Pink Floyd to release its first new music in 28 years to support Ukrainian relief fund
For the first time since 1994, legendary rock band Pink Floyd is set to release new music.
Pink Floyd returned to the studio on Wednesday, March 30, to record the song “Hey Hey Rise Up,” which will be released on Friday, April 8. All proceeds for the song will go toward Ukrainian humanitarian relief, the band announced.
“We, like so many, have been feeling the fury and the frustration of this vile act of an independent, peaceful democratic country being invaded and having its people murdered by one of the world’s major powers,” Pink Floyd member David Gilmour said.
“Hey Hey Rise Up” is Pink Floyd’s first new original music since “The Division Bell” was released in 1994.
The new track uses vocals from an Instagram post by Andriy Khlyvnyuk of the Ukrainian band Boombox. In his post, Khlyvnyuk sung a Ukrainian protest song written during World War I.
Gilmour said Khlyvnyuk’s performance, where he stands in a square in Kyiv singing in the silent city, “was a powerful moment that made me want to put it to music.”
Last month, Pink Floyd announced it would remove all of its recordings from digital music providers in Russia and Belarus. Gilmour did the same with his solo recordings.
Recording and releasing “Hey Hey Rise Up,” Gilmour said, is the band’s next step to express its support for Ukraine.
Gilmour was joined on the track by fellow Pink Floyd members Nick Mason, Guy Pratt and Nitin Sawhney. Roger Waters famously left the band in 1985.
“We want to express our support for Ukraine and, in that way, show that most of the world thinks that it is totally wrong for a superpower to invade the independent democratic country that Ukraine has become,” Gilmour said.
“Hey Hey Rise Up” will be released on Apple Music, Amazon Music, Spotify, Deezer and Tidal.
Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine on three fronts early Thursday, Feb. 24 as forces advanced toward the capital of Kyiv.
This story was originally published April 7, 2022 at 11:42 AM with the headline "Pink Floyd to release its first new music in 28 years to support Ukrainian relief fund."