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+--- Thread: Rick being fired - How did this happen? (/showthread.php?tid=8267)
- Evander - 01-08-2007 08:37 PM
Rick was fired during the Wall rehearsals and hired on with a salary during the tour but how did this come about. Was Roger the only one with a problem with Rick or was it the rest of the band?
- mikinik - 01-08-2007 10:38 PM
It was Roger who fired Rick....
I think the historical outcome of Pink Floyd speakes for itself on this one.
Richard Wright is a full member of the band Pink Floyd....where he always should have been.
As I understand it, the only reason why he wasn't a full member during AMLoR was because of reasons surrounding the legal case between David/Nick with Roger that had yet to be cleared up and finished. This is why he was not "officially' a legal member during this time. Once all that was sorted out Rick was back. And I was one of those fans who finally saw a wrong....made Wright. (bad pun there...sorry)
Bob
- IbanezIsTheColour - 01-09-2007 03:15 PM
I think there was also something about Rick being on vacation, and Roger wanted him to come back and work, but Rick didn't want to.
- monkey.choker - 01-11-2007 04:55 AM
mikinik Wrote:And I was one of those fans who finally saw a wrong....made Wright. (bad pun there...sorry)That's awful! :Oo:
Edited By monkey.choker on 1168520165
- mabewa - 01-12-2007 08:44 AM
It's a pretty complicated story, and there's more than one version of it. Technically, Rick wasn't fired--more like forced out of the band. They were in debt, and Roger threatened to withhold the tapes for The Wall if Rick didn't leave. One major factor was that the record company had offered them a good financial deal if they finished the album ahead of schedule, but this meant that Rick had to forfeit his planned summer vacation in order to finish his keyboard parts early. Rick refused to go along with this. His relationship with Roger had deteriorated before then, but it seems that Roger really turned against him permanently at that point, and insisted that Rick leave the band.
Most everybody involved agrees that Rick was having trouble and that he was being difficult to work with. However, everyone involved except for Roger also agrees that Rick's being forced to leave was a big mistake--he had contributed enormously to the band's sound on all albums up to and including Animals, and without him, the band was really missing something.
Anyway, in my opinion, if PF was still PF after Rick left, then it pretty much opened the door for PF the existence of a 3-man Floyd minus one major contributing member. Of course, the next version of Floyd was indeed a 3-man Floyd minus one major contributing member... but it was Roger missing instead of Rick.
- Evander - 01-13-2007 06:28 AM
mabewa Wrote:It's a pretty complicated story, and there's more than one version of it. Technically, Rick wasn't fired--more like forced out of the band. They were in debt, and Roger threatened to withhold the tapes for The Wall if Rick didn't leave. One major factor was that the record company had offered them a good financial deal if they finished the album ahead of schedule, but this meant that Rick had to forfeit his planned summer vacation in order to finish his keyboard parts early. Rick refused to go along with this. His relationship with Roger had deteriorated before then, but it seems that Roger really turned against him permanently at that point, and insisted that Rick leave the band.Thanks man that really answered my question. :)
Most everybody involved agrees that Rick was having trouble and that he was being difficult to work with. However, everyone involved except for Roger also agrees that Rick's being forced to leave was a big mistake--he had contributed enormously to the band's sound on all albums up to and including Animals, and without him, the band was really missing something.
Anyway, in my opinion, if PF was still PF after Rick left, then it pretty much opened the door for PF the existence of a 3-man Floyd minus one major contributing member. Of course, the next version of Floyd was indeed a 3-man Floyd minus one major contributing member... but it was Roger missing instead of Rick.
- mabewa - 01-14-2007 07:58 PM
You're welcome. But, as I said, the story is a lot more complicated than that, and there are different versions of it, depending on who you're talking to (or even when you're talking to them).
First, in response to your question of whether it was just Roger who had a problem with Rick, or whether it was the whole band: my best take on that question is that the whole band was having problems getting along, but everyone agrees that Rick was not being easy to work with. On the other hand, according to all of the band members and co-producers except for Roger, it was only Roger who actually wanted Rick out of the band. Roger says that David and Nick wanted Rick out of the band, too, but everyone else involved has denied this rather strongly. David has gone on record saying that he told Roger that he felt that none of the 4 members of Floyd had the right to dismiss any of the others.
