Roger Waters has ruled out being in a band ever again and cited the stress and tension of being in Pink Floyd as his reason.
The veteran bass player and songwriter was in Pink Floyd from its founding in 1965 and left in 1985, just two years after the release of The Final Cut. Waters has since operated as a solo musician, reuniting with the classic line-up behind The Dark Side of the Moon only once. He, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright, reunited for a twenty-minute show at Live 8, and have never been on stage together since. Waters has ruled out joining any other groups and has stuck to his word, confirming that a reason for never starting another band is the stress that comes from working with others.
He told Jim Ladd in 2011: “No. Even early on there were lots of tensions, and I much prefer the buck stopping with me. I love contributions and conversations and always listen to what everybody has to say, but in the end I prefer to be in a situation where I can say, ‘That’s a good idea, but we’ll do it this way’.”
Waters has been ruthless with his solo career too, even cutting his own son, Harry Waters, from the touring line-up. Waters would issue a more positive read on the end of Pink Floyd, stating that the Live 8 show was a fitting end to the band’s time together.
He said: “The answer is… not up to me. The answer is: I’d be very happy to do it but it’s sort of up to Dave, I guess. But I don’t think he wants to do it, so I don’t think it’ll happen. And that’s absolutely fair enough. It’s not going to change my life. But I did love Live 8.
“I thought it was really, really special. If that’s the only thing we ever get to do again to underline the collaboration, then I’m very glad there was at least one moment we could do it. But I thought it sounded great. He feeling was… it was so… it was so intense. But I’m not sure that we all felt that. In fact, I’m quite sure that we didn’t all feel that. But most of us did.”
The Live 8 performance was so great in fact, that Waters suggested it was a moment which rekindled his love for playing to larger crowds. He added: “We have holes in our psychology and performing in front of large numbers of people who enjoy it is obviously part of the point of doing it. And so when it happens, trust me, it feels fantastic.
“It’s something I lost touch with entirely in Pink Floyd, which is why I wrote The Wall and why I left in the end. Since then I’ve started to do tours with my own band and I started to realise that I had allowed myself to let go of the past and just really enjoy – wallow – in that connection with people who know my work and appreciate it.
“We did a big tour in 02 of the Southern Hemisphere, everywhere from Seoul to Santiago. People knew every word to every song and they knew what they meant. They get it like I get Imagine.”
