About Nick Mason
Nicholas Berkeley Mason CBE is an English drummer and a founder member of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. He has been the only constant member since the band's formation in 1964, and the only member to appear on every Pink Floyd album. He co-wrote Pink Floyd compositions including "Echoes", "Time", "Careful with That Axe, Eugene" and "One of These Days".
In 2018, Mason formed a new band, Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets, to perform music from Pink Floyd's early years. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 as a member of Pink Floyd. Mason collects classic cars and competes in motorsport races, and has produced books and documentaries on the subject.
Mason was born on 27 January 1944 in Birmingham to Ailsa Sarah and Bill Mason, a documentary filmmaker; one of his paternal great-grandfathers was Rowland Hill Berkeley, who was Lord Mayor of Birmingham in 1904–1905.
Mason was brought up in Hampstead, London, and attended the Hall School, Hampstead, and Frensham Heights School, near Farnham, Surrey. While studying architecture at the Regent Street Polytechnic , he formed a band, Sigma 6, an early incarnation of Pink Floyd, with Roger Waters, Bob Klose and Richard Wright in 1964. In September 1963, Waters and Mason moved into a flat near Crouch End in London, owned by Mike Leonard, a part-time tutor at the nearby Hornsey College of Art and the Regent Street Polytechnic. Mason moved out after the 1964 academic year.
Pink Floyd released their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, in 1967. Mason has played on every Pink Floyd album since. The only Pink Floyd compositions credited solely to Mason are "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party Parts 1–3" and "Speak to Me" . The track "Nick's Boogie" was named after him.
The only occasions on which Mason's voice has been included on Pink Floyd's albums are "Corporal Clegg"; the single spoken line in "One of These Days"; and spoken parts of "Signs of Life" and "Learning to Fly" from A Momentary Lapse of Reason. He does, however, sing lead vocals on two unreleased but heavily bootlegged tracks, "Scream Thy Last Scream" , penned by original group leader Syd Barrett, and "The Merry Xmas Song" . In live performances of the song "Sheep", Mason delivered the spoken section.
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