Roger Waters says one Pink Floyd album was ‘absolute misery’ to make

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One album from the legendary rock band Pink Floyd was an “absolute misery” to make, according to bassist Roger Waters.

The group would make some of the all-time greatest records, like Wish You Were Here and The Dark Side of the Moon, but one album caused the group so much trouble Waters left the band. They had already struggled with The Wall and Animals, but it seems the group finally hit the end of the road while piecing together The Final Cut. Waters suggested guitarist David Gilmour was unhappy with the album, and used its low record sales as proof Waters had been “wrong” to make the album. Though proud of parts of the album, the songwriter dubbed the period of making The Final Cut as “absolute misery” and said the group accepted “there was no band” by the end of the recordings.

Pink Floyd would stagger on even after Waters left, releasing both A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell before Gilmour called time on the band. Waters said of The Final Cut in an interview with Q Magazine: “I think Radio KAOS is some of the best stuff I’ve ever done. Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking was bitty.

“The Wall, I was very happy with. The Final Cut was absolutely misery to make, although I listened to it of late and I rather like a lot of it. But I don’t like my singing on it. You can hear the mad tension running through it all. If you’re trying to express something and being prevented from doing it because you’re so uptight… It was a horrible time.

“We were all fighting like cats and dogs. We were finally realising, or accepting, if you like, that there was no band. It was really being thrust upon us that we were not a band and had not been in accord for a long time. Not since 1975, when we made Wish You Were Here. Even then, there were big disagreements about content and how to put the record together.”

Despite being fond of large parts of the album, Waters was left disappointed by the sales of the record. The Final Cut would still top the charts and reach platinum status, but it was far off the accolades which the band had received in previous years.

He added: “But making The Final Cut was misery. We didn’t work together at all. I had to do it more or less single-handed, working with Michael Kamen, my co-producer. That’s one of the few things that the ‘boys’ and I agreed about. But no one else would do anything on it.

“It sold three million copies, which wasn’t a lot for the Pink Floyd. And as a consequence, Dave Gilmour went on record as saying, ‘There you go: I knew he was doing it wrong all along.’ But it’s absolutely ridiculous to judge a record solely on sales. If you’re going to use sales as the sole criterion, it makes Grease a better record than Graceland.”