How Richard Wright profited from being fired by Pink Floyd
Much like The Beatles, Pink Floyd were overcrowded with musical talent. During the band’s formative rise as a psychedelic rock act under the guidance of Syd Barrett, Richard Wright was a salient feature on stage and in the studio, often taking lead vocals and heavily contributing to the foundational songwriting process.
Following Barrett’s tragic mental decline in the mid-1960s, bassist Roger Waters took the reins as the band’s conceptual coordinator and chief songwriter. Meanwhile, replacement guitarist David Gilmour soaked up his portion of the limelight, offering unique melodic flavourings to songs in perfect measure. Approaching the ’70s, it seemed their pianist, synthesiser and occasional singer-songwriter, Wright, had been somewhat eclipsed.
Despite only appearing in the songwriting credits of ten of Pink Floyd’s 217 released songs, Wright was a pivotal force behind some of the band’s most memorable moments during his long-lived tenure. Sadly, these contributions were broadly overlooked as fans beheld the genius craft of Waters and Gilmour.
“It is hard to overstate the importance of his musical voice in the Pink Floyd of the ’60s and ’70s,” Waters said of Wright in a statement following his death in 2008. “He was my musical partner and my friend,” Gilmour added at around the same time. “In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick’s enormous input was frequently forgotten.”
Indisputably, Pink Floyd enjoyed their zenith over the first half of the 1970s with seminal releases like Meddle, The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, setting the bar impossibly high for fellow prog-rockers. As the late 1970s swung by and punk took hold of the rock world, Pink Floyd were at the height of their commercial powers and encountered immense pressure to deliver yet another spellbinding record.
While working on The Wall, Waters’ conceptual brainchild of 1979, Wright was going through a divorce from his first wife, Juliette Gale. With a domineering Waters dictating the band’s every move, a disillusioned Wright opted to spend more time with his children, much to Waters’ despair.
“Both myself and Dave… had little to offer, through laziness or whatever,” Wright admitted in a 2000 interview with Classic Rock. “Looking back, although I didn’t realise it, I was depressed.”
Unimpressed with Wright’s lack of engagement in The Wall sessions, Waters considered suing but ultimately decided it would be easier to fire him at the end of the project, given the band’s difficult financial position at the time.
Between 1980 and ’81, Pink Floyd staged an elaborate world tour in support of The Wall and commissioned Wright as a salaried session musician. Ironically, Wright was the only band member to profit from the tour as he was exempt from the crippling cost of the extravagant stage production.
After Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985, Gilmour and Mason, who continued to perform and record as Pink Floyd, brought Wright back on board. However, his contract terms barred him from rejoining Pink Floyd as an official member, meaning he was listed as an additional session musician on the band’s latter albums.