As for why Roger wanted Rick out of the band, one of the most commonly cited reasons for Rick being hounded out of the band is that "he wasn't contributing anything." Animals was the first album he hadn't had any songwriting credits, and he didn't have any songwriting credits on The Wall, either.
I've never bought this story at all though--it just doesn't make sense. I've never heard of someone being kicked out of a band for not contributing to the songwriting. Nick Mason hadn't had any songwriting credits for longer than Rick--since DSotM--and he wasn't kicked out of the band. There are a lot of indications that Dave and Roger were having conflicts during the recording of The Wall and TFC because Dave wanted to contribute more to the songwriting--seems odd that Roger and Dave would have had conflicts because Dave wanted to contribute, but Roger and Rick had conflicts because Rick couldn't or wouldn't contribute. Seems contradictory, no?
To be fair, Roger has denied that he had conflicts with Dave over Dave's desire to write more material--he says that Dave and Rick simply had nothing to contribute, though this account is at odds with that of the rest of the band and producer Bob Ezrin. Roger has also said that the rest of the band was "lazy," and that he felt he was doing all of the work. Fair enough, but since songwriting credits are enormously profitable, Roger stood to make far more money off The Wall than the rest of the band, so it wasn't like he wasn't going to be handsomely rewarded for his work. (Gilmour and Ezrin, by the way, also claim that there are parts they wrote on The Wall that they weren't credited for--for example, Gilmour has often said in interviews that Ezrin wrote the classical guitar piece in "Is There Anybody Out There"; if so, he certainly should have received co-writing credit)
Anyway, another reason that Roger has cited was that Rick's playing wasn't up to par. Now, Rick was having problems at the time (it seems that he was doing cocaine, for example, although it doesn't seem that he was ever any kind of raging addict, especially compared to many other successful rock musicians). But, I also find it very doubtful that he was suddenly unable to effectively play keyboards. Personally, I think that Animals contained some of his best playing ever, and the playing that he does do on The Wall (for example, the synth solo in Run Like Hell) is also very effective, so really doesn't seem likely that he had lost his instrumental ability. Bob Ezrin has stated that Roger simply wasn't satisfied with anything Rick was playing--sounds to me more like one of those issues where a personal dispute ends up influencing one's attitude towards other issues. By the way, here's co-producer/engineer James Gutherie on this issue: "Rick did some great playing on that album, whether or not people remember it - some fantastic Hammond parts."
Another issue: the band was using Ezrin and James Gutherie as co-producers with Waters and Gilmour. Originally, Rick had wanted to participate in the production as well, but most of the participants agree that Rick wasn't really doing anything--mostly just showing up in the studio and occasionally voicing his dislike of certain parts. Anyway, Rick ended up being told that he was not participating in the production of the album. This indicates some of the difficulties that the band has had with him, but, again, it doesn't really seem like something a band member would be dismissed for--you'd think that being denied the profitable co-producer position would have been punishment enough. The issue I mentioned above about Rick being unwilling to change his vacation in order to do the keyboard parts early is another example of this kind of thing: the result was simply that a lot of the keys were played by other people, and you'd think that would have been punishment enough without having to get rid of him. It wasn't like the other 3 members, with the possible exception of Nick Mason, were being easy to work with either. All in all, none of these reasons above really add up to me as being a convincing story as to why Rick had to be forced out.
This is my personal best guess: Rick wasn't forced out because he wasn't contributing, but the fact that he wasn't contributing made it possible to force him out, and the fact that he and Roger weren't getting along made it desirable in Roger's eyes to get rid of him. In contrast, Dave wasn't forced out because he was still playing a major role in the band (The Wall would have been a very different record without him), and Nick wasn't fired because he was Roger's best friend in the band. Rick had neither of these advantages. It does seem that Roger and Rick did not have a good personal relationship, and it also seems clear that, around the time of The Wall, Roger was really taking control of the band, and did not want anybody resisting his leadership. It was not just Rick that he was having problems with (around that time, Roger referred to the rest of the band "the muffins"), but it seems that Rick was the one he had the biggest problem with. I suspect that he was outraged by Rick's refusal to change the recording schedule to get an extra bonus, and decided to use his huge leverage as the main author of the album-in-progress to get rid of Rick.
