David Gilmour says continuing Pink Floyd without Roger Waters was to ‘prove’ one thing

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Though songwriter Roger Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985, the band would continue on for nearly a decade more.

David Gilmour, who replaced Waters as frontman, has since confirmed the reason he kept the Wish You Were Here hitmakers together. The guitarist has since said part of the reason for keeping Pink Floyd alive was to “prove” one thing. Pink Floyd would release two albums without Waters, A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell, before Gilmour called time on the group. They have performed just once since then, alongside Waters, for a gig at Live 8. The group’s final album was released in 2014 and titled The Endless River. Gilmour was asked about why the group continued even without Waters, who left two years after the band released The Final Cut.

Gilmour, speaking to Q Magazine in 1990, confirmed part of the reason for keeping the band together was to prove he could still perform without Waters. He was asked: “Was part of the motivation to come back bigger and better to lay any doubt to rest that the new, Roger-less Floyd was but a shadow of the past?”

The veteran guitarist replied: “Precisely. That’s why we set about a good album, a spectacular show and a tour that would go on for over a year. We wanted to leave no one in doubt that we were still in business and ‘meant’ business and no one was going to stop us. Our tour, I believe quite firmly, showed a way forward for many other people.

“Our attitude towards getting it right with the best PA, best lighting system, has rubbed off on many other people – The Who, Rolling Stones. There is certainly a trend at the moment for people not to go out in the haphazard way they used to. They plan it like a military campaign and think big; if you spend a lot of money, you’ll make a lot of money – and enjoy yourself a lot more.”

Waters left the band after the “absolute misery” of recording The Final Cut, and figuring Pink Floyd had done all it could as a group.

He said: “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.

“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.”