A fallout between bassist Roger Waters and the rest of Pink Floyd is something the founding member of the band “regrets”.
Though Waters would get the chance to perform again with David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright at a Live 8 show in 2005, he believes their split in 1985 was a “negative time”. He went a step further and shared his regret over being part of that poor feeling within the band, and the worsening of it after he left. Though Waters and Gilmour are still believed to have a frosty relationship to this day, an interview with Waters highlighted how his actions after leaving Pink Floyd were because he believed he was protecting “the integrity” of his work more than anything. It’s a move Waters now thinks was “doomed to failure” but he continued on all the same at the time. Waters would leave Pink Floyd in 1985, though the band would continue on with Gilmour as frontman for nine more years.
Speaking of his departure from the band in 2007, Waters said: “I don’t think any of us came out of the years from 1985 with any credit, really. It was a bad, negative time, really. And I regret my part in that negativity.
“I was actually more attached to the philosophy and politics of Pink Floyd than the others were — certainly more so than David was. In a way, whatever I did I did in a way to protect the integrity of what I saw as being important about the work that the four of us did together.
“I realise now that move was doomed to failure … and why should I have imposed my feelings about the work and what it was worth on the others if they didn’t feel the same? I was wrong in attempting to do that.”
A chance to rectify those mistakes presented itself with the band’s Live 8 reunion, which Waters considers a chance to “let bygones be bygones” with his ex-bandmates. In interviews and performances to follow that 2005 performance, the relationship between Gilmour and Waters seemed to improve slightly.
He praised not just Gilmour’s “beautiful” singing but the event itself for being an appropriate way to bury the hatchet between the four. It seemed to last, for a little while anyway, with Gilmour appearing to play a part in Waters’ solo show in 2011. The relationship between the two may now be frosty, but for a time, it seemed relatively polite.
Waters would share the Live 8 performance was a chance for the four to “let bygones be bygones,” and that each member took that chance. He said: “It was just… really good. I was very moved to be on stage with Dave, Nick and Rick that night.
“I felt at ease and glad to be given the opportunity to let bygones be bygones and to demonstrate that, although we’ve had our difficulties in the past, we are grown men who understand that rapprochement is possible even in the face of differing points of view.
“It was really good to transcend all the crap and say, ‘Well, fuck it, let’s just get up onstage. It’s been a long while. We can agree to disagree about all the old stuff and stand up here and play these three of four songs and it can be fun, it can be good’.”
He feels this way for today anyway, but where will he be in a few months?
He’s flip flopped and repeatedly burnt those bridges with Gilmour to the point that I don’t think David cares enough to try again. Sad, but it seems as if Roger has become the man in Dogs:
And when you loose control, you’ll reap the harvest you have sown
And as the fear grows, the bad blood slows and turns to stone
And it’s too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw around
So have a good drown, as you go down, all alone
Dragged down by the stone
You’re right on. At Live 8 you could see how much Roger wanted to be a part of it. His stage presence was more animated, he was really getting into it. Too bad all the previous ti
mes Dave invited him to play a show that Rogers reply was F%*# you. He reaped the harvest he had sown.
I’ve seen them 6 times, know all their albums very well, and the personalities behind the Music. Waters has always been a complete asshole! What he never understood, is that this was MUSIC! He wasn’t writing a book FFS. This means the “sound” is what only matters! Water’s didn’t “sing”, he basically screeched like an owl! Gilmour, with his historic guitar and very soothing voice, made that band!
I completely agree with BOTH of y’all, Roger was very integral to every album early on, but in 85 philosophical ideology split them, and Roger learned he couldn’t control their direction any longer. And after the very public split, and in later years from around 2012 on, Roger has indeed reaped what he has sown…I DO love some Pink Floyd, me!!!
Sounds like a thinly veiled swipe to me, He’s basically saying “it’s wrong of me to expect the other guys to view Floyd with the same passion and importance as I do”
Roger is Roger. The musician, the writer? Absolute genius. The person? Very bitter and spiteful. It’s like he goes to bed loving the world, and wakes up hating all of it.
He’s always placed his contributions to Pink Floyd in a higher echelon than what the rest of the band gave. That in itself speaks for itself and on many levels.
Could you even imagine Dark Side or The Wall without any of Gilmour’s playing or vocals? Or the rest of the bands unique gifts? If anything, Waters was the bass player, if anyone is getting subbed out faster it’s HIM.
i agree with pretty much all you stated but i wouldnt go so far to say he wouldve been subbed.
PF will never be matched by anyone, we all owe that to the original crazy diamond that was Syd.
With him gone, Waters did pull his weight and became the lyricist, first, the conceptual mind behind it, second.
i think thats undeniable.
Like the Universe itself, having concepts without a field to phisicalized them, is akin to knowing all the theory, but having no experience of it.
The field were 95% the 3 other members 5% was Roger playing. The conceptual bit was the exact opposite
The man had great ideas but even when it came to bass playing he needed Gilmour fingers to lead the way first.
