David Gilmour of Pink Floyd appeared on a new episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and talked about his short career in modeling before he got into music.
During the interview, Gilmour was asked about the rumors surrounding his time as a model. “Well, that was my life’s course, but I failed, you know? I had to go for second-best and be a musician,” Gilmour joked.
When asked if he ever truly worked as a model, Gilmour responded “Yeah. I mean… People would offer you money.”
In addition to modeling, Gilmour also worked other jobs. “I was working as a van driver at that moment in time, and my wages as a van driver was £7 a week. No, they weren’t. I’m lying. That was what I got when I first joined Pink Floyd. No, it was £15 a week. True story,” the vocalist admitted. “But I was getting £15 a week for driving a van eight hours a day. One day of modeling, and you get £50. So it’s like… I mean, come on. I mean, these jobs didn’t come flying along all the time. It was a way of building up my resources to buy a new guitar or something that I actually needed.”
Before becoming a member of Pink Floyd, Gilmour spent time busking around France and Spain with friends, surviving by earning food and finding places to sleep. Under those conditions, he was even treated for malnutrition in a hospital. During this time, he had to take on various jobs, including being a driver and assisting a fashion designer.
In a 2003 interview with Record Collector, Gilmour explained how his brief career in male modeling began after his other jobs.
“I was hanging about in London for moments in the mid-’60s. I was getting a little bored with Cambridge. Being in a band, gigging two to five times a week, there wasn’t much money around,” Gilmour explained. “We’d get an average of A320 to A325 a gig to share between six or seven people. Every once in a while, someone I knew would say that they wanted someone to go up to Santa Pod Raceway next week and sit in a stupid motor with stupid clothes on and have your photo taken.”
He also clarified that he wasn’t signed with an agency and only did a few modeling jobs, so he didn’t really consider himself a male model.
Gilmour is currently on tour in support of ‘Luck and Strange’ and is scheduled to perform two more nights at Madison Square Garden in New York City this weekend.