I have huge respect for Roger as an individual and as an artist, but there are a lot of indications that he was on some kind of a power trip during the last few years of his tenure with PF, and I think that that his insisting that Rick leave the band is evidence of this. I've tried to see his side of the story, but in this particular case, I personally believe he was making a very shortsighted decision. I also think that Roger didn't see a future in PF, and felt that by taking complete artistic control of the band and then breaking it up, he would be able to embark on a solo career that would be seen as a continuation of Pink Floyd. If PF was to stay together, Rick's loss would have been enormous, considering his past contributions and influence on their sound, but if they were to soon break up, his loss wouldn't have mattered as much.
As it turned out, PF would make only one more album with Waters at the helm, and it was virtually a solo record. It would have been interesting to hear what TFC would have sounded like with Rick Wright on keys, but judging from the very minimal contributions by Gilmour and Mason on that album, Wright probably wouldn't have contributed much to it either.
Edited By mabewa on 1168833798
- whong - 01-15-2007 02:26 AM
Wow...that's a hell of a post, mabewa....very well thought out and presented. I'd say you've nailed it!
- Evander - 01-15-2007 06:08 AM
Dang that is a lot of information. Thanks mabewa that clears up a lot.
- mabewa - 01-16-2007 05:27 PM
Thanks guys. Safe to say, it was a pretty complex situation, and there is more than one side to the story!
- Sir Frankie Crisp - 02-08-2007 01:09 PM
Excellent post mabewa.
And if Roger really did intend to break up PF then have his own solo career as the replacement, it goes a long way to explaining why he loathes the post-Waters Floyd so much. Really blew up in his face.
- Evander - 02-09-2007 04:32 AM
I have a lot of respect for Roger but it seems like he always has to have his way like a little kid or something. But I'm sure hes matured a lot since then.
- mabewa - 03-16-2007 10:58 PM
By the way, on this subject, here's a pretty extensive article. It's kind of sad to read, actually, but it does have a lot of information about Rick's "firing."
http://www.rogerwaters.org/25/mojoart.html
- Delicate Sound - 03-17-2007 05:56 PM
Rick was considered a "hired musician" during the touring for the Wall and he is actually the only member of the band who made some money off the tour at the time.
- IbanezIsTheColour - 03-17-2007 06:31 PM
All I can say is, damn mabewa, you know your Floyd.
- Sir Frankie Crisp - 03-17-2007 07:21 PM
mabewa Wrote:By the way, on this subject, here's a pretty extensive article. It's kind of sad to read, actually, but it does have a lot of information about Rick's "firing."That is a truly excellent article. Very enlightening in terms of how The Wall was made.
http://www.rogerwaters.org/25/mojoart.html
- mabewa - 03-17-2007 07:31 PM
Thanks for the comments. By the way, here are a couple of quotes from the article above that I find to be particularly revealing:
Dave:
Quote:...his position in the band to me was sacrosanct. My view, then and now is, if people didn't like the way it was going it was their option to leave. I didn't consider that it was their option to throw people out.
Bob Ezrin:
Quote:Ezrin - I felt that so much pressure was being put on Rick that it was virtually impossible for him to live up to expectations. It was almost as though he was being set up to fail. Under the circumstances I don't see how anybody could have survived.
What I found sad, by the way, about this article was that in 1999 when the article was published, Rick was still pretty obviously messed up over the events of 20 years earlier, and Roger was unable to consider that there had been anything the matter with his behavior towards Rick. Hopefully, things have gotten a lot better since then... but it doesn't surprise me that Rick still seems unwilling to work with Roger without David's presence.
- Delicate Sound - 03-17-2007 07:38 PM
There has always been talk of Rick having some trouble with the nose candy.
But I heared it's all bullsh*t.
I heared he was having too much fun sailing his boat around the Mediterranean.
- Khaz - 03-18-2007 03:35 PM
Lol we can disscuss this all we like but it all boils down to one simple fact. Drum role if you please.....
Roger Waters was a bigheaded egotistical megalomaniac. Fact.
