David Gilmour Biography, Age, Height, Weight, Family, Wife, Children, Facts, Wiki & More

While David Gilmour was in his teens, Gilmour started learning to play the guitar, and from 1962 to '66, he played in a band called Joker's Wild. After he left the band, he traveled around Europe as a busker for a year. He barely made enough to live, however, and was hospitalized for malnutrition.

 

Late in 1967, Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason asked Gilmour to join the band. Founding guitarist Syd Barrett was floundering because of heavy psychedelic drug use, and the group hired Gilmour as a second guitarist to cover for him. Barrett left the band in early 1968, leaving Gilmour to become the lead guitarist and vocalist.

 

The band achieved enormous commercial success with albums like The Dark Side of the Moon, and Waters began to assert greater authority and control. Waters wrote the bulk of Animals and The Wall without first getting input from his bandmates, and tensions mounted. Gilmour felt that his talents weren't being utilized, so he began working on his own projects. In 1978, after recording Animals with Pink Floyd, Gilmour released his first solo album. One of the songs written too late to be included on the album became one of Pink Floyd's signature tracks, "Comfortably Numb."

 

The relationship between Gilmour and Waters continued to deteriorate, and Gilmour produced his second solo album, About Face, in 1984. He later said that recording the album was a way to distance himself from Pink Floyd. Gilmour has released four solo albums over the course of his career. In addition to the two that he recorded while with Pink Floyd.

 

While not playing music, Gilmour often takes to the skies. He is a pilot and, for a time, collected antique aircraft auspices of his company, Intrepid Aviation. He has since sold the company but kept a biplane for his personal use.