After Animals, Dave and I did solo albums and in that interim Roger wrote the whole of The Wall. All credit to him but I think he came to view that he’s written his solo project

That first solo album came out of my frustration at how drawn out things were becoming in Pink Floyd... before heading back into another Floyd album that took even longer [laughing] … »The Wall »!

Storm had already been pushed out a little bit by then. (…) But I think it culminated in Hipgnosis putting 'Animals' into a book of album covers and saying it was theirs and didn't put in that it was from an idea by Roger. Roger's keen quest for credit on everything at the time made him rather upset.

I’ve never known what the reason was. Apparently it was something to do with a caption in that book, but I don’t know if that’s really true. 

It also had something to do with arguments about ownership of photos. Whatever the reasons, it became an established fact

I rather fell out with Storm when he included that sleeve in a book of their album designs, because it had nothing to do with them. Except that they called me up and said, «No hard feelings, but you

are going to need lots of photographers for the day when you put the balloon up in the sky, would you like us to organise the photographers for you ?». So when subsequently they tried to take the whole thing over I was kind of pissed off about that

We didn't have a big falling-out, I just said, « What the fuck is wrong with you? It had nothing to do with you! You fucking prick! » That was the end of it for me. I didn't sue them, I didn't demand a retraction. I thought the work Hipgnosis did for us was great. So why did they steal my little contribution?

(…) But we were having problems with Rick - he was sort of there but not there 

Roger and I just couldn't get on. Whatever I tried to do, he would say it was wrong.  It was impossible for me, really, to work with him 

I wanted to work but Roger was making it very difficult for that 

happen. I think he would tell you that I’d lost interest in the band. (…) I didn’t have any material. He might have seen my situation as not having contributed anything, but he wouldn’t allow me to contribute anything

What actually happened was «The Wall» was the first album where 

we didn't divide the production credit between everybody in the band. At the beginning of the process, when I said I was going to bring Bob Ezrin in and he was going to get paid, I said, «I'm going to produce the record as well, so is Dave, so we're going to get paid as well, but Nick, you don't actually do any record production, and Rick, neither do you. So you're not going to get paid». Nick said fair enough yes, but Rick said, « No, I produce the records just as much as you do ».  So we agreed we would start making the record and we would see. But who would be the arbiter ? We all agreed on Ezrin. 

So Rick sat in the studio -he would arrive exactly on time, which was very unusual, and stay to the bitter end every night. One day Ezrin said to me - he was slightly irked by this brooding presence very occasionally going « I don't like that »  « Why's Rick here again ? ».  I said, « Don't you get it? He's putting in the time to prove he's a record producer. You talk to him about it». So he did. After that Rick never came to another session, unless he was directly asked to do keyboard tracks. And he became almost incapable of playing any keyboards anyway. It was a nightmare 

We had agreed to deliver the album at the beginning of October and we 

took a break in August to go on holiday. I sat down with a bunch of sheet music and paper and wrote out all the songs and what was needed and made up a schedule, and it became clear to me that we couldn’t get it finished in the time available. So I called Ezrin, «Would you be prepared to start a week earlier on the keyboard parts with Rick in Los Angeles ?». Eventually he went, «All right. Thanks, pal» -because of the idea of doing keyboard tracks with Rick. I said, «Look, you can get another keyboard player in as well in case it’s stuff he can’t handle, but if you get all that keyboard overdubbing done before the rest of us arrive we can just about make the end of the schedule» 

A couple of days later I got a call from O’Rourke. I said, «Did you speak to Rick?» «Yeah. He said, «Tell Roger to fuck off»». Right, that’s it. 

