How did you get into Pink Floyd?

[drafsack]

when I was 12 i went to my mates house and his Dad was playing Dark side really loud. at the time he was playing on the run and I was fascinated with the sound and the explosion at the end and when the alarm clocks went off I was hooked. In December of that year (1974) I saw them live at the Bristol Hippodrome for my Christmas present and managed to see them on every tour since then

[ChickenStu]

Bought the Division Bell when I was 16 - and heard Dark Side Of The Moon at a party at around the same time (I THINK). My brother and cousin went to see them in concert (lucky gits) and it was hearing my brother raving about them that inspired me to check them out. Seeing the PULSE concert on telly had a lot to do with it too. That's when I first heard "Sorrow" and "Comfortably Numb".
Last year when my David Gilmour ticket was confirmed - I celebrated by getting the Discovery box set (I had needed to upgrade my collection for a while - my old CDs were knackered), and all of Gilmour's solo stuff and Waters.
My wife's a huge fan too.

[Koontzamatic]

It was hearing either Dark Side of the Moon or The Wall on the local radio station. Intrigued, I kept my ears peeled for any more output from the band.

The rest, as they say, is history.

[Rooster1]

For me it was being aware of Another Brick on the radio when I was 4 (when it first came out), the later in life when visiting my grandparents house. My uncle had bought a copy of The Wall for my grandfather (who was a little bemused). As a kid of around 6 or 7 years old I would marvel at the graphics on the gatefold whilst listening to the music and wonder just what the hell was going on. My uncle later bought me a copy of The Wall movie which blew my mind. Soon after I wanted to explore this band further so I picked up a cassette of Relics. Once again I was completely blown away - was this the same band? Who was this Syd guy? What are was the front cover image all about? Songs like Bike had nothing to do with In The Flesh and I couldn't match up the two elements. Later on I started to read up on them and got into WYWH and DSOM and I connected it all up.

[Neil]

I was 17 and on a German exchange in Munster. One of the other UK guys and I hung around quite a bit, and we ended up at a basement party at one of the German guy's houses. I remember kicking back with a Grolsch, chatting with the guys, when a song came on that caught my attention, which was High Hopes. I remember the classical guitar mid-section of the song catching my attention as the volume built (it was the PULSE version), and the outro lap-steel solo diverting me again from the conversation around me. To be fair, its not often I hear 'new music' (new to me at any rate) that makes me tune out of what's going on around me and tune in to the song, but this definitely had my attention. Later on, the chorus melody of Comfortably Numb stuck in my mind (although I didn't even hear the rest of the song, just that chorus), and thereafter, when they decided to play the CD again, Shine On... also impressed me, which I was kind of surprised at, as I didn't consider slow, instrumental guitar pieces to be my kind of music, as it felt it somehow encourage introspection.

At any rate, I was intrigued by now, so I asked my UK buddy Steve (to whom Ill be eternally grateful) who was playing. 'Pink Floyd...' he replied, amazed I'd asked. 'Never heard of them,' I countered. 'Yes you have,' he argued. 'You might think you haven't heard of them, but you've definitely heard of them. Or, if you haven't heard their name, you definitely know their music.' I shrugged my shoulders, which prompted him to play ABITW Pt 2, Money and Great Gig, all of which I had indeed heard before. I was kind of stunned Id never made the connection before.

Steve very kindly recorded PULSE to a cassette for me, which he gave me just a few days after we returned home. I remember coming home and putting it straight on, bypassing whatever things I would usually do when I got in. I listened to High Hopes again and loved it. Then I sought out that other song whose melody I loved - Comfortably Numb - and listened to the whole thing properly for the first time. It absolutely blew my mind. I was hooked from that moment on. I bought the PULSE cd that weekend, and the obsession has shown no sign of diminishing since.

I remember after getting the CD trying to find out when they were next on tour, being utterly pissed that Id missed the Division Bell tour by a year, and then, after reading about the band members and their histories, wondering if I'd ever get the chance to see them live. So grateful that, even in a fractured way, I've seen every member play live now.

[justme]

I first heard them when my uncle played 'See Emily Play' for me when I was 11 years old, I'm not 26 and it has been a love affair ever since. A love affair and obsession ever since then. Easily my favourite band but they are more than that, they have been the soundtrack to every single significant moment in my life. It is impossible to put into words how I feel about this band.

[bsk]

A lot of really nice stories here.

I think I had heard tracks from DSotM before (you couldn´t escape them) but I´d not paid much attention to them, but I first got into PF around 1977. I was a relatively new conscript into the SADF and I came across these weird sounds coming from the barracks of a different regiment in the army camp I was in. The sounds were so outside of my orbit then and so so weird in a South African environment, I just had to find out what it was. Turned out the track was was A Saucerful of Secrets and the bloke playing it, Shaun, has been my best mate since then.

The thing that really sticks in my mind from then was the reaction to that, and all the other PF, Genesis, etc. that we listened to. was that abject incomprehensibility displayed on the faces of the Afrikaners around us. For them, only Country & Western existed and what we listened to, for a redneck religious lot, was ¨Die Duiwels Musiek¨ (the devils music).

[Fingals Cave]

When "Another Brick In The Wall" hit number 1 in the UK singles chart in 1979. It knocked "Message In A Bottle" off the top spot, as I remember, and stayed there for weeks.
Who were these guys? Nobody knew anything about them. I instantly loved that mystique. Band that hadn't done singles for years, didn't do interviews or go on TV, and there they are topping the singles and album charts from out of nowhere.
Then I got into heavy rock and didn't hear them for a few years.
A little bit later, pretty much everyone into the herb had at least one of their albums.
I still knew nothing about them until I got Miles' "Visual Documentary" book, and was surprised to find out about Syd, and how crucial they were to the whole London freak scene of the 60s.

[Tazz3]

My older brother is really in to pink floyd he seen them live the animals concert and the wall concert
So he got me in to them there aweaome

[A Syd Casualty]

Until the late 80s I only knew Another Brick. I was a punk when it was out so PF was a band you were supposed to hate.

In July 1988 they played a football stadium in my home city of Manchester and there was a very interesting interview with DG and NM in the NME the same week so I took the plunge and bought DSOTM and instantly thought Time was one of the best songs I'd ever heard. Then got Animals out of the library and bought the Wall too and eventually all their other albums.

[ArastasHatchet]

i was born in '87 and had my first Pink Floyd shirt when i walked into kindergarten. and im proud of that. but thats not the question...
when i was 4 or 5, by best friend and close neighbor would steal his older brothers "The Wall" VHS tape, then we would meticulously set up hundreds of little plastic army soldiers and toy tanks and bombers and we would make a type of game out of it (kinda like after Pink trashes the hotel room, and then does that crazy OCD thing with all the debris) but more serious than a game a normal 4 yearold would make up. i knew alotta wierd $h!t about war even younger. my pop told me eeeeeeverything lol. no lie i had no idea that Pink Floyd was a band i thought it was a guy in the movie hahahaha.
fast forward about two years, i was six and i heard pink floydDSOTM from me dad, and i expanded immediatly. as they say, the rest is history