What can you tell me about Pink Floyd

A.� The story of Pink Floyd is the story of British rock, encapsulated in the career of just one band. They have had it all�- huge success, financial ruin, breakdowns, split-ups, legal action, dismissals, reinstatements, reformations, the lot.

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Q.� That sounds like they must have a pretty impressive history!

A.� They do, and it all started with the underground 'art-rock' scene of the 1960s. A Cambridge musician, Roger Keith (Syd) Barrett took the Christian names of two veteran blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, and named his art rock pop group The Pink Floyd.� Rapidly attracting a large following on the new 'underground' music scene, the band secured a deal with EMI Records in 1967, and released their first single Arnold Layne. The single was a sign of things to come, success built on the vagaries of the human condition, concerning the lifestyle of transvestite Arnold, who stole ladies' underwear from washing lines. The song was a Top Twenty hit, and the follow-up, See Emily Play, written about an upper-class hanger-on who failed to grasp the cool ethos of the art scene, was an even bigger success, peaking at number 8. The band's�first album Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, named after a chapter in the children's classic Wind In The Willows was a massive success.� With Syd's pop-star good looks and the band's ultra-cool groundbreaking musical style, Pink Floyd were perfectly placed to become the darlings of the newly financially independent generation of teenagers.

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Q.� So they were off and running, never to look back

A.� If only life were so simple. Shortly after the Floyd's success story began, Barrett began to exhibit alarmingly anti-social behaviour, a combination of the effects of ingestion of large amounts of hallucinogenic drugs, together with reaction from prescribed medication for diabetes. As 1967 progressed, Syd's behaviour meant he would appear on stage unable or unwilling to play the songs the rest of the band were playing, or he would simply stand and stare into the crowd in a catatonic state. The band proposed that a friend of bassist Roger Waters, one David Gilmour, would join the band so that Syd could write and record in the studio and Gilmour could play guitar for live shows, a similar solution to that adopted by The Beach Boys, for similar reasons. The idea was short-lived, Barrett was deposed, and Gilmour took over. Floyd's management, looking at an act that had lost its lead singer and guitarist, as well as its main songwriter and overall focal point, decided to cut loose the rest of the band, and concentrate on Syd Barrett as a solo artist.

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Q.� That should have been the end of it there then.

A.� It should have been, but Floyd demonstrated the level of tenacity in adversity that has given them a thirty-five plus year career�- they carried on, writing further top ten albums and increasing the level of experimentation in both writing and recording, that paved the way for 1973's Dark Side Of The Moon, still one of the most popular rock albums ever made.

Q.� What is so good about it

A.� The album is the apex of Roger Waters' powers as a composer and musical innovator, using age-old themes of mortality and the brevity of life, and welding them to extended themes and songs that virtually re-invented the 'concept' album; it was an instant and enduring success. The album spent an unbroken run of almost 750 weeks on the American Billboard chart, and remains a staple in almost any rock fan's collection.

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Q.� Financial and artistic success, what more could any band want

A.� Control. Complete control. The shift of emphasis from Barrett to Waters as main writer caused terrific friction within the band, almost all of which was carefully hidden behind the mannered British attitude of refusing to make a fuss that underlined the sheer Englishness of Pink Floyd as a band, and as individuals. Animosity boiled over after the band's final major opus The Wall, a sprawling double album and realisation of Waters' exorcism of painful childhood memories, which culminated in the construction of an actual (polystyrene) wall as the band played the album on stage for a world tour. Waters' disillusion with the notion of playing live came when during an increasingly rowdy reaction to one of the album's many quiet and atmospheric moments; he spat in the face of a fan, and walked off stage, vowing never to play a live concert again.

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Q.� So that would seem to be that

A.� Considering that the band had observed their ability to regroup and continue after the loss of one major writer and vocalist in the shape of Syd Barrett, it seemed reasonable that they could do the same again. Waters had other ideas, having sacked keyboardist Richard Wright during the sessions for the Final Cut album, he sued the rest of the band for ownership of the Pink Floyd name, and lost, leaving Gilmour to take up the reins again, and the band to attempt to recover from the disastrously inept financial advice they had received which had virtually bankrupted all the members, wiping out the profits from their multi-platinum albums sales in a matter of months.

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Q.� Did they recover

A.� Financially, yes. Huge world tours and 1994's studio album The Division Bell have seen Pink Floyd recapture their place as one of the biggest grossing live acts in the world. Artistically, purists argue that the band have done little to build on the reputation that was firmly established in the days of Waters' helmsmanship of the band.

Q.� What are relations like now

A.� Richard Wright is a full-time member of the band once again, and in a sobering reminder that age catches up with everyone, the boyfriend of his daughter handles bass guitar duties on stage! As far as is known, the gap between Roger Waters and the rest of Pink Floyd remains as large as ever. David Gilmour cheerfully namechecks his old sparring partner every night as the curtain comes down on yet another show, the backbone of which remains Waters' material from Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wall. Waters continues to perform the material from both albums as well, although in keeping with the more limited success of his own solo career, on a somewhat smaller scale, and he has yet to play any major concert tours in his country of origin.

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Q.� What about the future

A.� That remains open. In the manner of a number of bands whose absence has suggested their termination -�Roxy Music being an example -�Pink Floyd have never officially split, so if they regroup and record another album any time in the future, there is no reason why they shouldn't simply pick up where they left off. The sales of the band's back catalogue ensure that all current and former members remain financially solvent, although the exact whereabouts of the man who started it all, Syd Barrett, remain an enduring mystery.

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By Andy Hughes