The issue was Ego, when he started to think he was PF, that was the end and that happenned because of what you said: he saw is work above the others.
who knows what would it been had they cooled of for some years and picked up after.
It wasnt meant to be. In fact it was uglier and uglier to the point that even Polly Samson was saying pretty hardcore stuff about him, and believe me, i think i would have difficulties putting up with the guy professionally, but like for Yoko Ono: leave the woman outside the studio, please.
What was strained, simply went, well, fucked and them being this old by now are much more emotionally dependent on their surroundings.
In a paralell universe PF continued and i cant wait to experience that myself, when i get my own great gig in the sky
I love The Wall, it’s a great creative achievement, it’s how I got into Floyd. But the second half, with a couple of exceptions, is all Roger. By side 4, there are no actual members of the band playing.
But David had his moments as well, and he’s an amazing guitarist.
David wrote the two single most commercially and musically successful songs on The Wall album: comfortably numb and run like hell!
Ya I quite agree 💯
I admire greatly the work Roger did on his own after the breakup. Radio Kaos still plays brilliantly and has many Floyd vibes to it. Coldplay share the money they make equally. Why cant Roger and co do the same and remain on equal terms with each other.
Pink Floyd were never truly Pink Floyd after the split.
Both Roger’s & the remaining member’s music sounded a bit diminished without each other. What spoilt their Live 8 performance was the bad blood that still remained between them.
Such a shame the personalities that created such beautiful music turned into the egos that destroyed any possibility of future masterpieces. Who knows what they could have created or had they run their course anyway? We’ll never know.
Humility is a wonderful quality possessed by those parts that recognise that the Whole is always greater than any & every individual Part.
One of my life’s regrets is that I never experienced seeing the True & Whole Pink Floyd before The Wall meltdown.
I was fortunate enough to see them twice. First at the Bingley hall Stafford doing wish you were here and second at the Isle of dogs in London.
I was at bingley hall (the cowshed) it was pretty amazing they played wish you were here and animals with the floating pig and as usual the sound was perfect,as most Floyd fans know Roger waters always got dave gilmour to play while he walked around the venue sound checking before they went on stage
Ya well Roger redid the Dark Side of the moon a few years ago and eliminated all the other three artists contributes to the album. And it sucks worst then anything else I have ever heard in my entire life. I saw Roger in 2022, it sucked he changed all the songs. I will never see him again. I saw Gilmour in 2016 and then again in 2024. It was amazing both times.
Who cares? He’s spent the last 40+ years being bitter. David Gilmour would never agree to getting on stage with Waters again so how he feels or what he’d do if given the opportunity is a moot.
Water’s abrasive & egotistic personality gets on my last nerve. If I went to a Water’s concert and had to listen to his political beliefs & ideology, I would walk-out demanding a refund! He’s an abrasive B U F F O O N!!!
Actually i find him to be “on the right side, of sides” whem it comes to politics, he has long being calling out Israel for its Zionism, for instance.
From what i know of the guy, ie, nothing, cause ive never met him, i think i would have a hard time working with him, but i dont deny his genius conceptual mind.
Nobody has seen fit to mention that Gilmore’s wife has publicly attacked Waters as an antisemite and all sorts of other vile.lies, and Gilmore said “yep that’s right.” Now you can’t blame a man for sticking up for his wife, but why did she have to go and do that for? They hate Waters because he is antiwar and anti genocide, and nobody can admit what a corporate rightwing cesspool rock music has become
After Syd roger became the driving force waters in my opinion is one of the greatest writers of are time his attention to detail is second to none Gilmore his solo albums never done a lot for me I am not taking anythink away from David his riffs and voice in the full Floyd are as much of the success as Roger and nick and Richard but I do think Roger with every nerve in his being made there recordings from good to outstanding
Waters is the brains of Pink Floyd. He might be a bitter man whose bass playing could be done by anyone. However, he is the creative juice that made the band go from 1970-1985. Without him, you don’t have the lyrical magic that is the band we know today.
Nah. Guy pratt never was able to get Roger’s parts right, even if he’s better on a technical level. One only needs to listen to how lifeless the bass is in the 1994 concerts. Roger’s playing is simple, but its unique to him.
I go back to loving Pink Floyd when Syd was the Frontman … before Dave joined. Roger fired Rick and that was the beginning of the End of the original Floyd … Roger reaped exactly what he Sowed, and became a Tyrant … and suffers the results of Tyranny.
BINGO!
I totally agree! My favorite songs were in the beginning, when Sid Barret was the driving creative force. What happened to Sid makes my heart ache and I feel like they are all getting their come-upence for the way they froze him out of HIS band. I will forever be team Sid Barret. The best thing they went on to do was the song they wrote about Sid.
Boy, he is still holding onto The Wall with dear life. While David and the team went on to write many great songs and master several great albums, Roger clings into those hammers, his long coat, and interviews about how he and the band parted ways.
no after the wall album none of the albums after the wall were great