David Gilmour talks making his new album 'Luck and Strange' a family affair

David Gilmour raised a few eyebrows over the summer. In an electronic press kit shared with the press, the Pink Floyd guitarist commented that his new album, Luck and Strangeis “the best album I've made since Dark Side of the Moonsince 1973.”

This is certainly a bold comparison – although in a subsequent conversation Gilmour notes this Dark Sidehis successor, I wish you were hereit's actually his favorite Pink Floyd album. However, he made it clear how happy he is with his fifth solo album, and first in nine years.

“The album feels like a solid body of cohesive work,” says Gilmour, 78 Bulletin board via Zoom from Astoria Recording Studio, on a houseboat moored on the Thames in London that he bought in 1986. as an album. There's a consistency of thought and feeling that runs through that that excites me in a way that makes me make these comparisons.”

The nine piece Luck and Strange it is, he adds, the product of a “liberation” he felt when he entered the studio.

Gilmour was working on new material when the pandemic hit in 2020, bringing the world to a standstill — but also opening up some new vistas for him and his family. Gilmour's wife and frequent lyricist Polly Samson published a novel, A Theater for Dreamersthe week of the lockdown, which killed scheduled promotional appearances. Their son Charlie came up with the idea of ​​doing live streams, during which Gilmour would play some songs by Leonard Cohen, who was a character in the book.

“It started pretty much just on Holly's book as a focus,” Gilmour recalls, “but then it got broader. We had our daughter Roman sing with me and play with me and it showed me that we have this great family tone going on — Beach Boys, Everly Brothers, other people. These artists we loved in the past. All of these things came together to create a different mood and a different feeling for the making of this album. It left me feeling like I don't have to stick with any pre-rulebook or anything that's gone before. I can be more free to do whatever I feel like. That was highlighted for me.”

As he set out to do Luck and Strange frankly, Gilmour departs from past collaborators such as Phil Manzanera, Chris Thomas and Roxy Music's Bob Ezrin and brought in a new (and younger) face in Charlie Andrew, a Music Producers Guild Award winner who collaborated with alt- j in his Mercury Prize. -successful An awesome waveJames, Bloc Party and others. One of his first questions — “Do we need another guitar solo here?” — made it clear that Gilmour was open to new elements this time around (though rest assured there hectare several guitar solos on the album).

“His not being overly in awe of my fame was a big plus for me,” says Gilmour. “Pink Floyd wasn't one of his influences… but (Andrew) liked the music I was working on and I liked it. He liked Polly very much. he found him, really, and my acceptance of what he was showing me and the direction he was offering was an interesting and exciting way to move forward.”

“I didn't specifically know a lot of his previous work and I purposely didn't dive into it as I just wanted to approach it from a new angle,” says Andrew. Bulletin board. “All I've tried to do is keep it cohesive as a body of work and make sure there's a flow to it. When we started, one of the first things I asked David was, “What are we making of this?” For me, there's more to it than “here's a bunch of songs” and just releasing them. I think it should be a bit more than a whole thing. I know David thinks the same.”

Luck and Strange — recorded primarily at Mark Knopfler's British Grove Studios — also features drummers Steve Gadd, Adam Betts and Steve DiStanislao and keyboardists Roger Eno and Rob Gentry, along with longtime bassist Guy Pratt, who began playing with Pink Floyd in 1987 and remained at Gil's side. always. (He is also a member of Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason's band Saucerful of Secrets.)

“It felt a lot more like a family,” Gilmour says, “a lot more like a group of people working toward a common goal than I'd felt for a long time.”

While not a concept album, Gilmour acknowledges that themes of mortality and retrospection unite Luck and Strange's mostly midtempo songs — two of which, “Black Cat” and “Vita Brevis,” are instrumentals, and a cover of the Montgolfier brothers' “Between Two Points,” sung by daughter Romany. She also plays harp on the album, while her son Gabriel Gilmour provides some backing vocals. “You discover the record as you work on it,” notes producer Andrew. “You don't go into it knowing exactly what it's going to be. I really wanted to understand what the lyrics were about and Polly was incredibly helpful in that, taking me and the musicians through the lyrics and what they meant.”

It is particularly touching Luck and StrangeIts self-titled track, which debuted in 2007, features the late Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright, who was a member of Gilmour's touring band at the time.

“It's great to have a piece that he's actually a part of,” says Gilmour, who included a lengthy version of “Luck and Strange” as a bonus. “Rick's unusual playing style comes out of it and it makes me sad that he's not around to be more involved in what I'm doing. Obviously, I worked on it later to add those bridges and choruses and stuff. I don't know why, in 2015 or '14, I didn't hear that track and go, 'Yeah, let's go,' but this time it demanded to be heard and worked, so we did.”

As Luck and Strange comes out Gilmour is gearing up for a tour, his first in eight years, starting on October 9 with the first of six concerts at London's prestigious Royal Albert Hall. He'll also play four dates in the Los Angeles area — starting Oct. 25 at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif., and moving to three shows at the Hollywood Bowl — and five at Madison Square Garden in New York, ending Nov. 10.

“I'm thinking more of the modern era than the old era,” Gilmour says of the setlist, “but there will be some songs from the '70s, '80s, '90s. Along the way, there will be some stuff, but I'm maybe focusing a little more on the new album and the newer material.” And, he hopes, there will be more new material in less than the nine years it took before he did Luck and Strange.

“My intention is to get some of these people together and come back and start working on something else in the new year,” says Gilmour. “What you want is a couple of things to start with and hopefully everything will start to flow, and that's what I hope will happen.”