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The Surrogate Band

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Waters: "There was a great plan... to expand the group, get in two other geezers, some two freaks that [Syd] had met somewhere or other. One of them played the banjo and the other played the saxophone. We weren't into that at all, and it was obvious that the crunch had finally come." - Zig Zag Magazine, May 1973

Tim Renwick: "I actually remember bumping into Dave the that night he was asked to join Pink Floyd, which is another interesting point of reference. Little did I know that I would end up playing in the same band 25 years later." - Guitar World, September 1994

Ron Geesin: "The Body film producer, Tony Garrett, asked John Peel who he should get to do the music, who was good (or different) at writing and playing film music, and he said Ron Geesin. I then asked Roger to do the songs. On the film, we worked completely separately, he in London, and me at Notting Hill. This was all done in early 1970."
interviewer: "Did you enjoy working with Roger?"
Geesin: "Yes, very much."
interviewer: "Would you have liked to have worked more with him?"
Geesin: "Yes, I think we were a potentially lethal team."
interviewer: "Do you have any thoughts on Roger's music today?"
Geesin: "Not much. I can't stand the Bob Dylan-ish American accent, or the meddling in politics. He's got plenty money coming in, so should make pure expressionist pieces and not try to conform to some imagined acceptability factor." - interview with Alastair McLean, REG magazine #8

Waters: "Pat [Leonard] grew up in Michigan, and he told me when we first met that he came to a Pink Floyd concert when I believe it was when Dark Side of the Moon was still called Eclipse... he was one of those 13 or 14 year old kids in the front row sitting there with their mouth open. And he kind of fell in love with the whole idea of the thing at that point. So this was kind of ambition fulfilled for him, and we had a terrific time together, he's a very accomplished musician and producer." Rockline, February 1993

Waters, (on Dick Parry): "The sax on ['Us and Them'] and 'Money' is just Dick improvising with a little guidance from us--'Breathier Dick, less breathy; more notes, less notes'--normally less notes is the deal with saxophone players." - MOJO, March 1998

Alan Parsons: "I had worked on a session before with Clare [Torry] and suggested that we try her out on this track. I think one has to give Clare credit; she was just told to go in and 'do your thing', so effectively she wrote what she did. She wailed over a nice chord sequence. There was no melodic guidance at all apart from 'a bit more waily here' or 'more sombre there'." - MOJO, March 1998

Gilmour, (on Clare Torry): "We'd been thinking Madeline Bell or Doris Troy, and we couldn't believe it when this housewifely white woman walked in. But when she opened her mouth, well, she wasn't too quick at finessing what we wanted, but out came that orgasmic sound we know and love." - MOJO, March 1998

Clare Torry: "I received a phone call to come in and do a session for Pink Floyd. It didn't mean much to me at the time, but I accepted and was booked: 7-10pm, Sunday, January 21, Studio 3. When I arrived they explained the concept of the album to me and played me Rick Wright's chord sequence. They said, 'We want some singing on it.' But didn't know what they wanted, so I suggested going out into the studio and trying a few things. I started off using words but they said, 'Oh no, we don't want any words.' So the only thing I could think of was to make myself sound like an instrument, a guitar or whatever, and not to think like a vocalist. I did that and they loved it. I did three or four takes very quickly, it was left totally up to me, and they said, 'Thank you very much.' In fact, other than Dave Gilmour, I had the idea they were infinitely bored with the whole thing, and when I left I remember thinking to myself, That will never see the light of day. If I'd known then what I know now I would have done something about organising copyright or publishing. I would be a wealthy woman now. The session fee in 1973 was £15, but as it was a Sunday I charged a double fee of £30... which I invested wisely, of course." - MOJO, March 1998

Bruce Johnston: "Mike Love and I went over to Roger Waters' house. He and David Gilmour were there. They said, 'We started singing high parts, trying to sound like the Beach Boys, and then we decided, 'Why don't we ask them?'' They made cassettes of the songs we'd be working on. But we couldn't get together on dates with the Pink Floyd. We finally set up studio time in Dallas for Bob Ezrin to fly down with Roger and bring the tapes. They cancelled the day of the session. it was just a shame to me, because it would have had a lovely impact had it been the Beach Boys singing." - Circus magazine, March 1980

Mason: "I think it's slightly unnerving just how much I learned from James Guthrie, who was the engineer on The Wall. He spent a lot of time working on the drum sound with me. And he would work at it for much longer than I've ever worked with it before, and got much better results." International Musician and Recording World, July 1981

Gilmour: "On the Momentary Lapse of Reason album Nick's belief in himself was pretty well gone, and Rick's belief in himself was totally gone. And they weren't up to making a record, to be quite honest about it. ...Roger's very good at belittling people, and I think over the years he managed to convince Rick completely that he was useless and more or less had convinced Nick of the same thing. And they both did not play a major part on that record. But we put a touring band together, and I got Gary [Wallis] to back up Nick on percussion and drums, and I got Jon Carin to help out on keyboard stuff, and at the beginning they played strong roles--in playing drum parts in Gary's case, and keyboard parts in Jon's. But by halfway through the first leg of the tour, Nick was starting to believe in himself again. And by the time we did the live album at the end of the first year, they were both playing absolutely great, and the drumming on the live album is all straight Nick." - Musician, August 1992

