“I got a phone call from L.A. It’s David going, ‘We’re putting Pink Floyd back together. Would you be interested and available?’” Why David Gilmour’s go-to bassist for the past four decades very nearly didn’t get the gig
Guy Pratt has had an over-four-decade career holding down the low-end for an awe-inspiring list of names, including Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry, Gary Moore, Michael Jackson, Debbie Harry… and the list goes on – not to mention his side hustle as a TV, film, and theater composer.
However, the bassist’s career over the past 38 years has largely been taken up by David Gilmour, who handpicked him as his go-to bass player. Yet, this solid working relationship very nearly didn’t happen.
“The first thing was, I was playing for Dream Academy, and David had produced them. He needed a support band for this one show in Birmingham,” he recounts in a new interview with Premier Guitar.
“He [Nick Laird-Clowes from Dream Academy] said, ‘David’s heard your playing. He thinks you’re amazing. He can’t wait to meet you’ – which of course was just bollocks. So we get up there in Birmingham. I’m terrified.”
But the meeting didn’t turn out as planned… “I went in and just stood in his dressing room, and it was awful. We both stood there with nothing to say until one of us had to walk away. David, being the ranking officer, got to be the one who walked away. And that was the end of it.”
Thankfully, the awkward first meeting didn’t sour the budding relationship, as Gilmour was still adamant about recruiting Pratt as his bassist. “I went on holiday to Thailand and I came back, and there’s all these messages from David.”
He continues, “The first one saying hi, he was doing an Amnesty International concert, the Secret Policeman’s Ball, and he wanted me to play with him and Kate Bush. And there’s another message and another message. ‘Hi Guy, just wondered, it’s next week you know.’ And then, of course, he had to get someone else. I’m like, ‘My god, that was my one shot.’”
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That wasn’t the be-all and end-all of Pratt’s run-in with Gilmour, however. “A while later, David, Rick [Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright], and Nick were saying they were doing a new Pink Floyd album, and I didn’t think any more about it until I got a phone call from L.A.,” he recalls.
“It’s David going, ‘Hi. We’re putting Pink Floyd back together.’ He said, the tour was gonna be a year, and would I be interested and available? So I went, ‘Yes!’ And he said, ‘Oh, not working much, then?’ And that started our relationship of him ribbing me and me constantly falling for it. That’s been the hallmark of our relationship for the last 38 years.”
As for how he typically works with Gilmour, Pratt notes that what he always finds interesting when rehearsing with him is “what he [Gilmour] remembers from bass parts.”
He clarifies, “A lot of the music is so slow and so big and there’s so much space in it. Very often, it’s actually the length of the notes rather than how many notes you’re playing that matters more. With David, and this is something I get with the wisdom of years, every note does count.”
As he aptly points out, in Gilmour’s music, “there’s no need for a sixteenth note on the bass anywhere in this music, ever.”
In other recent Guy Pratt news, the bass phenom has recently talked to Bass Player about what it was like to work on hits such as Madonna’s Like a Prayer and Michael Jackson’s Earth Song.
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