Roxy Music’s guitarist and Pink Floyd producer extraordinaire Phil Manzanera, took time from his busy schedule to catch up with Morning Glory.
Phil Manzanera chatted to Radio Nova’s Morning Glory hosts, Marty Miller & Dee Woods, about Roxy Music’s amazing gig at the Point, Floyd’s new album and Christmas cards.
Manzanera joined Bryan Ferry, Andy Mackay, Brian Eno and Graham Simpsonis in 1972 as the lead guitarist for Roxy Music. He put out his first solo album Diamond Head in 1975, and has gone on to release another seven solo records since then.
The London born musician has worked with several other artists, creating nearly twenty collaboration albums, including latin Grammy nominee Sergio Dias, the experimental rock band 801 and released 4 LPs with multi-instrumentalist Andy Mackay.
He is also a prolific record producer, working on sixteen albums since 1974. Most notably producing David Gilmour’s solo album On An Island and co-producing Pink Floyd’s latest album The Endless River.
Phil spoke about working on the The Endless River, explaining that Gilmour casually asked him,”Do you fancy going down and listening to some stuff?” I think most music fans would have fainted if they were asked that question.
David very modestly remarked to Phil, “Go have a listen, see if it’s any good.” After six weeks of listening to the 1994 session material, Manzanera told Gilmour, “I think we could do an album out of this, here is the template, if you’re interested.”
The Endless River is the band’s first album in twenty years, since 1994′s The Division Bell. It is based on recordings from the same 1994 session and features contributions from deceased keyboard player Richard Wright, who passed away in 2008.
The Endless River sold 6,000 vinyl copies in its first week, making it the highest first-week sales of any vinyl LP since 1997.
Even though the LP has been widely successful, before the recording of the album began, Gilmour was still apprehensive about approaching drummer Nick Mason with the idea.
Manzanera told Dee & Marty about a playful back and forth between himself and David. Gilmour said, “I think there’s possibilities here, you play it for Nick.” Manzanera replied, “No you play it for Nick.” Which of course prompted the response from Floyd’s frontman, “No you play it for Nick.”
Eventually the producer did play the material for Nick and the rest is history.
Before he left Marty asked Manzanera did he send out Christmas cards to all his Roxy Music bandmates, to which he responded “Oh Yes!”
Listen to Dee & Marty’s full interview with Phil Manzanera below.
