immediately. So often you can be driving home from a session and you start thinking, ‘What if l'd played such and such?’ But that's a part of the job.”

Pratt, whose session resumé is among the most impressive in modern rock – he's worked with Madonna, Michael Jackson, Bryan Ferry, the Smiths, Tom Jones, Iggy Pop, Elton John, and many others – has also performed a comedy act in which he recounts anecdotes from his life as low-ender to the stars.

“I was trying to write a book about my experiences as a bass player, and it occurred to me that no-one had ever done a show from the hired hand's point of view. I had all this material, which is basically my life, so I thought if I didn't have a go at doing something comedic I'd never forgive myself.”

If he finds himself short on ideas, does he go back and listen to stuff that influences him, or does he just hope that something will develop the next day? “Yeah, that's basically it! Something usually pops out of the ether.”

How do you approach Pink Floyd and Roxy Music’s classic bass parts?

“With Floyd songs, I could reinterpret the bass parts in my own way if I wanted to, but I'm more interested in playing them so they sound right. David is happiest when I just play an old Fender Precision, but Precisions have no front end. That's why I have to play them with a pick.

“With Roxy Music, I mainly use Betsy, my 1964 Fender Jazz, because Bryan Ferry absolutely loves her. She's famous – she's pictured in The Bass Book as one of the reference Jazz Basses. I use a Music Man StingRay for Love Is the Drug, because I can get a really cutting top-end without using a pick.”

You've played on huge hits, including Madonna's Like a Prayer, and Michael Jackson's Earth Song. What was it like working on them?

“Like a Prayer was amazing – Madonna had tons of input. It was great to get away with such an insane performance: the whole middle and end section of the song is basically bass. It's a massive octave-pedal freakout, like a punk Pino Palladino. I used Spectors with Madonna, but nowadays I find them a bit hi-fi.

“Earth Song was another octave-pedal thing. I basically stole the bassline from Bad because I figured Michael would like it, but wouldn't know why!”

You've performed in many styles. Who were your primary influences on bass?

“As a kid I listened to John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, Paul McCartney and the Beatles, and Andy Fraser of Free. Andy was very funky, and he used to do high chordal stuff, which – considering he played a Gibson – was extraordinary.

“I also loved John Entwistle's playing; the Who was the whole reason I got into rock ’n’ roll. I bought Betsy off him. Was I asked to join the band after he died? No, but apparently I was the next phone call.

“Also, James Jamerson is God, no doubt about it. So is Bernard Edwards; I worked with him on Robert Palmer's Riptide album when I was only 21. In fact, Bernard hired me; the credit on the album reads, ‘Bass: Bernard Edwards and Guy Pratt.’ That is my proudest credit.”

Andy Fairweather Low is one of the music world’s most prolific and revered rhythm electric guitar heroes, having recorded and toured with the likes of Eric Clapton, George Harrison, B.B. King, Joe Satriani, Jimi Hendrix and many more.

In the new issue of Classic Rock, Low looks back some of his biggest session credits, and recalls how he originally came to work with Roger Waters… whose name he didn’t recognize when he was personally called by the Pink Floyd legend.

As Low relays, Amen Corner – the band he founded in 1966 – were on tour bill in the late 1960s with Pink Floyd, and it was during this time that the six-string sideman first dropped onto Waters’ radar.

“In November 1967, Amen Corner played our first tour ever on a bill with Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, The Move, The Nice, Heir Apparent and Outer Limits,” Low says. “We were all in one bus apart from Floyd, who travelled on their own.

“Our manager, Ron King, overheard one of them say something about our keyboardist Blue Weaver, and he threatened to break their legs. They’d open with Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, and it would completely baffle me, like: ‘What are they doing?’”

A few decades later, Low received a phone call from the Pink Floyd bassist himself, who was piecing together a new band for an upcoming tour. Unfortunately, the name ‘Roger Waters’ fell on deaf ears.

Low continues, “One day in around 1984 I get a call: ‘Hello, Andy, it’s Roger Waters.’ Who? I hadn’t paid attention to their names. He asked me to come up and see how we got along, with a tour for The Pros And Cons Of Hitchhiking in mind. I went to see him, and we didn’t just get along, we talked all about the tour.”

Despite the clumsy first impression, the pair would go on to share a prolific partnership, and played together for 24 years.

“He treated me with unbelievable respect, was superb company and very funny,” Low concludes. “And you know what? Set The Controls became my favourite thing to play live!”

Low’s career has been littered with similar stories. Speaking in a new interview with Guitar World, the rhythm hero recently recalled the time he was recruited by George Harrison to play slide even though he’d never played slide guitar before.

Visit Magazines Direct to pick up the new issue of Classic Rock, which also features an interview with Joe Satriani discussing the unique challenges of inviting Yngwie Malmsteen on the G3 tour.

Saying that Tony Levin has had just an illustrious career would be an understatement. The esteemed bassist has played with everyone, from John Lennon to King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, and David Bowie.

Levin also played a significant role in Pink Floyd's legacy during a particularly precarious time for the band – the recording of 1987's A Momentary Lapse of Reason and the post-Roger Waters era.

“David Gilmour asked me to play bass on the album after Roger Waters famously left the band, thinking it was the end of them,” Levin tells Vulture. “I wasn’t part of any of the band’s intrigue and was thrilled to enter into the world of trying to play appropriately for a Pink Floyd context but also be somewhat myself.

“I brought out the Chapman Stick, an instrument I can play as a bass. It’s not the most common instrument, but I use it as one of my regular basses. I found David to be a fascinating guy and a real gentleman – a wonderful person to be with.”

Levin explains that while the sessions weren’t particularly hard, capturing the style Pink Floyd had honed over the years was challenging.

“I can remember one instance when I had a long vamp out and I played an extra few notes. I’m not talking about a fast bass riff here; I’m just talking about a couple notes,” he recalls.

“After the take, when we got together to listen, David smiled and said, ‘Tony, in Pink Floyd you don’t do that extra couple notes until far later.’ I had the right idea, but I did it too quickly. He was silently saying, ‘You don’t know that, but the rest of us do.’”

Levin also reveals that after a week or so of recording, the band approached him to tour with them. However, due to scheduling conflicts with Peter Gabriel’s tour, Levin was forced to decline.

“It was one of those big career decisions, perhaps even my biggest, where I went to stay with Peter. I’ve never regretted it, but I’m sure my career path would’ve been different had I spent that next year and a half doing Pink Floyd,” he concludes.

Tony Levin has recently wrapped up the 65-date BEAT tour alongside superstar guitar soloist Steve Vai, King Crimson guitarist and frontman Adrian Belew, and Tool drummer Danny Carey, celebrating the ’80s era of King Crimson.

Sophie Lloyd may not be the first person you think of when naming David Gilmour-influenced contemporary guitarists.

However, the shredder has recently revealed that the celebrated Pink Floyd guitarist, known for his feel-driven style, has played an important role in shifting her perspective on what makes an exceptional guitarist – and, with that, timeless solos.

“I was never really that into Pink Floyd growing up," she tells Guitar World in a new interview. “I knew Another Brick in the Wall and stuff, but I never really delved into them until I decided I wanted to do a shred version of Comfortably Numb on my YouTube channel.

"Before studying his playing, I was doing a lot of like, ‘Look at all the notes I can play, look how fast I can play!’ and there wasn't that much feel behind my music, I think.”

Delving deep into Gilmour's guitar parts for her shred cover served as a revelation for Lloyd. “That was a really pivotal point in my playing where I kind of switched from wanting to play all the notes and show everyone what I can do to like, ‘No, I want to serve the song,’” she admits.

“I want to create an emotion and a feeling and a story. That really came from him. Now I try to allow breathing space like he does, and create a sense of emotion.”

In a recent interview with Rick Beato, Gilmour did in fact dissect his lauded ‘feel’ playing technique, revealing that it all stemmed from the fact he “wasn’t gifted with enormous speed on the guitar.”

As for Lloyd, she’s gearing up for her debut US show on January 16 at LA's iconic Whisky A Go Go – setting her up for a busy year that includes a highly coveted slot at the UK's Download Festival.

Head to TicketWeb for tickets for her LA show, and to Sophie Lloyd for special VIP packages.

2024 Year in Review: Almost a decade on from his last studio album, the Pink Floyd veteran released his fifth solo full-length, Luck and Strange, in September, reminding us of his abilities as a master storyteller, melting minds one bluesy bend at a time.

The singer and guitarist went as far as saying it was his finest work since The Dark Side of the Moon.

As well as the Strats we’ve known him to play throughout his career, he also revealed he’d used a Gibson ES-335 for the solo on Dark and Velvet Nights, admitting he didn’t have “a huge history with Gibson guitars” and the recent acquisition was “a very, very different sort of guitar to what I’m used to.”

Elsewhere, in quite possibly the most surprising crossover of 2024, the guitarist guested on Body Count’s cover of Comfortably Numb, noodling the whole way through almost like a backing track.

Gilmour revealed he was originally approached by frontman Ice-T for permission to use the song and ended up offering to play on it.

“I like the new lyrics; they’re talking about the world we’re living in now, which is quite scary,” he later reflected.

One of the most ‘Didn't have that one on my bingo card!’ moments in music this year came via Body Count's recruitment of David Gilmour himself for their re-imagining of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb.

More amazing still, Gilmour's participation came at his own behest, rather than that of Body Count.

Earlier this week, Body Count frontman, hip-hop icon, and cop procedural legend Ice-T dropped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to discuss the fascinating collab, and the hurdles involved in making it happen.

While there, they also tore through the song onstage, with Body Count guitar hero Ernie C nodding to Gilmour's singular tone, while imbuing some funky and industrial flair of his own.

Reflecting on how Body Count's Comfortably Numb re-working came to be, Ice-T told Fallon, “Rappers always listen to music for tracks they could rap over – breakbeats and things like that. I always liked the bassline to Comfortably Numb – I wanted to rap on it. Then I said, ‘Let's just do it with Body Count.’

“So I write the lyrics and we lay it out – I just [didn't] think about the politics. They go, ‘You have to send this to Pink Floyd to get it approved,’ and everybody said, ‘That's not gonna happen.’”

Indeed, upon sending the request to Pink Floyd's publishers, Body Count were told that the band allow neither samples nor reworkings of their songs. The case seemed to be closed, Ice-T said, until his manager got in touch with David Gilmour's manager.

“David heard the record and was blown away – just by the lyrics,” he said. Approval after that on Gilmour's end came quickly, but then came the matter of the song's co-writer, Roger Waters.

“Now, I don't know what's going on with [Gilmour and Waters' relationship],” Ice-T explained. Waters, however, upon learning that Ice-T was the one reinterpreting the song, gave his own approval.

“You've got two people on opposite sides who approved the song, which made me feel really good, because that means the song is honest and real.”

Not even that unanimous approval, though, prepared the band for what Gilmour said after word came of his approval.

“Gilmour says, ‘I want to play on it,’” Ice-T recalled. “So, he plays on it, then says, ‘What's up with the video?’”

Of the collaboration, Gilmour himself said, “The initial contact from Ice-T was for permission to use the song, but I thought I might offer to play on it as well. I like [Ice-T's] new lyrics, they're talking about the world we’re living in now, which is quite scary.

“Body Count's version of Comfortably Numb is quite radical, but the words really struck me. It astonishes me that a tune I wrote almost 50 years ago is back with this great new approach. They've made it relevant again.”

Though ferocious, we doubt Body Count's Tonight Show performance quite got the reaction of Knocked Loose's recent hell-raiser on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which one disapproving parent said made their son cry.

David Gilmour’s electric guitar and acoustic guitar playing has captured the hearts and minds of generations of guitarists. So what exactly is the secret to his emotive, quasi-storytelling-like style?

According to Rick Beato, it’s the “David Gilmour effect”, which, as he elaborates in his interview with the Pink Floyd guitarist himself, “is not a guitar thing. It’s not a pedal”. Rather, it’s something entirely intangible, unique only to Gilmour himself.

From his end, Gilmour states that his preference for this style of playing stems from the fact that he “wasn’t gifted with enormous speed on the guitar”, despite trying very hard to develop this skill during the earlier years of his career.

“There were years when I was younger when I thought I could get that if I practiced enough, but it wasn’t ever really going to happen,” he says. “Some of the influences on me, like The Shadows, were just playing a tune.

“I think I come from there: I’m just playing a tune. But obviously, when you’re whacked up to 150 dBs and you’re leaning against that wall of sound onstage, the tunes change a bit.”

His ample use of bending and vibrato lends itself well to his playing style – with tasteful use of the whammy bar and some old-school finger vibrato sprinkled throughout his most iconic solos and songs, including Hey You [from 1979’s The Wall], Time [from 1973’s The Dark Side of the Moon], Marooned [from 1994’s The Division Bell], and Shine On You Crazy Diamond [1975’s Wish You Were Here], to name but a (very) mere few.

However, Gilmour claims his vibrato technique is “a natural thing that’s developed over a long career”, and that both his fingers and the whammy bar are “working, hopefully, in cooperation with each other”.

He adds: “There are moments when you get right up here somewhere [up the fretboard] and you’ve got a note and [I’m] quite fussy about over-eager vibrato from the guitar, and sometimes I just think a little thing [a bit of vibrato] just gives it a little bit of tone. And, I hesitate to use the word, refinement.”

In fact, in a 1994 Guitar World interview, Pink Floyd technician Phil Taylor commented on Gilmour’s now-iconic use of vibrato, saying, “It really is just his fingers, his vibrato, his choice of notes and how he sets his effects... In reality, no matter how well you duplicate the equipment, you will never be able to duplicate the personality.”

And while Gilmour is known for these expressive tear-jerkers, he admits that sometimes, while on stage, he still finds himself thinking that his solos are a tad too long.

“I’m just going on for too long. Time to stop,” he quips. “I just play until I think, ‘Oh, maybe we’ll end now.’ A lot of them have a musical cue. There’s one in Comfortably Numb and they [the band] all know the next one’s gonna be the end one.”

Gilmour has just wrapped up his Luck and Strange tour in support of the album of the same name. It’s the guitarist's fifth solo studio album, which he called “the best album I’ve made in all those years since 1973 when The Dark Side of the Moon came out.”

When David Gilmour touches a Strat, the result is pure cinema. His distinct touch, both in and out of Pink Floyd, has spawned a shorthand for the soulfully psychedelic – from the four-note phaser motif that echoes into infinity on Shine on You Crazy Diamond to the arena-rumbling blues bends of Comfortably Numb.

But he’s never been a “guitar god” in the virtuoso sense – he’s an expert in atmosphere and dynamics, disinterested in showboat-y shredding and sophisticated scales for the sake of them. (“Well, I can’t really play fast, per se,” he told Guitar World in 1988. “Not like so many players today. I don’t have a very disciplined approach to practicing or anything… Generally, I’m not too ambitious about that sort of thing.”)

During a solo, he can attack one note with perfect sustain and vibrato, and you’d probably know who it is straight away. Less, one might say, is Gil-more.

If the sign of a great player is creating a signature, there’s no argument against him. Still, even if Gilmour is properly hailed as a tour guide of spaciness – he’s been on seemingly every “best guitarist” list since people started publishing them – he’s never gotten his due as a frontman or songwriter.

One reason is that Pink Floyd was always built on larger-than-life characters: first the psych-pop wizard and acid-era cautionary tale Syd Barrett (whom he inadvertently replaced in 1967) and, eventually, the outspoken concept master Roger Waters.

Despite singing Floyd’s most agile vocals (the sandpaper grit of Time, the soothing falsetto scatting of Wish You Were Here) and helping write many of their classic songs, he was never the obvious dominant personality in that band.

As a solo artist (and you might as well include his period leading Pink Floyd after their famously heated split with Waters), Gilmour seemed to achieve his Platonic Ideal in sound.

And with each subsequent album, his music seemed to grow increasingly… Gilmour-y: creamy Strat tones, pillowy vocal harmonies, ambient synth pads, musical drama prioritized over conceptual drama.

It’s easy to take Gilmour for granted because his music is so solid, so reliable, but that consistency isn’t easy to achieve. (That said, when you’re approaching 80, it’s probably easier to traffic in his brand of slow, sky-swallowing rock than, say, the knotty prog popularized by many of his peers.)

But we’ll take any excuse possible to rectify that slight. And in 2024, we have two: the 40th anniversary of Gilmour’s second LP, About Face, and the release of his new album, Luck and Strange. To mark the occasion, we will meticulously navigate through the man’s entire studio catalog, throwing in a couple of surprise detours.

David Gilmour (1978) 

It was a prolific year: While Waters was baring his soul to write the foundation of Pink Floyd’s sprawling, conceptual double album, The Wall, his bandmates were off the main mothership working on their own, much less emotionally draining, material.

Mason produced former Gong guitarist Steve Hillage’s electro-space LP Green; Richard Wright recorded his sax-heavy debut, Wet Dream; and Gilmour crossed that same solo bridge with his self-titled outing, which largely plays like high-quality Floyd without the lyrical sophistication.

The tracks are rock-solid from start to finish, partly because some of his friends were on hand – just not the ones you might expect: bassist Rick Wills and drummer Willie Wilson, who’d played with Gilmour in the pre-Floyd rock outfit Jokers Wild, bring swagger to both stewing rockers (the harmonica-heavy There’s No Way Out of Here) and daydreamy piano ballads (So Far Away, with Gilmour on the aforementioned keys).

The guitar playing is, naturally, phenomenal: clean arpeggios (Raise My Rent), enormously ringing chords (Short and Sweet), woozy pedal-steel (No Way), bluesy solos at every turn.

If the stakes feel lower than a typical Floyd record, well, that’s gonna happen when you’ve suddenly drained the Waters. But David Gilmour was also recorded “just for fun”:

“After years in a band, you feel you should try something on your own,” he told The Guardian. “And it was nice not to have to compromise. I mean I believe the whole process of compromise is vital for a group, but it was nice not to have everything vetted.”

GUITAR HIGHLIGHT: Opening instrumental Mihalis feels like it could be an outtake from the prior year’s Animals, and I mean that as a supreme compliment. The solo is a real powerhouse, full of twangy asides and huge sustain, as it builds and recedes in intensity.

Fun fact: As Gilmour highlighted in a 2019 interview with Rolling Stone, this track features his “Number One” Strat (with a 0001 serial number), which he purchased from his guitar tech in the mid ’70s. (The instrument also appears on the much more famous Another Brick in the Wall.) “He bought it, and then I strong-armed him out of it, really,” Gilmour said, noting that Mihalis includes a roundabout “tribute” to the Shadows’ Hank Marvin.

About Face (1984) 

To say the very least, the sessions for 1983’s The Final Cut, Pink Floyd’s final album with Waters, were fraught with creative and personal tension. (Flash-forward to all the lawsuits and media mudslinging.) And given that Gilmour didn’t write a single song for that LP – and only sang one co-lead, on Not Now John – he probably felt he had something to prove on his next solo project.

“I’m not ready to retire yet,” Gilmour enthused in the tour documentary Beyond the Floyd, and the forceful About Face bears out that promise.

The guitarist aimed to craft a real statement with his second album, so he recruited both famous friends (the Who’s Pete Townshend, who wrote lyrics for Love on the Air and All Lovers Are Deranged) and renowned session players (including drummer Jeff Porcaro, bassist Pino Palladino and Steve Winwood on occasional keys).

Gilmour sounded reinvigorated with this all-star crew, churning out some of his most direct and commercial music: the slow synth-string balladry of Love on the Air (highlighted by a colorful fretless bass and his spanky, Mark Knopfler-like guitar fills), the brief detour into reggae on Cruise, the orchestral heft of You Know I’m Right.

The album’s catchiest moment has to be Blue Light – with its funky guitar delay, clanging percussion, hip-shaking tambourine and bright brass, it shares a lot of musical DNA with, yes, Phil Collins. It’s not like Gilmour abandoned his roots – there are powerful solos all over this thing – but it’s fascinating to hear him dabble with a bit more immediacy.

“It can not help sounding quite a bit like Pink Floyd if it’s got my voice and my guitar playing on it anyway,” he told Musician in 1992. “On [About Face], I was actually steering a bit away from it, a little more rock ’n’ roll.” Fun fact: The album art shows Gilmour posing with his ’55 Fender Esquire, which he nicknamed The Workmate.)

GUITAR HIGHLIGHT: Murder is a true epic, opening as a folky acoustic waltz with fusion-y fretless and ascending to a resounding climax with harmonized guitar leads. The guitars are all over the map; there’s some bluesy stomp, some growling tremolo-bar action, a generous portion of twang.

Various writers say the song was inspired by the killing of John Lennon, and the lyrics seem to make sense: “None of the tears that we cry in sorrow or rage,” he sings, “Can make any difference or turn back the page.”

