Credit:Jill FurmanovskyFounding Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason is preparing to bring his new group, Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets, across the pond for its first North American tour in March 2019, but if it were up to him, he’d still playing with his old band.
Of course, the longtime rift between bassist Roger Waters and guitarist David Gilmour makes that impossible, and Mason tells Rolling Stone he’s frustrated that the two musicians can’t put their differences aside.
“I actually get along with both of them,” Nick reports, “and I think it’s really disappointing that these rather elderly gentlemen are still at loggerheads.”
Among the issues between Waters and Gilmour, according to Mason, is that “Roger doesn’t really respect David.”
“He feels that writing is everything,” Nick explains, “and that guitar playing and the singing are something that — I won’t say anyone can do — but that everything should be judged on the writing rather than the playing.”
Mason also says he thinks Waters is still annoyed that other members continued to tour and record as Pink Floyd after he exited the group in 1985.
“I think it rankles with Roger that he made a sort of error in a way, that he left the band assuming that without him, it would fold,” he notes. “It’s a constant irritation, really, that he’s still going back to it.”
Meanwhile, Mason tells Rolling Stone that he lives in hope that Waters and Gilmour eventually will make up.
“I mean, I don’t think we’re going to tour as Pink Floyd again,” he admits. “But it would seem silly at this stage of our lives to still be fighting.”
Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets, which focuses on Pink Floyd material prior to 1973, kicks off their North American tour on March 12 in Vancouver, Canada.
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