“In Pink Floyd you don’t do that”: What David Gilmour once told bassist Tony Levin after he finished playing
The musician was hired to play bass on the band’s 1987 album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, after Roger Waters’ departure.
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It’s hard to ignore the name Tony Levin when discussing session bassists. He’s played on over 500 albums throughout his career, and his impressive discography certainly reads like a who’s who of music history.
After founding member Roger Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985, Levin was tasked with the responsibility of playing bass on the band’s next album, 1987’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason. But as he reveals in a recent interview with Vulture, stepping into the world of Pink Floyd took a little while to get used to.
“David Gilmour asked me to play bass on the album after Roger Waters famously left the band, thinking it was the end of them,” Levin recalls. “I wasn’t part of any of the band’s intrigue and was thrilled to enter into the world of trying to play appropriately for a Pink Floyd context but also be somewhat myself.”
“I brought out the Chapman Stick, an instrument I can play as a bass. It’s not the most common instrument, but I use it as one of my regular basses. I found David to be a fascinating guy and a real gentleman – a wonderful person to be with.”
Looking back on an exchange he had with Gilmour during one of their early studio sessions, Levin says: “I can remember one instance when I had a long vamp out and I played an extra few notes. I’m not talking about a fast bass riff here; I’m just talking about a couple notes.”
“After the take, when we got together to listen, David smiled and said, ‘Tony, in Pink Floyd you don’t do that extra couple notes until far later.’ I had the right idea, but I did it too quickly. He was silently saying, ‘You don’t know that, but the rest of us do.’”
After about a week of studio sessions, Levin received an invitation to join the band on tour. Though he ultimately declined the offer, Levin acknowledges that his career trajectory might have been quite different had he said yes.
“It was one of those big career decisions, perhaps even my biggest, where I went to stay with Peter [Gabriel]. I’ve never regretted it, but I’m sure my career path would’ve been different had I spent that next year and a half doing Pink Floyd.”
