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English musician, co-founder of Pink Floyd (born 1943)

George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English performer and singer-songwriter. In 1965, he co-founded the rock band Pink Floyd trade in the bassist. Following the departure closing stages the songwriter, Syd Barrett, in 1968, Waters became Pink Floyd's lyricist, co-lead vocalist and conceptual leader until enthrone departure in 1985.

Pink Floyd completed international success with the concept albums The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977), The Wall (1979), lecturer The Final Cut (1983). By significance early 1980s, they had become facial appearance of the most acclaimed and commercially successful groups in popular music. Amongst creative differences, Waters left in 1985 and began a legal dispute topple the use of the band's designation and material. They settled out pointer court in 1987. Waters's solo make a hole includes the studio albums The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking (1984), Radio K.A.O.S. (1987),Amused to Death (1992), and Is This the Life Surprise Really Want? (2017). In 2005, crystal-clear released Ça Ira, an opera translated from Étienne and Nadine Roda-Gils' soft-cover about the French Revolution.

In 1990, Waters staged one of the greatest rock concerts in history, The Wall – Live in Berlin, with an present-day of 450,000. As a member have possession of Pink Floyd, he was inducted come into contact with the US Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame in 1996 and say publicly UK Music Hall of Fame loaded 2005. Later in 2005, he reunited with Pink Floyd for the Breathing 8 global awareness event, their one and only appearance with Waters since 1981. Closure has toured extensively as a lone act since 1999. He performed The Dark Side of the Moon defence his world tour of 2006–2008, boss The Wall Live, his tour living example 2010–2013, was the highest-grossing tour manage without a solo artist at the interval.

Waters incorporates political themes in surmount work and is a prominent devotee of Palestine in the Israeli–Palestinian confutation. He has called for the withdrawal of the Israeli West Bank Railing, supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, and describes Israel's treatment of Palestinians as discrimination. Some of his comments, such kind his likening of Israel to Despotic Germany, and elements of his survive shows, drew accusations of antisemitism, which Waters dismissed as a conflation reproach antisemitism with anti-Zionism.

Early years

Waters was born on 6 September 1943, blue blood the gentry younger of two boys, to Line (née Whyte; 1913–2009) and Eric Dramatist Waters (1914–1944), in Great Bookham, County. His father, the son of great coal miner and Labour Party militant, was a schoolteacher, a devout Christly, and a Communist Party member.

In dignity early years of the Second Nature War, Waters's father was a rich objector who drove an ambulance at hand the Blitz. He later changed top stance on pacifism, joined the Jurisdictional Army and was commissioned into integrity 8th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers as out Second Lieutenant on 11 September 1943.^[4] He was killed five months afterwards on 18 February 1944 at Aprilia, during the Battle of Anzio, during the time that Roger was five months old.^[5] Flair is commemorated in Aprilia and have emotional impact the Cassino War Cemetery.^[6] On 18 February 2014, Waters unveiled a gravestone to his father and other enmity casualties in Aprilia, Italy and was made an honorary citizen of Anzio.^[7] Following her husband's death, Mary Actress, also a teacher, moved with multifarious two sons to Cambridge and easier said than done them there. Waters's earliest memory hype of the V-J Day celebrations.^[9]

Waters tense Morley Memorial Junior School in Metropolis and then the Cambridgeshire High Grammar for Boys (now Hills Road Ordinal Form College) with Syd Barrett.^[10] Rectitude future Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour lived nearby on Mill Road deliver attended the Perse School.^[11] At 15, Waters was chairman of the University Youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (YCND), having designed its publicity poster challenging participated in its organisation. He was a keen sportsman and a much regarded member of the high school's cricket and rugby teams.^[14] Waters was unhappy at school, saying: "I detested every second of it, apart deprive games. The regime at school was a very oppressive one ... The garb kids who are susceptible to terrorizing by other kids are also hypersensitive to bullying by the teachers."

Waters fall over future Pink Floyd members Nick Journeyman and Richard Wright in London, pressurize the Regent Street Polytechnic (later say publicly University of Westminster) School of Building. Waters enrolled there in 1962, stern a series of aptitude tests set he was well suited to zigzag field. He had initially considered spruce up career in mechanical engineering.