On an Island (2006)

Setting aside all the legal confusion, there’s no artistic reason that Gilmour’s third album, On an Island, couldn’t be labeled under “Pink Floyd.” After all, the guitarist had been leading the classic-rock institution since the mid ’80s, piloting both 1987’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason and 1991’s The Division Bell. (Yes, Wright did co-write three songs from the latter.)

By this point, Floyd and Gilmour essentially referred to the same sense of grandeur. Even at his most hushed and intimate, his songs carry the enormity of a real event – like gazing up from your backyard to find a UFO breaking through the clouds.

By 2006 (12 years since The Division Bell, 22 years since About Face), fans were starved for new music – especially so, given the one-off reunion of Pink Floyd’s classic lineup for the Live 8 benefit show in 2005.

And while On an Island sticks to what Gilmour does best, it does lean more heavily on the peaceful side of his sound: For Red Sky at Night, the maestro plays a spitty alto sax solo over simmering strings, evoking the title phrase; during the title track’s sublime waltz, Gilmour harmonizes with Graham Nash and David Crosby over a hazily strummed acoustics; meanwhile, Then I Close My Eyes plays like his version of Fleetwood Mac’s Albatross, pairing clean arpeggios with reversed electric guitar birdsong and BJ Cole’s acoustic lap-steel.

“That’s my Weissenborn he’s playing,” Gilmour told Guitarist. “I played it on Smile. … Weissenborn’s a lovely thing. I always felt pretty good and comfortable on slide instruments. There are places between the notes where I really like to go, and you can go there on slide instruments.”

GUITAR HIGHLIGHT: The tranquil The Blue, like those other tracks, sways beautifully in a breeze of acoustic guitars and keys and vocal harmonies. But the real magic is Gilmour’s solo, utilizing a DigiTech Whammy for extremes in glissando pitch-bending.

Though he generally doesn’t like to reveal his studio secrets, he spilled them to Guitarist, enthusing about the effect.

“I love driving people crazy,” he said. “They come and say, ‘How the fuck did you do that? I’ve been working for months trying to get that.’ And I say, ‘It’s just a pedal!’ I used it on Marooned from The Division Bell. It gives a whole extra dimension.

“It had a flavor of that old album Songs of the Humpback Whale, where they recorded whale noises. It’s that floating thing. Both Marooned and The Blue are pieces of music that remind me of the sea.”

Live in Gdańsk (2008) 

Given Gilmour’s high profile and overall consistency – zero of his albums are below average, and none are exactly curveballs – it’s easy to assume they’ve all been big hits. But that’s not quite true: David Gilmour peaked at Number 17 in the U.K. and Number 29 in the U.S., and About Face, which had even wider commercial appeal, came in at an even weaker 21 and 32.

The music-buying public, clearly craving Floyd-related material, really took to On an Island; it topped the charts in the U.K. and Europe, reached Number 2 in a handful of countries and peaked at Number 6 in the U.S., making it his first American Top 10.

Most artists would have capitalized on that momentum by touring for a year and a half, bleeding themselves dry in arenas across the world. Instead, Gilmour booked a compact 2006 tour spread over three legs in the U.S. and Europe – with the final date, August 26 in Gdańsk, Poland, captured for a live album and DVD.

As stage documents go, this one’s hard to top, from the who’s-who backing band with an array of Floyd alumni (including Wright on keys, Guy Pratt on bass and Dick Parry on saxophone, plus Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera) to the presence of the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra (more on Take a Breath later) to the balance of stellar fidelity and unpolished rough edges.

The set list features On an Island in full – a bold move, given that half the people in attendance probably just wanted to hear Dark Side deep cuts. But he also rewarded Floyd fans’ patience: Time is particularly touching in retrospect, with Gilmour and Wright’s sweet (and just a hair out of tune) harmonies; meanwhile, the arrangement on Shine On You Crazy Diamond is fascinating, with the band playing with dynamics and the solo boiling over with an uncontrollable intensity.

Gilmour has always had a special place in his heart for Wish You Were Here: “For me, [it’s Pink Floyd’s] most satisfying album,” he told Guitar World in 1993. I really love it. I’d rather listen to that than The Dark Side of the Moon.

GUITAR HIGHLIGHT: Take a Breath, already the heavy centerpiece of On an Island, is even more menacing in this live version, with the tension in the guitar riff taking on more than a hint of King Crimson. (With a bit more bite in the rhythm section, you could picture this being on Red next to One More Red Nightmare.)

The track climaxes with a fiery Gilmour guitar solo that’s even more dramatic with its visual counterpart, as white lights flash vividly around him.

The Orb, Metallic Spheres (2010) 

In a sunnier alternate universe, Pink Floyd’s brief set at Live 8 was merely the jumping-off point for a full-scale reunion tour, with Gilmour and Waters swapping smiles and stories on stage each night like long-lost brothers.

Instead, it was simply a historical moment for a charitable cause – and with Wright’s death in September 2008, one never to be repeated. There were other half-reunions over the years: Wright did join Gilmour and Mason in 2007 to play a couple songs as part of the Syd Barrett tribute show The Madcap’s Last Laugh; Waters and Gilmour played together during a small event for the Hoping Foundation charity in 2010; and Gilmour and Mason made cameos during a 2011 Waters show.

As a recording act, Pink Floyd appeared to be dead (spoiler alert: not exactly), and it took Gilmour a few more years to finish tinkering and release something of his own. Ironically, the exact opposite recording situation – a rapid-fire guitar session – resulted in Metallic Spheres, his collaborative album with electronic act the Orb.

Funny enough, the origins of this ambient-psych LP date back to Gilmour’s cover of the somber Graham Nash protest song Chicago, which was then remixed by the Orb. They recruited the guitarist to add some new parts – and when he over-delivered, a new idea arose.

“We spent a day with David at the studio with his guitar, and he just plugged in and started playing, and it became this 25-minute track,” the album’s producer, Martin “Youth” Glover, told Prog. “After Dave left, I thought, ‘There’s so many twists and turns in this jam, we could stretch it out, put a few things in and turn it into a 50-minute album,’ so that’s what I did!”

If you’re counting it as a proper Gilmour album, it’s by far his weakest, and not because of the stylistic change; it just sounds like an aimless jam cobbled together into finished pieces, with the rock legend’s soaring lines skittering around simple synths and techno beats.

GUITAR HIGHLIGHT: Black Graham isn’t riveting; the kick drum just kinda pounds along, and a synth-like tone wafts through like misplaced fairy dust. But the guitar collage is charming, blending trippy effects with plucked acoustic guitars that call to mind the folkiest stretches of Meddle.

Rattle That Lock (2015) 

Gilmour finally put Pink Floyd to bed with the band’s 15th album, 2014’s The Endless River, assembled largely from instrumental pieces recorded (and then abandoned) during the Division Bell sessions. (Well, “put to bed” if you don’t count the 2022 single Hey, Hey, Rise Up! with BoomBox’s Andriy Khlyvnyuk.)

The project has a lovely ambiance, and it serves as a fitting memorial for the late Wright, who appears posthumously. But it naturally felt a bit slight next to their classic works – only whetting the appetite for Gilmour’s more song-oriented solo follow-up, Rattle That Lock.

There’s an interesting contrast between the two LPs, with the former nodding to soundscapes of yore and the latter pushing forward with new experiments.

The title track is groovy, low-key blues rock – nothing too fancy – but the core hook cleverly samples the frosty jingle of a French railway company. (I doubt anybody saw that one coming!) Faces of Stone is a carnivalesque waltz with horns and accordion and calliope keys.

And while Today initially scans as a signature grinding Gilmour rocker, listening on headphones opens up the uniqueness of its production: There’s a bit of funk in the mechanical electric riff in the left speaker, and the counter riff on the right sounds like a shorted-out amp sputtering to life. But the biggest head-turner is The Girl in the Yellow Dress, which ventures into slinky lite jazz.

“I don’t ever want to turn anything away when it arrives,” Gilmour told Guitar World, detailing the album’s tonal shift. “These songs kind of struggle and fight their way to the top of the pile. They present themselves to me and say, ‘Now is my moment.’”

GUITAR HIGHLIGHT: 5 A.M. is one of the album’s most subtle and conventional moments, but Gilmour thrives in this kind of gentle setting, soloing patiently here over a fingerpicked acoustic and trembling strings.

Live at Pompeii (2017)

Pompeii has loomed large in Pink Floyd history since 1972, when the band released an experimental concert doc filmed at the empty Roman amphitheater. Playing on that legacy, Gilmour staged his own live spectacle at the venue during the Rattle That Lock tour – except this time a massive crowd filled the ancient seats.

The reliably hi-fi Live at Pompeii, issued in audio and visual form, follows the same general format as Live in Gdańsk: tons of new material (almost all of the new LP) balanced out with Pink Floyd staples (Wish You Were Here, Money) and deeper cuts (the sun-streaked folk-rock of Fat Old Sun).

It’s a testament to Gilmour’s old-pro skill that, even at this peak of live-rock excess, he makes playing at freaking Pompeii feel as natural as a hardcore punk band crashing a basement.

GUITAR HIGHLIGHT: One of These Days is already one of Floyd’s most underrated tracks, a psych-prog epic driven by echoing bass and spacey effects. This version is particularly tasty, with Gilmour attacking his lap steel like a wild man. “Of course, we did One of These Days, which we hadn’t been playing on the tour,” he told Prog. “That’s the only song that we played there back in 1971.”

Luck and Strange (2024) 

“It’s over 50 years now since The Dark Side of the Moon,” Gilmour told Prog, teasing his fifth solo LP. “My feeling is that this album is the best album I’ve made in all those years since 1973 when The Dark Side of the Moon came out.”

With all due respect, sir: No way. That would be a major slight to Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall, before even debating your early solo stuff. But you have to admire his confidence, and to his credit, Luck continues his streak of searching for new ideas.

Sure, there are plenty of vintage moves here: the slappy Strat strut of the title track, the nasty blues soloing at the end of The Piper’s Call, the floating-in-space tones of A Single Spark.

But the most thrilling moments are also the least expected, like the classical-folk vibe of Yes, I Have Ghosts and the acoustic-symphonic stylings of Between Two Points (a cover of a 1999 song by dream-pop act the Montgolfier Brothers), featuring a hypnotic vocal by the guitarist’s daughter, Romany.

GUITAR HIGHLIGHT: In the back half of Between Two Points, Gilmour elevates the dark, oceanic mood with one of his most soulful solos in many years – an expressive patch of stank-face funkiness and spine-tingling chromatic runs. As with Gilmour at his best, it’s hard to picture anyone else on Earth playing these notes with more naked emotion.

• Luck & Strange is out now via Legacy.

David Gilmour's Luck and Strange – and his ongoing career-spanning tour with stops in Rome, London, New York, and Los Angeles – served very much as a celebration, and some may say a return to form, of the Pink Floyd six-stringer’s distinctive guitar style that has inspired countless musicians.

At 78, and decades deep into his career, Gilmour states that he’s still excited by the guitar and its potential as a vehicle to “give birth to new tunes”.

“The actual playing and melodies and stuff, they’re up here [points to head] and you just transfer it onto the string,” he tells the Los Angeles Times.

“But I want an instrument to give me the start of a song. And, often, getting discomfited slightly helps that process along. I’m a really rotten piano player, but I’ve written quite a few songs which I think are pretty good on the piano.”

However, being “bad” at piano, and pushing his own boundaries on guitar – the instrument he's most comfortable with – has actually benefited him and his craft.

“It’s the limitations. When you get a guitar and it’s got a different tuning, you find something new. The comfort zone can be too comfortable.”

In a recent interview with Guitar World, Gilmour expanded on the idea of inspiration – and discussed how his guitar parts actually come into fruition.

“It’s hard to pinpoint what inspires guitar parts. Things just demand to be done a certain way,” he states matter-of-factly. “No one is commanding you. That solo [on The Piper's Call] – that’s just how it came out. It’s the way it had to be.

“I had a clear idea of how The Piper’s Call should be, starting with just the groove chugging along, then this rough, raunchy sort of guitar solo. I wish I could be a bit more lucid and articulate. But it is what it is. It’s a moment.”

Gilmour will be wrapping up his tour with two final dates at Madison Square Garden tomorrow and on November 10.

For Luck and Strange, his fifth solo album, Pink Floyd legend David Gilmour leaned on both the familiar and the new, gear-wise. For instance, though he's known primarily as a Fender man – his Black Strat being the most expensive Stratocaster ever sold – Gilmour found himself falling for a Gibson ES-335 during the album's recording.

“I've not got a huge history with Gibson guitars, but this one [the ES-335] is one I've bought comparatively recently to have a different tone, a different thing,” Gilmour explained recently on his YouTube channel. “This is a very, very different sort of guitar to what I'm used to.”

For home demos, though, things were a bit more familiar.

“I will be using physical heads and cabinets on the tour – but at home I have this thing that’s now 30 years old called a Zoom,” Gilmour explained to Guitar World.

“It’s a tiny little gray box, and I use that most of the time when I’m working on the early version of songs. Because I know how to work it – it’s got lots of good sounds and I know how to adjust them.”

Below is a full list of the gear David Gilmour used to record Luck and Strange. You can thank Phil Taylor, who has been Gilmour’s guitar tech since 1974, not to mention Pink Floyd’s warehouse and studios manager.

Taylor also oversaw Fender’s 2008 introduction of the David Gilmour Signature Strat and is the author of The Black Strat: A History of David Gilmour’s Black Fender Stratocaster (2008).

Guitars, lap steels, and ukes

• 2008 Fender DG6 NOS Black Cat Strat
• 1958 Gretsch Duo Jet 
• 1956 Gibson Les Paul 
• 1961 Gibson ES-335
• 1930s Rickenbacker A-22 “frying pan” lap steel  
• 1930s Martin ukulele

• 1945 Martin D-18
• 2021 Martin DG D-35
• 2021 Martin DG D-35 12-string      
• 2019 Cordoba C10 Crossover 
• 1978 Zemaitis 3/4 acoustic 
• 1977 Ovation 1619-4 “high-strung”

Amps

• Hiwatt Custom 50 SA212
• Alessandro Redbone Special
• Fender Bandmaster
• Fender Tweed Twin
• Yamaha RA-200
• Lazy J 20

Effects

• Origin Effects Cali76 compressor
• Effectrode compressor
• Demeter Compulator compressor
• BK Butler Tube Driver
• Electro-Harmonix Big Muff
• Free the Tone Future Factory FY-1 (phase modulation delay)

• Binson Echorec 2 (echo/reverb)
• Dawner Prince Boonar (echo/delay)
• Source Audio EQ2
• Boss CE-2 Chorus
• Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress (flanger/chorus)
• Zoom 9030 (guitar multi-effects processor)

Luck & Strange is out now via Legacy. You can read all about the making of the album in Guitar World's interview with David Gilmour.

Over the half-century we’ve had the pleasure of his company, David Gilmour has never been one for hype or hot air.

While other rock stars deliver each new album alongside chest-beating proclamations of its greatness, the former Pink Floyd legend has always let his exquisite phrasing do the talking (a marketing non-strategy that has nonetheless gifted him career album sales north of 250 million).

Given his reticence for the hard sell, the opinion that Gilmour voices in the making-of video for new solo record Luck and Strange is liable to stop you in your tracks. “This is the best work I’ve done, and the best album I’ve made,” considers the 78-year-old in the final frame, “since The Dark Side of the Moon in 1973.”

At first glance, it’s an outrageous statement. Better than Floyd’s 1975 opus Wish You Were Here, home to the haunting four-note starburst of Shine On You Crazy Diamond? Better than 1979’s biting double-album polemic The Wall, whose aching Comfortably Numb solo is so perfect you’re scared to breathe while it plays?

But when Guitar World negotiates a rare interview with Gilmour – whose long stewardship of Pink Floyd ended with 2014’s swansong The Endless River – the guitarist doubles down. And the curious thing is, the longer you live with Luck and Strange, the more you come around to his way of thinking. Bewitching and wistful, with melodies that punch through like sunbeams, these songs of love and mortality are decorated by some of Gilmour’s most stunning touches and emotive playing.

“I genuinely think it’s as good as anything I’ve ever done,” says the guitarist, speaking from Astoria, the houseboat-slash-studio that has been his creative nerve center since 1986. “I’ve been able to throw away the rulebook on anything I might have to adhere to with people’s expectations.”

Luck and Strange sounds like a real family affair. Your wife Polly Samson once again wrote lyrics, while your daughter Romany sang and played harp.

“This album is something that really came out of Covid. We were locked down together, and the topics of discussion were the dangers of the virus and how many ancient old people like me were going to get killed off in the first flush. And of course, Polly’s novel [A Theatre for Dreamers] was released in the first week of lockdown, so we couldn’t do the shows we were planning to promote it.

“Charlie, our son, said, ‘Just do a livestream.’ So we filmed it from our barn, with Polly reading from her book, answering questions from people online – and playing a couple of songs. And ‘playing a couple of songs’ very quickly became me and Romany playing and singing songs together.

“All of that experience gave me a feeling that I could be freer than I had been, than I’d allowed myself to be. There was that feeling of, ‘Fuck it, I’ll do exactly what I feel like doing, with whoever I fucking feel like doing it with.’ There was a release in that. You know, the chains of the past were blasted asunder. I’m genuinely thrilled with this album.”

Recruiting Alt-J producer Charlie Andrew was an interesting move. It sounds like he wasn’t overawed by your reputation and really challenged you. Is it important not to surround yourself with “yes” men?

“That is a big danger. You want true, honest opinions that are freely stated. You want to be freed up to do whatever you feel like doing. And having any weight of expectation of what’s gone before clouding the vision of your collaborators is something you want to avoid. I guess someone who comes with the baggage, if you like, that I come with, it’s going to be a bit intimidating to many people. But Charlie didn’t show any sign of being intimidated.”

The story goes that when you met Charlie and played him the demos, he questioned some of the guitar solos.

“Yes. He asked us, ‘Why is there a guitar solo here?’ and ‘Why do they all fade out?’ There were these little moments that made us giggle. He also had very clear ideas about how we should approach the songs and the recording. That’s a great thing. You want things to be clear. I had not much in the way of problems with it.

“There was one song – A Single Spark – which took a bit of getting used to his approach. But I fell in love with it pretty quickly. And I think he developed a keenness on guitar solos he hadn’t previously had. I think he changed as much as I did. I think we both changed in our attitudes through the process.”

One of the most powerful moments is the title track, which grew from a jam with your late Pink Floyd bandmate, Rick Wright. What are your memories?

“Well, at the end of the On an Island tour, I thought the band was on fire. So I got them all to convene at my house, in the barn, in January 2007. To just throw ideas about, to muck about. I had lots of little semi-ideas that I wanted to try. So we went into the barn on the first morning.

“It was fucking freezing. It’s a rickety old barn. Big holes between the planks, the wind howling through, snowing outside. Really bitterly cold. I chose the timing very poorly. But I started playing that little lick that I had from somewhere. They all joined in and we jammed on it for 15 minutes.

“Of course, later, I had to split it up and write bridges and choruses – but that is the take you hear on the album. That’s what we used. It had never been played before. It had never been rehearsed. It just is what it is.”

What emotions came over you while working on that track and hearing Rick’s keys for the first time since his death in 2008? Joy, sorrow, nostalgia?

“All of those things, all the time. I mean, obviously, most of the time when you’re working, you’re focusing on what you have to do. I didn’t spend the whole time sitting around weeping. But Rick has a very unusual, idiosyncratic style that comes out in the track. It’s lovely.”

Your guitar is so atmospheric on the cover of the Montgolfier Brothers’ Between Two Points. It sounds like you were really channeling something.

“On the guitar solo? Yeah. It’s a song Polly and I have loved for years. I’d put together a rough backing track, Romany had done her vocal, and I played the guitar over it at the end. How does one describe it?

“I got so into the guitar part, it was like being on drugs. I could forget where I was in the moment and get completely lost in the playing. Which is actually quite unusual. It’s a feeling – a movement – that you search for. Because you always want to be completely lost in what you’re doing. But in my biased view, it really happened on that occasion.”

The solo on The Piper’s Call has a very contrasting feel. What was the inspiration there?

“It’s hard to pinpoint what inspires guitar parts. Things just demand to be done a certain way. No one is commanding you. That solo – that’s just how it came out. It’s the way it had to be. I had a clear idea of how The Piper’s Call should be, starting with just the groove chugging along, then this rough, raunchy sort of guitar solo. I wish I could be a bit more lucid and articulate. But it is what it is. It’s a moment.”