Here I was doing all this work and Rick had been doing nothing for months and I got «Fuck off». I spoke to Dave and Nick and said, «I can’t work with this guy, he’s impossible», and they both went, «Yeah, he is»

A couple of days later I got a call from O’Rourke. I said, “Did you speak to Rick?” “Yeah. He said, ‘Tell Roger to fuck off.'” Right, that’s it.  Here I was doing all this work and Rick had been doing nothing for months and I got “Fuck off.” I spoke to Dave and Nick (…)

 I could see it was going to be a long and complex process and I

 needed a collaborator who I could talk to about it. Because there's nobody 

in the band that you can talk to about any of this stuff - Dave's just not interested, Rick was pretty closed down at that point, and Nick would be happy to listen because we were pretty close at the time but he's still more interested in his racing cars. I needed somebody like Ezrin who was musically and intellectually in a more similar place to where I was

At the time I was going through a divorce, I wasn't that keen on The Wall anyway, and I didn't have any material. He might have seen my situation as not having contributed everything but he wouldn't allow me to contribute anything

Just sitting around and bickering, frankly. Someone would say, « I don't 

like that one very much » someone else might agree, and then Roger would look all sulky and the next day he'd come back in with something brilliant. He was pretty good about that during « The Wall » 

Rick didn't have any input at all, apart from playing the odd keyboard 

part, and Nick played the drums, with a little help from his friends. And Dave, yeah, Dave played the guitar and wrote the music for a couple of songs, but he didn't have any input into anything else really. We co-produced it, I think, Ezrin and myself - the collaboration with Ezrin was a pretty fertile one, his input was big - and Dave got a production credit - I'm sure he had something to do with the record production; he had very different ideas about that sort of thing. But there was really only one chief, and that was me

Roger was obviously one of the main producers because it was his idea and he was very, very good about many things to do with production, like dynamics. I've always been one of the producers on Pink Floyd records, and while I might not argue with Roger much over lyrics I think I know as much as anyone in or around the band about music and would certainly give my opinions quite forcibly. Bob Ezrin was in there partly as a man in the middle to help smooth the flow between Roger and I, whose arguments were numerous and heated.

We had a studio in the south of France where Rick was staying. 

There rest of us had rented houses 20 miles away. We'd all go home at night, and we'd say to Rick: « Do what you like, here all these tracks, write something, play a solo, put some stuff down. You've got all evening every evening to do it ». 

All the time we were there, which was several months, he did nothing. He just wasn't capable of playing anything

We had a break after we finished recording in France and I went to Greece to see my family. I get a call from Steve saying, «Come to LA immediately, Roger wants you to start recording keyboard tracks.» I said, «I haven’t seen my young kids for months and months, I’ll come on the agreed date». He said, «Fair enough, I understand»

Come the agreed day, Steve met me and said, «Roger wants you out of the band»( … ) So, I made the decision, rightly or wrongly, to leave. But I also made the decision I’m going to finish recording this album and I want to be in the live shows and then we’ll say goodbye

It all came down to Roger's bluff or threat where, because he'd written the material and he had the right to say the album couldn't be recorded or released, he said, « If you don't leave the band then we won't release an album » which was serious because we were nearly bankrupt at the time.  I think Dave and Nick felt really bad about all this, but because of their terrible financial predicament his bluff worked. 

There is no doubt that (…) if we hadn't stayed together The Wall would have been a completely different record, and I can't imagine it would have been better that the thing we created together. There's no doubt that Dave brings a lot to the table with his guitar playing, which is brillant 

Anyway, it was agreed by everybody. In order not to get a long drawn-out thing I made the suggestion that O’Rourke gave to Rick: either you can have a long battle or you can agree to this, and the ‘this’ was you finish making the album, keep your full share of the album, but at the end of it you leave quietly. Rick agreed. 

I had a meeting with Dave in my garden in the South of France at which Dave said, « Let's get rid of Nick too ». I went « Ooh, Dave, Nick's my friend. Steady!» I bet he doesn't remember that. How inconvenient would that be?  

I said, « OK, I'm leaving » However (…) I said I wanted full royalties on the album and I wanted to carry on playing live

The interesting thing about all that is why, if Roger thought I couldn’t perform, why he then said, “OK, that’s fine, you can finish recording and do the live shows.” It’s very weird and bizarre, and it was a time in my personal life – I would say I was confused

Roger and I had lots of discussion because we used to drive to the studio together in France. Nick was working very hard. He learnt how to read drum music and was putting down the tracks with Bob Ezrin and doing a great job. Nick has his limitations as a drummer. Roger says that, but I don't have any memory of that apart from joking about off-loading and gettinf on with it