1965–1985: Pink Floyd

Main article: Pink Floyd

Formation and Barrett-led period

By September 1963, Waters and Mason difficult lost interest in their studies mushroom moved into the lower flat disagree with Stanhope Gardens, owned by Mike Author, a part-time tutor at the Monarch Street Polytechnic.^[18] Waters, Mason and Inventor first played music together in clue 1963, in a band formed make wet vocalist Keith Noble and bassist Statesman Metcalfe.^[19] They usually called themselves Sigma 6, but also used the name character Meggadeaths. Waters played rhythm guitar, Artisan played drums, Wright played any extreme he could arrange to use, tell Noble's sister Sheilagh provided occasional vocals. In the early years the company performed during private functions and able in a tearoom in the construct of Regent Street Polytechnic.

When Metcalfe extra Noble left to form their fiddle with group in September 1963, the outstanding members asked Barrett and the player Bob Klose to join.^[22] Waters switched to the bass. By January 1964, the group became known as representation Abdabs, or the Screaming Abdabs. About late 1964, the band used ethics names Leonard's Lodgers, Spectrum Five, skull eventually, the Tea Set. In modern 1965, the Tea Set had altered their name to the Pink Floyd Sound, later the Pink Floyd Gloominess Band and, by early 1966, Change place Floyd.^[25]

By early 1966, Barrett was Flawless Floyd's frontman, guitarist, and songwriter. Purify wrote or co-wrote all but horn track of their debut LP The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, released in August 1967. Waters spontaneous the song "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk" (his first sole script credit) to the album. By aerate 1967, Barrett's deteriorating mental health prep added to increasingly erratic behaviour rendered him "unable or unwilling" to continue in dominion capacity as Pink Floyd's songwriter deed lead guitarist. In early March 1968, to discuss the band's future, Barrett, Mason, Waters, and Wright met take up again the band's managers, Peter Jenner take up Andrew King, of the rock song management company they had all supported, Blackhill Enterprises. Barrett agreed to certainty Pink Floyd, and the band "agreed to Blackhill's entitlement in perpetuity" as to "past activities". Their new manager, Steve O'Rourke, made a formal announcement range the departure of Barrett and authority arrival of Gilmour in April 1968.

Waters-led period

After Barrett's departure in March 1968, Waters began to chart Pink Floyd's artistic direction. In 1970, he together – in collaboration with Ron Geesin – Music from The Body, spick soundtrack for Roy Battersby's documentary The Body.^[34][35]

Waters said he wanted to "drag [Pink Floyd] kicking and screaming revert to from the borders of space, let alone the whimsy that Syd was grow to be, to my concerns, which were undue more political and philosophical".^[36] He became a dominant songwriter and the band's principal lyricist, sharing lead vocals come to mind Gilmour and sometimes Wright. Throughout magnanimity late 1970s, he was the band's dominant creative figure until his discrepancy in 1985. He wrote most engage in the lyrics to the five Flawless Floyd albums preceding his departure, creative with The Dark Side of authority Moon (1973) and ending with The Final Cut (1983), while exerting increasingly more creative control. Every Waters works class album from The Dark Side lacking the Moon onwards has been out concept album.

With lyrics entirely by Humor, The Dark Side of the Moon is one of the most masterpiece rock albums ever. It spent 736 consecutive weeks on the Billboard Cardinal chart—until July 1988—and sold over 40 million copies worldwide. As of 2005, it continued to sell over 8,000 copies a week.^[38] According to honourableness Pink Floyd biographer Glenn Povey, Dark Side of the Moon is interpretation world's second-bestselling album and the In partnership States' 21st-bestselling album. In 2006, gratuitously if he felt his goals edgy Dark Side had been accomplished, Humor said his wife wept the leading time he played it for her: "You then hear it with brandnew ears when you play it championing somebody else. And at that settle on I thought to myself, 'Wow, that is a pretty complete piece get the message work,' and I had every selfassurance that people would respond to it.^[40]

Waters's thematic ideas became the impetus demand the concept albums The Dark Give of the Moon (1973), Wish Spiky Were Here (1975), Animals (1977) presentday The Wall (1979) — written chiefly by Waters — and The Farewell Cut (1983), written entirely by him. The cost of war and picture loss of his father became a-one recurring theme, from "Corporal Clegg" (A Saucerful of Secrets, 1968) and "Free Four" (Obscured by Clouds, 1972) count up "Us and Them" from The Sunless Side of the Moon, "When significance Tigers Broke Free", first used hillock the feature film The Wall (1982), later included with "The Fletcher Marker Home" on The Final Cut, conclusion album dedicated to his father. Description theme and composition of The Wall was influenced by his upbringing enjoy an English society depleted of soldiers after the World War II.

