Credit: Jill FurmanovskyPink Floyd drummer Nick Mason has been appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire — or CBE — by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, as part of the U.K. monarch’s annual New Year’s Honours list. Not surprisingly, Mason is being recognized for his services to music.
Nick played drums with Pink Floyd throughout the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame act’s entire history, and he recently launched a new group called Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets that focuses on his old band’s early material.
A CBE is the highest-ranking honor the Queen can bestow on a citizen apart from a knighthood, which is the next step up.
Meanwhile, Mike Peters, lead singer of ’80s Welsh rockers The Alarm, was honored as a Member of the Order of the British Empire, or MBE, which is one step below a CBE. Peters, a cancer survivor, was acknowledged for “voluntary services to cancer care in North Wales and abroad.”
Commenting on his honor, Peters told BBC News, “It’s not something you think you are going to attain in your life span…certainly not with the endeavors I’ve been involved in, which is basically through trying to keep myself alive and trying to keep other people alive at the same time.”
He added, “To be nominated is a real honor and I am very grateful to accept.”
Among the U.K. celebrities to be chosen for a knighthood or damehood in 2019 by the Queen are Monty Python star Michael Palin and 1960s model Twiggy, who was born Lesley Hornby.
You can check out the Queen’s full 2019 New Year’s Honours at Gov.uk.
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