Another highlight is the call-and-response between multiple guitars on Scattered.

“That was great fun to record. There’s three guitar solos on that – one is on a nylon-string, then one on a Strat with a semi-beefy setting, then switching to the full Big Muff tone on that third one. It’s not that these guitar parts aren’t carefully thought out. But these ideas throw themselves at you and demand to be followed.”

Where did you choose to lay down these tracks?

“Well, there were a number of studios involved in this album. I have my own studio in Brighton [Medina], and we did a lot of the guitars and vocals there. We used a studio called Salvation Music Studios, which is an old ex-Salvation Army hall. We also used Mark Knopfler’s beautiful studio in West London, British Grove.

“I did a lot of it at home, in our barn studio, which works really well. There’s another one in North London called Angel Studios where we did orchestras and choirs. We recorded in a cathedral.

“A lot of it was down to Charlie Andrew saying, ‘I’d like to try this place…’ He and his fantastic engineer, Matt Glasbey, have all sorts of ideas about how they want things to sound – and they use 20 mics where I would use one. There were Pro Tools sessions that were way beyond my comprehension. But they find new ways of giving me a life and an air that we’re all after.”

What was it like working your guitar parts into Will Gardner’s string arrangements?

“Most of the guitars were done pre the orchestration. But Will Gardner is a genius. He’s off the wall. He goes places it wouldn’t occur to me to go. And it’s so great to have people around you who are inspiring and inspired. He did brilliant, brilliant, weird things. I mean, not all of it is weird. And the ‘weird’ is only there because that’s what works.”

It’s been five years since you auctioned the bulk of your guitar collection, including fabled Pink Floyd gear like the Black Strat. How do you feel about that decision now?

“The charity the money went to, ClientEarth, is doing the most extraordinary work throughout the world. Every day – I got one this morning – there’s an email about a court case they’ve won somewhere in the world, against countries where they break their own laws on climate change and emissions, or against people who are building plastics factories or cutting down medieval forests in Poland.

“ClientEarth brings a ton of heavy lawyers down on them, and they win these cases. I don’t think my money could have gone to a better place. The guitars have served me very well. They’ve done their job, they’re the tools of my trade. And the secret is [whispers conspiratorially], you can always buy another one.”

Was handing over the Black Strat like losing a limb – or was it actually liberating to cut the ties with your past?

“I mean, Fender did a David Gilmour model [launched in 2008], so now I’ve got the Black Cat Strat. And it’s the same, you know? It does what it says on the tin.”

But Floyd fans might argue there was an intangible magic in the original Black Strat. Can the same be said for the signature models?

“Phil Taylor, my guitar tech, insisted on a lot of affection from Fender before we’d agree to do it, and the David Gilmour Signature Strat is a fine, fine instrument. And we make sure it stays that way. We’re on their case about it regularly. I think they’ve done an extremely good job in making a beautiful guitar.”

Would it pass a blindfolded comparison with the original?

“It certainly would with me. Why wouldn’t it?”

A few guitars escaped that 2019 auction. Your 1950s Gretsch 6128 Duo Jet, for one.

“Yes. That one’s on Luck and Strange, the track itself. This is one of the guitars I have a genuine affection for and didn’t want to sell. I mean, it’s not like it’s the rarest guitar in the world and you couldn’t get another one. But I don’t want to appear too disparaging of the magic values of these tools of the trade.

“There are one or two I kept. There’s the old beat-up Telecaster [’55 Esquire]. And there were also a couple of other guitars I’d forgotten about, which were away in the Pink Floyd Exhibition [Their Mortal Remains] somewhere. Suddenly, they turned up and I said, ‘Fuck, I thought I’d sold all those!’”

How much action did those survivors see on this new album?

“Well, the Black Cat Strat – a lot. The Telecaster, a bit. Certainly, the Duo Jet is there on two or three tracks and is the main one on Luck and Strange. I’ve got a Gibson ES-335 I bought not so long ago; that’s on one track at least. And a Gibson goldtop, which is not the ’55 goldtop I used on Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2, because I sold that. But this was the spare. It’s the same year; it’s identical.”

Is your cherished 1945 Martin D-18 the acoustic guitar used on Yes, I Have Ghosts?

“I honestly can’t remember. It’s my favorite acoustic, and I wasn’t going to sell that one. But Martin have very kindly made me some new guitars as well. So I tried my best to get rid of some guitars… but I still seem to have quite a few.”

You’ve always had eclectic tastes, but one constant is that you love old gear. Some would argue that production methods get better over time with most things. Is that not true of guitars?

“I honestly believe you could pick up a 1954 Fender Stratocaster – from the first year they were made – and I can’t see how it could be improved. There’s a little fantasy-belief I hold, which is that when a guitar has been played for years, the vibrations of all the different bits of the body achieve some sort of harmony. So I think a 30-year-old Martin – identical to a new one – would definitely sound better.”

You once said the Stratocaster enhances the personality of the person playing it.

“The Stratocaster, I have believed for years, is a clearer signal for the person who’s playing it. The person who’s playing it is more recognizable on a Strat than, for example, on a Les Paul. That’s just another of my fantasy-beliefs.”

These days it seems fewer and fewer guitarists are using physical amps. How has your own philosophy changed since the days of your classic Hiwatt rig?

“Oh, I will be using physical heads and cabinets on the tour – but at home I have this thing that’s now 30 years old, called a Zoom. It’s a tiny little gray box, and I use that most of the time when I’m working on the early version of songs. Because I know how to work it, it’s got lots of good sounds and I know how to adjust them.”

You even wrote The Piper’s Call on a ukulele. How did that come about?

“I’ve got a 1950s Martin ukulele. It’s a lovely little thing. One day, it was sitting there, and I picked it up and strummed it, and found an unusual chord change I’ve never found before. One finger stays in one position, another finger moves from the second fret of the first string to the second fret of the third string. And that’s all it is. It’s the simplest thing.

“The whole song formed itself out of those two little notes. A bit like Shine On You Crazy Diamond formed itself out of those four little notes. These magic moments just pop out of their own volition.”

Do you have to be in a certain mood or mindset to lay down your solos?

“That’s a tough one. At the moment that I want to do that bit of playing, I obviously want to get myself into the right space. What else could I do? But I don’t have a formula or routine that I follow, or some particular exercises. I just play it and hope that my fingers and my brain and the instrument will be in some sort of harmony.”

With this album, there’s a real sense that you want to keep pushing the limits and creating new music. That you’re not satisfied to just play the hits?

“Yeah, absolutely. I’m much more interested in being part of the future than playing too much of the really old stuff. I mean, on the tour, I’m not going to not play any of the expected stuff. But the focus will be much more on recent times.”

You’ve said it was never your plan to become a solo artist.

“I started out when I was 16 in a band in my hometown of Cambridge. I like being a part of that setup. I never wanted to be a solo artist. When I joined Pink Floyd, same thing: I was very happy to be a part of something. And I got thrust into the role of leader.

“And that’s OK. That’s fine. I’m a big boy, I can cope. And I dealt with that as well as I could. But then, outside of that, it’s either forming another band or becoming a solo artist. And I really wouldn’t know where to start, forming a new band. That moment of being in a band – when you’re young, when you can shout at each other and fall out, but still be back at it, because your common destiny is still there… [Sighs] Yeah, I’m set in my ways now. It would be harder to do that today. It’s harder to be equal.”

You’ve made records amidst friction and tension – and you’ve also made records in the ethos of complete harmony, like this one. Which state do you find more productive?

“Oh, being in a state of harmony. But you might have different ideas about [the conflict in Pink Floyd]. There are publicly presumed, accepted versions of things which are not necessarily the way they were. Even some of the moments that felt like they had been pretty dark, the satisfaction of some of the musical achievements at the time were also great. So it’s not quite as simple as that.”

Finally, famous guitarists always say they’re trying to play more like David Gilmour as they mature. How has your own playing evolved since the ’70s?

[Deadpan] “I just try to play more like David Gilmour.”

• Luck and Strange is out now via Legacy.

Of his first studio solo release for nine years, and his fourth since Pink Floyd split, David Gilmour says: “The album’s called Luck And Strange. It’s the ‘luck’ of the very strange moment that me, and baby boomers in general, have lived through,” he says. “To have had such a fortunate moment, so many positive ideas that one thought were moving us forward.”

For guitar lovers, the album is a showcase for fabulous instruments of all stripes, from Fender Stratocasters (of course) to vintage Gibson Les Paul Goldtop and ES-335 dot neck, Gretsch Duo-Jet, classic Martin acoustics and ukuleles, and of course David’s ancient Rickenbacker lap steel ‘frying pan’ that features throughout.

Produced by Mercury Music Prize winner Charlie Andrew, best known for his work with Alt-J, Gilmour admires Andrew’s lack of reverence for both him and his musical history. “He’s quite bossy and doesn’t have any great preconceptions about what I do, or what Pink Floyd has done,” laughs David. “He just tells us what he wants us to get on with, and we get on with it. The result is extremely pleasing to me.”

“David’s been very receptive to my bossiness,” says Charlie.

With few budget restraints, the album brims with instruments, players and voices, including orchestrations by Will Gardner, and boasting the choir of Ely Cathedral (the ‘ship of the fens’ featured on the cover of Floyd’s Division Bell album). The orchestrations are “break-your-heart beautiful,” says David’s wife and lyricist Polly Samson. Gilmour agrees: “He’s a real genius.”

David Gilmour is one of those musicians held in almost universal reverence by players and music fans alike. “David Gilmour is an outstanding Strat player,” says arch-melodist
Hank Marvin. “He always gets a variety of great tones, uses finger vibrato and the bar, has super feel, creates beautifully constructed bluesy solos and is not afraid to let a phrase really
speak. Wonderful!”

“I’ve changed my whole thinking about guitar,” says Toto’s Steve Lukather. “I’d rather be more like David Gilmour than anybody else.”

Gilmour joined Pink Floyd as the group’s founder and guitarist Syd Barrett drifted from the band due to mental health issues. Since then, he has enjoyed a stellar career and his compositions, vocals, and huge soaring solos have featured on several of the world’s greatest-selling albums. The Dark Side Of The Moon became the fourth best-selling album of all time.

Wish You Were Here is another monster, full of epic tracks including Shine On You Crazy Diamond, while The Wall features the Gilmour and Roger Waters composition Comfortably Numb – in 2022 Total Guitar readers voted it the third-best solo of all time, after Van Halen’s Eruption and Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.

When Pink Floyd finally imploded, Gilmour released solo albums like the eponymous debut, plus On An Island and Rattle That Lock, where he enlisted the help of fellow legends David Crosby, Graham Nash, Phil Manzanera, Jools Holland, Roger Eno, Floyd’s Rick Wright and others, to create finely-sculpted and highly-regarded works.

Gilmour’s playing is ever-tasteful, always in service of the song, and offers a range of techniques including string bends (with the infamous compound bend) and vibrato, both finger and whammy style. His compositions are thoughtful and musical, with arrangements that blend rock, pop, prog and blues to create dreamy musical soundscapes.

All of this is in evidence on Luck And Strange. But there’s a sense within the Gilmour camp that this one is something special. “I started off in a pop group,” says Gilmour, “and I found myself eventually leading that group, never a position I wanted. Same with being a solo artist – not something I really asked for.

“This album feels much closer to that than I’ve had all these years, with a group of people very collaborative, very positive, and pushing in everything they can to what we’re doing. It’s the best album I’ve made since The Dark Side Of The Moon in 1973.”

1. Black Cat

At just a minute and a half, the album’s instrumental opener features just Gilmour on guitar and piano, plus ambient genius Roger Eno on synthesiser. Black Cat features a replacement for the infamous black Strat that David sold at auction in 2019 for over £3,000,000.

A typically simple piece in C minor, the playing could be no-one else. It’s beautiful, tasteful and although mainly minor pentatonic-based, is laced with colour tones, glorious bends, and subtle vibrato, not to mention that echo-laden ‘fingerprint’ Stratocaster tone.

2. Luck and Strange

“Luck And Strange comes from a jam that we did in 2007 while Rick Wright was still alive,” Gilmour explains. “I wrote choruses and bridges for it and Polly wrote these great words. From the first second you hear Rick playing his electric piano, you just know there’s something about it that no one else could do.”

Introduced by Gilmour’s black Gretsch Duo Jet, it’s as close as he ever gets to a foot-tapper. The changes are very Floyd-y, too, especially the Em-C in the bridge, followed by the very Dark Side-ish G-Gdim5-C move. Packed with gorgeous bluesy fills and another monster solo, Gilmour’s vocals are relaxed and confident. A great track that harks back across the decades, both lyrically and musically.

3. The Piper’s Call

The album’s first single was written on David’s old Martin ukulele and begins with uke and acoustic guitar licks. “It’s a song about the Faustian pact – that deal with the devil,” David explains. “It could be with using up the planet,” says Polly Samson, “it could be with hedonism.”

The powerful fills and huge solo are played on possibly the same 1955 Les Paul Goldtop used on Another Brick In The Wall Part 2. Lyrically the song is almost Roger Waters-like in its social commentary: the dismissal of materialism (“ the spoils of fame”) and treachery (“but you reap what you sow, as I found long ago”).

But is the ‘piper’ The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (Floyd’s debut album on which Gilmour didn’t play but which he performed live after Barrett left the band), or perhaps the Pied Piper of Hamelin? Whatever its meaning, the track’s simple beauty belies the insidious darkness behind it.

4. Between Two Points

“Polly always asks who my favourite drummer is,” states David. “Steve Gadd of course!” This song from The Montgolfier Brothers, a ’90s dream-pop duo featuring Mark Tranmer and Roger Quigley, had been on Gilmour’s personal playlist for years.

“I made a backing track and realised the lyrics weren’t naturally a thing I’d sing,” expresses David. So he asked daughter Romany to provide vocals. Gilmour says the guitar solo is a rare moment.

“I was so into that moment, it was like being stoned but I wasn’t – not separated from the guitar and what I was playing at that particular moment, which is rare. It was joyful.”

5. A Single Spark

Featuring Romany, Daniel and David Gilmour on ethereal backing vocals, with the man himself singing raspy lead, this cool track’s Cmaj7-Dm7-G7 verse is propelled by Adam Betts’ lovely loping drums. As for the solo, it’s about as melodic as a player can get, following the chords and targeting notes like major 7th, 9th and 5th so musically.

6. Vita Brevis

If Black Cat represents the tasty pre-dinner nibbles then this 46-second snippet is the sorbet break in our 9-course feast. Featuring daughter Romany on delicate harp, and David playing swooping slide guitar it’s a pretty and easy-to-digest respite from the weightier pieces here.

Played as an entire album rather than cherry-picking tracks, Vita Brevis (life is short) works perfectly in the context of the overall offering.

7. Dark And Velvet Nights

Featuring A-list session drummer Steve Gadd and long-time collaborator on bass, Guy Pratt, Dark And Velvet Nights is one of the album’s highlights.

“The music sprang out of me one day,” exclaims David, although the lyrics were pure happenstance. “Polly had given me a poem for our wedding anniversary and it happened to be sitting on my desk next to me. I just picked up the paper and sang these words.”

Gilmour played it to Polly, she loved it, added some further lyrics… “and there it was. Serendipitous, really.” With possibly the most soaring, anthemic solo on the album - played on David’s recently acquired dot-neck Gibson ES-335 (“I don’t know why I didn’t discover one of these a long time ago”) it’s a joyous yet melancholy piece.

8. Sings

Again, there’s no mistaking the writing and playing here. Featuring David’s two-year-old son Joe imploring him to “sing daddy, sing”, the track’s chorus was originally written 25 years ago.

Perhaps more of a grower than an instantaneous album ‘hit’ it does finish with a tasty, dare we say Roger Waters-ish, repeating bass guitar run (possibly from Gilmour himself).

9. Scattered

Lyrically credited to Samson, and both David and son Charlie Gilmour, Scattered is a classic E minor ballad, but with a few surprises. It starts in atmospheric style with a synth-borne descending Em-D-Cmaj7 sequence that builds to a darkly diminished piano breakdown from Eno and Rob Gentry.

Light relief comes with Gilmour’s acoustic guitar solo. But it’s the calm before the storm as his distortion-laden guitar takes off like a rocket to the pentatonic Strat-osphere. If there’s a Comfortably Numb moment on the album, then this is it!

10. Yes, I Have Ghosts

Another short and sparsely instrumented number, …Ghosts boasts only Gilmour on acoustic guitar, with daughter Romany on backing vocals, string programming and harp.

The instruments and vocals weave elegantly around one another, before David’s acoustic outro solo dances around Polly’s programmed violin before the song fades out. Somewhat Elizabethan in nature it’s an interesting left turn from the album’s more symphonic tracks.

11. Luck And Strange (original Barn Jam)

A spontaneous jam in Gilmour’s freezing barn with the late Rick Wright playing unmistakable electric piano (with Guy Pratt on bass and Steve DiStanislao on drums), there are nevertheless epic Gilmour moments here. He’s as cool (sic) as ever, never drops a note, and this could well be the original black Strat.

In a recent interview with Guitar World, David Gilmour maintained that his signature Fender Stratocasters felt the same to him as his iconic Black Strat, which was sold at auction in 2019 for a cool $3,975,000.

Though there are a few he says he'd never auction off, not to mention his steadfast belief that vintage guitars are superior to newer ones, Gilmour isn't too precious about most of the guitars he's owned over the decades.

“The guitars [sold at the same auction in 2019] have served me very well,” he told Guitar World. “They’ve done their job, they’re the tools of my trade.”

In the same Guitar World interview, Gilmour revealed that, in a similar vein, he also doesn't feel the need to record home demos with the best setup money can buy.

Though he hasn't yet jumped on the digital amp bandwagon for his live shows, things are much simpler for him at home.

“I will be using physical heads and cabinets on the tour – but at home I have this thing that’s now 30 years old called a Zoom,” he explained to GW.

“It’s a tiny little gray box, and I use that most of the time when I’m working on the early version of songs. Because I know how to work it – it’s got lots of good sounds and I know how to adjust them.”

Thanks to insider info from Gilmour’s guitar tech Phil Taylor, we know that the model in question is the Zoom 9030 – a half-rack-sized multi-effects unit that features an analog preamp section and digital effects, and launched way back in 1991.

The Pink Floyd icon isn’t the only fan of the 9030, either – it featured heavily on Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral, while Prince and the Edge were also known to be fans.

Although his demo rig is consistent, Gilmour did explore plenty of gear during the recording of his new solo LP, Luck and Strange – and despite his long history with the Fender Strat, he found himself falling for the Gibson ES-335.

“I've not got a huge history with Gibson guitars, but this one is one I've bought comparatively recently to have a different tone, a different thing,” Gilmour said of 335 in a recent video on his YouTube channel. “This is a very, very different sort of guitar to what I'm used to.”

To read Guitar World's full chat with Gilmour – which covers the changes to his creative process when making the album, his approach to guitar solos, and more – pick up a copy of the new issue of the mag at Magazines Direct.

Back in 2019, David Gilmour's iconic black Stratocaster shattered records when it was sold at auction for an incredible $3,975,000, making it at the time the most expensive guitar ever sold at auction (indeed, today it remains the most expensive non-Kurt-Cobain-related guitar to ever go under the hammer).

Its history speaks for itself – it was Gilmour's main guitar during Pink Floyd's golden era, during which the band recorded two of the best-selling albums of all time, and was used by Gilmour to record both the solos for Comfortably Numb, ranked (together) by this very publication as the third greatest guitar solo ever recorded. That said, Gilmour has lost no sleep over his decision to part ways with the Strat.

Asked by Guitar World how he felt about the guitar's sale five years down the line, Gilmour spoke excitedly of the funds the sale raised for environmental causes.

“The charity the money went to, ClientEarth, is doing the most extraordinary work throughout the world,” he said. “Every day – I got one this morning – there’s an email about a court case they’ve won somewhere in the world, against countries where they break their own laws on climate change and emissions, or against people who are building plastics factories or cutting down medieval forests in Poland.”

Pressed further about whether or not he felt a sense of loss with his sale of the Strat – which Gilmour prominently used in the classic Pink Floyd lineup's final performance at the 2005 Live 8 concert – the guitarist shrugged, “Fender did a David Gilmour model, so now I’ve got the Black Cat Strat. And it’s the same, you know? It does what it says on the tin.”

That said, the creation of the Fender model in question, which was launched in 2008, was rigorously overseen by Gilmour and his team.

“Phil Taylor, my guitar tech, insisted on a lot of affection from Fender before we’d agree to do it, and the David Gilmour Signature Strat is a fine, fine instrument – and we make sure it stays that way,” he explained. “We’re on their case about it regularly. I think they’ve done an extremely good job in making a beautiful guitar.”

