In October, Pink Floyd sold the rights to their recorded works to Sony Music for a reported $400 million. And guitarist David Gilmour says he’s glad to be done with it — so he doesn’t have to fight with his bandmates anymore.
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Gilmour, 78, says, “I’m an old person. I’ve spent the last 40-odd years trying to fight the good fight against the forces of indolence and greed to do the best with our stuff that you can do. And I’ve given that fight up now.”
“I’ve got my advance — because, you know, it’s not fresh new money or anything like that. It’s an advance against what I would have earned over the next few years anyway,” he continues. “But the arguments and fighting and idiocies that have been going on for the last 40 years between these four disparate groups of people and their managers and whatever — it’s lovely to say goodbye to.”
Gilmour and Pink Floyd bassist/vocalist Roger Waters have famously been at odds for several years. The rest of the “four groups of people” Gilmour is referring to are presumably drummer Nick Mason and his camp, and late keyboard player Rick Wright, who died in 2008 but was involved in nearly all the group’s recordings.
The estate of founding member Syd Barrett, who was ejected from the group in 1968 and died in 2006, also benefited from the deal, though he wasn’t involved in the 40 years of “arguments and fighting.”
Gilmour, currently touring behind his album Luck and Strange, further tells the paper that he’s retained his publishing rights, so he doesn’t really care what Sony does with the band’s classic recordings: “If it comes on an advert, I’m not gonna give a s***.”
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