The Behaviour on Pink Floyd: Why I Love

By Special Guest on 15th December 2025 • ( Leave a comment )

The Bandcamp bio informs us how The Behaviour is a gothic alternative rock project created by Marshall Kilpatric. The discography includes a trilogy of singles and the new EP, Pedestals which arrives 2025 drew to a close. All songs written, arranged, performed, recorded, and produced by Marshall to provide what he calls “a medicine for melancholy, a remedy for repressed emotions, a sound for the senses.” Stay tuned…

Marshall now joins us to share the way in which Pink Floyd has inspired and shaped his musical direction.

UNPARALLELED

There are numerous artists I could have chosen to answer this question (Swans, The Doors, David Bowie, Jeff Buckley), as it is always difficult to choose just one. But the one that stands out above all others for me is Pink Floyd.

I love Pink Floyd as they have a sound that is unparalleled by and unlike any other music group, especially in rock. Yet they have influenced a countless number of artists, including The Behaviour. They have endured over decades since their inception in the mid 1960’s, and somehow managed to evolve, mature, and expand their sound and vision with every album, while also remaining true to themselves and retaining something that was unique to them alone. You can choose from about four distinctly different eras of theirs, and come away with something entirely different – the Syd Barrett era, the post-Barrett/pre-DSOTM era, DSOTM-Final Cut era, and post-Roger Waters era.

FIRST MEMORIES

I first heard Pink Floyd when I was a young boy, around the age of 8 or 9. My first memory of hearing them was listening to the vinyl record copy of Dark Side Of The Moon that one of my aunts had while I stayed over one weekend. I remember putting on headphones and listening to it as I went to bed, and immediately being taken into another realm and transformed by what I was hearing. Something about it was haunting and unsettling, yet beautiful and soothing at the same time. Nothing musical had made me feel that way before.

Ironically, my parents didn’t own any Pink Floyd albums until A Momentary Lapse Of Reason came out in 1987. That album took me further into their world, and one of the very first CD’s I ever bought was the double live album Delicate Sound of Thunder. This is also when I began to pay attention to production values. I noticed that there was such a big difference between the sonics of their earlier albums and these, particularly in the drum sounds. But all were aurally pleasing to my ears.

THE DRUMMING INFLUENCE

Interestingly, I can’t say how much they influenced me as a drummer, as that was my primary role in the numerous groups I was a part of until I started The Behaviour. Nick Mason, while solid, consistent, and hypnotic, was also not at all flashy or technical. His playing style was very subdued and laid back, and he incorporated a lot of space – except for maybe the early Syd Barrett-era recordings, and perhaps a few stand out tracks like One Of These Days and A Saucerful Of Secrets. These are great attributes, but certainly don’t reflect my style of drumming.

I can certainly say that Pink Floyd heavily inspires The Behaviour in a plethora of ways. Their sonic layers, textures, and overall atmosphere is something heavily infused in The Behaviour’s sound. David Gilmour’s guitar tonality and style is very influential to my own. His and Roger Water’s lyrical and vocal styles can also be heard in my own; their melodies and deliveries are distinctive, soulful, pure, universal, and unique.

THE AESTHETIC

Pink Floyd’s aesthetic also carries a mystique that I aspire The Behaviour to possess, where the music means more than what is seen, but what is seen enhances what is heard. And what you see is compelling, ethereal, symbolic, and surreal. It challenges you to see more into it. As such, every album cover of theirs designed by the phenomenal Hipgnosis team (especially Storm Thorgerson) is stellar. I think the artwork for The Division Bell was their finest (yes – the 1970’s covers are no less iconic).

The song Sheep from the album Animals might very well be my all time favourite. That entire album sealed the deal with them for me, as it accompanied many LSD trips in my teens. Hard to beat songs that are 10 minutes and longer in length, allowing to fully envelop an expanding mind where time has no meaning. You can get lost there, and those lyrical themes of social allegory do make a young mind ponder its place in the world.

LIVE!

I was able to see Pink Floyd on their final 1994 Division Bell tour, which completely blew me away. Its scale and size were unmatched by any other band on earth. They had, as they had since the 1970’s, incorporated a fully quadrophonic sound system that was placed around the stadium, allowing you to hear different sounds and instruments depending on where you were sitting and the section of the song being played. Their use of lasers was cutting-edge; on that tour they were the first to utilize yellow lasers along with the green which had never been done before (and required air traffic to be rerouted around the stadium shows).

They had giant inflatable pigs, a light show that was grandiose, including a giant mirror ball that came out of the middle of the stadium floor during the encore in a hugely dramatic effect. It was unbelievable, emotional, and jaw-dropping. I’m sure the acid I acquired from the people sitting behind me helped as well. I’ve seen Roger Waters on every tour he’s done since 2000’s In The Flesh tour, and his live production is no less phenomenal and larger than life, especially his last This Is Not A Drill tour in 2022. I think Nine Inch Nails is the only other live show I’ve ever seen come close.

Our thanks to Marshall for his insight into The Floyd and the impact on The Behaviour.

Here’s the lyric video for Invisible Sun: