10 times Roger Waters attacked other musicians
If Roger Waters can’t have a bit of an ego, then who can? In my humble opinion, if you write some of the greatest music the world has ever known, then you’re entitled to look down on the occasional artist every now and then.
Waters has never been afraid to do that. The mind behind the eccentric records such as The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon is one that takes no prisoners when it comes to giving an opinion on other artists. In the midst of his success, Waters has always found something to slag off about other bands and artists that the public are enjoying.
I’ll be honest, some of these are a tricky read. While his disdain for some of his former bandmates and punk pioneers who famously shouted about how much they hated Pink Floyd is understandable, some of his other critiques seem to stem from a place of ignorance… or dare I say… jealously. As he lashes out at modern artists who dominate the charts in the modern age, it sometimes feels as though Waters is desperately trying to cling to relevancy as time passes him by.
That being said, regardless of Waters’ mindset when making these comments, the gossip remains entertaining and worth exploring. So, with that in mind, here are ten times that the Pink Floyd member attacked other musicians.
The times Roger Waters hit out at other musicians:
Black Sabbath
When Ozzy Osbourne passed away, it was all the music world spoke about for some time. Osbourne and his band Black Sabbath were responsible for building the foundation of heavy metal. They also showed just how much of a market there was for alternative music, even if people turned their noses up at first, something about the raw energy of it appealed to the masses. However, Roger Waters wasn’t as excited, as he took to openly criticising Osbourne and the band.
“Ozzy Osbourne, who just died, bless him in his whatever that state that he was in his whole life. We’ll never know. The music, I have no idea. I couldn’t give a fuck,” he said, “I don’t care about Black Sabbath, I never did. Have no interest in biting the heads of chickens or whatever they do. I couldn’t care less, you know.”
Sex Pistols
John Lydon was famed for wearing his Pink Floyd T-shirt that he so gleefully wrote “I hate” at the top of. Well, it turns out Roger Waters wasn’t the biggest fan of his, either, as he had plenty of choice words to say about the punk pioneers and what their sound managed to achieve.
“The Sex Pistols were just trying to make noise. It was so clearly contrived. You know, they were managed by a bloke who ran a shop selling silly clothes,” he said, “And then one of them died, so you got that iconic thing that lives on. If somebody dies, that’s always good. Except for him, obviously, and his mom and dad, and [his girlfriend] Nancy; but for everybody else, it’s brilliant.”
Pink Floyd
There were plenty of positive moments that Roger Waters had with Pink Floyd. He was a part of the band when they put together some of their most iconic music, and he is celebrated as a musical genius because of his achievements working with the band. That being said, he has also been critical of Pink Floyd in the past as well.
When he left Pink Floyd but they carried on making music, he said he felt sorry for fans who were still listening, as what was being released was a shadow of what the band achieved when he was the creative force driving them.
“With all due respect to the people who went out and bought those records, they are just rubbish,” he said, “Particularly The Division Bell; it’s just nonsense from beginning to end.”
Van Halen
When Van Halen burst onto the scene, they caught the attention of listeners young and old because of Eddie Van Halen’s flamboyant guitar playing technique. His tapping was worthy of obsession, blowing minds everywhere it was heard, but it didn’t impress Waters. He found the band soulless and said that their music didn’t remotely interest him.
“Obviously I know the name,” Waters said, “And I’m sure Eddie’s brilliant and a great guitar player and wonderful. It just doesn’t interest me.”
He also claimed that bands who rock out for the sake of it don’t phase him, and that music should ascend to something more than that. “There is stuff going on here that is fundamentally important to all of our lives,” he said.
U2
Waters originally took issue with U2 because they openly criticised his album The Wall.
Thinking less of U2 than himself, he made his disdain of the band well-known. “I remember when we did The Wall, being criticised by Bono,” he said. “U2 are a very young band, and they’re going [in a mock Irish accent], ‘Oh, we can’t stand all that theatrical nonsense that Pink Floyd do. We just play our music and the songs unto themselves and blah, blah, blah.”