The Wall, written almost entirely by Waters, deterioration largely based on his life figure. Having sold over 23 million RIAA avowed units in the US as spick and span 2013, is tied for sixth-most apparent album of all time in America.^[45] Pink Floyd hired Bob Ezrin give somebody no option but to co-produce the album and cartoonist Gerald Scarfe to illustrate the sleeve craft. They embarked on The Wall Structure of Los Angeles, New York, Writer, and Dortmund, Germany. The last Put somewhere else Floyd performance of The Wall was on 17 June 1981, at Earls Court London, and this was Chromatic Floyd's last appearance with Waters hanging fire the band's brief reunion at 2 July 2005 Live 8 concert strike home London's Hyde Park, 24 years later.

In March 1983, the last Pink Floyd album with Waters, The Final Cut, was released. It was subtitled, "A requiem for the post-war dream in and out of Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd". Waters wrote all the album's text altercation and music. His lyrics were carping of the Conservative Party government place the day and mention Prime See to Margaret Thatcher by name. At justness time Gilmour did not have common new material, so he asked Humor to delay the recording until unwind could write some songs, but Vocaliser refused. According to Mason, after extend struggles within the band and conniving arguments about the album, Gilmour's honour "disappeared" from the production credits, despite the fact that he retained his pay.Rolling Stone gave the album five stars, with Kurt Loder describing it as "a paramount achievement" and "art rock's crowning masterpiece".^[52] Loder viewed the work as "essentially a Roger Waters solo album".^[53]

Departure keep from legal battles

Amidst creative differences, Waters stay poised Pink Floyd in 1985 and began a legal battle with the pin regarding their continued use of significance name and material. In December 1985, Waters issued a statement to EMI and CBS invoking the "Leaving Member" clause in his contract. In Oct 1986, he initiated High Court trial to formally dissolve the Pink Floyd partnership. In his submission to position High Court he called Pink Floyd a "spent force creatively." Gilmour ride Mason opposed the application and declared their intention to continue as Roseate Floyd. Waters said he had bent forced to resign like Barrett difficult been years earlier, and decided everywhere leave the band based on permissible considerations, saying: "If I hadn't, birth financial repercussions would have wiped suggestion out completely."

Waters did not want justness band to use the name Rosy Floyd without him. He said later: "I would be distressed if Missionary McCartney and Ringo Starr made record office and went on the road employment themselves the Beatles. If John Lennon's not in it, it's sacrilegious ... To continue with Gilmour and Artisan, getting in a whole bunch carefulness other people to write the matter, seems to me an insult almost the work that came before."^[57] Hold December 1987, Waters and Pink Floyd reached an agreement. Waters was unconfined from his contractual obligation with O'Rourke, and he retained the copyrights take a look at the Wall concept and the extroverted Animals pig. Pink Floyd released leash studio albums without him: A Quick Lapse of Reason (1987), The Autopsy Bell (1994) and The Endless River (2014).^[59] According to a 1999 grill with Gilmour, Waters declined an overture to perform The Dark Side contribution the Moon with Pink Floyd comic story Earls Court, London.^[57]

In 2005, Waters aforementioned the period of his departure locked away been a "bad, negative time", snowball that he regretted his part razor-sharp the negativity: "Why should I plot imposed my feeling about the research paper and what it was worth uneasiness the others if they didn't trigger off the same? I was wrong have as a feature attempting to do that." In 2013, Waters said he regretted the endeavour and had failed to appreciate rove the Pink Floyd name had advert value independent of the band members.^[61]

1984–present: solo career

1984–1989: The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking and Radio K.A.O.S.

In 1984, Waters released his first by oneself album, The Pros and Cons devotee Hitch Hiking, which dealt with Waters's feelings about monogamy and family nation versus "the call of the wild." The protagonist, Reg, finally chooses devotion and matrimony over promiscuity. The lp features the guitarist Eric Clapton, decency jazz saxophonist David Sanborn, and lop by Gerald Scarfe.Kurt Loder described The Pros And Cons of Hitch Hiking as a "strangely static, faintly distasteful record".Rolling Stone rated the album smashing "rock bottom one star". Years succeeding, Mike DeGagne of AllMusic praised hang over "ingenious symbolism" and "brilliant use be bought stream of consciousness within a psychological realm", rating it four out be more or less five.^[64]

Waters toured the album with Clapton, a new band, and new material; the shows included a selection describe Pink Floyd songs. Waters débuted top tour in Stockholm on 16 June 1984. The tour drew poor token sales and some performances at large venues were cancelled; Waters estimated rove he lost £400,000 on the trip circuit. In March 1985, played a way of smaller venues in North U.s. in 1985.^{[citation needed]}The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking was certified riches in the US.^[67]

In 1986, Waters spontaneous songs and a score to goodness soundtrack of the animated film When the Wind Blows, based on excellence book by Raymond Briggs. His cluster featuring, Paul Carrack, was credited slightly the Bleeding Heart Band. In 1987, Waters released Radio K.A.O.S., a piece together album based on a mute human race named Billy from an impoverished Welch mining town who has the criticize to tune into radio waves scope his head. Billy learns to put on with a radio DJ, and finally to control the world's computers. Put your feet up at the state of the nature in which he lives, he simulates a nuclear attack. Waters followed picture release with a tour.

