Six times Roger Waters put his money where his mouth is
Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters has always stood up for what he perceives as right. While some may disagree with his stances on a political level, nobody can accuse him of being a hypocrite or selling his soul to corporate vultures, which is all too rare.
The state of the modern music industry is a source of contempt for Waters, who views it as a microcosm of the wider world. “Music no longer has any value. It is only around in our lives because it’s used to sell soap powder and Volkswagens. It’s the advertisers who are actually driving the ship,” he told NPR in 2017. “Music is just a means to the end for them, so that they don’t have the passion for Billie Holiday or Sam Cooke or any of the other people that I might choose and who I really care about listening to.
“Those people under these new rules would never get paid because the idea of all of this: It’s all there for everybody to stream all the time. It’s based upon the notion that it is valueless and that the people who make the music should not get paid.”
Waters was fortunate enough to come from an era when artists received a fair payday, but that hasn’t stopped him from fighting for justice for others. Rather than staying silent and milking the legacy circuit for every penny, the Pink Floyd founder has risked his position on plentiful times to speak out against perceived inequality. While many rockstars lose their political edge with age, the fire inside of Waters’ belly has only intensified.
Roger Waters’ 6 biggest political moments
Calling President Biden a “war criminal”
Roger Waters’ recent tour split audiences before he arrived on stage, thanks to a pre-recorded message telling fans: “If you’re one of those ‘I love Pink Floyd, but I can’t stand Roger’s politics’ people, you might do well to f–k off to the bar right now. Thank you, and please enjoy the show.”
From the outset, this message made it clear that his This Is Not A Drill tour would be full of provocative political statements, and it was a promise Waters duly delivered on. At one point during the concert, screens behind him light up with a slideshow of people Waters deems “war criminals”, including Biden and his presidential predecessor. In an interview with CNN, Waters claimed he was “just getting started” and pointed to Biden’s role in the Ukraine-Russia conflict as why he called him out during his show.
Attacks on President Trump
Throughout Trump’s presidency, Waters revealed his feelings about the man who occupied the White House. During a screening of his concert film, Us + Them, he told the audience about Trump: “This is a man who has failed at fucking everything in his life except becoming the biggest…tyrant and mass murderer and mass destroyer of everything that any of us might love or cherish in the whole [world], only because he has the power.”
He added: “Unfortunately, he has his finger on the button on it, and he’s right. In ‘Pigs,’ when we put up that he has a bigger button and it works, it does. And it’s working all over the world, murdering brown people for profit.”
Furthermore, he also shared a cover of Chilean folk artist Victor Jara’s ‘The Right to Live in Peace’ in 2020 following the breakout of the pandemic with a twist on the lyrics to attack President Trump.
Turning down Mark Zuckerberg
In 2021, Roger Waters revealed at an event campaigning to free Wikileaks founder Julian Assange that he turned down a “huge amount of money” from Mark Zuckerburg to use Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)’ in an Instagram advert.
He proudly told Zuckerberg there was “no f*cking way” and called the social media mogul an “idiot”. “It arrived on the internet to me this morning,” Waters said. “It’s a request for the rights to use my song, ‘Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)’ in the making of a film to promote Instagram.”
Waters continued: “It’s a missive from Mark Zuckerberg to me, with an offer of a huge, huge amount of money, and the answer is: F*** you! No f***ing way! I only mention that because it’s the insidious movement of them to take over absolutely everything. So those of us who do have any power, and I do have a little bit. In terms of the control of the publishing of my songs, I do anyway… I will not be a party to this bulls**t, Zuckerberg.”
Being on the side of veterans
Although Waters is vehemently against war, his father lost his life in World War II, and he’s on the side of veterans. Therefore, at every show, he reserves a portion of tickets for people who have served their country just like his father did.
“When I started touring with ‘The Wall,’ I just started inviting veterans in every town we go to, and I’ll do that on this tour, as well,” he told the AP in 2017. “We’ll reserve a certain number of places in the auditorium for veterans if they want to come.”
Waters was also asked to participate in Stand Up for Heroes in 2012, and for the concert, he performed alongside a band of wounded ex-servicemen. He recalled: “We performed for a couple of years doing that and these men became my brothers, and I’m close friends still with a lot to them. And so the connections that I made through playing music with them informed my desire to get to know more of them.”
Speaking out against President Bolsanoro in Brazil
The growth of the far-right is a global issue, and President Bolsanoro got elected on the same ticket as President Trump. Waters performed at the Sao Paulo Stadium in Brazil around election time in 2018 and upset many of those in attendance by trying to persuade them not to vote for Bolsanoro.
In his speech that was met with an equal amount of boos and cheers, Waters said: “You do have a very important election coming up in three weeks’ time. So at some point, you are going to have to decide who you want your next president to be. I know it’s none of my business – except that, by and large, I am against the resurgence of fascism all over the world.
“And as a believer in human rights – and that includes the right to peaceful protest under the law – I would prefer not to live under the rules of someone who believes military dictatorship is a good thing. “I remember the bad old days in South America – with the juntas of the military dictatorships – and it was ugly.”
Cultural boycott of Israel
The Israel-Palestine conflict is incredibly complex, and there are no easy answers. Waters is under the belief that no artists should perform in Israel while the current regime is in charge. He’s fallen out with several other musicians about this, such as Bon Jovi, Nick Cave, and Radiohead, who he tried to persuade to cancel their scheduled performances in the Middle Eastern country.
Waters commented at a pro-Palestinian conference in Australia in 2018: “Thom Yorke said that Ken Loach and I were throwing mud at him. No we weren’t. We were trying to engage him. I had a long email exchange with Thom Yorke, and in the end, he said, ‘that’s it I’m giving up the music business, you have finally convinced me’. He was just being sarcastic. He is a prick. At least have a conversation. He is just a self-obsessed, narcissistic, drippy little prick”.
While the likes of Nick Cave and Radiohead are entitled to play shows in Israel if they believe that’s the right thing to do, Waters has made his stance abundantly clear and shows no signs of backing down anytime soon.
