Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour joined CNN on Monday to talk about why the band decided to record its first track in almost 30 years – a pro-Ukraine song with a soldier’s voice. Ukraine.
Legendary rock band release new single “Hey Hey Rise Up” last week in support of the people of Ukraine, the band said in a statement. It was the first time new music from the band since 1994, and all proceeds will go to Ukraine’s humanitarian relief operation, the statement added.
The song was performed by Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason, with bassists Guy Pratt and Nitin Sawhney on keyboards. The song features Andriy Khlyvnyuk from the Ukrainian band Boombox. The band used the sound of Khlyvnyuk singing in the heart of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, where he performed “a sensational Ukrainian protest song written during World War I that became popular around the world. gender in the past month to protest” against Invasion of Russia.
Gilmour, whose daughter-in-law and grandchildren are Ukrainian, said in the statement that he was moved by Khlyvnyuk’s performance “in a square in Kyiv with this beautiful golden-domed church and… in the stillness of a city with no traffic or background noise because of the war. “
On Monday, Gilmour spoke about how members of his family had sent him a clip of Khlyvnyuk singing that song in the square.
“It’s just a very, very impressive performance and of course, because it’s a cappella and there’s no other instrument to support it. So you can easily take it to the studio and do whatever. there with it,” he said.
Gilmour said at the time he was “very frustrated that I couldn’t do much” for Ukraine. He called Russia’s attack on Ukraine “appalling”.
Gilmour says it’s a “terrible thing going on in Ukraine” and that the song “sees like a great thing to my feet that I can then turn into something positive, I hope Hopefully, let’s do some positive things.”
When asked if he could imagine the band performing live with Khlyvnyuk in the future, Gilmour said, “I certainly wouldn’t rule that out.”
“It would be great if we could make something like that work. And he’s very interested in the idea. I’ve spoken to him several times in the last three weeks,” he added.
Gilmour said that one of the conversations he had with the singer, who was fighting in the war, occurred when “he was lying on a hospital bed and was struck by a mortar shrapnel.”
“He’s there with his big black eye, bandages all over his face. The reality of what he’s living, other people are living there is far beyond what most of us can really understand or believe. that can happen in the world.”