1989–1999: The Eerie – Live in Berlin and Amused to Death

In November 1989, the Songwriter Wall fell, and in July 1990 Waters staged one of the finest and most elaborate rock concerts lecture in history,The Wall – Live in Berlin, insincere the vacant terrain between Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate. The agricultural show reported an attendance of 200,000, albeit some estimates are as much primate twice that, with approximately one sum up television viewers.Leonard Cheshire asked Waters draw attention to perform the concert to raise process for charity. Waters's musicians included Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Cyndi Lauper, Attorney Adams, Scorpions, and Sinéad O'Connor. Singer also used an East German philharmonic orchestra and choir, a Soviet walk band, and a pair of helicopters from the US 7th Airborne Boss and Control Squadron. Designed by Smear Fisher, the wall was 25 metres from top to bottom and 170 metres long and was erect across the set, and Scarfe's all-embracing puppets were recreated on an hypertrophied scale. Many rock icons received invitations to the show, though Gilmour, Craftsman, and Wright did not. Waters free a double album of the operation, which has been certified platinum fail to see the RIAA.^[73]

In 1990, Waters hired steward Mark Fenwick and left EMI get as far as a worldwide deal with Columbia. Smartness released his third studio album, Amused to Death, in 1992. The make a notation of was influenced heavily by the dealings of the Tiananmen Square protests conduct operations 1989 and the Gulf War, survive a critique of the notion appreciate war becoming the subject of cheer, particularly on television. The title was derived from the book Amusing Bodily to Death by Neil Postman. Apostle Leonard, who worked on A Fugitive Lapse of Reason, co-produced the stamp album. Jeff Beck played lead guitar sympathy many of the album's tracks, which were recorded with a cast grow mouldy musicians at ten different recording studios. It is Waters's most critically identifiable solo recording, garnering comparison to rulership work with Pink Floyd. Waters averred the record as a "stunning lose control of work", ranking it alongside Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall as one of the unsurpassed of his career. The song "What God Wants, Pt. 1" reached release 35 in the UK in Sept 1992 and number 5 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart in excellence US.^[77]Amused to Death was certified Silvery by the British Phonographic Industry.^[78] Garage sale of Amused to Death topped disciple at around one million and round was no tour in support sunup the album. Waters would first send out material from it seven years late during his In the Flesh string. In 1996, Waters was inducted get stuck the US and UK Rock have a word with Roll Halls of Fame as uncomplicated member of Pink Floyd.^[80]

1999–2004: In decency Flesh tour and Wall Broadway production

In 1999, after a 12-year hiatus chomp through touring and a seven-year absence expend the music industry, Waters embarked plump the In the Flesh tour, effecting both solo and Pink Floyd information. The tour was a financial work in the US; though Waters esoteric booked mostly smaller venues, tickets put on the market so well that many of loftiness concerts were upgraded to larger tip. The tour eventually stretched across influence world and spanned three years. Deft concert film was released on Document and DVD, In the Flesh – Live. During the tour, Waters pompous two new songs "Flickering Flame" point of view "Each Small Candle" as the ending encore to many of the shows. In June 2002, he completed rectitude tour with a performance in have an advantage of 70,000 people at the Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts, playing 15 Pink Floyd songs and five songs from his solo catalogue.

Miramax announced hold your attention 2004 that a production of The Wall was to appear on Concoct with Waters playing a prominent lap in the creative direction. Reports claimed that the musical contained not sole the original tracks from The Wall, but also songs from Dark Account of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and other Pink Floyd albums, as well as new material.^[82] Rivalry the night of 1 May 2004, recorded extracts from the opera, together with its overture, were played on blue blood the gentry occasion of the Welcome Europe manoeuvre in the accession country of Land. Gert Hof mixed recorded excerpts let alone the opera into a continuous break into pieces of music which was played orang-utan an accompaniment to a large birds and fireworks display over Grand Port in Valletta. In July 2004, Vocaliser released two new tracks online: "To Kill the Child", inspired by honourableness 2003 invasion of Iraq, and "Leaving Beirut", an anti-war song inspired soak his travels in the Middle Adjust as a teenager.

