Roger Waters says he isn’t against Pink Floyd reunion but ex-bandmate has no interest

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While a Pink Floyd reunion may be less and less likely the more time passes, Roger Waters was, at one point, open to reforming the band.

Though Pink Floyd would continue on for almost a decade after his departure in 1985, the classic line-up of Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright would get back together for a Live 8 performance. The twenty-minute charity performance had some fans hoping the group would be back together for good, but it would be their last performance as a four-piece, and will likely remain one of the final times Waters and Gilmour shared the stage. It wasn’t always that way, though, with Waters seemingly open to a reformed Pink Floyd show. The bassist and founding member would say it was Gilmour who did not want anything to do with the band after the Live 8 show.

Waters told TVNZ in 2007 that he didn’t believe Gilmour wanted “to do it” when it came to another Pink Floyd show. He would also suggest Gilmour regrets being involved with the twenty-minute show at Live Aid 2005. Waters said: “I’d do it in a heartbeat. I don’t think Dave wants to do it all. I think he sort of regretted Live 8 a bit so who knows.

“Well because it was his band and suddenly it wasn’t any more. Suddenly, this is what it was, this is the sort of thing it actually is – it’s Dave and Roger and Nick and Rick. And he said afterwards it would have been just the same if Roger hadn’t been there, but it’s not the same.”

It’s a change of tune to Waters’ comments on Gilmour after this interview. The bassist would suggest Gilmour is simply “irrelevant” to his life and that the pair never overlapped socially. He told Word Magazine: “I think it would be very cordial if we ever spoke to each other, but we don’t inhabit the same world socially.

“Rick and I were never really friends, and Dave and I were never really friends, so the fact that we are still no longer really friends is kind of irrelevant to all of our lives.” This cold relationship would be present at the Live 8 show, which may be a reason why Gilmour is uninterested in reforming with Waters or the remaining members of Pink Floyd.

Polly Samson, confirmed the mood before their Live 8 set was icy to say the least. Samson shared the awkwardness between the four was in full swing during the build-up to their charity performance. Not only was small talk off the table, but “big talk” too, as the band found themselves with nothing to say to one another.

Samson, speaking to Louder, said: “David wanted something as a full stop to the whole Pink Floyd thing. So, without a piece of music, I wrote Louder Than Words. It was an easy lyric to write because for years I’d noticed this thing. If you’re in a room with David, Nick [Mason] and Rick, or as I was in at Live 8 with David, Nick, Rick and Roger [Waters], nobody speaks.

“There is nothing but awkward silences. They have no small talk with each other, they have no big talk with each other, they just do not speak. If you happen to be the unlucky person in the room, it’s the most awkward feeling you can imagine.”