Pink Floyd began as architecture students plus Syd Barrett
Formed in London in 1965 by Barrett, Mason, Waters, and Wright—with Gilmour arriving as Barrett faded—the band sold more than 250 million records. Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall became cultural furniture; internal splits later left Gilmour and Mason carrying the name.
English rock group Pink Floyd coalesced in 1965 around Syd Barrett's songs, Nick Mason's drums, Roger Waters's bass, and Richard Wright's keys. Barrett-led singles Arnold Layne and See Emily Play and debut The Piper at the Gates of Dawn fixed their psychedelic reputation before David Gilmour joined and Barrett departed. Concept albums of the 1970s turned studio craft into stadium-scale narrative.
Personal strain pushed Wright out in 1981 and Waters in 1985; Gilmour and Mason continued, later rejoined by Wright, and issued further albums under the banner. Sales tallies exceed 250 million worldwide, and those two landmark albums remain the catalogue's steadiest sellers. Waters and Mason had met in September 1962 as architecture students at London Polytechnic, later sharing a Highgate flat that doubled as an early rehearsal world.
Before the famous name, Waters, Mason and fellow architecture student Richard Wright played in a sextet called Sigma 6, and Waters switched to bass only when the guitarist Bob Klose moved into their Highgate flat in 1964. Barrett coined Pink Floyd on the spot when another band called the Tea Set turned up on the same bill, combining the first names of two Piedmont blues players from his record collection. Peter Jenner, a London School of Economics lecturer, spotted them at the Marquee in March 1966, and on 15 February 1967 they signed to EMI for a 5,000-pound advance. See Emily Play reached number 6 in Britain that June; four of their albums later topped the US Billboard 200 and five the UK chart.
Source: Pink Floyd