So, would it pass a blindfold comparison with the real $4 million deal?

“It certainly would with me,” Gilmour asserted. “Why wouldn’t it?”

Gilmour is fresh off the release of Luck and Strange, his first new solo album in nine years. Cited by the man himself as his best work since Floyd's epochal Dark Side of the Moon, the album was produced by Alt-J and London Grammar producer Charlie Andrew, who challenged Gilmour's usual creative process.

To read Guitar World's full chat with Gilmour – which covers the making of the album, his home studio setup, and the guitars he wouldn't sell – pick up a new issue of the mag at Magazines Direct.

Here’s a collaboration we certainly weren’t expecting to see this morning: Body Count has dropped an industrial cover of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb – which was recorded with electric guitar legend, David Gilmour.

Body Count did tease that their upcoming record would have a guest star that would “blow everyone away” back in June, but we can't imagine anyone saw this particular partnership happening.

The Pink Floyd guitarist has been put to work on this fresh new take of the 1979 hit, which finds him revisiting arguably his greatest-ever guitar track in a completely different light.

After all, Comfortably Numb is perhaps Pink Floyd’s most famous song, and features what is widely considered to be one of the very best guitar solos ever. As such, to see Gilmour take on the song once again – especially in the company of a heavy metal act – is quite something.

Here, as Body Count frontman Ice-T weaves his way through his own lyrics, Gilmour is given total freedom to noodle as he pleases and treat the song as a backing track, giving way to nearly six minutes of all-out Comfortably Numb soloing.

What’s perhaps more surprising about this release, though, is the fact it was actually Gilmour who proposed the collaboration.

“The initial contact from Ice-T was for permission to use the song,” the Stratocaster master says, “but I thought I might offer to play on it as well. I like the new lyrics, they're talking about the world we’re living in now, which is quite scary.

“Body Count's version of Comfortably Numb is quite radical, but the words really struck me,” he continues of the fresh version. “It astonishes me that a tune I wrote almost 50 years ago is back with this great new approach. They've made it relevant again.”

"For me, Comfortably Numb, is an introspective song,” Ice-T adds. “It's me acknowledging that I'm older now. I'm telling the younger generation, you've got two choices: you can keep the fire burning or you can give up.

“It's me trying to make sense of what's happening, but also pointing out that we're all in a place where we don’t have to face reality.”

Body Count’s upcoming album Merciless is set to drop on November 22.

When Alt-J and London Grammar music producer Charlie Andrew was announced as David Gilmour's collaborator for his first solo album in nearly a decade, the Pink Floyd icon hailed his “wonderful lack of knowledge or respect for this past of mine”.

“He said things like, ‘Well, why does there have to be a guitar solo there?’ and ‘Do they all fade out? Can’t some of them just end?’” Gilmour said when Luck and Strange was announced.

“He’s very direct and not in any way overawed, and I love that. That is just so good for me because the last thing you want is people just deferring to you.”

But Gilmour solo stans could breathe a collective sigh of relief when Luck and Strange eventually dropped, as it features solos aplenty. Now Gilmour has detailed how he recorded his leads – and how he managed to win his producer over to Team Solos.

“Some of them were done just by me, without an engineer or anything, just in my barn room back at the farm. And some of them were done in Brighton with Charlie Andrew breathing down my neck,” he told the Rockonteurs with Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt podcast.

“I think we changed him as much as he changed us in terms of these things, loving the guitar solo thing by the end. 'So let's do another one.'”

Gilmour goes on to address whether his reputation for stellar solos means he feels pressured to deliver.

“No, I think I just plug in and go and hope for the best. I'm hunting for melodies, but I'm hoping they will naturally flow out of me.”

He points to Between Two Points, his interpretation of the obscure Montgolfier Brothers song with Romany Gilmour, as an example of that rare moment when inspiration hits.

“On Between Two Points, I can remember just plugging a guitar and just playing along and feeling. I was more in that moment than usually happens, and it almost felt transcendent, like I was on drugs or something. How these things are done, I have no idea.”

Luck and Strange is out now via Sony Music.

Earlier this week, Gilmour surprised pub-goers with an acoustic rendition of Pink Floyd classic Wish You Were Here.

Every Pink Floyd fan dreams about catching an intimate David Gilmour show at their local watering hole – and that is exactly what regulars at a pub in the seaside city of Brighton and Hove experienced last night, when Gilmour appeared with his child Romany for an acoustic rendition of 1975 Pink Floyd classic Wish You Were Here.

22-year-old Romany Gilmour, a talented songwriter in their own right, performed a short set of covers at The Neptune Inn, which included Joanna Newson's This Side of Blue and Leonard Cohen's If It Be Your Will.

Like any other aspiring singer-songwriter, they also tested out an original song with the working title Lily of the Roses. However, what the open mic attendees didn't expect was to see the Pink Floyd icon join Romany on stage.

“Oh my gosh, you're here. And you've brought your guitar,” Romany exclaimed, then jokingly added, “You're going to come and upstage me? OK, great.” The older Gilmour quickly set up his Martin D-35 signature acoustic and joined them on the small stage for a tender rendition of the Pink Floyd classic.

The guitarist and bassist of David's current band, Ben Worsley and Guy Pratt, were also in attendance, along with Romany's brother Gabriel and Ugly Kid Joe singer Whitfield Crane.

The Gilmour family, including Romany, have been an integral part of David's just-released solo album, Luck and Strange, which he recently called “the best album I’ve made in all those years since 1973 when The Dark Side of the Moon came out.”

Romany plays harp and takes on lead vocals on the reimagined Between Two Points, a Montgolfier Brothers original. The folk-tinged Yes, I Have Ghosts sees them duet with their dad.

“I was working on this song just as we went into lockdown and had to cancel a session with backing singers,” revealed David in a press release. “But, as it turned out, the solution was right here and I couldn’t be happier with the way Romany’s voice blends with mine and the beautiful harp playing has been another revelation.”

The acclaimed guitarist is gearing up to take Luck and Strange on the road, with October and November dates already announced at Circo Massimo in Rome, London's Royal Albert Hall, the Intuit Dome and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, and New York's Madison Square Garden.

Later this year, David Gilmour will release Luck and Strange – his first solo album in nine years, which is positioned to be an especially notable release from the Pink Floyd legend.

Not only will it be his first offering of new material in almost a decade, it was constructed with the help of a new-look backroom staff, helmed by Alt-J producer Charlie Andrew, who helped Gilmour expand his musical horizons.

The result, according to Gilmour himself, is an album that could rival even his best work with Pink Floyd.

In fact, in the new issue of Prog, the electric guitar master went on record to say Luck and Strange is his best piece of work since Pink Floyd dropped The Dark Side Of The Moon – widely considered one of the best guitar albums of all time – in 1973.

“It’s over 50 years now since The Dark Side Of The Moon,” Gilmour teases. “My feeling is that this album is the best album I’ve made in all those years since 1973 when The Dark Side Of The Moon came out.”

That alone will be enough to get Gilmour fans even more excited for the forthcoming album, which has so far been previewed by The Piper’s Call and Between Two Points.

At the time of the first single’s release, Gilmour heaped praise on his new production partner, and explained how Andrew had forced him to look at writing, recording and arranging from a completely fresh perspective.

As such, having assembled a team of instrumentalists and collaborators who have helped bring out his best work since The Dark Side of the Moon, Gilmour is eyeing up a swift return to the recording studio following Luck and Strange’s release.

“Our plan is just to get this one out and run it and then do another one straight away,” he continues in his Prog chat. “I will be working with all these people again. I’ve had this problem in the past, of wanting to throw myself in the studio with a few people and just kick stuff around, but not knowing who those people should be.

“And that is now a pressure that’s evaporated, because I’ve got these phone numbers. It feels like a team and I love being in a team – I didn’t choose to be a solo artist.

“When you have achieved the higher levels of success, most of the people that come into your sphere are going to look to you. They’re not going to be like Charlie Andrew – Charlie is the kind of refreshing thing that you want to have happen to you.”

In other Gilmour news, the Pink Floyd legend has been going through the guitars that he used on Luck and Strange – including the instrument he couldn't bear to sell at auction – and recently demonstrated how to pull off his trademark "swell" technique.

Luck and Strange is available to preorder now ahead of its September 6 release.

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Prog for the full interview.

The master of delays, David Gilmour, has provided more insight into how he achieves the sound he describes as “swell” – a multi-delay effect that somewhat mimics a synth pad.

“It's a sound I call 'swell', because it's a swelling sort of sound. A sound I've used many times on all sorts of tracks going back years and years and years,” says Gilmour in a new video breaking down his guitar techniques.

“It's sort of slightly orchestral. It's created with delays but you don't hear the impact note in theory.”

While Gilmour doesn't specify the delay pedals he uses to create the swell, the technique he demonstrates in the video employs the Strat's tremolo arm for a more pronounced effect, plus an Ernie Ball volume/expression pedal. In this particular case, Gilmour uses a Fender Strat reminiscent of his iconic Black Strat.

In a 1993 Guitar World interview, Gilmour spoke about using the Binson Echorec machine as his go-to delay unit up until 1977 and the Animals era. “The Binson was an Italian made delay unit. It was strange, because it didn't utilize tape loops. Instead, it used a metal recording wheel.

“You could get some wonderful delay effects that aren't attainable on anything that's been made since One of these Days [from 1971's Meddle] evolved from some of my experiments with the Binson, as did Echoes [also from Meddle].

“One day, Roger decided to take some of the techniques that I was developing and try them out himself on bass. And he came up with that basic riff that we all worked on and turned into One of these Days.”

In the new video interview, Gilmour reveals that he uses the swell technique on his new album, Luck and Strange, specifically on the tracks Scattered and Black Cat.

Luck and Strange is Gilmour's first new material in nine years and features a new producer tearing up the rulebook. It's set for release on September 6 via Sony Music.

David Gilmour has been showcasing the guitars he used to record his upcoming solo album, Luck and Strange – one of which is a vintage Gretsch Duo Jet he refused to part ways with at auction.

In 2019, Gilmour sold a huge number of electric guitars, acoustic guitars and other guitar gear as part of Christie’s The David Gilmour Collection. At the time, it was the most comprehensive sale of guitars ever offered at auction, and raised a total sum of $21,490,750.

The standout lot of the auction was the Pink Floyd legend’s iconic Black Strat, which ended up going for $3,975,000. It currently still sits as the third most expensive guitar ever sold at auction.

One guitar that was notably absent from the sale was a 1950s Gretsch 6128 Duo Jet, which, along with just a small handful of other exceptions, Gilmour simply couldn’t bear to sell.

“I’ve had it since the mid-’70s. It’s got a very particular sound to it, a very hi-fi sort of sound. I just, basically, didn’t want to sell it,” Gilmour says in a new video posted on YouTube. “They’re quite hard to come by.

“I can’t really explain what it is about a guitar that makes it special. This one is definitely different. The tonality of these particular pickups in this guitar is just very different.”

It’s rather telling that Gilmour sold the Black Strat, but decided to hold on to the Gretsch. It’s clearly indicative of the affection the guitarist has for the instrument, which was used on Gilmour’s first solo album in 1978, on the track Where We Start.

Perhaps more notably, he used the guitar onstage in 2002 at the Royal Albert Hall to perform the solo of Comfortably Numb.

Gilmour had previously made clear his intention to keep hold of this particular guitar during an interview with Guitarist around the time of the auction, revealing, “I’m holding on to a black Gretsch Duo Jet that I really love.”

The Gretsch is in esteemed company, and is one of only a very small number of guitars that Gilmour couldn't bring himself to sell. That list also includes a “lovely old Gibson steel guitar”, a “1945 Martin D-18”, and his ’55 Fender Esquire that’s nicknamed ‘The Workmate’.

Now, the Gretsch has been put back to work, and will feature on the upcoming record, including its title track.

Visit David Gilmour’s YouTube channel to follow the ongoing guitar breakdown series.

In related Gilmour news, Roger Waters recently reflected on writingWish You Were Here.

Pink Floyd's ninth studio Wish You Were Here will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year. The album, which spawned the iconic title track, features a memorable intro played on a 12-string guitar, which Roger Waters has revealed was the catalyst that inspired the rest of the song and set a melancholic tone for the rest of the album.

“It's one of those strange songs that came to me very easily, because David Gilmour had been playing the riff, and I've been listening to it and going, ‘What's that?’ And he played it. I said, ‘Play that again,’” he says in an interview with AXS TV.

“So I learned it. And I said, ‘And then what happens?’ And he said, ‘No, that's it.’ And I went, ‘I like it.’ I said, ‘So do you mind if I see what happens next?’”

Waters went on to write the rest of the song in just an hour. “It was one of those happy times when the stream of consciousness works, and words come out that have meter and meaning and fit a melody,” he recalls.

“I don't try to investigate them too much. It would feel a little bit like investigating a butterfly, you end up with dust and a few broken bits.

“So it was when we were making the record Wish You Were Here, which was all about absence. And it was to some extent about the loss of [founding vocalist and guitarist] Syd Barrett, who would succumb to mental illness seven or eight years before.”

In a 1993 Guitar World interview, Gilmour opened up about the public and commercial pressure that weighed down on the band during the Wish You Were Here sessions.

“It's about that feeling we were left with at the end of Dark Side – that feeling of ‘What do you do when you've done everything?’ But I think we got over that.

“For me, Wish You Were Here is the most satisfying album. I really love it. I mean, I'd rather listen to that than Dark Side of the Moon. Because I think we achieved a better balance of music and lyrics on Wish You Were Here.”

Few players have taken the blues vocabulary and incorporated it into progressive and psychedelic rock with such eloquence. David Gilmour’s tone, note choice and sense of rhythm elevated Pink Floyd – and solos in general – to a different level when he joined the band in 1967.

As the era of the epic guitar solo dawned, David established himself as a soloist few could match, with a strong sense of melody and a knack for creating memorable parts – even in some of the more ‘out there’ freeform jams that were so characteristic of the early Floyd.

From this time up to and including The Dark Side of the Moon in 1973, there were strong echoes (pun intended) of Jimi Hendrix in David’s Fuzz Face’d ambient solos. From Wish You Were Here onwards, he refined his tones a little more.

There was still lots of edge when required, but he developed a more controlled sound, often featuring the latest gadgets as they became available: for example, the MXR Phase 90 features on Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Have A Cigar.

Though David is famous for his complicated multi-amp rigs and effects racks, he maintains that it’s possible to get the essence of his sound with relatively simple and easily available gear. This may seem hard to believe, but it is certainly true to say that David’s playing would be recognisable whatever he plugged into.

The example solo/licks here are inspired by his solos on tracks such as Comfortably Numb, On An Island and What Do You Want From Me. I’m using the bridge pickup with medium/high gain (not too much, though).

David is known for playing at high stage/studio volumes and gets most of his sustain from this, so be prepared to tweak and maybe add a little compression before any drive. A digital echo/reverb gives a nice finishing touch.

Example 1

The first phrase establishes a strong beginning with the held bend, before playing around more rhythmically in this same area (shape 1 C# minor pentatonic) and reiterating the bend to finish.

Be very mindful of details such as vibrato, short staccato hits and bluesy quarter-tone bends. These are marked in the transcription, but in an ideal scenario you’ll eventually find yourself adding this sort of stuff in without thinking too consciously. That’s when you’ll know things are really coming together!

Example 2

Beginning in a similar manner to Example 1 with a held repeated bend, we soon kick things up a gear, shifting between shapes 1 and 5 of the C# minor pentatonic. A particularly notable feature here is the repeated use of that doublestop at the 9th fret of the third and second strings.

Pull this slightly sharp and you’re using one of David’s favourite devices, featured in many of his solos. Elsewhere, keep an eye out for little details like staccato notes and even a touch of palm muting.

Example 3

Reusing the last note of Example 2, we then rake quickly across a C# minor triad. You’ll recognise this as another favourite move of David’s; it’s a great way to add an exciting flourish without feeling the need to zoom around the fretboard.

We follow up with some funky doublestops and muted rhythmic hits. Maybe try a few different ways to finish this phrase using different rhythms or string bends. This could be the way to incorporate some Gilmour into your own style.

Example 4

Starting with a rake across the second and first strings, we then tackle a couple of held melodic bends. Be particularly careful when pitching these, as you’ll need to hold them there. The same goes for the following bar just before the staccato triplets.

We finish with the busiest passage of all, but it’s all taken from shapes 1 and 5 of the C# minor pentatonic, so we’re on familiar ground. Just take your time and don’t feel you need to duplicate exactly what is being played here. The vibe is what matters most.

Hear it here

Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon

Perhaps an obvious choice, but it would be difficult to justify not citing this one. Continuing somewhat from where 1971’s Meddle left off, David is still using a very Hendrix-influenced fuzz sound, though he’s already refining it with the liberal use of a Binson Echorec.

Check out his searing solo on Time, contrasting approaches on Money and some funky rhythmic Uni-Vibe (set to its fastest setting) on Any Colour You Like.

Pink Floyd – The Wall

Though tensions were apparently developing in the band by this point, it contains some of David’s finest recorded moments with a respectful nod to the Wish You Were Here album.

Check out In the Flesh? just to hear the power of his Strat tone, then The Thin Ice for a great example of how refined his lead tone had become at this point. Inevitably, we must mention the great Comfortably Numb, but do also check out the break on Young Lust.

David Gilmour – On An Island

This solo album is absolutely full of classic Gilmour solos. Particular highlights are the two contrasting solos on the title track, but be sure to listen to The Blue for some very wacky moments courtesy of the DigiTech Whammy pedal.

Take A Breath features a satisfying amount of aggression, and honourable mention should go to the almost hi-fi clean soloing on the final track Where We Start. Having an orchestra to back you probably helps with the inspiration!

With over five million tickets sold for performances all across the globe, The Australian Pink Floyd Show are undisputed champions when it comes to recreating the music of the world’s most celebrated prog rock band. And they even come with an official stamp of approval – David Gilmour was so impressed by them, he invited the group to perform at his 50th birthday party.

Here, Steve McElroy, the guitarist who helped start the project all the way back in 1988, talks us through the tools needed to emulate those genre-defining sounds and explains why the Pink Floyd guitarist is in a class of his own when it comes to channelling emotion…

David Gilmour and Fender Stratocasters are, quite simply, a match made in heaven. Why do you think the formula works?

“It’s rare to see photographs of David playing anything else, though he has very occasionally used Telecasters and even Les Pauls. He was such a big Hank Marvin fan, so the revered Strat was what he gravitated towards.

“Syd Barrett [original Floyd guitarist and vocalist] played Danelectros and Telecasters, so when David joined, he was expected to use the same instruments, but obviously he had his heart set on the Stratocaster.”

“A big factor was the tremolo arm – the way he uses it is so unique and precise. That guitar clearly gave him the power to unlock the voice he had inside and that sound he wanted to get out. The instrument became an extension of his body. 

“He gets his emotions out through his Strat. Luckily for us, he got a lot of it down on tape and we get to enjoy it!”

It makes perfect sense that such a versatile player would require a versatile instrument…

“That’s it! The number of tones you can get out of a Strat is just incredible. I just saw an old Jeff Beck interview where he’s sitting in a TV studio talking to the host, explaining the extreme versatility of a Stratocaster – from jazzy blues with the tone rolled back on the neck pickup to full-out rock on the bridge, while also backing off the volume to show how it can clean up. 

“In two minutes he went through a whole catalogue of sounds and I thought, ‘My god, it’s a phenomenal guitar, isn’t it?!’ Leo Fender and his team knew what they were doing when they built it. And it hasn’t really been improved upon that much since, has it? We’re talking about a 70 year-old design that’s timeless! Think about every song that’s been recorded with one… it’s unbelievable.”

Starting with the instruments in your hands, how do you go about authentically reproducing those legendary Gilmour tones?

“It does, of course, all start with the guitars. That’s the most fundamentally important part of it, along with your hands, the plectrum you use and the strings. I try to get the pots to be the right vintage, with the right type of capacitors in there for the tone circuit. 

“Then there’s the pickups – Fender had put out a David Gilmour signature Strat with the Seymour Duncan SSL-5 bridge pickup that’s, by all accounts, identical to the Seymour Duncan SSL-1 David had famously used. 

“Apparently Seymour dropped off a shoebox full of pickups to [Gilmour’s long-serving tech] Phil Taylor. Him and David went through all of them until they found ‘the one’. It was just a lucky dip – and that pickup ended up being the sound of his black Strat. So I’ve used those replicas in the bridge. I also have other guitars with stacked versions so I can switch to a humbucker if I need to…”

That’s interesting. What kind of scenarios would call for that?

