It's hard to know what to expect when meeting Pink Floyd's frontman David Gilmour. While Pink Floyd have remained one of rock's most enduring musical outfits since the 60s when their acid rock concoctions defined the London underground scene, their members - for the most part - have achieved a glorious anonymity, rarely being photographed, videoed or interviewed.
"We do some interviews but we try to keep them to a minimum," says Gilmour, who admits its "quite nice" to still be able to walk down the street without being recognised. "I don't feel comfortable being a publicly owned figure. I feel more comfortable as a humble musician."
In person, Gilmour maintains his understated stance; quietly spoken, polite, only slightly revealing a personality that displays a healthy ego and a wry humour.
In their almost 30 year career Gilmour says they have never really suffered from any music industry or media pressure to expose their personalities.
"It's something that people have accepted as coming with our particular territory," he says. "People aren't that nosey. Either that or we are so incredibly boring that they don't want to know anything about us."
Gilmour's evolution as frontman happened more by circumstance, while his musical contributions have been less riveting than previous Floyd leaders, Syd Barrett and Roger Waters.
Barrett was the band's songwriter and artistic catalyst when Floyd originally formed in 1965 along with Roger Waters, Rick Wright and Nick Mason. Barrett was also the only member with obvious star charisma.
But not long after the band's first album release in 1967, Piper At the Gates Of Dawn , Barrett's mental state began to deteriorate - a combination of his fragile temperament and his experimentations with LSD. Gilmour, who was Barrett's childhood friend, was brought in to augment the line-up, but it became increasingly difficult to work with a phased- out Syd. Roger Waters assumed artistic control and helmed their most commercial releases Dark Side Of The Moon in 1973, and The Wall in 1979. Gilmour and Waters came to blows over Water's autocratic approach to the band and by 1987 when A Momentary Lapse Of Reason was released, Waters had gone on record claiming the band could never continue without him. It was then that Gilmour assumed control of the band, reinstating original member Richard Wright who was previously sacked by Waters.
"When I look at the progression of Pink Floyd I tend to discount the Syd Barrett era because it was a completely different band under his tutelage," says Gilmour. "I see the band after he left as much my creation as anyone else's, so I don't see the change of Roger leaving in quite the same way as everyone else. I thought it was sad to lose a great lyric writer but it wasn't a great loss musically, and his departure just made me realize my responsibilities when it come to lyric writing."
Gilmour's latest excursion into the spotlight is to promote the band's last world tour which unfortunately never made it to Australia.
Their 1994 world tour, which was the first in seven years, will go down in the history books as one of rock's most successful. Their seven month jaunt covered 77 cities and 110 shows played to 5.3 million people, grossing over $500 million.
P.U.L.S.E. - the new double-album compilation release - features 14 Floyd songs as well as a new interpretation of their legendary 1973 masterpiece Dark Side Of The Moon, performed live in its entirety for the first time in more than two decades. The release will also be accompanied by a two hour video of concert performances filmed at Earl's Court in London during the band's 14 night stand there in October 1994.
"Dark Side has never been out live on video before and we often regretted during our years with Roger that we never filmed our Dark Side shows. We always thought it was a great shame but now we've done it," says Gilmour.
In fact Gilmour said the band actually invited Waters back to perform Dark Side Of The Moon with them at Earl's Court, but the historical reunion never materialised. "We thought that on the night of shooting the video it would be great for the public and for Roger to be a part of it, seeing as he did write all the words, so we made the approach but he simply wasn't interested in the idea," says Gilmour.
P.U.L.S.E. is overdub free but recorded as a compilation of over 20 of their live shows. "To do the album justice 'live' we wanted to really capture the atmosphere of a show, including the audience's presence, but without compromising on the sound," says Gilmour. "We ended up recording 20 shows and chose the best version of each song. After a while we weren't even aware that we were being recorded. I think we gave some of our best performances ever."
As well as other Floyd classics like Another Brick In The Wall (Part Two), there are five tracks from the band's most recent studio album The Division Bell. P.U.L.S.E. also features a stunning rendition of their early psychedelic classic Astronomy Domine which many Floyd fans feel was the definitive track of the Syd Barrett years.
"We did all the songs we could think of on the 1987 tour, so we thought this time we'd do something different, so we delved through the catalogue again to see what we could come up with and Astronomy seemed to fit the bill," says Gilmour. "I suppose anything we do from the first album will be a homage to Syd. We wanted to do something from that era to give an even more complete potted history of the band musically - from its inception to now."
P.U.L.S.E. also features rather unique packaging - a blinking red light built into the slip case that holds the two CDs. The pulse is, of course, a reference to Dark Side, the blinking light symbolising the heartbeat or pulse of each listener.
Not that the interpretation is meant to be deep and meaningful; inside the cover the band make some humorous suggestions as to what you can do with the light once it begins to start driving you mad. One helpful hint is to remove it, place it in your car and use it as a burglar alarm. "We thought it was just a fun gimmick for the album's release," says Gilmour.
Gilmour says that after promotion for P.U.L.S.E. is over, he will again quietly disappear with no future plans for recording or performing. "Pink Floyd will always have an audience. We have been around for so long that people aren't going to forget us if we disappear for five years," says Gilmour. "What I say to these people that suggest that we gracefully retire and leave space for new bands is that the space is there and it's up to the new bands to fill it."
"I don't suppose I ever imagined in 1968 that at the age of 49 I'd still be playing with Pink Floyd on a world tour, but then I don't suppose I thought it would finish in two or three years either. I thought we would keep it going as a good career for a while and then one would retire or get a proper job. I've never had to ... luckily."
