AC/DC drummer Chris Slade sat down with Igor Miranda for a new interview and recalled working with Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour.
While discussing his work with Gilmour in the Pink Floyd rocker’s record ‘About Face,’ the drummer was asked about his thoughts on working with Gilmour.
“It was amazing. He’s a great guy, a tremendous guy,” he replied. “[He’s] very generous with his time and with his money. He sold his London house for 2 million pounds and gave it to the homeless, all of it. He’s a very intelligent guy who really thinks about his music and I think that’s what makes him into such a great guitarist is that he really thinks about the stuff he plays.”
He added: “People say to me, ‘Oh Pink Floyd got lucky,’ I say they didn’t get lucky, they got Gilmore. They wouldn’t be anywhere without David Gilmore actually.”
The two rockers worked together back in 1984. It started when Slade received a phone call from Gilmour about forming a band.
“I got this call from Dave Gilmour,” he explained during another interview with Rolling Stone. “It was like, ‘Hello, Chris, Dave Gilmour here.’ I looked at the phone to see if I was hearing correctly. ‘I’m putting a band together. I’d like you to play drums.’ I said, ‘Dave, that is absolutely fantastic. But I’m working with Mick Ralphs’ band.’ They were friends, [he and] Mick Ralphs from Bad Company. He said, ‘That’s all right. Mick is doing it too.’ I thought, ‘Oh, fantastic.’ And I said, ‘OK, Dave. We’ll sort it all out and I’ll see you soon.’ He said we were going to start in about a month or so.”
What’s interesting is that the drummer got another call an hour and a half later, this time from Jimmy Page. “‘Me and Paul Rodgers are putting a band together and we’d really like you to play drums,'” Page told Slade.
“I was like, ‘Oh! Jim, you won’t believe this. An hour and a half ago’ — I was thinking honesty was the best policy — ‘an hour and a half ago, David Gilmour asked me to do a tour and it’s starting in month or so.”
The rocker ended up joining both bands. While Gilmour’s band only ended up doing a few live shows, The Firm made two records, ‘The Firm’ and ‘Mean Business.’