“It’s not for gain purposes. I try to retain the single-coil sound as much as possible, but some stages have a lot of electrical interference from the lights. You might have a transformer the size of a fridge underneath where you are stood. There’s nothing you can do about that, other than switch to humbucker and hope for the best! 

“Other guitars have the EMG DG20 system, which is the active stuff David used from the A Momentary Lapse Of Reason tour onwards. He’s since gone back to the passive setup over the last 15 years. Another guitar has a ’70s DiMarzio FS-1 pickup. David had that in a Strat for his first solo album in 1978, some of The Final Cut and some tracks on The Wall.”

Some have said that’s what he played the Comfortably Numb solo with. 

“He’s since resorted back to the Seymour Duncan in the black Strat, which, of course, has now been auctioned off for a lovely cause. But the DiMarzio has quite an aggressive, more middy and poking sound. They’re as rare as hen’s teeth but I was given one a few years ago by a collector friend. 

“As soon as I put it in a guitar, it sounded exactly like the tone on Animals. It was almost conducive – it made you want to play in a certain way that matched that album.

“On this journey I’ve had, when you find a piece of equipment that puts you in a zone, you think, ‘Wow, David had this and it clearly influenced what came out of him!’ I know it’s the chicken or the egg, but I always feel like whatever he uses, he can always squeeze the most out of it.”

Is there any special insight you’ve had into how David Gilmour works and his approach to finding the right melody?

“I’ve had some contact with Phil Taylor. I was up fixing my roof one day and my mobile phone rang. It was Phil saying, ‘Steve, we’re trying to find an old Colorsound Power Boost, the old 18V one from the ’60s/’70s, have you got one we can use?’ And I had loads in, but not the specific model they were looking for. So I helped them track one down in London through another collector friend. 

“While I was on the phone, there was this loud noise in the background going off that sounded like an alarm. I had to ask Phil about it, just to find out what is going on back there and he told me it was David, who had been relentlessly working on one note all day long for two weeks! It made me laugh, but I realised that’s why every note is perfect. That’s how dedicated he is.”

You must have a sizeable pedalboard, particularly when it comes to fuzz, modulation and delays.

“I use two of the Pete Cornish fuzz pedals – there’s the P-1 and the P-2. I also use a ’70s Electro-Harmonix Ram’s Head Big Muff, but it’s got to have a specific transistor to get the right sound. I also use Thorpy fuzz pedals.

“There’s the Veteran which comes in both germanium and silicon. I needed both because the germanium sounds beautiful but falls down and dies when it’s hot. Then I’ll dig the silicon out, which doesn’t sound quite as good but it’s 80 percent there. 

“After doing this for 36 years, I have boxes and boxes of fuzz pedals. I’m on the hunt for the Holy Grail! You can buy 10 of the same and they’ll all sound different, maybe they’ve been repaired or tweaked or were made on a Friday instead of a Monday. You can’t just grab a vintage pedal and expect it to be exactly the same as another.”

What other pedals are an absolute necessity?

“I use proper Leslies mic’d up for certain modulation sounds, then there’s also the Electric Mistress Flanger and CE-2 Chorus. Anything David has used, I’ve bought at some point.

“The ones I couldn’t live without are the Colorsound Power Boost and the Pete Cornish SS-2 Soft Sustain Overdrive. Compression-wise, there’s a ’70s MXR Dyna Comp with the script logo, which gives you that beautiful attack for clean tones, and there’s a Boss CS-2. For this gig, you need a lot of boosts, compression and fuzz.”

What are the defining characteristics of David’s lead work? A lot of people might say it’s the slower bends and vibrato, and general sense of minimalism…

“Definitely the pitching of his bends, which is just razor sharp. It’s the feel of it and the timing – he dances around the beat a lot of the time. He might come in late or have notes hang over instead of resolving on the beat. To picture David Gilmour’s solos, they’re tumbling and falling but always remain graceful and beautiful, like athletes in the Olympics. His ideas always fit perfectly. 

“I’ve read interviews where he’s said he’ll absorb the music first before even thinking of a note. He’ll just listen to the music around the house for a week or so, walking around, coming up with melodies in his head, whistling or humming them out. That’s why he always plays for the song rather than saying, ‘Look what I can do!’ and trying to fit in as many notes in as possible. It’s always complementary. I think he visualises the solos in the context of the song.”

There’s definitely a visual element, isn’t there? 

“I remember talking to Dick Parry who played saxophone on the Floyd albums. He told me that when he went to record the song Money, Roger [Waters, Floyd bassist/vocalist] and David were sitting there explaining what the music was all about. 

“David had figured out his guitar solo and was telling Dick he chose those notes while imagining a big fat businessman who was greedy, looking down on people while laughing at them. 

“He conveyed that through his guitar and you can really feel it in the solo. That’s his approach to it, always very relatable. He makes us feel things. His solos have a sense of humanity that can cross all barriers of race and culture. It’s a very humble approach. His role is to serve the song, not to self-promote.”

So what exactly are your favourite leads to play with the band?

“I love all of Shine On You Crazy Diamond. The opening solo is just so pure. It’s also using a different tremolo technique – he’s palming the bar instead of grabbing it and warbling it up and down. Instead of the sine wave going up and below, it’s only going below and rising up to pitch. It has its own sound but it sounds so beautiful. 

“It’s a very intimate part, especially when you think about what the song is about: the sadness of Syd Barrett and his demise. The emotion was just coming through. David went for a bluesy sound on the neck pickup. That opening riff four note idea is so iconic and magnificent on its own. The sound he dialled in is just perfection…”

Guitar tones don’t come much more legendary! But is it a Uni-Vibe or a phaser pedal along with the Leslie?

“A lot of people argue over that! I think it’s a Uni-Vibe myself. I’ve tried both, and I actually use all three to get the right motion, blended in parallel. I also love the song Echoes, which is 20 minutes long with all these masterful guitar parts. Then there’s Dogs from the Animals album, which has some wonderful guitar work. But it’s all amazing! Catch me on a different day and other ones will jump out.”

• The Australian Pink Floyd Show begin a UK tour in October.

David Gilmour has shared The Piper’s Call, the lead single from his upcoming album, Luck and Strange, which is set to be the electric guitar hero's first solo record in nine years.

Luck and Strange was announced yesterday (April 24), with Gilmour revealing he had teamed up with Alt-J producer Charlie Andrew for an LP that promised to push him far outside his comfort zone.

This new approach even saw Andrew encourage a new attitude to arrangement, and question Gilmour whether the humble guitar solo – so often a crux of the Stratocaster master’s compositions – should be given the same prominence.

“We invited Charlie to the house, so he came and listened to some demos, and said things like, 'Well, why does there have to be a guitar solo there?' and 'Do they all fade out? Can’t some of them just end?'” Gilmour explained.

Of course, Luck and Strange was never going to ditch the solo completely, and despite Andrew’s sentiments to shake things up, The Piper’s Call features plenty – and we mean plenty – of tasty lead lines from Gilmour.

In fact, there’s one-and-a-half-minutes of all-out outro soloing, which taps into the guitarist’s varied playing arsenal: there are some swampy double-stops, a healthy dose of pentatonic licks, and a series of hair-rising bends.

He may have wanted to push the boat out on his new record, but for The Piper’s Call, the Pink Floyd legend rolls back the years for what is a rather mighty comeback, putting his storied chops front and center.

There’s nothing too radical about it, which is a good thing for Pink Floyd fans: it’s quintessential Gilmour. That’s not to say the rest of Luck and Strange will follow suit. After all, when recording the album, it sounds like Andrew and Gilmour had fun tearing up the rulebook.

“He has a wonderful lack of knowledge or respect for this past of mine,” Gilmour added of Andrew. “He’s very direct and not in any way overawed, and I love that. That is just so good for me because the last thing you want is people just deferring to you.”

Luck and Strange will arrive September 6. It was recorded over a five month period with the help of Guy Pratt and Tom Herbert on bass; Roger Eno and Rob Gentry on keys; and Adam Betts, Steve Gadd and Steve DiStanislao on drums. Will Gardner provided string and choral arrangements.

It will also feature the contributions of late Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright, who recorded his parts on the title track back in 2007 while jamming with Gilmour.

The full tracklisting can be found below:

1. Black Cat
2. Luck and Strange
3. The Piper’s Call
4. A Single Spark
5. Vita Brevis
6. Between Two Points - with Romany Gilmour
7. Dark and Velvet Nights
8. Sings
9. Scattered

• Luck and Strange is available to preorder now ahead of its September 6 release.

David Gilmour has just announced his first album in nine years, Luck and Strange. The first track, The Piper’s Call, drops tomorrow following a world-exclusive first play on the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show.

Recorded over five months in Brighton and London, the record sees Gilmour team up with Alt-J producer Charlie Andrew. The collaboration pushed Gilmour to expand his horizons and rethink his traditional methods of composition.

“We invited Charlie to the house, so he came and listened to some demos, and said things like, 'Well, why does there have to be a guitar solo there?' and 'Do they all fade out? Can’t some of them just end?'” Gilmour relayed.

“He has a wonderful lack of knowledge or respect for this past of mine. He’s very direct and not in any way overawed, and I love that. That is just so good for me because the last thing you want is people just deferring to you.”

The full tracklisting is below:

1. Black Cat
2. Luck and Strange
3. The Piper’s Call
4. A Single Spark
5. Vita Brevis
6. Between Two Points - with Romany Gilmour
7. Dark and Velvet Nights
8. Sings
9. Scattered

Other collaborators include Polly Samson, Gilmour’s co-writer and collaborator for the past 30 years, who co-wrote the album's lyrics. Late Pink Floyd keyboard player Richard Wright also features on the album. Wright recorded his part on the title track in 2007 while jamming in a barn at Gilmour's house.

The full lineup of musicians comprises Guy Pratt and Tom Herbert on bass; Adam Betts, Steve Gadd and Steve DiStanislao on drums; Rob Gentry and Roger Eno on keyboards, with string and choral arrangements by Will Gardner.

Best known as Pink Floyd's guitarist, Gilmour released his eponymous first solo album in 1978. His last album, Rattle That Lock, was released in 2015, just a year after Pink Floyd released their final album, The Endless River.

Luck and Strange is out on September 6 and available to preorder now. 

Famed for its use of tape loops and the iconic cash register intro, Money is undoubtedly one of Pink Floyd’s finest moments on record. The hit song first appeared on their 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon.

As the sole credited writer on Money, one must assume that bassist Roger Waters was responsible for coming up with the riff and the basic form of the song. “It’s Roger’s riff,” said David Gilmour when asked where the famous 7/4 time signature came from. “Roger came in with the verses and lyrics for Money more or less completed. We just made up middle sections, guitar solos and all that stuff.” 

If you’re unfamiliar with the bassline you should consider wearing your best counting hat – if it’s any consolation the guitar solo is in 4/4.

“We also invented some new riffs,” said Gilmour. “We created a 4/4 progression for the guitar solo, but made the poor saxophone player play in 7/4. It was my idea to break down and become dry and empty for the second chorus of the solo.”

Money came fifth in our list of the 40 best basslines of all time.

You can revisit the isolated bassline below.

The main riff is made up of downbeat quarter notes, so if you can follow the order of the notes you shouldn’t go far wrong. All you need then is to catch the changes from seven to four and back. In the 7/4 sections, all of the notes can be found in the b natural minor scale (b aeolian mode). 

The blues has got a lot to answer for too – can you hear how the vocal section is a 12-bar sequence complete with chords I, IV and V, and the guitar solo a double length at 24 bars?

You might also notice the tempo varies by around 22 beats per minute – during the course of the song the band reaches 125 bpm by the end of the second verse, 132 bpm when the guitar solo comes in, and 140 bpm during the closing stages of the guitar solo. The guys back then wouldn’t have used a click track. They were obviously high on adrenaline that day.

Your memory of Roger Waters may be of him playing a Fender or Rickenbacker bass guitar, flatwound strings with a pick, in an unspectacular, but solid way – after all, he did often have lead vocal duties as well. Aim for a strong middle-pickup sound with a little added bottom-end, but don’t pull out the mids or you might lose the body of the tone. If you can’t bring yourself to use a pick, boost some treble as well to give some added presence.

When Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985, bassist Guy Pratt found himself standing in his spot onstage, and has remained a key part of the Pink Floyd setup ever since, essentially replacing him in the group, at least on bass.]

“It’s quite funny for me because I’m trying to copy Roger’s bassline,” Pratt told BP. “There’s a real lazy feel on this track, especially on the bass. It’s very good for discipline to retain that authenticity. However, it’s the only track I can bring myself to use a pick on.”

In 2022, producer Bob Ezrin spoke to UK guitar magazine Total Guitar – part of GuitarWorld.com’s family of brands – about his work with Pink Floyd. However, a comment that Ezrin made in this interview about the song Comfortably Numb was misconstrued by TG – so we are now clarifying exactly what Ezrin said in relation to the two guitar solos in this track, performed by David Gilmour.

Ezrin was misquoted in Total Guitar with the statement: “The second solo in Comfortably Numb was a first take.” Ezrin was in fact referring specifically to the first solo in the middle of the track when he said: “It was a first take.” But at the time, TG believed – incorrectly – that Ezrin was referring to the second solo at the end of the song.

As a result of this mistake, the incorrect quote which TG attributed to Ezrin has been repeated in recent days in various online stories in which it was also reported that former Pink Floyd bassist/vocalist Roger Waters had claimed that Bob Ezrin “lied” about the recording of the second guitar solo in Comfortably Numb.

Total Guitar is happy to set the record straight, and we offer our sincere apologies to Bob Ezrin, Roger Waters and David Gilmour for any misunderstanding arising from the interview we published in 2022.

Pink Floyd are one of the world's most beloved and influential rock bands, a group who redefined what was capable within the genre, and set mind-boggling sales records while doing so.  

David Gilmour, a significant force in Floyd for all but the first couple years of the band's existence, is widely regarded as one of the greatest guitarists of all time. His soaring, melodic, less-is-more style is unforgettable, and synonymous with the band.

The guitarist he replaced, the troubled genius Syd Barrett, was equally revolutionary in his blending of avant-garde experimentalism with sharp pop hooks. Roger Waters, the band's bass guitar player and main post-Barrett songwriter (until his departure in 1985), also contributed a number of key acoustic and electric guitar parts to the band's catalog.

These players – each of them legends in their own right – aren't the only guitarists to have played with Pink Floyd, however. A few somewhat lesser-known, but equally skilled, players have also been called upon – particularly after they became a top-tier act – to contribute to the band's records, and add to their sound onstage. 

1. Snowy White

It's one thing to play rhythm, or add some texture, to a Pink Floyd song as a guest guitarist. It's entirely another to play a solo for a band that already featured one of the greatest soloists in the history of the instrument.

That, however, is exactly what session veteran Snowy White was called on to do for Pigs on the Wing, from Floyd's 1977 album, Animals. Though White's gorgeous and limber lead break was ultimately left off the vinyl version of Animals, it did appear on the 8-track version of the album.

White did two tours with Pink Floyd as their second guitarist – the Animals tour and subsequently part of their legendary trek for The Wall. The almost-mythical solo, however, was his sole contribution to the band's studio output.

“It was just after they offered me the gig that I recorded the solo for Pigs on the Wing,” White told Guitar World in an interview earlier this year. “David and I went back into the control room, and he said to Roger, 'Snowy has agreed to take the gig', and Roger said, 'Well, while you're here, you might as well play something.’

“So, Roger swivels around and puts on Pigs on the Wing, and then he said, 'Why don't you do a solo in the middle? Go ahead and pick up any of those guitars out there and have a go at it.’ So, I picked up this white Strat, plugged it in, fiddled about, and then did the solo in one take. I know one take sounds impressive, but honestly, I got lucky that I did such a nice one right away.”

2. Michael Landau

In some ways, it's not too surprising that Michael Landau found his way onto a Pink Floyd album. One of the great session guitarists of all time, Landau has played on songs by anybody and everybody. 

Landau was called in to play, most prominently, on One Slip, which can be found on Floyd's first post-Roger Waters album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason. His contribution was a very of-the-era, but still tasteful, dotted-eighth-laden part – just the sort of song-bolstering texture you'd expect from a seasoned vet.

Earlier this year, Landau reflected in a Guitar World interview on the surreal experience of recording with Floyd, as David Gilmour looked on. 

“It was crazy, David was right there,” Landau explained. “I’d been working with Bob Ezrin on several other records, and he ended up producing that Pink Floyd album. I think they brought in a couple of outside guitar players.

“There was that delay part I did, that dotted eighth kinda thing that was very popular back then, and for some reason David didn’t want to do it. He wanted to bring someone else in. I’m sure he didn’t specify me, but Bob suggested it and yeah… playing guitar for Pink Floyd was one of the most bizarre things ever.” 

3. Lee Ritenour

For those of you who love classic rock trivia, David Gilmour is not the only guitarist on Comfortably Numb.

The emotional centerpiece of The Wall contains arguably Gilmour's finest hour on the guitar – a soaring lead break that (deservedly) appears in the highest echelons of every list of the greatest guitar solos of all time worth its salt – but believe it or not, as Yoda once said, there is another...

Some of the song's sunny acoustic rhythm parts in the chorus came courtesy of another session great, Lee Ritenour, who reflected wryly on the experience of recording with the band in a 2012 Guitar World interview. 

“I was a studio player at the time and had a huge studio trunk with about 15 guitars – various types of acoustics and electrics – in it,” Ritenour recalled. “I wanted to make a big first impression. I went in with a huge pedalboard and a big rack thinking to myself, 'I’m really going to go in and impress these guys. I’m going to walk through the door with all of my shit. It will be cool!'

“So, I walk in the door of the studio and Gilmour must have had 75 guitars lined up. The most vintage, best guitars I’ve ever seen, all sitting on stands around the studio along with an equal amount of amps and everything else you can imagine.

“Needless to say,” he told Guitar World with a laugh, “my system didn’t look quite as impressive after that!”

4. Tim Renwick

Tim Renwick served as the go-to six-string sideman for the final stages of Pink Floyd's career, playing with the band on their final two world tours – the Momentary Lapse of Reason and Division Bell treks – and their final live performance ever, at the 2005 Live 8 concert.

Though he doesn't appear on Reason, Renwick did lend a hand on The Division Bell, bolstering Gilmour's presence with additional fretwork on Poles Apart and Take It Back.

UPDATE (10.02.23): In his 2022 interview, Bob Ezrin was in fact referring to David Gilmour’s first solo when he claimed it was a first take. Please see Total Guitar’s clarification for more info.

Last year, producer of Pink Floyd’s The Wall Bob Ezrin gave David Gilmour’s iconic second guitar solo on Comfortably Numb an extra layer of mysticism by revealing the lead effort that eventually made the final cut was the Stratocaster master’s first take.

According to Ezrin, while recording the 1979 masterpiece Gilmour attempted to use “scores of takes” to improve upon his initial effort, but “it never got better”: “The second solo in Comfortably Numb, which may be the best solo of all time,” he told Total Guitar, “is actually a first take.”

Well, Roger Waters has now taken issue with Ezrin’s comments, and has claimed during a YouTube Q&A that the producer wasn’t in the room when Gilmour recorded the solo, and that he’s “lied through his fucking teeth” about it for “years and “years”.

When asked by one fan whether he ever interjected his “opinions or criticisms on David’s solos” while recording The Wall, Waters replied, “Of course I expressed my opinions, because I was producing the record and so was he. 

“And so was, who else… Who was it? [Bob] Ezrin and James Guthrie. So we would all stick our oar in,” he continued, before adding the team would “sometimes leave him alone to do a few takes”.

While on the topic of Gilmour’s solos, Waters then singled out the Comfortably Numb solo – which was voted third best of all time by Guitar World readers in 2021 – and sought to seemingly set the record straight on how the effort was put together.

“When you read my memoir, you can read various peoples' stories about what happened,” Waters asserted. “Ezrin has lied through his fucking teeth about it for years and years. It’s wonderful. 

“The end of Comfortably Numb, for instance – and if I’m getting this wrong, James Guthrie will correct me – Ezrin waxes eloquent in interviews that he’s done since about how incredible it was that David did it in one take, and how moving it is and universal and blah, blah blah…

“The only problem with that story is he wasn't there. Bob Ezrin was not in the studio when Dave did that. Guthrie was there and David did umpteen takes, and then he went away and James Guthrie edited the best bits of all the takes and stuck it together.”

It’s not the first time Waters and Gilmour’s solos have been mentioned in the same breath recently. Discussion of the Comfortably Numb solo calls back to an exchange from earlier this year, in which Waters says he was misquoted calling David Gilmour’s solos “horrible”.