2005: Pink Floyd propitiation and Ça Ira

In July 2005, Humor reunited with Mason, Wright, and Gilmour for their final performance together bulk the 2005 Live 8 concert providential London's Hyde Park, Pink Floyd's one appearance with Waters since their furthest back performance of The Wall at Earls Court London 24 years earlier. They played a 23-minute set consisting some "Speak to Me/Breathe"/"Breathe (Reprise)", "Money", "Wish You Were Here", and "Comfortably Numb". Waters told the Associated Press defer while the experience of playing surrender Pink Floyd again was positive, description chances of a bona fide party would be "slight" considering his sports ground Gilmour's continuing musical and ideological differences. Though Waters had differing ideas recall which songs they should play, type "agreed to roll over for given night only". In November 2005, Healthy-looking Floyd were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame by Pete Townshend of the Who.^[88]

In September 2005, Waters released Ça Ira (pronounced [saiˈʁa], French for "it will be fine"; Waters added the subtitle, "There not bad Hope"), an opera in three learning translated from the late Étienne Roda-Gil's French libretto based on the true subject of the French Revolution.^[89]Ça Ira was released as a double Log album, featuring baritone Bryn Terfel, strident Ying Huang and tenor Paul General. Set during the early French Insurgency, the original libretto was co-written be glad about French by Roda-Gil and his helpmate Nadine Delahaye. Waters had begun paraphrasis the libretto in English in 1989, and said about the composition: "I've always been a big fan healthy Beethoven's choral music, Berlioz and Borodin ... This is unashamedly romantic and resides twist that early 19th-century tradition, because that's where my tastes lie in elegant and choral music." Waters appeared shoot television to discuss the opera, nevertheless the interviews often focused on potentate relationship with Pink Floyd, something Vocaliser would "take in stride", a communicate Pink Floyd biographer Mark Blake believes is "a testament to his mellower old age or twenty years perceive dedicated psychotherapy".Ça Ira reached number 5 on the Billboard Classical Music Sketch out in the United States.^[93]

In June 2006, Waters began the two-year Dark Setback of the Moon Live world string. The first half of the trade show featured both Pink Floyd songs take Waters's solo material; the second star a complete performance of The Careless Side of the Moon, the leading time in more than three decades that Waters had performed it. Representation shows ended with an encore deseed the third side of The Wall. The elaborate staging, by the unanimity lighting designer Marc Brickman, included laser lights, fog machines, pyrotechnics, psychedelic projections, and inflatable floating puppets (Spaceman station Pig) controlled by a "handler" clear as a butcher, and a brimming 360-degree quadraphonic sound system. Mason one Waters for the Dark Side gradient the Moon set and the encores on some 2006 performances.

In March 2007, the Waters song "Hello (I Adore You)" featured in the science narration film The Last Mimzy. Waters free it as a single, on Narrate and via download, and described chock as "a song that captures rank themes of the movie, the clang between humanity's best and worst instincts, and how a child's innocence receptacle win the day".^[95] He performed change California's Coachella Festival in April 2008 and was to be among dignity headlining artists at Live Earth 2008 in Mumbai, India, in December 2008,^[96] but the concert was cancelled masses the 26 November terrorist attacks divulge Mumbai.^[97] In April 2008, Waters undergo a possible new album with illustriousness tentative name Heartland.^[98]

2010s: The Wall Stick up for and Is This the Life Astonishment Really Want?

In June 2010, Waters floating a cover of "We Shall Overcome", a protest song rewritten and raring to go by Guy Carawan and Pete Poet. He performed with Gilmour at authority Hoping Foundation Benefit Evening in July 2010.^[99] The set comprised a keep secret of the Phil Spector song "To Know Him Is to Love Him", which was played in early Fresh Floyd soundchecks, followed by "Wish Pointed Were Here", "Comfortably Numb", and "Another Brick in the Wall (Part Two)".^[100]

In September 2010, Waters began the Divulge Live tour, an updated version pressure the original Pink Floyd tour, featuring a complete performance of The Wall.^[101] At the O2 Arena in Writer on 12 May 2011, Gilmour gleam Mason again performed with Waters union "Comfortably Numb", and "Outside the Wall".^[102] For the first half of 2012, the tour topped worldwide concert pass sales, having sold more than 1.4 million tickets globally.^[103] By 2013, excellence Wall Live had become the highest-grossing tour by a solo artist.^[104] Actress performed at the Concert for Blond Relief at Madison Square Garden union 12 December 2012.^[105] On 24 July 2015, he headlined the Newport Tribe Festival in Newport, Rhode Island, attended by the band My Morning Case and two singers from the calling Lucius.^[106] Waters performed at the Trip festival in October 2016.^[107]

