The bandmates Roger Waters knew would “drag down” his art
Roger Waters didn’t want to take no for an answer whenever he had an idea in Pink Floyd.
Every one of his concepts was about trying to tell a story with the music rather than singing traditional pop tunes, and the rest of his bandmates were simply colours for him to help flesh out a lot of his ideas, whether it was those beautiful guitar parts on ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ or the keyboard textures all throughout Dark Side of the Moon. But as much as the band acted like a united front, Waters felt that it was the exact opposite for a long time before he eventually left the fold.
Then again, Waters has never called himself the easiest person to work with, either. The lion’s share of the songs during their golden age were written by him, and he wasn’t going to be cordial about everyone adding their own thing to it. He knew how the song should go, and he was going to do everything that he could to make sure that it sounded like how he heard it in his head.
That’s great if you have a solo project, but when you’re in a band that has four separate voices, that’s not how that works. David Gilmour was the one singing most of the songs on Dark Side of the Moon, and even if Waters drafted the concept of someone going through life and seeing the issues that come with the passage of time, Gilmour’s guitar solos brought in the emotion to tunes like ‘Time’ and ‘Money’ throughout the piece.
By the time of The Wall, though, Waters didn’t feel the need to compromise anymore. He had made this concept that would have been on par with any other rock opera from the past few years, and he wasn’t about to let anyone get in his way while making it. That meant replacing band members left and right in the studio and even outright firing Richard Wright when he wasn’t playing the way that he wanted him to.
Sounds like a perfectly charming and understanding bandmate, but according to Waters, he felt that Gilmour and Wright did everything they could to shackle him, saying, “I was in a very toxic environment where I was around some people – well, David [Gilmour] and Rick [Wright] mainly were always trying to drag me down. They were always trying to knock me off.” But considering what they had done, it’s not exactly the same toxic environment when looking at Gilmour’s side.
He simply wanted the chance to express himself, and it was becoming less and less obvious why he couldn’t do that. Waters had simply outgrown the need to have the rest of his bandmates with him, and even though the rest of the band were willing to carry on, the idea of having someone that was complaining that they weren’t following his every whim wasn’t their idea of a good time.
And while Waters did try his best to tear the band down with him when he left, he seemed to be much more comfortable in his own skin as a solo artist. He felt that it was necessary for him to move on, and it seemed like he had the perfect idea for what albums like Amused to Death was when he started working with anyone and everyone when he called in different performers for the record.
Gilmour and Wright may have had a point when talking about how Waters didn’t know as much music theory as the next guy, the one thing you can’t hold against him is how much of an innovator he was. He was willing to do everything he could to make things sound different, and while his limitations could get the better of him some of the time, his greatest strength was leaning into those limitations and coming up with something that sounded beautiful.