In February, an uncited source referenced in a publication called El Pais made the claim that all of Gilmour’s guitar solos from The Dark Side of the Moon – which is being reissued as The Dark Side of the Moon Redux by Waters – were removed because the singer disliked them.

Those lead efforts were indeed removed – the recently released re-recording of Money was completely solo-less – but it wasn’t because Waters thought they were “horrible”.

“I love Dave’s guitar solos on DSOTM, both of them, and on [Wish You Were Here] and on Animals and on The Wall and on The Final Cut,” Waters said in an Instagram post at the time. “In my, albeit biased view, Dave’s solos on those albums, constitute a collection of some of the very best guitar solos in the history of rock and roll.”

In his YouTube Q&A, Waters once again doubled down on his praise: “I like all [of] Gilmour’s solos,” he stressed. “I say [it] so often. I say so, I believe, in the sleeve notes on the new record.

“There’s nothing wrong with Dave’s solos. There’s nothing wrong with his solos on The Wall, or his solos on Animals, or his solos on The Dark Side of the Moon, or Wish You Were Here, or The Final Cut, or any of the work that I did with him. I’m a fan. They’re great.”

This interview with David Gilmour originally appeared in the February 1993 issue of Guitar World.

Amid the psychedelic explosion of new groups making their debut in the charmed world that was London, 1967, was a quartet called The Pink Floyd. In small, smoky clubs like UFO and the Roundhouse, the Floyd galvanized the London scene with their extended, free-form instrumental jams.

Fledgling flower children grooved to the heady new sounds in rooms that seemed to bob and levitate as blobs of multi-colored liquid light melted the walls around them.

Perhaps even more than Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Pink Floyd were psychedelia personified. By 1968, however, the band was forced to confront the rapidly deteriorating mental condition of Syd Barrett, their brilliant but unstable guitarist and leader.

In 1968, The Pink Floyd dropped the 'The' from their name – and they dropped Syd Barrett.

Guitarist David Gilmour, an old school friend of Barrett's, was drafted to replace him. Unquestionably, Barrett invented The Pink Floyd, and his troubled genius would later furnish the subject matter for some of the band's best songs. But it was David Gilmour and his lyrical guitar work that provided Pink Floyd with the sonic signature that helped carry them to international stardom in the Seventies, when the smoky clubs of their swinging London days gave way to vast arenas and stadiums.

The Floyd's ever-evolving trippy instrumental textures reached the highest levels of complexity, perfectly complementing their otherworldly concert visuals.

Pink Floyd's next big crack-up didn't occur until 1985, when David Gilmour and bassist Roger Waters came to a bitter parting of the ways. Gilmour assumed sole leadership of the band in 1987. With Waters' brooding lyrics out of the mix, Gilmour's searing, expansive guitar style – the core of the band's sound since their flower power days – assumed an even greater importance.

These days, David Gilmour is a distinguished, gray-haired English gentleman who becomes instantly youthful once he gets a guitar in his hands. In celebration of Shine On, the new Pink Floyd box set, Gilmour consented to share some of his memories with Guitar World.

There's a famous story about Syd Barrett being phased out of the band in 1968. You were all in a van, on your way to a gig in Southampton...

“Not in a van, no. In a Bentley.“

Right. And someone said, “Oh, let's just not pick up Syd tonight.“ Can you recall who said that?

“Probably Roger. Certainly not me – I was the new boy. I was in the back. Someone probably said, 'Shall we go and pick up Syd?' And Roger probably said [in conspiratorial tones] 'Oh no, let's not!' And off we went down to Southampton.“

In the early days of Pink Floyd, did you feel like you were just a Syd surrogate?

“Oh, I was – no question about it. They wanted me to play his parts and sing his songs. Nobody else wanted to sing them, and I got elected. That was my job as far as live shows were concerned, anyway.

“Me and Syd played only five gigs together in Pink Floyd. Or maybe four. Maybe Southampton was supposed to be the fifth one, I don't remember. While all this was happening, we were also trying to make the new album, A Saucerful of Secrets. But live, we didn't play the tracks from that, but virtually all Syd's stuff. Because there wasn't anything else to do. It was either that or back to Bo Diddley covers.“

What made the band decide to take on a lengthy, abstract instrumental like Saucerful?

“That's hard to say. I had just joined the group shortly before that. I don't think the band really knew quite where they wanted to go after Syd's departure.

“A Saucerful of Secrets was a very important track; it gave us our direction forward. If you take A Saucerful of Secrets, Atom Heart Mother and Echoes, all lead logically to Dark Side of the Moon.

“A Saucerful was inspired when Roger and Nick [Mason, Pink Floyd's drummer] began drawing weird shapes on a piece of paper. We then composed music based on the structure of the drawing. We tried to write the music around the peaks and valleys of the art. My role, I suppose, was to try and make it a bit more musical, and to help create a balance between formlessness and structure, disharmony and harmony.“

There are varying opinions as to whether or not Syd is on the Saucerful of Secrets track.

“No, he's not. That's totally false. He's on three or four other tracks on the album, including Remember a Day and Jugband Music [Barrett's sole composition on the Saucerful album]. He's also on a tiny bit of Set the Controls For the Heart of the Sun. I think I'm on Set the Controls as well.“

Can you recall any of the techniques you used to get unusual guitar tones back then?

“Well, on the middle section of A Saucerful of Secrets, most of the time the guitar was lying on the studio floor. You know how mic stands have three steel legs about a foot long? I unscrewed one of the legs and just whizzed one of those up and down the neck – not very subtly.

“Another technique, which came a bit later, involved taking a small piece of steel and rubbing it from side to side across the strings. You just move it and stop it in places that sound good. It's something like an EBow.“

How did you hit on the idea of playing slide guitar on the instrumental One of These Days?

“I guess I was never particularly confident in my ability as a pure guitar player, so I would try any trick in the book. I'd always liked lap steels, pedal steels and things like that. The one thing I don't do is regular slide guitar with the thingie on your finger. I've never had any interest in that.“

Where did the famous 7/4 time signature for Money originate?

“It's Roger's riff. Roger came in with the verses and lyrics to Money more or less completed. And we just made up middle sections, guitar solos and all that stuff. We also invented some new riffs – we created a 4/4 progression for the guitar solo and made the poor saxophone player play in 7/4. It was my idea to break down and become dry and empty for the second chorus of the solo.“

What was [producer/engineer] Chris Thomas' role on Dark Side of the Moon?

“Chris Thomas came in for the mixes, and his role was essentially to stop the arguments between me and Roger about how it should be mixed.

“I wanted Dark Side to be big and swampy and wet, with reverbs and things like that. And Roger was very keen on it being a very dry album. I think he was influenced a lot by John Lennon's first solo album [Plastic Ono Band], which was very dry. We argued so much that it was suggested we get a third opinion.

“We were going to leave Chris to mix it on his own, with Alan Parsons engineering. And of course on the first day I found out that Roger sneaked in there. So, the second day I sneaked in there. And from then on, we both sat right at Chris' shoulder, interfering. Luckily, Chris was more sympathetic to my point of view than he was to Roger's.“

There's creative tension and then there's outright hostility...

“There's creative tension and there's total egocentric megalomaniacal tension, if you like.“

Did the prospect of having to follow the huge success of Dark Side of the Moon create a lot of pressure on you during the sessions for Wish You Were Here?

“Yeah, that's what the album's about, I think as far as Roger's concerned anyway. It's about that feeling we were left with at the end of Dark Side – that feeling of 'What do you do when you've done everything?' But I think we got over that.

“For me, Wish You Were Here is the most satisfying album. I really love it. I mean, I'd rather listen to that than Dark Side of the Moon. Because I think we achieved a better balance of music and lyrics on Wish You Were Here. Dark Side went a bit too far the other way – too much into the importance of the lyrics. And sometimes the tunes – the vehicles for the lyrics – got neglected. To me, one of Roger's failings is that sometimes, in his effort to get the words across, he uses a less-than-perfect vehicle.“

Throughout the Seventies and Eighties, each successive Pink Floyd album grew slightly more elaborate. Was it difficult to reflect that growth on stage?

“Actually, very difficult. We spent years gathering experts around us – just gaining the necessary expertise in all the areas we wanted to be good in. It was always a lot of work, but we looked forward to playing.“

Would you say you felt more at ease in the very early days of the band's free-form psychedelic experimentation on stage, or in the later period, when you relied more on carefully orchestrated stage extravaganzas?

“Somewhere in the middle, really. For me, The Wall show was terrific fun, and a great achievement. But I had to take on the role of music director, if you like, and deal with a lot of purely mechanical things onstage so that Roger didn't have to think about them. I had a huge cue sheet up on my amps, because we had all these cues coming up on monitors or on screen and different delay settings which I had to transmit with very primitive equipment to all the delay lines on stage. Very tricky.

“Once you got over being satisfied with how clever it was and how wonderfully it all worked, there were virtually no moments except for the solo in Comfortably Numb when you could say, 'Forget it, just blow. Just play.' Having said all that, though, I should add that I like structure. I'm very keen on melody, I'm a big Beatles fan, and just about everything else I love – like the blues – is highly structured. Totally free-forming is not my thing. But totally rigid structure isn't either.“

While the earlier Pink Floyd records were concept albums, The Wall is the first one with an outright plot. What were your feelings about that?

“I liked Roger's story line. Although I didn't totally agree with it, you've got to let a chap have his vision. I just had a different view of our relationship with our audience than Roger did. Roger didn't like touring. And he felt there was no connection between him and the audience that were in front of him.

“I had a different view of it – I still do. And my view of what The Wall itself is about is more jaundiced today than it was then. It appears now to be a catalog of people Roger blames for his own failings in life, a list of 'you fucked me up this way, you fucked me up that way'.“

What about your solo on Comfortably Numb? Did that take a long time to develop?

“No. I just went out into the studio and banged out five or six solos. From there I just followed my usual procedure, which is to listen back to each solo and mark out bar lines, noting which bits are good. In other words, I make a chart, putting ticks and crosses on different bars as I count through – two ticks if it's really good, one if it's good, and a cross if it's no go.

“Then I just follow the chart, whipping one fader up, then another fader, jumping from phrase to phrase and trying to make a really nice solo all the way through.“

How do you view your relationship to the guitar?

“It just happens to be the instrument I can best express my feelings on. I'm not very fast on it, but you don't have to be. You hear something like John Lee Hooker doing Dimples. Between the vocal lines he just hits the bottom string on the guitar – boom! – that one note says it all.“

Roger Waters has released a new take on Pink Floyd’s Money, which serves as the lead single from the vocalist/bassist's forthcoming re-recording of The Dark Side of the Moon.

News of Waters’ revisionist project broke back in February, with the Pink Floyd co-founder reportedly cutting David Gilmour and the rest of the band out of the 1973 classic without their knowledge.

“I wrote The Dark Side of the Moon,” he asserted at the time in an interview with The Telegraph. “Let’s get rid of all this ‘we’ crap! Of course we were a band, there were four of us, we all contributed – but it’s my project and I wrote it. So… blah!”

Now, after sharing a brief snippet of a reimagined Us and Them in March, Waters has officially dropped the first preview of The Dark Side of the Moon Redux.

It’s certainly a stark contrast to the original. Gone are Gilmour’s swanky Fender Stratocaster snaps and electrifying guitar solos. Gone, too, are Mason’s galloping drums, and that sizzling sax solo.

Instead, Waters has flipped Money on its head, transforming it from a helter skelter thrill ride into a brooding, reflective acoustic guitar journey, further differentiating it from the original with dense layers of moody strings, foreboding piano and a spoken word section. 

Also absent from the song is the opening’s iconic cash register sound effect – no wonder, considering the sound effect has been the cause of yet more tension between Waters and Gilmour in recent months.

Citing an interview Gilmour gave Rolling Stone in 1982 in which he described the origins of the cash register effect, Waters wrote on his website, “He has no fucking idea what he’s talking about. Why? Because… DG wasn’t there when I made that SFX tape loop for Money in the studio I shared with my wife Judy.”

Upon releasing his new take on Money, Waters dove deeper into his reasoning for wanting to re-record The Dark Side of the Moon, arguing that the message of the original take “hasn’t stuck”.

“The original Dark Side of the Moon feels in some ways like the lament of an elder being on the human condition,” he offered. “But Dave, Rick, Nick and I were so young when we made it, and when you look at the world around us, clearly the message hasn’t stuck. 

“That’s why I started to consider what the wisdom of an 80 year-old could bring to a reimagined version. I’m immensely proud of what we have created, a work that can sit proudly alongside the original, hand-in-hand across a half-century of time.”

Accompanying the single is news that The Dark Side of the Moon Redux will arrive on October 6, along with a 13-minute original composition to serve as the record closer.

For updates, head over to Roger Waters' website.

Given he made his name as the lead guitarist for Megadeth from 1984-87, the idea that Chris Poland would lend his talents to a recently re-recorded version of Pink Floyd's 1971 record Meddle seems more than a touch off the beaten path.

But then again, Poland "never was a straight thrash player", by his own admission, and his improvisational skills are a sight to behold.

"The funny thing is that I'd never even heard Meddle before," Poland laughs. "So, I was kind of surprised when Cleopatra Records asked me to come aboard to play guitar on San Tropez, but it turned out great."

The track – on which Poland appears alongside an all-star cast, including Dave Lombardo, Rick Wakeman, Graham Bonnet and Joe Bouchard – sees the lead guitarist showcase his tasteful lead chops, not to mention some deft slide licks.

Given his skillset, which lends itself as well to fusion and prog as it does thrash metal, one has to wonder if Pink Floyd six-stringer David Gilmour, a bringer of all things expansive and unique, was an influence on Poland as he was coming up in the ranks.

"That's a good question," Poland says. "Yeah… David was an influence on me, for sure. Fans might not know it because of my work with Megadeth, but I've always been into fusion. So much so that I actually consider myself that type of guitarist; I've just always found myself playing metal. But as far as Gilmour goes, man, I just love his tone. He can do more with three notes than most guys can with a million."

Given his influence, the next question that comes to mind is how Poland approached a solo that, to some extent, is considered near-perfect, as with most of Gilmour's lofty compositions. Of course, Poland knows this, and he took great care in his execution.

"When I first started trying to do the solo, I realized that I couldn't have too much gain because it just would sound ridiculous," Poland recalls. "So, I dialed back the gain and tried not to go too far beyond the core changes, which led me to what I played. The whole thing was pretty much off-the-cuff and very in the moment."

Of course, the odds are that Gilmour used his trusty Strat when recording the original solo back in '71. Poland admits his choices differed somewhat.

"I don't even own a Strat!" he laughs. "I used my Dean Thoroughbred, a far cry from what Gilmour used [laughs]. But now that I think about it… maybe I do own a Strat. I think it's buried under like 10 guitar cases. I certainly wasn't going to dig that out."

After years of heavy metal mayhem, assuming Poland is an interesting juxtaposition on a track like San Tropez is not a stretch. But that's the point of the recording: to inspire and do something different. It's precisely the sort of thing that made David Gilmour famous with Pink Floyd in the '70s, and it's just what inspired Poland during his entry point into the Floyd universe.

Chuckling again at the idea that he'd be included on a Pink Floyd reimagining, Poland says, "No, I never thought I'd be a part of something like this. And, like I said, I'd never really listened to Meddle, so it's all new to me. But I still haven't listened to it [laughs]. But I plan to grab a copy and listen to it… eventually. But from what I gather, it was pretty trippy and definitely different from what I've done with Megadeth."

It's a good point and about as poignant as ever considering Poland's recent reemergence alongside fellow Megadeth castoffs David Ellefson and Jeff Young with Kings of Thrash, which has seen Poland – long a forgotten man on the totem pole of thrash – find a new audience in recent years.

"It's been a lot of fun," Poland enthuses. "It's been interesting getting together with those guys and playing those tunes again. I was worried I might have forgotten how to play them, but to my surprise, after a few times playing them, all my muscle memory returned."

He continues, "I was like, 'Holy cow! I can still do this after all these years!' But take the Wake Up Dead solo, for instance; I'm very proud of that solo, and I know many people liked it. It's only like 10 seconds long, but I didn't want to improvise it, which is something I did while I was in Megadeth that Dave hated. He used to get so upset, and that was fair. I shouldn't have done that. But anyway, I really took the time to actually learn the solo, and I was happy that I still could."

Given his status as a cult hero, combined with the fact that Megadeth's early records are considered classics, the idea that Dave Mustaine "hated" anything that Poland did is hard to believe, while not being altogether shocking all in the same breath.

And so, while improvisation might not have been preferred in the case of Poland, the fact remains that it was part of the method within his madness.

"Yeah, I guess that's true," he agrees. "I came from a different place than Dave. But I guess that was the beauty of our incarnation of Megadeth. The differing opinions probably made the music as good as it was."

It's a fair point, as many feel that Poland's era of Megadeth remains the definitive version. When asked if he agrees with that notion and if the current incarnation measures up, he tells us, "Honestly, I pretty much like all of what Megadeth has done."

Pausing to think before continuing, Poland says, "Well, I wasn't that into the Risk album, but Dystopia from a few years ago was incredible. That was a really good Megadeth record. And I liked the new album, too. But as far as the albums I was part of, while I didn't realize it then, yeah, those albums were special. It was a special time, and I think it was meant to happen as it did."

Unlike many – if not most – of those who have come and gone through Megadeth's ranks, despite his past troubles with Mustaine, Poland seems relatively at ease when talking about his former bandmate and boss.

"I try not to think about what went down," Poland admits. "I know that Dave got upset with me over some stuff that happened years ago, but to me, it wasn't really anything to be upset about. But what can I do? People get upset."

It would be easy to look back in anger or wish things were different, but Poland chooses to bask in the glow that his years in Megadeth have afforded him, despite what the public may think.

"People think I'm angry about what happened, but I'm not," Poland insists. "I look back on what we did with a lot of fondness. And as far as the guitar goes, I'm a better player now. My instincts are sharper. But I still do what I've always done – fly by the seat of my pants [laughs]. And, yeah, I still sometimes struggle to re-learn things. But, man, I can't even begin to tell you how proud I am of those Megadeth records and how humbled I am to have been a part of it all."

Pausing and clearly choosing his words carefully, he continues, "I mean… Peace Sells… [But Who's Buying?] was a serious record, dude. It was a serious record; I didn't even know it until years later. When I first heard the mix, all I could do was compare it to Metallica's Master of Puppets, and I was so bummed out. I never listened to it again after that."

He concludes, "But then it got remastered years later, and I went back and listened, and that's when I realized I'd been a part of a genius record. So, all credit to Dave Mustaine; he probably knew. To me, we were just playing music. I had no idea I was going to be part of something iconic. But I'm glad I was."

“Bass players are ten a penny, but a good wit is hard to find, so we hired him.” The ‘we’ refers to rock royalty Pink Floyd, and the bass guitar player in question is Guy Pratt. Guy became a household name when he joined Pink Floyd in the late ‘80s, but he also possesses a CV that includes Robert Palmer, Roxy Music, Madonna and Michael Jackson.

“I used to get terribly insecure whenever I’d get called for session work,” he says. “I always thought that the second I walked out of the studio, the producer would be on the phone saying, ‘Hello, Pino?’ But I must have been doing something right.”

Having already written a book and a one-man comedy show, Guy’s latest creative venture is a podcast with bandmate Gary Kemp (both are members of Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets). As a go-to destination for back stage anecdotes, The Rockonteurs offers up a fascinating collection of stories with guests ranging from Julian Lennon to Adam Clayton of U2.

In support of the first live recording of the podcast, Guy checked in with Bass Player to discuss his favourite guests and how he got the gig with Pink Floyd.

The Rockentours – just what kind of a show is it?

“The idea came from watching a DVD box set of The Old Grey Whistle Test while on a tour bus with Nick Mason. Nick had all these great personal stories about the people we were watching, which we would constantly ask him questions about. That’s really what the podcast is about. It's basically us asking all the questions that you'd love to ask if you met these people at a party, but without them telling us to get lost!”

When did you first meet Gary Kemp?

“We first met in Budapest in 1984. I was playing for Icehouse and he was there with Spandau Ballet. His manager called me when Gary was making his first solo album, which is when we really hit it off. We’ve since written a musical together, and then the gig with Nick Mason’s Saucerfull of Secrets came up, which is just beyond perfect. The Rockonteurs has really grown out of that.”

How much preparation goes into each episode of The Rockonteurs?

“It’s funny, because if if I’m playing bass for someone then I usually like the idea of just walking into the room and seeing what happens, but for The Rockonteurs we really swat up. It’s great when you can surprise a guest with something they’ve otherwise forgotten about. I used to write notes, but I’d never look at them and it would just annoy me afterwards. I’d always look back at them and go, ‘Fuck! Why didn't I ask them about that?’”