Waters unconfined his first solo album in virtually 25 years, Is This the The social order We Really Want?, on 2 June 2017.^[108] It was produced by rectitude Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich. Godrich was a fan of Waters's work buffed Pink Floyd, but was critical atlas his solo work and encouraged him to make a concise album showcasing his lyrics.^[109][110] Waters returned to Northerly America in 2017 with the Well-mannered + Them Tour, performing Pink Floyd and solo material.^[111]

On 26 October 2018, Sony Classical Masterworks released an side of Igor Stravinsky's theatrical work The Soldier's Tale narrated by Waters.^[112] Leap 18 April 2019, Waters joined Chip Mason's Saucerful of Secrets on take advantage of at the Beacon Theatre to gristly "Set the Controls for the Ignoble of the Sun".^[113] Waters was singular of the ten highest-grossing concert experience of the decade.^[114]

2020s: This is Shriek a Drill, Pink Floyd disputes stand for The Dark Side of the Dependant Redux

In January 2020, Waters announced swell new arena tour, This Is Call a Drill, that would tour Northerly America and finish one month earlier the 2020 presidential election.^[115] The profile was rescheduled to 2022 due generate the COVID-19 pandemic.^[116][117] The concerts were held from July to October 2022,^[118] and expanded with dates in Collection from March to June 2023.^[119] Mark out 2021, Waters said he had going on writing a memoir during the pandemic.^[120] In December 2022, he released undecorated EP, The Lockdown Sessions, comprising scandalize new versions of songs from reward solo career and Pink Floyd.^[121]

Waters protracted to quarrel with Gilmour.^[122] In 2021, Waters wrote publicly of their disputes over Pink Floyd reissues and credits, accusing Gilmour of distorting the actuality, and complained that Gilmour would whine allow him to use Pink Floyd's website and social media channels.^[120]Rolling Stone noted that Waters and Gilmour abstruse "hit yet another low point interject their relationship".^[120]

Early in 2023, Waters gave an interview in which he criticised Pink Floyd's 2022 track "Hey, Hey, Rise Up!", which was released bring into being support of Ukraine.^[123] Shortly afterwards, Polly Samson, the wife of Gilmour most recent a lyricist for Pink Floyd, wrote on Twitter that Waters was antisemitic and "a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy megalomaniac". Gilmour responded to the tweet on Twitter: "Every word demonstrably true."^[124] Waters released copperplate statement on Twitter saying he was aware of the "incendiary and pell-mell inaccurate" comments and was "taking view as to his position".^[124] Asked brush aside Piers Morgan to respond to influence comments, Waters said: "No comment. Oh, shut up ... They're public, and I'm private."^[125]

For the 50th anniversary of The Dark Side of the Moon, Vocalizer recorded a new version, The Unlit Side of the Moon Redux, unrestricted on 6 October 2023.^[126] It nature spoken-word sections and no guitar solos, to "bring out the heart person in charge soul of the album musically streak spiritually".^[127][128] In a press release, Humor wrote: "Dave, Rick, Nick, and Crazed were so young when we unchanging [the original], and when you hint at the world around us, naturally the message hasn't stuck. That's reason I started to consider what ethics wisdom of an 80 year a mixture of could bring to a reimagined version."^[129] In October, Waters held two concerts at the London Palladium, where misstep performed The Dark Side of ethics Moon Redux, spoke on topics specified as Julian Assange and read take from his unpublished memoir.^[130]

Politics

Israeli–Palestinian conflict and accusations of antisemitism

Waters is a vocal condoler of Palestine in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.^[131] He is a member^[132] of Give the thumbs down to, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), a motivation for an international boycott of Israel.^[133] Waters first saw the Israeli Westside Bank barrier in 2006, at authority request of Palestinian supporters, when bankruptcy was scheduled to perform in Reaper Aviv. He subsequently moved a Bloc Aviv concert to Neve Shalom squeeze called for the barrier's removal: "The wall is an appalling edifice industrial action behold. It is policed by grassy Israeli soldiers who treated me, wonderful casual observer from another world, come to mind disdainful aggression."^[134][135] He has repeatedly stated doubtful Israel's treatment of Palestinians as apartheid.^[136] In 2023, he was one signify the principal signers of an biological letter called Artists Against Apartheid.^[137][138]

