Pink Floyd reported that thanks to their recent charity single “Hey Hey Rise Up” they have raised 500,000 pounds for humanitarian charities helping victims of the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war.
“Hey Hey Rise Up” was released back in April as Pink Floyd’s first new song in almost three decades. At the time, bandleader David Gilmore, who has a Ukrainian family and has already spoken out against the war, said the track had been recorded just a few weeks earlier as a sign of solidarity with those fighting against the invasion of Russian troops.
“We, like many others, feel rage and disappointment over this heinous act of invading an independent, peaceful democratic country and killing its people by one of the world’s largest powers,” he said in a press statement.
Gilmore explained about his plans to release the song: “I hope that it will receive wide support and publicity. We want to raise funds for humanitarian charities and raise morale. We want to express our support for Ukraine and thus show that most of the world believes that it is completely wrong for a superpower to invade an independent democratic country that Ukraine has become.”
Shortly after the release of the song in digital and streaming format, Pink Floyd announced a physical edition on CD and seven-inch vinyl. As with the digital edition, the profits from the collector’s editions went to raise funds for charity.
In a statement released on Christmas Eve (December 24), the band confirmed that they had reached the landmark milestone of half a million pounds. It is reported that £450,000 came from singles sales and streaming revenue, and the remaining £50,000 was contributed by Gilmore and his bandmate Nick Mason (the only other Pink Floyd member involved in the creation of “Hey Hey Rise Up”).
The money, as they wrote, will be distributed among five humanitarian charities: “Hospitallers”, “Kharkiv-Peremyshl project”, “Vostok SOS”, “Kiev volunteer” and “Left Bank”.
The band also encouraged fans to do their own charity, writing next to the link to the resource page: “Let’s see what else we can do this winter… it would be great if you felt you could contribute to any of these charities directly. ”
Meanwhile, former Pink Floyd leader Roger Waters also made headlines in connection with the Russian-Ukrainian war, although not in a positive light, like Gilmore and Mason. In a tense interview with CNN, Waters hinted that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was at least partially to blame for the outbreak of war.
Later, he wrote an open letter to the First Lady of Ukraine, Elena Zelenskaya, suggesting that she convince Zelensky to initiate a cease-fire with Russia. He also sent a similar letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and then said that he was included in the “list of destroyed” enemies of Ukraine.
As for other Pink Floyd news, the band recently uploaded to streaming services a set of archived live albums released before the era of “Dark Side Of The Moon”, as well as a five-song EP of “alternative tracks” from 1972. This followed the September release of their highly anticipated remaster “Animals”, which came out four years after it was first announced.
A month before, it was reported that Pink Floyd would sell its back catalog for 400 million pounds.
