As Pink Floyd's drummer, Nick Mason was the only member who was ever present in the band, from its earliest incarnation as a Syd Barrett-led blues outfit through its prog rock titan heyday to its eventual demise in 1985.
Mason was born in Birmingham in 1944. It was while studying architecture that he first encountered Roger Waters and Rick Wright. The three began playing together in 1963 as Sigma 6, then the Screaming Abadabs, before joining up with Syd Barrett to form the band that would eventually become Pink Floyd.
Floyd would make up the majority of Mason’s career for the next few decades, save for the occasional extra-curricular foray as producer for Gong, The Damned and Robert Wyatt, among others. Towards the end of Pink Floyd’s four decade run, he began to explore other outlets, releasing his first solo album, Fictitious Sports, in 1981.
Post Floyd’s break-up, Mason primarily occupied himself with motor racing and getting his helicopter pilot’s license. He occasionally reunited with his former bandmates on their solo exploits, playing on some dates of Roger Waters’ Dark Side Of The Moon tour, playing with Gilmour on an instrumental Pink Floyd record in 2014 and reuniting with both for Floyd's Live 8 performance.
Around 2017, Mason was approached by former Blockhead Lee Harris and ex-Floyd bassist Guy Pratt with a view to putting together a band to celebrate Pink Floyd’s earlier psychedelic albums. Gary Kemp (Spandau Ballet) and Dom Beken (The Orb) rounded out the band, soon christened Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets after the 1968 Floyd album of the same name.
Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets are Nick Mason, Gary Kemp, Guy Pratt, Lee Harris and Dom Beken and they play Pink Floyd’s celebrated and significant early body of work including tracks from the era of 1967’s 'The Piper At The Gates of Dawn' through to 1972’s ‘Obscured By Clouds’ which has included a much lauded rendition of the 23 minute epic ‘Echoes’. In February 2024 the group announced the Set The Controls tour for June, kicking off in Stoke before visiting York, Nottingham, Bristol and more.