The Pink Floyd member David Gilmour thought was neglected: “He hasn’t got the credit”

No band can ever be considered a true group of equals. As much as people like the idea of everyone in a rock outfit being a complete democracy, there’s no arguing who calls the shots in The Cure, and anyone trying to pipe up in Nine Inch Nails isn’t going to get much done if it doesn’t have Trent Reznor’s seal of approval. But even for someone who steered the ship of Pink Floyd for so long, David Gilmour felt that some of the most important musicians got lost along the way.

But it’s not hard to see why Gilmour gets praised over the years. He was responsible for some of the most glorious guitar solos ever created, and coming from someone as well-versed in blues before he joined the band, he could make his guitar cry in a way that no one else could when looking at the multi-part solo in ‘Money’ or capturing the pure pain in the middle of ‘Mother’.

Then again, not much of Gilmour’s ingenuity would have been possible had it not been for Roger Waters organising everything. He was more than happy to make sure that everyone got a slice of the pie on Dark Side of the Moon, but it didn’t take long for him to start putting his foot down regarding where certain songs should be. Even if it was a phenomenal tune like Gilmour’s ‘Dogs’, Waters would have rather ditched the song on Wish You Were Here if it didn’t serve the right concept.

At the same time, the challenge over the right concept and the right music has always been an issue. The Wall is among one of the finest pieces that Waters ever came up with, but seeing how he felt he could do everything on The Final Cut, it was clear that he was way over his head when it came time to lead the group. But the real reason The Final Cut has nothing to do with Waters; it’s about Richard Wright, or more specifically, a lack of Richard Wright.

Despite being one of the cornerstone members of the group throughout their career, Wright was let go from the band midway through The Wall after not clicking with what Waters intended to make. He made sure to cut loose and play as well as he could when it came time to tour the record, but that didn’t change Waters’s mind when he decided the band was better off without him. If you take out Wright, though, you take out a crucial part of their sound.

Even in hindsight, Gilmour felt that Wright always got neglected when talking about the most important members of the group, saying, “[Roger] being the lyricist and more of the driving force didn’t ever mean he ought to be in full charge of the direction of the musical side of things. We’ve always had a little bit of tension in those areas. It’s always been the fight between me and Roger, so Rick gets forgotten about a little bit. He hasn’t got quite the credit he should have.”

Granted, the biggest contribution Wright ever brought to the band was his voice. He already had a firm grasp on how to introduce elements of jazz into the band’s repertoire, but whenever the band sang ‘Echoes’ in their prime and he and Gilmour harmonised together, they created that otherworldly sound that every great Pink Floyd song was built upon.

And, really, when Wright passed away in the 2000s, the band’s performance at Live 8 felt like the last time that the true version of Pink Floyd were together. The band will always spring up to use the name when it’s pertinent, but if Waters was the brains behind the group and Gilmour was the heart, Wright was its soul, and there’s no way to replace that whenever they performed live.