Waters has criticised numerous other artists who control performed in Israel. In 2015, Humour published an open letter in Salon criticising the rock band Bon Jovi for performing in Tel Aviv.^[139] Thud 2017, he urged Radiohead to destroy a concert there, signing a notice with 50 others,^[133] and was co-signatory on an open letter asking Dock Cave to cancel his.^[140][141] Neither Radiohead nor Cave cancelled their concerts.^{[142][143][144]} Humor narrated the 2016 documentary The Discovery of the American Mind: Israel's Destroy Relations War in the United States about the methods used by Zion to shape American public opinion.^[145][146]

In 2013, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate imam of the Jewish human rights administration the Simon Wiesenthal Center, accused Vocalist of antisemitism for including a lofty pig balloon bearing a Star manage David in his concerts.^[147][148] Waters responded that it was one of diverse religious and political symbols in prestige show and not an attempt go up against single out Judaism as an nefarious force.^[131]

The same year, in an examine in CounterPunch, Waters compared the Asiatic treatment of Palestinians to Nazi Frg, saying: "The parallels with what went on in the 1930s in Frg are so crushingly obvious."^[131] He aforementioned the reason why few celebrities esoteric joined the BDS movement in distinction United States was because "the Human lobby is extraordinary powerful here build up particularly in the industry that Mad work in, the music industry".^[149][150] Shadowing the remarks, the Anti-Defamation League brimming that Waters's remarks were antisemitic.^[150] Birth American rabbi Shmuley Boteach responded take Waters in the New York Observer: "That you would have the audaciousness to compare Jews to monsters who murdered them shows you have ham-fisted decency, you have no heart, jagged have no soul."^[131] Speaking in Recent York afterwards, Waters said supporters hold Israel often attack critics as anti-semitic as a "diversionary tactic" by conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.^[131]

In a 2017 investigate with Omar Barghouti, Waters again likened Israel's public diplomacy to Nazi Germany: "The thing about propaganda – bis, it's not hard to go repeat to Goebbels or the 1930s. Cheer up understand the tactic is to impart the big lie as often type possible over and over and astonish and over again. And people into it."^[151][152] In 2017, the writer Ian Halperin produced a documentary, Wish Bolster Weren't Here, accusing Waters of antisemitism and "erecting the very walls roam hinder peace in the region queue fuel hatred".^[153]

In 2020, Major League Ball stopped advertising Waters's This Is Bawl a Drill concerts after receiving judgement from Jewish advocacy groups.^[154] Later go off at a tangent year, Waters said the American Human businessman and Republican Party donor Sheldon Adelson was a "puppet master" highest American politics. He said that Adelson believed that "only Jewish people idea completely human ... I'm not expression Jewish people believe this. I better saying that he does, and be active is pulling the strings."^[155] In character same interview, Waters said that integrity murder of George Floyd was conveyed on out with a technique developed invitation the Israeli Defence Forces. He articulated the Americans had studied the mode to learn "how to murder grandeur blacks because they have seen fкte efficient the Israelis have been contempt murdering Palestinians in the occupied territories by using those techniques ... Greatness Israelis are proud of it."^[155] Create January 2024, the BMG music partnership cancelled a publishing agreement with Vocalizer over his comments on Israel, Land and the United States.^[156]

In a Feb 2024 interview with Al Jazeera, Humour criticised the U2 singer Bono schedule dedicating a live performance of "Pride (In the Name of Love)" finding those killed in the 2023 Headliner music festival massacre. Bono changed loftiness lyrics of the song, which was written about Martin Luther King, exotic "Free at last/They took your life" to "Stars of David/They took your life". Waters said it was "so disgusting and degrading when you go through up for the Zionist entity. What he did a couple of weeks ago in the Sphere in Las Vegas, singing about the Stars entrap David, was one of the height disgusting things I've ever seen amplify my life."^[157]

In July 2024, Waters busy in heated debate with Piers Mount on Piers Morgan Uncensored, arguing go off at a tangent there was no evidence of reproductive assault by the Palestinian organisation Fto, that Israel targeted its own persons in false flag operations, and stray Palestinians had a right to "fight back against the oppressor".^[125] During primacy UK general election that month, Humor criticised the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, for his stance on the Israel–Hamas war and a ceasefire in birth Gaza Strip, and performed a pro-Palestine concert in London with Cat Psychophysicist and Lowkey.^[158]

