Most tribute bands are content with nailing their heroes’ parts to the point of uncanny believability. Floyd Nation, however, are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Wish You Were Here by asking, “What if there was more story to tell?”
Pink Floyd’s ninth album is dominated by the nine-part epic, Shine on You Crazy Diamond, a tender tribute to troubled co-founder Syd Barrett. But Floyd Nation – inspired by David Gilmour’s comments on his desire for tribute bands to put their own spin on things – have set out to expand on the original album’s complex narrative.
Inner Light, recorded in the same Abbey Road studio where the original was tracked, delivers three new original songs for a unique director’s cut of the classic album.
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“I consider I Wish You Were album a complete work,” says Floyd Nation guitarist Brendon McDonnell. “Musically and conceptually, it’s brilliant. The album ends almost like a funeral dirge with Shine Part IX; it’s such a tragedy. Then they throw a gratuitous G major chord.”
That chord, McDonnell notes, offered a hint of a happier ending. That’s where instrumental track Shine Zero, the first of their three new compositions, comes in. By starting on that G major but climaxing in G minor, it closes a continuous loop that connects all the Shine On songs, with McDonnell’s clean and weeping solo the thread that binds them.
“I wanted to end on a note of hope,” he says. “If the whole album is a longing for Syd and a testament to lunacy and losing somebody, First Light / Pale Diamond Eyes – the second new track – is Syd’s response to that.”
The third, Watching the Sunrise, features another heart-wrenching, this time fuzz-flecked guitar solo, and embraces the concept that new dawns will follow even the darkest of nights.
Yet, as intriguing as the project is on paper, they know they’re stepping onto sacred ground. Some may think they’re sacking the church rather than praying at its altar. “I expected almost everybody to be like, ‘Who are you to do this?’” McDonnell admits. “But we’re coming from a place of deep appreciation – and also throwing a little bit of our own feelings in there.”
To pull it off he needed to embody Gilmour better than anyone else has. But notably, they weren’t laser-focused on tracking down a period-correct Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face.
Gilmour has said he likes to crank his amp cranked so that “you can lean back and the volume will stop you from falling backward.” That mentality – and the emotional resonance of his playing – mattered more to McDonnell than the gear itself.
“His tone is characterized by a super-loud and powerful clean sound that’s enhanced by various pedals,” he says. “That’s always been my directive: to get a really great, punch-you-in-the-gut clean sound, and use whatever pedals will do the task.
“We all use Axe-Fx amp modelers, but I identified pretty early that I couldn’t get that amp-in-the-room response out of it. It’s amazing for delays, reverbs, and choruses; I just had to find an amp to integrate. I’ve been a Mesa/Boogie guy all my life, so I used the Heartbreaker with a power booster.”
The Heartbreaker was so loud it vibrated some components loose!
That, scrupulous tone cork-sniffers will realize, is far removed from Gilmour’s preferred Hiwatt DR103. It typifies the band’s commitment to “knowing the rules, and therefore how to break them”.
The Heartbreaker, though, met a gruesome fate at Abbey Road while recording the Shine Part I solo. “I walked into the booth and I was like, ‘Oh my God! You hear how loud the amp is in there?’ But it was so loud that it vibrated some components loose!”
It’s been replaced by a Mesa Mark VII, which sits in the middle of a complex hybrid rig that splits the signal between the modeler, the Mesa and his pedalboard. “Once the signal goes through the time-based processing, it comes out into a stereo wet.
“But the signal also feeds into my amp without the time-based effects, keeping the compressors, EQs, drives and fuzzes, putting out a mono signal. It’s like a wet/dry/wet, except the wet also has the dry in it. It’s a huge, enveloping sound.”
I’m not trying to be Gilmour. I’m emoting
Going into all of that calculated chaos is an extremely weighty 1973 Blonde Fender Strat. “It has a 7.25” radius, so you’ve got to really hold on to it and dig into it. I’ve had a PRS on stage maybe to play Money, and an Ibanez JEM, but they didn’t feel right. You need a guitar that’s fighting you back.”
The Strat has gone through six different pickup changes before landing on a Lollar set wound to resemble Gilmour’s beloved EMGs. Beyond that, McDonell says “the strings make a huge difference.”
“I’ve gone through so many different kinds. I found the Ernie Ball Cobalts have this gnarliness that adds to the gnarliness of my Strat. I’ve been Frankensteining sets together. Having 0.12 and 0.16 for the B and G strings [versus 0.13 and 0.17] makes all the difference to my bends.”
No technique is as personal as a bend; so McDonnell had to find a balance between sounding like his new solos could have come from Gilmour’s fingers, without forgetting whose digits they were really coming from.
“I’m not trying to be Gilmour,” he says. “I’m emoting. Bending is the ultimate expression on guitar – there’s so much to be said in that up-and-down motion, and all the nuances come from where you are in that moment.”
He warns others wanting to nail Gilmour’s bends: “You’ve got to slow down. Give the bend the time to reach where it needs to be, and when you get it up there, don’t vibrato it like crazy; let it coalesce into its own thing. Let the bend guide you.”
