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Through
the Fish-Eyed Lens: edited by Dave Ward Mason: "The first [movie we did] was [Tonight] Let's All Make Love in London, in 1967, where we performed "Interstellar Overdrive."--late March 1973, unknown French book Mason: "Then we had done the music for The Commitee, a Paul Jones film. It was done in one morning and since it wasn't convincing enough it was never recorded.--late March 1973, unknown French book More Mason: “He [director Barbet Schroeder] came to England or was introduced to us in Paris. And then projected the movie he was going to call More. Barbet Schroeder’s proposal, which had taken an interesting subject, was very attractive. Besides that, it was an exciting exercise, because Barbet Schroeder is a director who is really easy to work with.”—late March 1973, unknown French book Mason: “We have to do the soundtrack in a week, which is very cool, because otherwise we’d spend three months doing it, going back and changing things all the time.” Gilmour: “I can’t remember how we did the film More, or why. I mean, I can’t remember why we happened to meet the guy [director Barbet Schroeder]. But meet him we did, and we saw the film. We thought, Weeeellll..., you know, but we wanted to break into big-time movie scores, so we said, OK, we’ll do it. And he gave us six hundred quid each or something, and off we trotted and we did it.” Gilmour: “We hadn’t done film scores before—but they offered us lots of money. We wrote the whole thing in eight days from start to finish.” Wright: “We did it because Barbet Schroeder wanted to use us. We didn’t do it because it was about drugs.” Wright: “It [the film] said the right things about drugs; I’m sure if it were saying the wrong things about drugs we wouldn’t have done it.” Gilmour: “You start in the studio without anything, and you work until you come up with stuff. You chuck things down and ask, ‘How about something like this?’ then you work on it a bit. It’s not the same process as making your own music for yourself—it’s much more hurried, and less care tends to be taken.” Waters: “We were told one bit had to be coming out of a radio in a Spanish bar so we had to do something that suggested that. In the middle of it, Dave tried to make the sort of speech noises you’d expect to hear.” Wright: “Doing the music for films is very challenging—it means that we have to express facts and scenes in music. And financially it pays off, and so leaves us more time on our own to develop our individual ideas.” Waters: “We did sixteen tracks for More in five sessions, which for us is silly—and we suffered from it. Actually, I quite like it, although we’d like to play that one down.” Gilmour: “More [the film] had a rather bad reception; probably because of the dialogue—they were saying things like ‘Groovy, man, let’s get high.’ Schroeder was a foreign director and, though he spoke English, he didn’t know the subtle difference between what slang was acceptable and hip and what wasn’t.” Mason: “Our music is quite well integrated into the film; like every time anyone switches on a radio or is in a bar with a jukebox or anything, it’s the Pink Floyd which comes out.” Wright: “We didn’t really like the film. It’s hard to say what I thought of our music in More since I didn’t hear it with the film, but apparently it works quite well. As an album I don’t really much like it.” Mason: “Whenever we finish an album, I always think it could have been better, but with things like More and Obscured by Clouds, I tend to think it’s really not bad for the time—perhaps it’s just there’s more excuses... It’s one of the annoying things, in a way, that the difference between something we’ve spent a week on and something that takes nine months isn’t that great. I mean the thing that takes nine months isn’t thirty-six times as good. Obviously, nine months doesn’t mean nine months solid recording, but even so...”—Sounds, 17 August 1974 (originally October 1972) Waters: “What really made it for us in France was the film More, for which we did the soundtrack. It was playing in Paris at two next-door cinemas at once it was so popular.”—The Georgia Straight, 14 October 1970 Zabriskie Point Wright: "When Floyd wrote music for films like Zabriskie Point and More, they were still just a collection of songs and instrumental pieces.--EMI web site, August 1996, interview by Mark Blake Mason: "We were waiting to find the same spirit of trust in Antonioni, but, in fact, the collaboration was really terrible. Antonioni is a tyrranical eremite.--late March 1973, unknown French book Obscured by Clouds Mason: “To me it was a little like More. Barbet Schroeder has a very peculiar style that, in fact, isn’t really my thing. His characters are very dry and are discovered very slowly.”—late March 1973, unknown French book Mason: “We were very pleased with our music. So I don't see where's the problem, if there's one. Going back to our music, it was, in our mind, a sucession of songs. It wasn't a Pink Floyd album, but a group of songs. But still, the whole was balanced, with different rhythms and tempos. I agree when it’s said it didn’t had the stength of Dark Side of the Moon or Meddle. However, it was a great success and became, most of all in France, a disco classic.”—late March 1973, unknown French book Live at Pompeii Mason: “The producer and director Adrian Maben came up with that idea, which we found very pleasant. Initially we were supposed to do it in playback, but the conditions were such that we went all the way and played live. And I believe that the music, in that arena filled with dust and sunshine, and later on with wind and darkness, was of great quality.”—late March 1973, unknown French book Mason: “I don’t think we perhaps took quite the interest in it that we should have done.... It’s not bad, but I’m not entirely happy with it. With the interviews particularly, I think perhaps we should have got more involved in trying to really say something about what’s happening and what we do as a group—something that would be interesting and would last.”—Sounds, 17 August 1974 Mason: [on the delayed theatrical release] “I think it was because everyone thought rock and roll films were not very good news, but in fact it has turned out to be very good news.”—Sounds, 17 August 1974 Dave Ward is former editor of The Steel Breeze Pink Floyd news service, which published its final issue on 1 March. |
