Pink Floyd's Nick Mason says he and his bandmates were just being difficult when they denied legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick rights to use the band's music in his cult classic 1971 film, A Clockwork Orange.
Mason says that from what he recalls, the band's refusal was more than likely tied to the fact that Kubrick wouldn't work with Pink Floyd for 2001: A Space Odessey a few years earlier in 1968.
"It sounds a bit petulant!" Mason told Uncut in a recent interview. "I don't remember whether he did ask for something from Atom Mother Heart. We'd have loved to have got involved with 2001 — we thought it was exactly the sort of thing we should be doing the soundtrack for."
Indeed, Pink Floyd's star had risen considerably since 2001: A Space Odyssey. Having released the beloved Ummagumma in '69, which peaked at No. 5 in the U.K., and then Atom Mother Heart, which was the band's first No. 1 album in its home country, Pink Floyd was on a hot streak by the time Kubrick began filming A Clockwork Orange.
Legend has it that Kubrick called Roger Waters, asking about Atom Mother Heart, but the director couldn't — or wouldn't — say how he planned to use it. Furthermore, the filmmaker wanted Pink Floyd to let him retain the right to use the albums eponymous suite however he liked.
Waters reportedly told him, "Right. You can't use it."
Mason, more than likely, is planning to perform some music from Atom Mother Heart on his upcoming tour with his Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets band.
The drummer announced the band early this year, saying he plans to tour on music from Pink Floyd's early albums. He says he wanted to do a show that would set him apart from his surviving Pink Floyd bandmates, Waters and David Gilmour, who draw heavily in their lives sets from their band's later work.
The drummer pointed out in July that yet another former member of Pink Floyd touring on the band's hits would be redundant.
"...[Playing] the early Pink Floyd stuff doesn't impinge on what Roger or David do or what [the tribute band] the Australian Pink Floyd do," Mason said. "I could find myself a comfortable niche and do it for the sheer joy."
Mason is the only member of Pink Floyd to appear on every one of the band's early albums and all of its live shows.
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