Waters took issue with their criticism, but got even more annoyed about the fact that after they had said his music was bad, they spent the rest of their careers attempting to emulate it.
“All they did for the rest of their fucking career was copy what I’d been doing and continue to do,” he said, “So good luck to them, but what a load of bullshit. If you lead them, people will follow.”
David Gilmour
Many would call David Gilmour and Roger Waters a musical match made in heaven, and they would be right. The way that these two joined forces in a bid to give us some of the most in-depth and atmospheric psychedelic music was truly special.
However, while this relationship may have given us some great music, it wasn’t built to last, as creative differences and tension caused the band to split.
When they did, Gilmour continued making music with Pink Floyd, which angered Waters to no end and sparked an elongated legal battle between the two. Their differences led to plenty of jabs at one another in various interviews, to the point that it’s less a case of finding an example, and more one of choosing which quote to run with.
“I think he thinks that because I left the band in 1985, that [Gilmour] owns Pink Floyd, that he is Pink Floyd and I’m irrelevant, and I should just keep my mouth shut,” said Waters, before adding in a different interview, “They were very snotty and snippy because they felt very insignificant, I think.”
Drake
It might not surprise you to hear that Water’s isn’t much of a Drake fan, after all, tracks like ‘Hotline Bling’ and ‘Nice For What’ don’t ring in a way comparable to epics like ‘Comfortably Numb’, do they? They’re all good songs, but there aren’t many similarities which envelop them.
Waters made his opinion on Drake pretty clear (and in a relatively brutal way) when he compared their careers and deduced that what he did with Pink Floyd is a lot more important.
“With all due respect to the Weeknd or Drake or any of them,” he said, “I am far, far, far more important than any of them will ever be, however many billions of streams they’ve got.”
The Weeknd
As you may have picked up from the above, Waters also wasn’t a huge fan of The Weeknd.
He mentioned that he doesn’t care about how many streams such artists have, which is fitting, given The Weeknd is one of the most widely listened to artists in the world. It’s certainly an achievement, and one which has brought joy to many, but the brooding psychedelic rocker wasn’t impressed.
“I have no idea what or who the Weeknd is,” he said, “People have told me he’s a big act.”
Waters should consider giving the Weeknd a listen, while some of the artist’s more pop-centric tunes likely won’t appeal, his other songs like those on Dawn FM are psychedelic adjacent and have a sound that the Pink Floyd man might be able to get on board with.
AC/DC
AC/DC have always divided opinion.
Many people are fans because they adore the band’s authenticity and their unwavering approach to hard rock. They can play, and they have a commitment to their genre unlike any other band. They have well and truly carved out a sound which is unmistakably theirs.
However, while people around the world feel drawn to this sound, Waters was never that keen.
“I’m not interested in most popular music,” he said, “[I’m] not really interested in loud rock ‘n’ roll — which some people are, and they love it, but I couldn’t care less about AC/DC or Eddie Van Halen or any of that stuff.”
Syd Barrett
Waters worked with Syd Barrett for a number of years before Barrett left Pink Floyd.
Waters attempted to continue to write like him once he took up creative duties and realised he couldn’t achieve the same style. He noted their song ‘Point Me At The Sky’, which was one of the first ones he worked on, was “One notable failure when Syd left the band”.
These creative issues forced Waters to look for alternative musical directions, which he found in the form of drawn-out and layered concept albums. He grew so fond of this writing style that he wound up criticising Pink Floyd’s early work and Syd Barrett’s experimental songwriting.
“I don’t want to go back to those times at all,” he said when talking about their album Piper at the Gates of Dawn. “There wasn’t anything ‘grand’ about it. We were laughable. We were useless. We couldn’t play at all, so we had to do something stupid and ‘experimental’.”
