Guitarist Marty Mitchell says the past 10 years have been among the happiest days of his life.

Mitchell, from Pukehina, has been a member of the hugely successful Pink Floyd Experience for a decade, joining the band in 2015 after years of being a fan.

But he recently decided it was time to jump off the stage and retake his place in the audience.

He became a regular in the crowds at the tribute band’s Auckland gigs in the late 1990s.

“I got to know them a little bit and used to hang with them backstage,” he said.

At the time he had his own tribute band, In The Pink.

“I used to play around the bars. It was the same sort of thing, but on a much, much smaller scale.”

Taking his band to the capital, he invited the Pink Floyd Experience members and crew along.

“A bunch of them came and then we went back to a house afterwards and partied a bit.”

One Pink Floyd Experience tour his own gigs clashed with the Auckland shows, so he travelled to Rotorua to see them – and again joined them afterwards.

The call

Then, out of the blue, he got a call from founding band member Darren Whittaker asking if he wanted to tour with the band.

By then Mitchell had moved to the Bay of Plenty.

He talked it over with his wife, Linda, and his boss.

“I thought ‘I wouldn’t mind doing an Aussie tour and a New Zealand tour’.

“In those days they were good [length] tours – we’d do eight Aussie shows and 16 New Zealand shows so it was a couple of months’ solid touring. It just carried on from there.”

He thinks he’s very fortunate.

“Pretty much everything on anyone’s bucket list is live at the beach and be an international rock star and I’ve done both,” he said.

Marty Mitchell in his studio. Photo / Stuart Whitaker

“Other people can look at it and say,’ you’ve been lucky’, but I don’t think luck has a lot to do with it. One of the reasons I can make a living out of music is because when I’m not gigging, I’m here playing six hours a day because you have to.”

Theatrical dreams

Pink Floyd Experience shows are renowned for being full theatrical productions and one of Mitchell’s dreams was to be part of bringing The Wall to the stage.

The band toured its The Wall show twice while Mitchell was a member and they are among his favourite tours.

It was one of the reasons he decided to join when he was asked.

“Musically, it’s an outstanding album and the show was, I think, by far the best shows we ever did.”

He had seen Pink Floyd back in January 1988 on The Wall tour at Western Springs.

“That to me has been the biggest show the world has ever seen – I can’t imagine anything better.”

On one of the tours, Pink Floyd Experience also played his favourite album – Animals.

His favourite song to play isn’t so easy to pin down.

“That’s a hard one because unlike some bands which literally only have one or two good songs, they have dozens and dozens. Things like Shine On You Crazy Diamond is a favourite because it covers all the bases. Echoes was probably one of my favourites to play – all 24 minutes of it.

“It’s hard to think of Pink Floyd as songs because albums are like a whole song.”

But playing and being on stage weren’t the only enjoyable things about being in the band.

“I love meeting people. We started doing meet and greets and inviting special guests to sound checks and things. That side of it was always very rewarding – having a bunch of people that take an interest in what you’re doing and getting to meet them and so many of them are lifelong friends.”

When the band cut down its touring of Australia due to escalating costs post-pandemic, people travelled to New Zealand to see the shows.

Memories

Mitchell said he’s proud of his time in the band and has put together a photo book of the decade-long stint.

“When I sit back and reflect on it, it was a fast 10 years.”

A student of the band, Mitchell first heard Pink Floyd when a mate played him Dark Side of the Moon - through headphones.

“It was insane – I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, it completely turned me upside down as far as what I liked musically.”

He had been a long-time Led Zeppelin fan because of their power.

“So to hear Dark Side of the Moon with headphones on – I never really listened to Zeppelin much for a while after that.”

After buying his own copy, he started exploring the band’s earlier albums.

Marty highlighted on the big screen as The Wall is constructed during a Pink Floyd Experience show. Photo /  Reef Reid

After hearing the album Meddle, he was “absolutely sold on them”.

“I like lots of music and I like lots of bands, but Pink Floyd was like the special band – listening to other bands was like being disloyal.”

He was in his late teens before he first started playing guitar after saving up and buying a cheap one.

“That was when I went back to Led Zeppelin. Pink Floyd had so much more darkness and light, Zeppelin was all power – being a young fella I was more interested in the power side of it.

“But once got my head around the guitar a wee bit, I realised Pink Floyd had all I needed guitar-wise.”

Other line-ups

Mitchell also plays guitar in two duos, Plan B and Stratman and Robin, and plays solo shows – all mostly in the Bay of Plenty.

They will be his focus from now on after he decided his time with the Pink Floyd Experience was over – for now at least.

“I wasn’t going to quit the band, but when they planned next year’s touring and sent me the rehearsal schedule, I realised there were way too many conflicts with my other bands.”

He realised something would have to give.

“Pink Floyd Experience quite often only had six gigs in two years so it wasn’t really huge – it didn’t take up too much of my time, but they decided to rehearse twice as much, which was more trips to Wellington.”

Rehearsals were also at weekends, meaning there would be 12 weekends when Mitchell couldn’t play local gigs.

He decided he couldn’t commit 100% to the band for the next tour.

“The production costs millions of dollars so you can’t go half-hearted at it. So that’s unfortunately what it had to be.”

He is back to just being a fan again.

“Which is great - the one thing about being on stage is, you can’t hear the whole show. All you can here is you and whatever you get on your monitors.”

He said it would also give him a chance to watch the show with Linda.

“I love the guys in the band, there was really no downside to any of it apart from driving down to Wellington, but even that wasn’t that bad.

“At one stage we were the biggest touring show in Australasia and it’s probably the greatest thing I’ve ever done in a lot of ways.”

He’s happy to be concentrating on playing small venues.

“The thing I didn’t get out of the Pink Floyd Experience was there was no intimacy between the band and the audience – you are playing in these big arenas with thousands of people, and you can really only see the first couple of rows and they’re quite far away from you and you can’t really hear them.

“I’d spent my whole life having people right in my face in local bars and I actually prefer that in some ways – it’s more organic and there’s a more direct response to what you’re doing. It’s different. I couldn’t say it’s better, but it’s different and I enjoyed that side of it more.”

He says he has really enjoyed playing with some world-class musicians to 20,000 or 30,000 people.

“All that stuff’s really good but you don’t need that all the time – I’ve been there, done it now; I’ll treasure all that and move on to other things.”