- The Painter Piper and Prisoner - 04-11-2007 02:58 PM
whong Wrote:Wow...that's a hell of a post, mabewa....very well thought out and presented. I'd say you've nailed it!please ??? its all information off of the internet..........lol :laugh:
- mabewa - 04-12-2007 07:45 AM
Uh, I know that some people copy and paste stuff off Wikipedia, but I don't. I won't make any great claims on my writing, but you won't find the above blurb anywhere else, because I wrote it on this forum.
As for getting stuff off the Internet, it CAN be a good source of information if you are careful, but you have to check your sources even more than you do with printed material. The majority of my information comes from books (Nicholas Schaffner, Vernon Finch, Nick Mason, etc.) magazine articles, interviews, etc. that I've collected over the years. If I use the Internet as a source, it's generally to find magazine articles that appeared originally in print.
- pinkfloydrocksmysocks - 07-17-2007 10:37 AM
i read Pink Floyd "inside out" by Nick Mason and it said Rick wanted to be a producer and not play keyboard.Roger didn't want that.Roger got all mad and told rick after the wall Rick would have to leave the band and Rick said fine. End of story.[B]
- Pros and Cons - 07-17-2007 04:31 PM
I'm late on this but, thanks for the great posts mabewa! Thanks for taking the time to type that all out for us. I appreciate the information and your perspective. Beautifully written as well.
- mabewa - 07-17-2007 05:27 PM
Thanks Pros and Cons!
Quote:i read Pink Floyd "inside out" by Nick Mason and it said Rick wanted to be a producer and not play keyboard.Roger didn't want that.Roger got all mad and told rick after the wall Rick would have to leave the band and Rick said fine. End of story.[B]
Actually, Rick wanted to be one of the producers on The Wall, and that was indeed one of the several sources of conflict that came up in this story. But, nowhere in "Inside Out" does it say that Rick "didn't want to play keyboards." Rick didn't want to give up his vacation to come back to The Wall sessions and put down his keyboard parts early, as Roger wanted him to do, but there is no indication that he didn't want to play keyboards at all... he just wanted to do it on the timeline that the band had originally agreed on.
Also, it's true that Rick ultimately agreed to leave the band, but it's considerably more complicated than "Rick said fine."
- Xfilian - 07-23-2007 08:43 AM
Khaz Wrote:Lol we can disscuss this all we like but it all boils down to one simple fact. Drum role if you please.....I think you will find that Roger had presented The Wall to the band at a time when no other members had any material to offer (certainly not a full albums worth). The band were in a bad financial way and Roger was working hard to try and get The Wall complete. Rick was uncoperative in the making of the record, even though he stood to benefit financially from the album as well as Roger and the other band members who were helping. How would you feel in Roger's situation, after you had given the band a life line in financial terms and had worked bloody hard to bring the project to the fore, only to be told by Rick - who had done little up to that point - that he was on holiday and was not prepared to lay down some keyboard parts? Pretty pi$$sed off I would imagine. Even Dave has said that Rick had contributed nothing to The Wall and he was not happy with him.
Roger Waters was a bigheaded egotistical megalomaniac. Fact.
It very easy to jump on the 'bad old egotistical Roger' bandwagon but I would encourage you to analyse the situation a bit more carefully before jumping to a cliched conclusion.
Edited By Xfilian on 1185209116
- chromeboomerang - 08-12-2007 04:15 AM
Anyone notice Roger's bass sound on Brick's was 10 times heavier than Gene Simmons sound on Destroyer album? Same producer by the way.
- mabewa - 08-12-2007 07:42 PM
Quote:The band were in a bad financial way and Roger was working hard to try and get The Wall complete. Rick was uncoperative in the making of the record, even though he stood to benefit financially from the album as well as Roger and the other band members who were helping. How would you feel in Roger's situation, after you had given the band a life line in financial terms and had worked bloody hard to bring the project to the fore, only to be told by Rick - who had done little up to that point - that he was on holiday and was not prepared to lay down some keyboard parts? Pretty pi$$sed off I would imagine. Even Dave has said that Rick had contributed nothing to The Wall and he was not happy with him.
Listen, you're defending the undefensible here. Roger had no right to force Rick Wright out: as Dave Gilmour said himself, no member had any right to fire any of the others, regardless of how much they were contributing to individual albums. Destroying the classic lineup of one of the best bands in the world is just wrong, period, and from the statements Roger has made recently about the incredible chemistry that the Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright lineup had together, I'm almost sure that he now regrets it himself.
