“Complete bollocks”: The musician Roger Waters felt tried to ruin his reputation
No one was going to be walking away with the most glowing terms of each other after any band breakup. There’s usually a good reason why some artists grow apart and never speak to each other again, but getting some of the biggest names in music on the same page for five minutes can often feel like trying to do a backflip while juggling and doing advanced algebra. Although most of Pink Floyd had to deal with their own share of nasty fallouts, Roger Waters had an extra bone to pick when certain members started taking jabs at him.
Because Waters was Pink Floyd in many respects during their glory years. Every one of them helped make their albums masterpieces, and they were always a united front musically, but when it came to the way that they set up their concepts and made the listener feel like they were being taken on a journey, that was normally all Waters’s job, whether that was the pain of Wish You Were Here or the autobiographical adventure of The Wall.
Whenever someone starts biting off more than they can chew, though, the rest of the bandmates are going to be putting in their two cents. David Gilmour was already livid over the fact that Waters decided to take over the reins on The Wall, so when he made The Final Cut based around nothing but songs from the last album that wasn’t quite good enough, it wasn’t like anyone was enthused about being called back to work.
Then again, Waters and Gilmour did have their own fair share of success when they were on their own. Even though A Momentary Lapse of Reason is considered a David Gilmour solo album by many critics, it still has its fair share of highlights, and despite taking a while to get going, Waters at least was able to get back to his massive conceptual visions on Amused to Death, even if he had some help from legends like Jeff Beck.
Once the band decided to put down their battle axes in the press to play Live 8, though, some new tensions had been going on in the background. Gilmour and Waters were always sparring partners, but considering how much Nick Mason took swings at his former bandmate in his book, Waters was livid at the idea of the drummer trying to have his cake and eat it in front of everyone.
“I’m this bastard dictator who won’t let anybody write songs and insists on doing everything himself, then it’s ‘we did that’ and ‘we decided that’. He’s not lying, he just invented it.”
Roger Waters
Right before Live 8 happened, Waters even said as much in the press about Mason telling tall tales about an imaginary version of Floyd, saying, “[It’s] complete bollocks. You can’t have it both ways. Half the time I’m this bastard dictator who won’t let anybody write songs and insists on doing everything himself, then it’s ‘we did that’ and ‘we decided that’. He’s not lying, he just invented it.”
At the same time, Waters could be up to the exact kind of shenanigans that Mason was doing once he got onstage with them. Although everyone was intended to be on their best behaviour, hearing Waters talk about how much of a pleasure it is to be back performing with the rest of the band does ring a little bit hollow considering fans knew about him suing them for the use of the name.
Nevertheless, Waters has recently become more passive when it comes to Pink Floyd. It might be a cold day in hell before Floyd ever meets the stage with the original members again, but since people said the same thing before they stepped out onstage together in 2005, maybe there is a chance that they will one day find a way to smooth things over.
