David Gilmour Feels the 'Magic' of Working with His Family on His New LP 'Luck and Strange' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

David Gilmour.Photo:Anton Corbijn

Anton Corbijn

OnLuck and Strange, formerPink Floydguitarist and singer David Gilmour’s upcoming solo album, it’s all in the family. His wife, the novelist and journalist Polly Samson, penned the words, and Gilmour’s three grown children — daughter Romany and sons Gabriel and Charlie — made contributions to the record via singing and songwriting. To Gilmour, having his family members on his new album was liberating from what he used to do on his previous solo outings.

“I don’t feel that I have to do things a certain way,” the British rocker, 78, tells PEOPLE. “I don’t have to use a certain type of musician or anything else." He also adds: “There’s something about voices from the same family that I think has a magic to it.”

Showcasing Gilmour’s signature guitar playing and voice that have been synonymous with Pink Floyd for decades,Luck and Strange(out on Friday, Sept. 6) is his first new album in nine years – an occasion he is marking witha string of shows in Rome, London, Los Angeles and New York City beginning on Sept. 27. Gilmour is so enamored with his latest record — which also features veteran musicians such as drummer Steve Gadd and bassist Guy Pratt — that he recently described it as the best work he has done since Pink Floyd’s 1973 masterpieceThe Dark Side of the Moon.

David Gilmour.Anton Corbijn

“The joy I have had making this album, the joy I still have listening to it every day, which I do on every car journey and everything else—I’m still really madly in love with it,” he says ofLuck and Strange. “I think it’s a really fine piece of work. Polly’s lyrics are the best she’s written. Everything is just smiling on me at the moment. I’m really enjoying myself.”

“Romany writes, plays the harp and sings,” he says. “She has a beautiful voice. It’s something that she has earned. Charlie is a great writer himself. He’s written a very good book [Featherhood] and he is writing another one. Polly is an author nonpareil. We had so much fun doing those [livestreams].”

A part of Gilmour’s enjoyment of making the new record can be attributed to producer Charlie Andrew, whose previous credits included indie rock acts Alt-J and Marika Hackman. Andrew’s lack of familiarity with Pink Floyd’s music was interesting to Gilmour, who had previously collaborated with longtime producers Bob Ezrin and Phil Manzanera.

“I felt a new approach was needed,” Gilmour says. “I was talking about my frustrations of finding this perfect person to Polly, and she jumped on the internet and started looking for producers. And she found this Charlie Andrew, who’d won a Mercury Prize. Polly listened to Alt-J and other things he produced and she said, “Hey, listen to this. This is interesting.” So I listened and said, “Yeah, let’s give it a try.” He came down and listened to some things, and declared himself very keen on coming on board.”

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The album’s soulful and bluesy title track poignantly features former Pink Floyd, Richard Wright, on keyboards. It was based on a 15-minute jam recorded at Gilmour’s barn in 2007, a year before Wright’s death at age 65.

“That song was one Polly and I knew well and loved,” says Gilmour. “Polly said, ‘Why don’t you cut a backing track and see where we go?’ So one afternoon, I pieced a rough thing together and sat in front of a microphone with the lyrics and read them and thought, ‘Actually, I’m just not this person in these words. They’re fantastic, but they’re vulnerable and troubled in a way that I don’t think people think I am.’ Polly said, ‘We could get Romany to give it a go.’ She was very grumpy, but eventually sang it and magic happened right there in front of our eyes.”

Also keeping it within the family, Gilmour’s son Gabriel, 27, sings background vocals on the album while his older brother Charlie, 35, has a co-writing credit on the majestic orchestral-laden track “Scattered.” A lyric from that song — “A man stands in a river, pushes against the stream/Time is a tide that disobeys and it disobeys me” —  inspired the album’s cover art.  “He wrote two or three verses,” says Gilmour of Charlie’s contribution, “a couple of the verses are mine, and a bit of other brilliant inserts came from Polly. That idea of the man standing in the river trying to hold back the flow is a very visual and appealing idea.”

The album’s most recent single, the uptempo and rhythmic “Dark and Velvet Nights,” is based on Samson’s poem for the couple’s wedding anniversary. “It was sitting on my desk in my studio room,” Gilmour recalls “I put it down in its demo form and wanted something to sing on it, just to see how words would sound on it. So I picked Polly’s poem up, and it had that serendipitous thing where they just fitted.”

As he is preparing for the upcoming tour, the rewarding experience of makingLuck and Strangehas already inspired Gilmour to make a follow-up record. “I have songs and pieces of music and half-formed things that go back years and years,” he says. “So I’ve got a library of things and I’ve got new songs. Polly and I are both quite keen to get on with doing another one. I know I say that after every album…but we genuinely are going to get on with this, and Polly will push me until we really get on with it.”

Meanwhile, Pink Floyd’s music continues to be more popular than ever, even as the band has been on hiatus. Last year marked the 50th birthday ofThe Dark Side of the Moon,and its follow-up,Wish You Were Here,will celebrate a golden anniversary as well next year. Gilmour, however, is looking ahead rather than back.

“I’m loving what I’m doing [now],” he says, “getting ready to do some shows with a bunch of exciting musicians who are mostly a little bit younger than me, and looking forward to starting on some new work in the new year. So I don’t spend a lot of my time worrying aboutDark Side of the MoonandWish You Were Here’s birthdays, I’m afraid.”

source: people.com