About Rick's refusing to curtail his vacation: the band had a previous agreement about when they were going to record an album and when they were going to have vacations. The record company suddenly offered the band a bigger percentage of the earnings of the album if they were to finish the album earlier, which required that Rick curtail his vacation if they were to meet the new deadline. Now, I can see Roger's point of view here, but I can also see Rick's point of view: he WAS fulfilling his commitment that he had made with the band. If my co-workers were to tell me tomorrow that I should lose my summer vacation that we had already agreed on, in order for the company to make more money, I would simply refuse. I think that most people, in the same situation, would do the same.
But, even if we take the point of view that Roger had a right to break the agreement that the band had made previously by demanding that Rick curtail his summer vacation, Rick's losing the chance to play a lot of the keys on the album should have been punishment enough--if you've ever been in a band, you'll know how humiliating it is for other people to be playing your parts. Forcing Rick out of the band was going WAY too far, as it meant that the classic PF lineup no longer existed, and would never exist again.
Was that worth making a little more $$$? I think not.
- whong - 08-12-2007 08:32 PM
Odd thing is, and remains.....why then did Roger have so little problem with Rick coming out on the road and doing The Wall shows? It's not like they toured with older material that Rick was more involved in......and Rick's contributions, from what I can hear, were quite good in those Wall performances. Weird time for the band.
Any opinions about this?
- mabewa - 08-13-2007 05:00 PM
That's a good question, Whong.
One possibility is that Roger (or others) worried that having PF playing shows without an original member would affect ticket sales. I mean, while the members of PF were pretty faceless, I think that the general public (at least those who realized that Pink Floyd was not a guy!) did realize that there were 4 of them. If suddenly only 3 of them were playing, it might have drawn attention to the fact that the band was falling apart. I know that, when one of my favorite bands loses a member, I often find myself less willing to buy an album or a concert ticket.
A different, but possibly relevant factor: the leaving clause that Rick signed apparently had a clause in it that prevented him from ever rejoining the band. Roger might have felt that, since Rick was ousted from the band permanently, it wouldn't hurt to have him play on the tour, knowing that he wouldn't be able to come back later.
You point out that Rick's contributions to The Wall shows were quite good... as I argue above, I don't think that Rick's playing ability was ever an issue here. One would have to be insane or deaf to argue that he wasn't playing well on Animals, and people don't suddenly lose their playing ability. If he played well doing the technically demanding Wall shows, there is no reason why he couldn't have been playing well on the album. Safe to say, from my point of view, whatever the issue was, it WASN'T playing ability.
Edited By mabewa on 1187053432
- whong - 08-14-2007 11:09 AM
Well....you have to hand it to Floyd for always being so low key and secretive. No one at the time really knew what was going on behind the scenes with the band members. It just wasn't public knowledge. I was fortunate enough to have seen one of The Wall shows, kind of as a late 18th birthday/early H.S. graduation present, and had no idea about the situation between Rick and Rog........no one did!
It wasn't until 'The Final Cut' was released that I was totally shocked to notice Rick's name wasn't on the back cover credits! That was probably a big reason why I didn't really embrace the album for quite some time afterwards, although now, years later, it's one of my favorites......even though I still wish Rick had been involved and David had more musical influence. *sigh* What might have been.......
edit: I'd also like to add that in my opinion, Rick showed a lot of class in giving such good performances, in spite of whatever personal problems he may have had at the time, and what was surely an awful point in time for a band on the verge of collapsing. That he made money off the shows probably didn't hurt, but you can hear his playing throughout those shows on the various bootlegs and ITAOT.....lots of great moments! ABITW, pt 1, the extended soloing on 'Young Lust', 'Goodbye Blue Sky', 'Mother', the solo in RLH.......his playing ability was not in question, that much is clear. I think his ability to sit down and compose material during the album's construction, plus the friction with Waters(with Roger probably just not willing to even entertain using anything he attempted to do), were probably the big issues more than anything else.
