Roger & Nick speak...
luvharley
"I was very sad to hear of Rick's premature death, I knew he had been
ill, but the end came suddenly and shockingly. My thoughts are with
his family, particularly [his children] Jamie and Gala and their mum
Juliet, who I knew very well in the old days, and always liked very
much and greatly admired.
"As for the man and his work, it is hard to overstate the importance
of his musical voice in the Pink Floyd of the '60s and '70s. The
intriguing, jazz influenced, modulations and voicings so familiar in
'Us and Them' and 'Great Gig in the Sky,' which lent those
compositions both their extraordinary humanity and their majesty, are
omnipresent in all the collaborative work the four of us did in those
times. Rick's ear for harmonic progression was our bedrock.
"I am very grateful for the opportunity that Live 8 afforded me to
engage with him and David [Gilmour] and Nick [Mason] that one last
time. I wish there had been more."
Source: Brain Damage
Interview with Nick Mason:
The day after Wright’s death, Entertainment Weekly talked to Floyd
drummer Nick Mason about his colleague and friend of more than 40
years.
How important was Rick to Pink Floyd?
NICK MASON: The reality is, like any band, you can never quite
quantify who does what. But Pink Floyd wouldn’t have been Pink Floyd
if [we] hadn’t had Rick. I think there’s a feeling now -- particularly
after all the warfare that went on with Roger and David trying to make
clear what their contribution was -- that perhaps Rick rather got
pushed into the background. Because the sound of Pink Floyd is more
than the guitar, bass, and drum thing. Rick was the sound that knitted
it all together.
That seems to have been particularly true in the band’s early,
musically adventurous, days.
Yeah. He had a very special style. He probably did more than I did in
terms of not worrying too much about tempo, to the point where
eventually we did produce arrhythmic pieces. That was, I think,
probably rather ground-breaking in 1967.
What was he like on a personal level?
[Laughs] he was very like...Rick! Really. He was by far the quietest
of the band, right from day one. And, I think, probably harder to get
to know than the rest of us. But after 40 years, we probably felt we
did know him quite well. We were just beginning to make inroads,
perhaps.
Would this be an example of the British stiff upper lip at work?
Well, we did talk to each other. But we spent an awful lot of time
sort of teasing each other, really, and winding each other up. It’s
that curious thing. You form a gang. And so, to the outside world, you
mount a united front. But four guys in a car, you spend an awful lot
of time arguing and bickering and not being very creative.
Do you have a particularly fond memory of Rick?
I have to say that I think a number of our memories have to do with
the ways that we all dealt with money. The first meeting with Roger I
wouldn’t lend him my car and Rick wouldn’t give him a cigarette. And
really we just carried on exactly like that for the next 40 years.
And Roger’s been punishing you ever since.
Yeah, absolutely. But he’s beginning to get over it we think.
Can you remember the first time you met Rick?
Well, it was '62 because we were all (studying) architecture together.
He looked like an architect but he had no interest in architecture
whatsoever, and within months, as far as I remember, he was off to
music college, which is exactly where he should have gone in the first
place.
What was he like back then?
Exactly the same. Of course, with the people you really know, no one
changes that much. Roger was a rather sort of forbidding presence in
1962 and he hasn’t changed at all. He’s just got a bit more grizzled.
And Rick was the quiet one then, as it was throughout.
He also wrote a fair amount of songs for the Floyd.
Something like "Us And Them" was absolutely a Rick piece. It’s almost
that George Harrison thing. You sort of forget that they did a lot
more than perhaps they’re given credit for.
Well, you have our condolences and sorry to bother you at a time like
this.
No, it’s absolutely fine. I’d rather talk about him, I think, than
not.
Source: Entertainment Weekly