Who’s been the most intimidating guest?

“I remember Suzi Quatro being a little feisty, but I have never been so scared of interviewing anyone in my life as I was when we interviewed Noel Gallagher. I knew that Noel can have this thing about sidemen, and you know how chippy he can be in interviews. I was so scared that I actually sent Johnny Marr a message a few days before in the hope that he would soften him up a bit!”

The episode with Steve Diggle from The Buzzcocks and Glen Matlock from The Sex Pistols was recorded live at the Screen on the Green?

“So there was a legendary gig in 1976 when the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Buzzcocks all played at this venue in North London, which is the Screen on the Green. Gary was actually there at the gig, and I wasn’t! So it’s become a sort of touchstone. It was also Gary's chance to absolutely complete my humiliation and remind people that I missed it, as he did when we interviewed Paul Simonon.”

What was your game plan when you were first starting out back then?

“I didn't have one! I never had a game plan or anything like that – I just fell into it. One of the most important things that happened to me was being spotted by Robert Palmer, which was very early on when I was touring with Icehouse. He happened to be stood at the side of the stage, saw me playing bass and then invited me to The Bahamas to write with him. I ended up playing bass on his albums, which led to playing with Bryan Ferry, but I never wanted to be a studio bass player. I was always a band player and I still like being in a band situation.”

How did you get the call to record with Madonna and Michael Jackson? 

“The engineer on Madonna was Bill Bottrell who went on to produce Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson heard Madonna’s Like a Prayer and said he really liked the bass player and as Bill knew I was in town he said, 'Let’s get him in’ and so I did Earth Song as well. It was all word of mouth.”

How did you get the gig with Pink Floyd?

“I was on David Gilmour’s radar for some time. I knew him through Dream Academy, because I'd always played with them, and he also used to play a lot with Bryan Ferry when I was working on Bryan's Bete Noire album. Oh, and Tony Levin wasn’t available.”

Were the mid-‘80s a good time for the bass guitar?

“It was a fantastic time for bass. Every time a record came out with Tony Levin or Pino Palladino on it, they were doing something you hadn’t heard before.”

What advice would you give aspiring bass players today?

“Your ability to get on with the job and to get on with people is as important as your ability to play bass. Most bass players are far better than I am, but there’s a personality thing going on as well, so I always try and bring a good vibe to the gig: ‘We can get so-and-so, or we can get Guy.'”

Listen to Rockonteurs with Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt.

It’s tempting to think that there’s very little more that can be said about Pink Floyd’s 1973 masterpiece, The Dark Side Of The Moon, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. 

In fact, none of the remaining members of the band are prepared to talk about it, with the exception of Roger Waters, who has apparently re-recorded the entire album, according to interviews he has done in support of his forthcoming This Is Not A Drill European tour. And no, thus far we haven’t heard it. 

Historically, Floyd had been heading towards more long-form pieces before the songwriting for Dark Side had even begun. Both the 23-minute-long Atom Heart Mother suite (from the 1970 album of the same name) and Echoes – which was around the same length – from the Meddle album had got the band thinking. So when the writing sessions began in the winter of 1971 at a rehearsal studio in Broadhurst Gardens, London, the first few songs began to emerge. 

A few tracks were recycled from previous projects, including Breathe (In The Air), which was inspired by an idea that Roger Waters had for the Ron Geesin album Music From The Body (the soundtrack to the documentary The Body, 1970) and Us And Them – originally titled The Violent Sequence – was from the Antonioni film Zabriskie Point (1970). To begin with, the songs were standalone, but when the idea to segue them came about, the project began to crystallise. 

Live rehearsals began in January 1972 and the piece as a whole received its first live performance later that month in Brighton. 

Initially, the suite of songs had the working title Eclipse, the band changing the title to The Dark Side Of The Moon soon afterwards. Conceived as an audio-visual extravaganza, the album was to evolve through live performance before the band checked in at Abbey Road for the first recording sessions in June 1972.

Live & Kicking

But what about those live performances? Have we been listening to the album in the wrong context for the past 50 years? Maybe we should begin to consider it as a live performance suite first and foremost that was decanted into the recording realm like the soundtrack to a movie. 

There have been two main periods where the album was recreated on the live stage in full: the early ’70s, both before and after its release, and the surprise rebirth in 1994 during Floyd’s The Division Bell tour, a full live reading appearing on the album Pulse (1995) and subsequent live video set of the same title released the same year. 

“It was just one of those ideas that gradually fermented in our minds,” Gilmour told Guitarist at the time. “We realised that we were actually doing two thirds of [the album] and thought it would be really good fun to do it as a whole. Gradually, it got to the point where we could do the whole thing when we got to Detroit, towards the end of the American part of the tour.

“We wouldn’t have done a live album or released a live video if we hadn’t been doing Dark Side Of The Moon at that stage,” he continued. “At one point we nearly put out just The Dark Side Of The Moon, but then it was too short so we thought we might as well give [people] the whole lot again, and fought and fought with the record company to keep the price down to a nice reasonable price for a double-CD.” 

In the 20 years that separated those two outings, Gilmour’s gear changed radically. Looking back to the dawn of the 1970s when the initial compositional steps towards what would become Dark Side were being made by the band, while Hiwatt AP100 amps and WEM cabs had taken up residence by Gilmour’s side, effects units back then (while perhaps not in their infancy) definitely hadn’t quite made it out of kindergarten. But more of the sauces and spices used to perform Dark Side live later on. Firstly, we’ll look at the main dish: Gilmour’s famous black Strat.

The Black Strat

“I bought it at Manny’s in New York,” Gilmour told us in 2006. “I’ve always used it as a testing ground for trying all sorts of things out. It’s had a few different necks on and it has different pickups. 

“Years ago, I met up with Seymour Duncan and we picked three really nice-sounding pickups he had. We rewound those three and they’ve stayed on it ever since. But I’ve always considered that to be my bodge-up guitar that nothing is sacred on. I’ve had holes drilled in it. It’s still a good guitar.” 

As DG states above, the black Strat was originally purchased in May 1970 from Manny’s on West 48th Street, New York, to replace two Strats that were stolen while the band was on a US tour. It was to go on to lead a fabled existence in Pink Floyd’s touring career, accompanying Gilmour pretty much continuously until 1986 when it spent a 10-year period in captivity in the Hard Rock Cafe, Dallas, Texas. It was subsequently retrieved and went on to serve Gilmour’s Floyd and solo activities until it was sold at auction in 2019 for a record $3,975,000. 

It endured many experimental changes over the years – different necks, pickups, controls, vibratos – all of which are exhaustively chronicled in the book The Black Strat by Gilmour’s personal guitar technician, studio manager and Floyd’s chief backline technician, Phil Taylor. 

Briefly, on purchase, the guitar was a standard 1969 black Strat with a post-CBS large headstock and maple fretboard. By the time the band had started playing tracks from Dark Side live, under the working title Eclipse: (A Piece For Assorted Lunatics), the neck had been replaced with a rosewood-’boarded version from a 1963 Sunburst Strat. Other changes were forthcoming and if the minutiae of its various transformations is something you find fascinating, let Phil Taylor’s book be your guide.

Two other guitars came into focus for the Dark Side live shows: a second black Strat from 1972 with three-bolt neck and bullet-head truss rod, which was primarily used as a backup instrument, and a guitar made by a Canadian maker Bill Lewis that Gilmour bought during the band’s Atom Heart Mother tour in 1970. 

The Lewis had a mahogany body with an ebony fretboard and hand-wound humbucking pickups. The key factor for Dark Side was that the Lewis had a two-octave neck, and the guitar can be heard on parts of the Meddle album but features on the solo to Money and, according to the Classic Albums’ Making Of The Dark Side Of The Moon DVD and studio footage from the Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii DVD, on Us And Them, too. 

Effects-wise, things were necessarily quite simple and straightforward. This was long before pedalboards were a thing and daisy-chained floor units still reigned supreme, even among rock’s glitterati. Around the time of early live performances of Dark Side, Gilmour’s mainstay effects comprised a Binson (tape) echo, a Fuzz Face, a Colorsound Power Boost, a Vox wah pedal, a Uni-Vibe and a DeArmond 610 volume/tone pedal. 

He also used a state-of-the-art EMS VCS3 synthesizer, which would be called into action on the track On The Run when the band convened at Abbey Road Studio Three for the Dark Side album sessions in June 1972. 

On its completion, did the band members have any inkling that they were about to release an album that would shock the music world with its impact and influence for decades to come? “An impossible question to answer!” Gilmour laughs. “We knew it was good, probably the best we had ever done as we were making it. But no, you can’t possibly know that it’s going to reach the sort of significance that it has.”

Records show that the last full performance of The Dark Side Of The Moon during the 1970s was at the Knebworth Festival in 1975, but when the album’s signature heartbeat boomed out of the PA during the 1994 Division Bell US tour, fans were delighted to witness its revival.

“Well, in America it was received with stunned, shocked silence quite often,” Gilmour remembers. “I think by the time we got going in Europe, through the fanbase and the internet and all that sort of stuff, people were aware that this was a possibility so it was maybe less of a surprise. So that would bolster them up a bit and they’d start cheering quicker and earlier at the beginning, as soon as the heartbeats and stuff started. 

“On the Momentary Lapse Of Reason tour we’d done On The Run, and we’d done Money, Us And Them and Time, so there was not that much more to rehearse, just Breathe, Any Colour You Like, Brain Damage and Eclipse. We’ve never really thought that much of doing Brain Damage and Eclipse before because those were the two songs on Dark Side that Roger actually sang. I thought I might feel a little uncomfortable singing them, but it was fine. 

“Lyrically, Dark Side Of The Moon is really Roger’s baby. So sometimes I’d get a slight feeling of minor discomfort doing it without him. But not sufficient to make me think we shouldn’t do it. It’s part of our oeuvre. I spent a lot of time and sweated blood making that record, and doing it again live was always my ambition.”

Side Effects

In the years since the album was performed live in the ’70s, gear had become more sophisticated, as had the light show that accompanied the performance. With the black Strat away on display in Texas, Gilmour’s substitute guitar for the ’94 reading of Dark Side was a USA ’57 Vintage Reissue Strat fitted with EMG-SA pickups with the EMG-EXG expander and SPC midrange presence control. 

Said Gilmour: “For many years one of the problems of touring was [RF] interference – especially if, like me, you’re the sort of bastard who tends to use a huge pedalboard. Those effects pedals really tended to pick up interference, as did the dimmers on the lighting rigs. And with Pink Floyd we did have extensive lighting rigs, which buzzed horribly. 

“But when I first heard of and got hold of those EMG pickups, they stopped that dead. They sounded great – a very full and rich tone – but they didn’t sound quite as ‘Stratty’ in some ways.”

With Gilmour’s ’94 rack system we meet a marriage of technologies, old and new. He had always exhibited a preference for older, analogue effects, but here he had effects guru Pete Cornish create a switching system that guaranteed ease of use with optimum low-noise performance. The ’board at Gilmour’s feet switched through the combinations of effects used in the various songs and a window at the top displayed the title of each track. 

After journeying through the rack system, the guitar signal met an Alembic F-2B bass guitar preamp, which had been modified to suit, and then on to the Hiwatt guitar amps, which themselves had enjoyed something of a makeover since the early Floyd days. 

Still a great fan of AP100s, three of the heads were used as power amps and another three used as secondaries. One AP100 powered a WEM 4x12 loaded with Fane Crescendo speakers and a Marshall cab with Celestions. A second Hiwatt did the same thing but carried a chorused version of the signal. The third amp was a spare. 

In the second rack, one AP100 powered a Jim Dunlop Heil voice box (not used for Dark Side) and another fed the Doppolas – custom-designed rotating speakers, Leslie-like in use but more robust and road-proof. 

Leslie cabinets themselves might have seemed the obvious first choice, but Gilmour was after a slightly different sound. In the studio, he had been using Maestro Rover units, which are revolving full-range speakers, but they were too low-powered for live use and so the Doppolas were born. Three units were used on stage, each loaded with two six-inch 100 watt drivers.

Looking back on the album, Gilmour says: “My problem with Dark Side, and I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt say it again, was that I thought that Roger’s emergence on that album as a great lyric writer was such that he came to overshadow the music in places, and there were moments when we didn’t concentrate as hard on the music side of it as we should have done – which is what I voiced to all the band after the making of Dark Side. That was absorbed into an effort to try to make the balance between music and the words a better one on Wish You Were Here.”

Time Travel

As it reaches its 50th anniversary, the legacy of Dark Side is clear. It’s still one of the biggest-selling rock albums of all time and spent a record 741 weeks in the charts between 1973 and 1988. Celebrity fans include Steve Hackett: “I really like Us And Them for various reasons. It has a somnambulist aspect, the production with the repeat echo on the vocal is superb. It’s also got a disaffected element.” 

Contemporary prog superstar Steven Wilson told us that having grown up drinking in the album, he doesn’t actually have to listen any more as it’s embedded in his memory, as, perhaps, is evidenced by the first guitar note on his song To The Bone, which tips its hat to the intro to Floyd’s Time. 

As for Gilmour’s influence as a guitarist, we’ll leave the final words to the man himself who, in summing up his style, told us: “The way I play melodies is connected to things like Hank Marvin and The Shadows – that style of guitar playing where people can recognise a melody with some beef to it.”  

• The Dark Side of the Moon (50th Anniversary Deluxe Remaster) is out now via Pink Floyd Records.

Known for his warm tones and buttery-smooth licks, Terence Charles White, aka 'Snowy', quietly positioned himself as one of the more sought-after rock guitar guns for hire in the 1970s and '80s.

Though he's long been known for brandishing a vintage Gibson Les Paul Goldtop, for many, White's grandest moment came as an ancillary member of Pink Floyd's ranks during the recording of the band's 1977 album, Animals. As legend states, White wandered into Britannia Row one fateful day, and after securing a gig as a touring member, White – at the urging of Roger Waters – laid down a solo that would last a lifetime – in just one take.

“It was just after they offered me the gig that I recorded the solo for Pigs on the Wing," White recalls. "David [Gilmour] and I went back into the control room, and he said to Roger [Waters], 'Snowy has agreed to take the gig,' and Roger said, 'Well, while you're here, you might as well play something.'”

“So, Roger swivels around and puts on Pigs on the Wing," White continues. "And then he said, 'Why don't you do a solo in the middle? Go ahead and pick up any of those guitars out there and have a go at it.' So, I picked up this white Strat, plugged it in, fiddled about, and then did the solo in one take. I know one take sounds impressive, but honestly, I got lucky that I did such a nice one right away.”

Ironically, the entire reason that White devoted himself to his Les Paul in the first place was a rather intense disdain for Fender Stratocasters. And while White's Goldtop-slinging ways might have garnered him attention from the boys in Floyd, on that fateful date in the studio, it was a Strat that White used to work his magic.

“I know, I know… it's funny that I used a Strat for Pigs on the Wing," White laughs. "I was so used to my Les Paul by that point, and I was surprised that I felt as comfortable as I did with that Strat. I still hated it, but I got through it [laughs]. Even though I was using a Strat, I still think that solo turned out quite nice.”

“What's funny, though, is I remember reading someone comment on that,” White recalls. “I remember it clear as day – they said, 'What's this? Snowy White doesn't play Strats; this can't be Snowy White.' And I just thought, 'You know, I'm allowed to pick up another guitar and play it, too.' But I'm known as the Les Paul man, so what can I say?”

Now retired from touring, and in-between sessions for his next record, White dialed in with Guitar World to recount his long journey from a Strat-wilding kid from Barnstaple to sharing the stage with Pink Floyd, Thin Lizzy, and beyond.

What first inspired you to pick up the guitar?

“When I was 10 or 11 years old, I wasn't a very outgoing sort of boy, meaning I was a bit shy. I often kept to myself, but one day I walked past a classroom with this handsome lad – unlike me – sitting at a table playing the guitar. He was surrounded by girls, and I thought, 'Right… I'd like to learn to play the guitar.' Truth be told, I'd been interested in it before, but the idea of girls and increased popularity is what spurred me on to finally pursue it full-on.”

Moving forward, when did you obtain your trusty Gibson Les Paul Goldtop?

“I came upon the Goldtop while I was in Sweden with my first band, Train. I'd moved there when I was just 17, and at the time, I'd been playing a Strat that my parents had given me when I was 10. Anyway, we were rehearsing, and the drummer in Train knew that I'd been yearning for a Les Paul and that I didn't like the Strat.

“So, he said, 'Listen, I've got a friend who has had this Les Paul under his bed for ages, and he's thinking of selling it. Shall I put you in touch?' I was quite excited to hear this, and I said, 'Go on then, let's have a look.' So, I did, and this guy pulled the guitar out from under his bed, and as fate would have it, there was my Les Paul.”

What was it about the Les Paul that drew you in?

“Now, I have to say, I don't really know anything about guitars [laughs]. All I knew then is what I know now – I wanted a Les Paul. I loved how they looked and thought they sounded much better than my Strat. When I picked it up, as I suspected, it sounded alright, so I swapped him my Strat and £120 for the Les Paul. 

“I think I borrowed some money from my dad when I was last in England, and my Swedish girlfriend put some money towards it, too. I was lucky because it turned out to be a fantastic guitar. Of course, I didn't know that at the time… for all I knew, it could have been rubbish [laughs].”

What was it about the Strat that you didn't like?

“Everything. I didn't like the weight of it. I didn't like the sound – I couldn't get the sounds I wanted out of it. Plus, I felt it felt it was a bit flimsy. I started hitting my guitar pretty hard, and I didn't think the Strat could handle it. I also liked that warm Les Paul sound, which is the main reason I wanted the thing. So, it was an easy decision for all those reasons.”

How did the Les Paul shape your sound as you moved forward?

“That's hard to say, because all I did was fiddle with the amplifier until I got a sound I liked. But I knew that Peter Green had his pickups installed incorrectly, giving him a special sound. I liked that, but Pete's guitar was sort of permanently like that, and I didn't want that all the time, so I added a switch on mine that would put it out of phase. So, I had a whole range of nice, subtle changes of time to play with.

“The sounds I was after were warm and not too distorted. I wanted that nice, warm tone, but it had to be fairly clean. I also wanted it to stay in the middle range, with just a touch of reverb to sweeten it up as I wanted. I guess I was always searching for what I'll call a 'sweet tone,' which is not always so obvious or easy to describe. It's a sound with just the right amount of treble and reverb, and not very distorted at all.”

What was the earliest recording that you recall using the Goldtop on?

“Oh, that's a good question. Nobody's ever asked me that before. I did a session for a singer called Linda Lewis; the girlfriend of a friend called Jim Cregan. She was doing a recording and asked me if I would come in and play on a few things. 

“Not too long after I arrived in Sweden, it became apparent that I needed to be in London if I wanted to do anything. So, I went to London, and soon after that – in 1969 – I met Jim and his girlfriend, Linda Lewis. And several years later, Linda was recording her album, Not a Little Girl Anymore – that was the first session I used the Goldtop on.”

How did you become involved with Pink Floyd later in the '70s?

“I got a call from someone who said Pink Floyd was looking for an augmenting guitar player for their live work and that they were given my name. I was told that the guys in Floyd had been trying to call me and that I should get in touch. I had ignored the calls at first because, at the time, I was a fairly narrow-minded blues player, and I didn't know anything about Pink Floyd and didn't care much to find out.

“Honestly, I thought they were drug-crazed hippies [laughs]. They had been messing about with all this funny stuff, and none of it was the sort of thing I was interested in. So, I didn't call them. But somebody else mentioned it to me again and said, 'Snowy, why don't you call them? This would be a good gig for you.' So, I thought about it, and I did. 

“I went and contacted their manager [Steve O'Rourke], and he said, 'Can you come down to the studio, see the guys, hear what they're recording, and get a feel for what it's all about?' I thought about it again and said, 'Okay, I'll come down and see about it.'”

Can you describe the scene once you arrived at the studio?

“It was quite casual, really. Roger and David were hanging out in the control room. Roger said to Dave, 'Why don't you take Snowy into the office and tell him what the gig's about?' 

“Next thing I know, I'm sitting across from Dave, who says, 'Right, okay. So, we'll need you to play a bit of 12-string, some rhythm, some lead, a bit of harmony, and some bass – you can play bass, can't you?' I said, 'Well, yeah…' and he said, 'Great. So, what do you think? Do you want the gig?' I said, 'Yeah, okay, but – don't you want to hear me play?'