To add, I never bought into that spewage of Gilmour's that he had to bring Nick, and especially Rick, "back to being functioning musicians". There's just something there that doesn't click for me. It was probably just more of a convenient loophole for him to justify having used so many session players on 'Lapse'. I know this opens up a whole can of worms in terms of Floydian debate, and this might not be the best thread for it..... it's probably something the fans will only ever be able to speculate about. As much as I admire and respect Gilmour(and all the members), I think he's full of **** in this one instance......
Edited By whong on 1187120832
- cevor - 08-17-2007 05:58 AM
I don't know whong, the idea that they had to be "brought back" is totally believable to me...Nick and Rick were so run over by the disputes and power struggles between Roger and Dave it may well have seemed that they were just going through the motions in the writing process leaving live performances their only oppourtunity to "shine"....
- Never Fear 33 Is Here - 08-17-2007 07:53 AM
mabewa Wrote:Problem with that is, they weren't making a company more money, they were making themselves more money.Quote:The band were in a bad financial way and Roger was working hard to try and get The Wall complete. Rick was uncoperative in the making of the record, even though he stood to benefit financially from the album as well as Roger and the other band members who were helping. How would you feel in Roger's situation, after you had given the band a life line in financial terms and had worked bloody hard to bring the project to the fore, only to be told by Rick - who had done little up to that point - that he was on holiday and was not prepared to lay down some keyboard parts? Pretty pi$$sed off I would imagine. Even Dave has said that Rick had contributed nothing to The Wall and he was not happy with him.
Listen, you're defending the undefensible here. Roger had no right to force Rick Wright out: as Dave Gilmour said himself, no member had any right to fire any of the others, regardless of how much they were contributing to individual albums. Destroying the classic lineup of one of the best bands in the world is just wrong, period, and from the statements Roger has made recently about the incredible chemistry that the Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright lineup had together, I'm almost sure that he now regrets it himself.
About Rick's refusing to curtail his vacation: the band had a previous agreement about when they were going to record an album and when they were going to have vacations. The record company suddenly offered the band a bigger percentage of the earnings of the album if they were to finish the album earlier, which required that Rick curtail his vacation if they were to meet the new deadline. Now, I can see Roger's point of view here, but I can also see Rick's point of view: he WAS fulfilling his commitment that he had made with the band. If my co-workers were to tell me tomorrow that I should lose my summer vacation that we had already agreed on, in order for the company to make more money, I would simply refuse. I think that most people, in the same situation, would do the same.
But, even if we take the point of view that Roger had a right to break the agreement that the band had made previously by demanding that Rick curtail his summer vacation, Rick's losing the chance to play a lot of the keys on the album should have been punishment enough--if you've ever been in a band, you'll know how humiliating it is for other people to be playing your parts. Forcing Rick out of the band was going WAY too far, as it meant that the classic PF lineup no longer existed, and would never exist again.
Was that worth making a little more $$$? I think not.
RE: - mikinik - 07-03-2008 11:53 AM
Roger was being a royal pain in the arse.
It's too bad he chose this route. The man is a creative genious and I respect that part of him. I was one of those fans who finally felt things went back to normal when Rick was a bonifide member of Pink Floyd once again.
That was a very cathartic moment for a lot of us Floyd fans.
Things seem amicable now though. I don't think Roger and David are "best friends" but from what we have seen on DVD's and interviews they are being civilized and that's a good thing.
Bob
RE: - mabewa - 07-03-2008 05:47 PM
cevor Wrote:I don't know whong, the idea that they had to be "brought back" is totally believable to me...Nick and Rick were so run over by the disputes and power struggles between Roger and Dave it may well have seemed that they were just going through the motions in the writing process leaving live performances their only oppourtunity to "shine"....
It's always been believable to me, too.
RE: - silverpot - 07-04-2008 10:59 AM
RE: - The Third Little Pig - 07-25-2008 10:12 AM
Sir Frankie Crisp Wrote:That was a great read. The whole thing sounds so damn nasty.mabewa Wrote:By the way, on this subject, here's a pretty extensive article. It's kind of sad to read, actually, but it does have a lot of information about Rick's "firing."That is a truly excellent article. Very enlightening in terms of how The Wall was made.
http://www.rogerwaters.org/25/mojoart.html
Also, how were these guys having financial troubles? Shouldn't they have had an absolute tonne of money?
RE: Rick being fired - How did this happen? - Wings on the Pig - 07-25-2008 10:15 AM
I think they first got financial troubles because of the cost of The Wall project, what with the film and then the massive stage show with props and the bricks e. t. c.
