W&N to publish Pink Floyd insight
06.08.10 | Graeme Neill in The Bookseller

Weidenfeld & Nicolson is publishing a book this autumn giving the inside story to one of Pink Floyd's most iconic albums.
The Making of Pink Floyd: The Wall by Gerald Scarfe will be published on 1st October in hardback, priced £30. W&N non-fiction editor in chief Michael Dover bought world rights from Ed Victor for an undisclosed sum.

The book is authorised by the band with commnentaries by surviving members Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason and written by Scarfe, the illustrator who worked on the album and tie-in movie. Waters writes the foreword to the book.
The book will feature archive material including original storyboards from Alan Parker, the director of the movie, animation cells, concept drawings, models and other material as well as photos of the creation and staging of live performances of The Wall.

Dover said: "Pink Floyd's The Wall is one of the most iconic and imaginative albums in the history of rock music and Gerald Scarfe had a central role in its powerful visual imagery, not only in the original album cover but also in the staging of the live show and the direction of the subsequent film, which has become a cult classic. Inside stories do not come grittier than this with its depiction of towering personalities in constant conflict.
"Somehow Gerald has managed to smooth ruffled feathers and the protagonists of the past cheerfully recall epic battles in the pages of this book. With The Wall about to collapse nightly in all the great cities of North America and Europe over the next year this is a more than timely book."

Scarfe said: "This book is, to a certain extent, a report from a war zone, a personal view of those six years when I worked closely with the band, before and after they broke up. It is also a glimpse of some of the immense body of work I produced with them of which I am immensely proud. I was delighted to get the surviving members of the band, as well as Sir Alan Parker, to share their reminiscences of those times with me."

Roger Waters will be touring The Wall in September 2010 in the United States before a multi-city tour across Europe in spring 2011.