Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason has said that he is “flabbergasted” by Roger Waters stating that he felt as though he was being bullied during his time in the band. In a new interview with The Coda Collection, Mason explained that he was surprised to hear the claims that Waters had made regarding former guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour and ex-keyboardist Richard Wright, who he claims were “always trying to drag me down”.
Mason told journalist Jim DeRogatis, “I’m slightly flabbergasted by it,” adding, “But I think that’s a slightly over emotional way of putting that there was some sort of division with the band about.” The musician continued by saying: “Because Roger was always looking beyond the music, in a way. I think it was artificial, but I think possibly there was the side that wanted to do inflatables and films, as well as music, and those who just wanted to do music. But, I don’t think they were mean to him, particularly. It’s hard to imagine being mean to Roger. Stalin was the bullied.”
In September, the vocalist and bassist had mentioned on Marc Maron’s podcast, WTF, that the band had a “toxic environment”. He alleged, “I was in a very toxic environment. I was around some people, well, David and Rick mainly, who were always trying to drag me down. They were always trying to knock me off whatever that perch was.”
When asked about how the bullying had manifested, Waters answered: “By claiming that I was tone deaf and that I didn’t understand music.” He guessed at what they thought of him, saying, “Oh he’s just a boring, kind of, teacher figure who tells us what to do, but he can’t tune his own guitar. Stuff like that.” Later in the podcast, Waters said: “I’m not putting them down, but those years we were together, whatever it was like socially, there is no question that we did some really good work together and we all contributed.”
Pink Floyd have reunited multiple times over the years, but currently remain disbanded. The band’s 1987 album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, their first after the initial departure of Waters, is set to be reissued and released October 29 via Sony. The album will also be available in 360 Reality Audio, which is described by Sony as “a new immersive music experience that closely mimics the omni-directional soundscape of live musical performance for the listener using Sony’s object-based 360 Spatial Sound technologies”.
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