When Alt-J and London Grammar music producer Charlie Andrew was announced as David Gilmour's collaborator for his first solo album in nearly a decade, the Pink Floyd icon hailed his “wonderful lack of knowledge or respect for this past of mine”.
“He said things like, ‘Well, why does there have to be a guitar solo there?’ and ‘Do they all fade out? Can’t some of them just end?’” Gilmour said when Luck and Strange was announced.
“He’s very direct and not in any way overawed, and I love that. That is just so good for me because the last thing you want is people just deferring to you.”
But Gilmour solo stans could breathe a collective sigh of relief when Luck and Strange eventually dropped, as it features solos aplenty. Now Gilmour has detailed how he recorded his leads – and how he managed to win his producer over to Team Solos.
“Some of them were done just by me, without an engineer or anything, just in my barn room back at the farm. And some of them were done in Brighton with Charlie Andrew breathing down my neck,” he told the Rockonteurs with Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt podcast.
“I think we changed him as much as he changed us in terms of these things, loving the guitar solo thing by the end. 'So let's do another one.'”
Gilmour goes on to address whether his reputation for stellar solos means he feels pressured to deliver.
“No, I think I just plug in and go and hope for the best. I'm hunting for melodies, but I'm hoping they will naturally flow out of me.”
He points to Between Two Points, his interpretation of the obscure Montgolfier Brothers song with Romany Gilmour, as an example of that rare moment when inspiration hits.
“On Between Two Points, I can remember just plugging a guitar and just playing along and feeling. I was more in that moment than usually happens, and it almost felt transcendent, like I was on drugs or something. How these things are done, I have no idea.”
Luck and Strange is out now via Sony Music.
Earlier this week, Gilmour surprised pub-goers with an acoustic rendition of Pink Floyd classic Wish You Were Here.
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