“The truth was that I didn't know their music. I really didn't. And I always loathed doing that sort of thing because I'm useless at learning other people's songs - I'm not a session guy. I don't know where that came from – because, again, I'm a narrow-minded blues guy. So, I said, 'Well, maybe we should have a jam, so you can hear me play?' And he said, 'Well, you wouldn't be here if you couldn't play, would you?' I said, 'Well, no.' He said, 'Right. You've got the job,' and that was it. That's how I got the gig with Pink Floyd.”

Once on tour with Floyd, how did the division of guitar-related labor between you and David shake out?

“Again, it was very casual. Before we got on the road, they sent me all the albums, and I sat at home and listened to them, with a particular focus on the tracks they wanted me to play live. The first record I put on was Wish You Were Here, and I found that to be quite nice, with some lovely guitar playing. So, that eased things up for a bit and made me feel like, 'This is something I can handle, and maybe I can even add something here.'

“When we got to rehearsals, I roughly knew what I wanted to do and what was expected of me on each track. It was as Dave said – some bass, some acoustic, some rhythm, some harmony, and even some lead. I must say that Dave was very generous with the leads and gave me chances to shine. He had a great feel for the songs, and he'd queue me in when he wanted me to take the lead or if he wanted me to hang back.”

The interrelations within Floyd in the late '70s are said to have been quite interesting. What were your observations between Roger and David during your time with them?

“Interesting… that's one way to describe it. I think it's a lot like living in China – it all depends on where you are – but it was an interesting time. Things would be going on all the time, but I am the sort of guy who lets things go in one ear and out the other. I was learning my songs, playing my parts, and doing my best, so I had my hands full. But there was stuff going on, and it wasn't very good. 

“I could hear the arguments between Roger and Dave occasionally, but I did my best to drown that out and focus on doing my thing. It wasn't any concern of mine. But I could tell things weren't going smoothly, and they weren't getting on well.”

Considering you toured with Roger later, would you say you ultimately became closer to Roger than the rest of the band?

“Well, yeah, I worked with Roger a lot more. We did 13 years of touring, which went on almost every year for months. So yeah, I guess so. Then again, I didn't ever really get close too close with any of them. And I think that was because I felt that I didn't need to do that. Instead, I did my thing, did my best, and enjoyed it. 

“For me, it was fine, but I didn't get involved on a social level with Roger, particularly. We'd email and occasionally talk, but we're not on the same wavelength overall. We had musical chemistry rather than a personal one, I think.”

How did you become involved with Thin Lizzy?

“Well, that was another thing that I drifted into. I was rehearsing in London with Cliff Richard, and I bumped into Scott Gorham. He said, 'I saw you playing with Pink Floyd at Madison Square Garden; what a great concert. We're actually trying out guitar players next door, do you want to come and have a go?' And I said, 'Well, I can't; I'm working with Cliff Richard right now, sorry.'

“But a few days later, Scott found me and said, 'We still haven't found anybody. Do you want to come along and have a go?' So, I did, and we played a bit, and then Phil [Lynott] said to the band, 'Shall we let Snowy into the band?' And they said, 'Yeah, let's have him.' But looking back, I don't think I was the right person for that band. I did add some things, but it never felt right.”

Why do you feel you weren't a fit?

“Musically, we did some great things, but our mindsets were not aligned. I was quite surprised at how much time was wasted. I wasn't used to that sort of rock and roll thing where it's, 'Oh, we don't really care about wasting money and not being on time.' It certainly took me a while to get used to that, because when I'm booked in the studio at a certain time, I'm there. 

“I tried to get used to it, and I did alright. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't for me. I put everything into it that I could, but I didn't fit in socially. I was the only former member not in attendance at Thin Lizzy's famed final concert, which shows how well we got on socially [laughs].”

My understanding is that you've parted ways with your beloved Goldtop. What led to that?

“Yes, I'm afraid that's true. I had a lot of problems with my elbow and my shoulder, and the Goldtop was wasting away in the cupboard under a pile of clothes in my bedroom. I don't know what came over me, but I just wanted to move on from it for some reason. I felt it was holding me back, although I had it for about 45 years or more. 

“That Goldtop was my only guitar for a long time, and I loved it. It sounded great, but I had started thinking about selling it. So, I contacted Heritage Auctions in America, and they put it in their Beverly Hills auction, and it went overseas. From there, it took on a life of its own, so I let it go.”

Do you have any regrets about doing so?

“I regret it occasionally, and I'll tell you why: I haven't found another Les Paul that sounds anything like it. And that's quite frustrating, but I don't do live shows anymore, and I've got other guitars that can do the job in the studio. It would be a problem if I were still playing live, but I haven't done a live show since June 7, 2019. 

“Occasionally, I get a twinge and miss it, but I was pleased I'd sold it then, and I understand that it went to a good home. I wish I hadn't – but I'm glad I did, if that makes sense. Even if it doesn't, it makes sense to me.”

You're using PRS guitars for the most part now, right?

“Well, yes, but I've been using them to some extent since I started touring with Roger in '99. Roger asking prompted me to use PRS in the first place. He called and said, 'We're starting to rehearse; I need you in the Hamptons next week.' So, I had to go overseas for this tour, but I didn't want to have to carry my Les Paul.

“So, Paul Reed Smith loaned me a couple of guitars to play over there, and he let me keep them. I found that I liked them as they were very light and lovely guitars. No, they're not the same as a Les Paul, but I added some humbuckers and a few bits to get some authentic sounds when needed. So, after I sold the Goldtop, I did start using my PRS guitars more as they're easier on my body, and I was used to them to some extent.”

How do you stay inspired to create new sounds?

“I must say, it's a little bit frustrating sometimes; there are days when I'll only play for maybe five or 10 minutes because my fingers don't do what my brain tells them to do anymore. But I suppose my attitude is that I've got nothing to prove to others or myself at this point. 

“So, I just do some tasty little bits until I don't feel like doing it anymore. The problem is, when you've been playing for as long as I have, it's difficult not to think that you've done it all and that you're somehow repeating yourself. So, I'll occasionally try and change things to do something different, but I'll usually mess around with the controls and hope that what comes back at me sounds good.”

There are plenty of professional session guitarists out there who have impressive resumes, but Michael Landau’s seemingly endless list of collaborations and genre-crossing discography reads more like a fairytale.

Over his career, the 64 year-old Californian has appeared on some of the biggest albums of their time – from famous releases by Michael Jackson, Stevie Nicks and Rod Stewart right through to modern-day A-listers like Michael Bublé.

You’ll find his name on the inlays of albums by Donna Summer, Chaka Khan and Joni Mitchell or pop legends like Cher, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion, as well as more modern artists like Anastacia and Beth Hart. He’s even been credited for his contributions to albums by other famous guitar players such as B.B. King, George Benson and close friend Steve Lukather and, perhaps most impressively of all, ended up playing guitar on a Pink Floyd track (One Slip from 1987’s A Momentary Lapse Of Reason) right in front of David Gilmour himself.

It doesn’t end there, either – over his many prolific years, he’s worked with household names like Ringo Starr, Miles Davis, Glenn Frey, Bonnie Raitt, Joe Cocker, David Crosby, Alanis Morissette... the list goes on and on and on.

It should, therefore, come as no surprise that this year Fender announced that it will be awarding him a signature instrument through their Stories Collection, based on the highly modded 1969 ‘Coma Strat’ that’s been in his hands throughout the decades and ended up on many a hit record.

The faded red satin guitars will feature his ML Ultra Noiseless neck and middle pickups, plus a custom Wide Range humbucker in the bridge, along with a six-screw vintage style tremolo and Floyd Rose route. There will also be a limited-edition relic’d run through the Custom Shop, fitted with what Fender are calling “elevated features”.

The new instruments are currently being promoted by a video in which Landau chronicles the story behind the instrument he’s become closely associated with, decorated by some of the moody blues and wonderfully atmospheric leads often found on his solo releases.

When Guitar World connects with him on a breezy early spring afternoon, our first question is perhaps an obvious one... what is it about Strats that allow him to execute his musical ideas better than any other kind of guitar?

“It just comes down to that body and those contours,” he admits, in a slow and softly spoken drawl that’s charming, almost hypnotizing, to listen to.

“Strats are like the ultimate couch guitar and that’s probably where I’ve done most of my playing over the years! They just seem to fit. I love the balance, too. Sometimes a Gibson can get a little top or bottom heavy. I find Fenders always play great if you get them set up right.”

And, as those of us who have experimented will know, hours of fun can be had on a Strat with a floating bridge, provided it’s been set up well. In this case, even more so, given the new signature’s recessed Floyd route...

“I know, I agree!” grins Landau. “I’m kicking myself because that’s one of the things I really love about the guitar and I forgot to mention it in the video we filmed. When you pull up or do a really wide vibrato with the tremolo, obviously the bridge doesn’t bottom out on the body. It’s cool you picked up on that! Having said that, I’m very proud of how the video came out. We worked on it for a while. I did all the music here at my studio and then went and played on top of it at Fender.”

Tonally, this looks like an instrument that can cover a lot of ground – from the more dynamic Noiseless pickups in the neck and middle positions to the extra roar available through the humbucker in the bridge…

“It does roar! Though what’s cool about the Wide Range humbucker is that it really does match well with the Noiseless pickups. It’s a little brighter than a normal humbucker. There’s a different hump there in the upper midrange, but it works very nicely with the neck and middle pickups. It doesn’t have a really high output either, so altogether you can get a nice blend.

“I’m super-excited about the noiseless pickups we designed together. I usually have a love/hate thing with things like that, because they do cancel some of the tone there. But these ones are incredible. I don’t know how it was done, but they’re super-lively and have a lot of output. They sound the closest I’ve ever heard to a single coil in terms of the snappiness.”

You were 16 years old when you found the original ‘Coma Strat’ at an LA guitar store. Which shop was it and what do you remember about the experience?

“It was called Sol Betnun’s Instruments in Hollywood and it was pretty much just this old house some guy converted into a music store, with all these different rooms. Technically, it wasn’t a vintage guitar shop, but he had mostly used gear in there. Once we got our licences, me and Steve Lukather used to drive down there once a week... a very cool place!”

We’re curious – how did you know it would be an instrument you would be taking home with you?

“It looked really cool. Someone had stripped the finish off, I guess to do the John Lennon Epiphone thing. I kept it that way for a long time. It was a super-light guitar when I picked it up, so I think I appreciated that.

“The neck was great, the original one was made out of maple, then I modded it and kinda destroyed it by putting a Floyd nut on there… but I’m glad I did. I actually still have the original neck here, it’s just sitting on my wall. I was just 16, I didn’t know a whole lot about specs and stuff like that. It just sounded good and played good. That was the main thing.

“In the past, I’ve always just taken my time and tried to find a private room in one of these music stores. Just play it for a while and it will eventually reveal itself as either the right one for you or not. I’ve played heavy Strats that I’ve loved as well… so I’m not sure about the whole debate about weight when it comes to tone. As far as standing up and holding one, I much prefer a lighter one, but heavier guitars can sound great, too!”

Modded or not, a 1959 Strat would fetch a handsome price now...

“I know! But in 1974, they weren’t that much. I guess I was lucky!”

So what kind of things are you plugging into at the moment? Talk us through the rig...

“There’s an old Roger Mayer pedal called the Voodoo-1 that I’ve probably used for 30 years now. I’ve tried to take it off my ’board but it always goes back on. There’s also a DOD Looking Glass overdrive, a Drybell Vibe Machine, a Vemuram prototype distortion and a Way Huge Blue Hippo going into the amp head.

“From there I take the speaker output and go into a Suhr Reactive Load, then a custom Dave Phillips Small Buffer, a Boss expression pedal, a Strymon TimeLine, a Strymon BigSky and finally a Seymour Duncan Power Stage 170 which feeds into a cabinet fitted with Greenbacks. I’ve used all kinds of amps in the past, like 1964 Princeton Reissue, a vintage Deluxe Reverb, a vintage Plexi Marshall JMP 50-Watt and a Suhr Badger 18.”

Your approach to the guitar is a unique one. There are elements of blues, jazz and psychedelia – welded together in quite often unpredictable ways...

“Everyone my age grew up with the blues. We had The Beatles, Hendrix and Clapton, so that’s kinda like my core. I became a jazz fanatic in my late teens, almost becoming an anti-rock guy. I loved Weather Report and Pat Martino, who is a tremendous player. You could spend a whole lifetime trying to figure out that guy.

“I actually had one lesson from the master Joe Pass. Somehow I got a private lesson from him and he gave me too much stuff. I was in way over my head! I guess I have a mixture of influences, a bit like Robben Ford and how he stretches out. I’m a huge fan of his and it’s all basically blues.”

Larry Carlton must be another one then, given how him and Robben almost seem to come as a package!

“Yeah, Larry Carlton was another, for sure. Me and Steve Lukather would go to watch Robben and Larry play a lot in a small club in North Hollywood called Donte’s. Those guys were playing on all the cool records at that time and we’d see them live whenever we got the chance. It became a thing for us!

“I was a jazzer… or at least trying to be. I used to struggle with navigating through altered chords but once you figure out the code, you can play more freely and go with what’s in your head rather than worrying about all these changes.”

Your resume is unlike any other we’ve seen. What have you learned along the way, from all those hit records you’ve played on?

“The main thing for me is just playing for the song. You want to stay out of the way, but at the same time you want to make a bit of a statement, either sonically or melodically. I was always a gearhead, so I would have everything together when heading into a session. So you definitely need to have all that stuff in order. It doesn’t have to be a complicated setup – it just has to work really well. You don’t want hums or buzzes. Just be respectful of the song.”

So how exactly did you get your big break?

“As far as the amount of sessions I’ve done, the timing was perfect. In the ’80s there was a lot going on in LA. Lukather had just started Toto, so he kept passing things over to me. It kinda snowballed, you know? I never intended to be a studio musician, but it’s been great. Working with Joni Mitchell was one of my favorite things ever… I was such a fan of hers.”

Would it be fair to say the biggest record you played on was Michael Jackson’s Bad – with you handling the guitars on Stevie Wonder duet Just Good Friends?

“It was an unbelievable experience. I’ve always been a massive Stevie Wonder fan and he is still one of my favorites. The thing about this record is that they were doing it all so hectically. Michael had three or four studios going at the same time.

“I did that one tune pretty quick because it was all happening so fast. Michael popped in for a minute but Stevie wasn’t there. But before that, I had done one Dionne Warwick session where Stevie Wonder came in and played piano with us. I think Steve Gadd was on drums. This was very early on for me, so I was kinda freaking out.”

How exactly did you end up playing guitar on a Pink Floyd album, and was it just the track One Slip, or were there any other contributions?

“I think I might have played on one more, though I’m forgetting the title of it right now. It was crazy, David was right there! I’d been working with Bob Ezrin on several other records, and he ended up producing that Pink Floyd album. I think they brought in a couple of outside guitar players.

“There was that delay part I did, that dotted eighth kinda thing that was very popular back then, and for some reason David didn’t want to do it. He wanted to bring someone else in. I’m sure he didn’t specify me, but Bob suggested it and yeah… playing guitar for Pink Floyd was one of the most bizarre things ever.”

Given his own brilliance, it’s hard to imagine David Gilmour needing the services of any other guitar player...

“I was in a studio looking back into the control room and there was David Gilmour saying, ‘Hey, this sounds good!’ I hung out for a minute afterwards… actually, I was there for a long time, because David had this huge rig setup and he was super-sweet. He took me through a lot of it and played me a bunch of stuff on all his Marshalls that were lined up. It was an amazing afternoon. Again, it was pretty quick. They specified what they wanted and I did a few passes. That was it!”

That’s not the only guitar legend you’ve worked with. There’s B.B. King and George Benson – arguably two of the most influential guitarists in their respective genres…

“Absolutely. B.B. has always been the king for me. The raw power of his vocals and guitar playing was unbelievable. Have you seen the Mohammed Ali movie? That’s one of the greatest blues performances ever. B.B. was at times a minimalist but he was also fiery back in those days. He was a musical force and the whole package too, when you factored in his voice.

“And when I was working with George, I noticed he was the most natural jazz guitar player of them all. He makes it sound like the notes were just flying off the fretboard. I’ve never heard him come remotely close to struggling with anything. He’s so fun to listen to.”

Both you and Steve Lukather have worked with Ringo Starr, which is interesting given how long you and ‘Luke’ go back...

“Steve’s been in the All Starr Band for quite a while now. Those two guys have become really good buddies. It’s hilarious to me! They go to the movies together and hang out. I did a few songs with Ringo on that one [Time Takes Time] record. The producer Don Was brought me in. Ringo was right there, man, playing 20 feet away on his Gretsch kit. That was another moment where I had to try to maintain, you know?!”

You’ve also worked with soul and pop singers like Whitney Houston, Barbara Streisand, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion and many more – many of whom aren’t hugely associated with guitar music. How did that happen?

“In the ’80s, they were definitely mixing it up more. Guitar was just popular back then, even heavier sounds. With Joni Mitchell, when she stopped doing her thing with Jaco [Pastorius] and Pat [Metheny], she joined up with [bassist] Larry Klein and wanted to do a complete 180 with some young dudes in a rock band. She wanted to have fun! I think the ’80s were more accepting of rock guitar. Maybe they were trying to stay hip, I don’t know.”

What were the challenges bringing guitar into some of these productions? Were there any you took more pride in or required more guesswork from you?

“Joni was the most enlightening because she was so creative. We did a long run together in the ’80s. All in all, I think I’ve always managed to find my place on sessions – if I’m struggling, I’ll just kinda sit back and really check out what everyone else is doing. Eventually I’ll find something to contribute to the song.

“Some are easier than others. Some artists are more fun and have a looser vibe in the studio, which always translates well into the music. But under pressure, I was always okay. I wasn’t afraid, I didn’t have Red Light Syndrome and would always be ready to record with stuff I’d spent time figuring out.”

Well, that can’t hurt when you find yourself in high-pressure environments around big-name artists...

“If you know everything gear-wise is working nicely, that will always help your confidence. I’ve seen a lot of people bring stuff into the studio and struggle with their equipment. It puts them in a state of panic. If you work all that out before, it really helps because then all you have to do is concentrate on the music. You need to have good people skills and let the artist or producer rule for the day. You don’t want to step on any shoes… it’s all about contributing to the music.”

• For more information on the Michael Landau Coma Stratocaster, head to Fender.com.

Michael Landau’s star-studded list of session stints spans genres and generations, with the Stratocaster master having recorded for the likes of Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, B.B. King and many more across his storied career.

His resume is absolutely bursting at the seams with high-profile guest spots, but one of Landau's most notable – and, by his own admission, one the most “bizarre” – cameos occurred way back in the late ‘80s.

Speaking in an upcoming interview with Guitar World, the recently anointed Fender signature artist looked back on his session credits, and recalled the time he was recruited to play on Pink Floyd’s 1987 LP, A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

And, though he was tapped to only play a small six-string role – a dotted eighth delay lead part on One Slip being the highlight – the short time he spent recording electric guitar in front of David Gilmour and co constituted “one of the most bizarre things ever”.

“I think I might have played on one more, though I’m forgetting the title of it right now,” Landau replied when asked about his time recording One Slip. “It was crazy, David was right there! I’d been working with Bob Ezrin on several other records, and he ended up producing that Pink Floyd album. 

“I think they brought in a couple of outside guitar players,” he continued. “There was that delay part I did, that dotted eighth kinda thing that was very popular back then, and for some reason David didn’t want to do it. He wanted to bring someone else in.

“I’m sure he didn’t specify me, but Bob suggested it and yeah… playing guitar for Pink Floyd was one of the most bizarre things ever.”

As Gilmour was on hand to observe Landau’s lead playing, he was also able to provide Landau with some feedback – “Hey, this sounds good,” he told Landau – and then gave the session man a brief tour of his gear.

“I was in a studio looking back into the control room and there was David Gilmour saying ‘Hey, this sounds good!’” Landau went on. “I hung out for a minute afterwards… actually I was there for a long time, because David had this huge rig set up and he was super-sweet.

“He took me through a lot of it and played me a bunch of stuff on all his Marshalls that were lined up. It was an amazing afternoon. Again, it was pretty quick. They specified what they wanted and I did a few passes. That was it!”

Before reflecting on his Pink Floyd cameo, Landau told Guitar World all about his newly released Fender Stratocaster Stories Collection signature guitar – a recreation of his original ’59 Strat that can be heard on A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

“It just comes down to that body and those contours,” he commented. “Strats are like the ultimate couch guitar and that’s probably where I’ve done most of my playing over the years. They just seem to fit. 

“I love the balance, too. Sometimes a Gibson can get a little top or bottom-heavy. I find Fenders always play great if you get them set up right.”