The ironic thing was, they didn't actually make a profit from the shows and, as Rick was not officially in the band, he was the only one who didn't suffer, while Roger, who had pushed him out, had to recuperate massive losses.
RE: Rick being fired - How did this happen? - mabewa - 07-28-2008 06:30 AM
Wings on the Pig Wrote:I think they first got financial troubles because of the cost of The Wall project, what with the film and then the massive stage show with props and the bricks e. t. c.
The ironic thing was, they didn't actually make a profit from the shows and, as Rick was not officially in the band, he was the only one who didn't suffer, while Roger, who had pushed him out, had to recuperate massive losses.
Yes, Roger shot himself in the foot. And, not only because kicking Rick out meant that the losses had to be spread out among three people instead of four.
The real mistake was that by kicking Rick out, he broke up the classic PF lineup. The Waters/Gilmour/Mason lineup and the Gilmour/Mason/Wright lineup would make some good music, but things would never be the same again. The way Roger has been talking in interviews recently, talking about how much Rick contributed to the PF sound, I think he realizes what a big mistake he made. We may never hear him admit it, but I think he knows it.
RE: Rick being fired - How did this happen? - floydfan716 - 07-28-2008 12:19 PM
mabewa Wrote:Wings on the Pig Wrote:I think they first got financial troubles because of the cost of The Wall project, what with the film and then the massive stage show with props and the bricks e. t. c.
The ironic thing was, they didn't actually make a profit from the shows and, as Rick was not officially in the band, he was the only one who didn't suffer, while Roger, who had pushed him out, had to recuperate massive losses.
Yes, Roger shot himself in the foot. And, not only because kicking Rick out meant that the losses had to be spread out among three people instead of four.
The real mistake was that by kicking Rick out, he broke up the classic PF lineup. The Waters/Gilmour/Mason lineup and the Gilmour/Mason/Wright lineup would make some good music, but things would never be the same again. The way Roger has been talking in interviews recently, talking about how much Rick contributed to the PF sound, I think he realizes what a big mistake he made. We may never hear him admit it, but I think he knows it.
i think he knows it too. because if he didn't he wouldn't be giving rick the credit he deserves.
RE: Rick being fired - How did this happen? - chromeboomerang - 08-11-2008 08:00 PM
Agreed Mab. Here's an interesting 1971 interview where the lady asks them if they have a "tremendous musical rapport" with each other. Interesting the responses they give.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL1B7...eature=related
RE: Rick being fired - How did this happen? - Arnold's hobby - 09-06-2008 05:35 PM
There's something wrong with that link - I think you meant this interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL1B7gMMzl8
This is a fascinating thread. I always heard bits and pieces of the story of PF's breakup, this fills in some of the blanks. I was heartbroken when the "classic lineup" fell apart. I think in the early years, they were known as a very democratic band, with no front man, and that was a very successful strategy for them. When Roger started taking charge, that dynamic changed.
I never saw them in concert until the post-Roger days, in 1987. They had a whole army of musicians on stage, which made sense to me because in the studio there is so much overdubbing. During the DSOTM/WYWH/Animals years, was it just the 4 of them on stage?
RE: Rick being fired - How did this happen? - mabewa - 09-10-2008 04:51 PM
Arnold's hobby Wrote:There's something wrong with that link - I think you meant this interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL1B7gMMzl8
This is a fascinating thread. I always heard bits and pieces of the story of PF's breakup, this fills in some of the blanks. I was heartbroken when the "classic lineup" fell apart. I think in the early years, they were known as a very democratic band, with no front man, and that was a very successful strategy for them. When Roger started taking charge, that dynamic changed.
I never saw them in concert until the post-Roger days, in 1987. They had a whole army of musicians on stage, which made sense to me because in the studio there is so much overdubbing. During the DSOTM/WYWH/Animals years, was it just the 4 of them on stage?
Before DSotM, it was just the four of the onstage. After that, they added Dick Parry on sax and the female backing singers. For the Animals tour, they also added Snowy White on guitar and bass. By the time The Wall shows came around, they had 12 musicians on stage included the members of Floyd, the same number as they had in the post-Waters band.