Tim Renwick: "Years ago, Roger Waters employed me to go through and archive all of Pink Floyd's material. Roger was getting ready to tour behind his solo album, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, and he wanted to play some music from the Floyd catalog. But he couldn't even remember what keys they were in! [laughs] So he got me to write out all the arrangements. I transcribed all 11 Pink Floyd albums, and, as a result, I got to know their music quite well." Guitar World, September 1994

Waters: "I was looking around for guitarists and I bumped into Andy [Fairweather-Low] from time to time since I first met him on tour in 1968. We did a tour together when he was in a band called Amen Corner and we did one of the last kind of rock package tours around England and the headliner was Jimi Hendrix. It was Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, The Nice, Amen Corner, and another band that I can't remember. And so I'd known him for all those years and he'd been working with Eric Clapton and Eric Clapton was working with me on Pros and Cons, and I asked Eric what Andy was like and he said he was great so I gave him a ring and he came around and the rest is happy." Rockline, February 1993

Gilmour: "The limits of what I can think of, or what I can write or think about for a guitar, are greater than my own personal playing limits. So if it comes up, which it does once in a while, that I can't play the part that I want to play - not having the technical proficiency in some areas - then I'll get someone else in to do it for me. To me, it's simple: Since there are some things I don't do, then there's no reason why I wouldn't get someone else to do something I thought of but I couldn't do.
We've had a lot of people doing guitar parts for us. Tim Renwick played a bit on PULSE. I've known him since he was a kid, since he was 13. He was from Cambridge, where I'm from, and he's always been a damn good guitar player. We'd have been willing to go for him on any project, but he was never available. Especially during the Wall years, he was too busy doing other stuff. On A Momentary Lapse of Reason, we had Michael Landau play on the opening parts of "One Slip". Lee Ritenour was on "One Of My Turns", from The Wall. He played the rhythm guitar part on the second half of that. Basically I couldn't come up with a good part for that song, so I think I threw my guitar down and said, 'I can't get anywhere with this, I don't know what to do on it. Get someone else to play it.' In the case of "One Of My Turns", I didn't even think of the part. I've sort of modified it and adapted it for the way we play it live. I think we also double-tracked the high-strung acoustic guitar on "Comfortably Numb", so he may be playing one of those.
"There was another guy, whose name escapes me, who played the Spanish classical guitar part on "Is There Anybody Out There?" because I felt I couldn't do it quite cleanly enough or well enough for the record. Onstage, of course, I ended up doing it, and it wasn't a problem. I can't quite remember how we came across Snowy White. He was a great guitar player, but I honestly can't remember who recommended him, or why, or when. I don't think at that time I was too used to hiring other musicians, so I can't remember how we went about it. Since then, I've started noticing other musicians with an eye to using them, from the point of view of who I might use in the future. I've been keeping a little book on musicians of all sorts who I thought were interesting, not just guitar players." - Guitar, September 1995

Gilmour: "It's nice to involve your friends, people you have empathy with. There were several big names we could have gone to, but it can be tedious bringing in these brisk, professional session men. A bit intimidating." - MOJO, March 1998

Waters: "We recorded "It's a Miracle" three times and the second time we recorded it, we did a very up-tempo version of it and Flea came in and played bass. And wonderfully he played too. He was great. I loved it. But when we put the record together, this very up-tempo version of "It's a Miracle" didn't fit within the dynamic context of the rest of the record. So the very last piece of recording we did was to re-record "It's a Miracle" and just Pat and I sat down one afternoon at the piano and re-did it." Rockline, February 1993

John "Rabbit" Bundrick: "When I was in my little studio one day while they were working on Roger's Amused to Death, Andy Fairweather phoned me and said could I come and do a session for Roger Waters, and I said 'Yeah, when? Now.' I went down and walked in on something and they stopped the tape and Roger re-introduced himself to me and I said hello to Andy and all that business, and I said what would you like me to do. They said, "We'll play you a track," and I stood in the center of the studio speakers to have a listen and they put the track on and all of a sudden it blew my head off! It was awesome! I didn't understand, it was so good, the track that they wanted me to play on, ain't no way what I can do to add to that.
"But at any rate, when I was a kid at high school, I used to take acid and dope, and we listened to Pink Floyd, and I haven't heard Pink Floyd since my high school days and when I heard that tape it brought all my high school days back in one flash. That's what I thought Pink Floyd was when I heard this Roger Waters tape for the first time. That's what Pink Floyd is, it's not what Dave Gilmour's doing, it's what Roger Waters is doing, because it sounded more like the old Pink Floyd records I remember that Dave Gilmour's stuff, which is very strange.
"I went on and did the session and it was fine. I didn't do a whole lot, just bits and pieces, a couple of Hammond overdubs and piano, and that's it really. But it was a great experience to work with Roger, it was really great.... My contribution was very minimal in terms of standing out. One thing I did was an incredibly frantic Hammond solo, and it wasn't there anymore. He had replaced it with Jeff Beck who did an even more frantic guitar slide solo which obviously I don't mind because it was incredible what Jeff Beck did." - interview with Alastair McLean, REG magazine #10

Waters: I've always loved the way [Jeff Beck] plays the guitar and I guess we worked with him for maybe three or four days to do the stuff that he does on the album. And it was terrific. He arrived at the studio and he has a brand new guitar, he gets it out of the box, he doesn't seem to tune it, you know, he sits and leans with his bum on the studio multi-track and you run the track and he starts doing these kind of magical things and kind of looks at you and says "Is that the sort of thing you want?", you know, and you say "well, no it's not" and then you tell him what you do want and he does that magically as well." Rockline, February 1993