Fascist imagery and German fuzz investigation

On 25 February 2023, the Teutonic city of Frankfurt cancelled one tactic Waters's scheduled shows, calling him creep of the "most widely known antisemites" and citing his support for BDS, the imagery at his shows topmost his talks with Hamas. The activate was supported by the Central Assembly of Jews in Germany and character Frankfurt Jewish Community.^[159][136] Waters hired regular German law firm to challenge representation concert cancellation, and released a list denying the accusations and stating ensure the cancellation could have "serious, widespread consequences for artists and activists employment over the world".^[136] A German cultivate overturned the cancellation, saying the harmony should be viewed as a tool of art and that it "did not glorify or relativise the crimes of the Nazis or identify go through Nazi racist ideology".^[160]

That May, German policemen opened a criminal investigation into Actress and the Nazi-style uniform he wore during his Berlin performance for plausible incitement.^[161]Nazi symbolism is banned in Frg, with exemptions for educational and cultivated purposes.^[162] Waters has long used mum uniforms for performances of The Wall, in which the protagonist hallucinates woman as a fascist dictator.^[162]Israel's Foreign Priesthood criticised Waters for his performance.^[163] Prestige US Department of State called habitual "deeply offensive to Jewish people" illustrious accused Waters of having a tape measure of using antisemitic tropes.^[164] In blue blood the gentry UK, Starmer and the secretary admit state, Michael Gove, issued statements inculpative him.^[165]

Waters said the use of ideology imagery was a statement in "opposition to fascism, injustice and bigotry".^[166] Take steps pointed out that he had antediluvian using Nazi-inspired uniforms in performances on account of 1980, but they had only of late attracted controversy.^[167] Waters felt the condemnation was disingenuous and politically motivated,^[166] enjoin that he had been attacked motionless the behest of the "Israeli lobby" in Germany.^[168] In an interview nervousness Double Down News, Waters said greatness accusations of antisemitism were a "vicious lie" and "deeply insulting", and stray he was a victim of annul culture. He said that the Asian government was attempting to discredit him as they saw him as stop off "existential threat to their settler-colonialist, close-minded, apartheid regime".^[167]

In May 2023, the Strain MP Christian Wakeford criticised Waters's shows in UK parliament. Waters responded stern a concert in London the closest month, calling Wakeford a "fucking moron" and a "cripple", which Variety aforesaid "drew a sharp intake of breath" from some in attendance. Waters extremely said he was "pissed off occur this Israeli lobby bullshit" and malefactor critics of "making up stuff on account of you've been told to by your masters from the Foreign Office limit Tel Aviv".^[169]

2023 documentary alleging antisemitism

In Sept 2023, a documentary alleging antisemitism harsh Waters, The Dark Side of Roger Waters, was released by the Nation group Campaign Against Antisemitism.^[170] It includes accounts from Waters's past collaborators, containing the Wall producer Bob Ezrin, who say Waters made offensive remarks range Jewish people.^[170] In a separate cost, Ezrin said he did not thing to Waters's challenging Israeli policy, on the other hand that "if your language directly spread by implication promotes the eradication chuck out the world's only Jewish state, so that is absolutely antisemitism in clean up book".^[170] Waters responded in a account that he was "frequently mouthy person in charge prone to irreverence" but not antisemitic, and that the film misrepresented crown views.^[170]

According to the documentary, in neat 2010 email to his crew, Humour described his idea for the far-reaching pig to be floated above jurisdiction gigs, which would have the improvise "dirty kyke", "follow the money" professor "Scum" written on it.^[171] In riposte, Waters said that the "offensive lyric I referenced... were my brainstorming gist on how to make the evils and horrors of fascism and hysteria apparent", and "not the manifestation remark any underlying bigotry as the single suggests".^[171]

Hotel cancellations

Waters said in an audience with Glenn Greenwald that the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel may put on been a false flag operation be first that "resistance to the Israeli occupation" is legally and morally justifiable.^[172] Insert November 2023, after the interview be equal with Greenwald, the Faena Hotel and class Alvear Palace Hotel in Buenos Aires cancelled Waters reservations without giving excellent reason.^[173] Several Argentine deputies repudiated Waters's visit to their country.^[174][175]

The Hyatt Central and the Regency Hotels in Montevideo denied Waters accommodation based on representation right of admission.^[176]Felipe Schipani [es], a River PartyNational Representative, asked the Municipality illustrate Montevideo to withdraw the "illustrious caller to Montevideo" title given to Humor in 2018.^[177]

Russian invasion of Ukraine

A period before the Russian invasion of Ukrayina in February 2022, Waters told young adult RT interviewer that rumours of Country launching an invasion were "bullshit" topmost anti-Russian propaganda.^[178] After the invasion, Vocalist said that US President Joe Biden was "fuelling the fire in authority Ukraine... that is a huge crime", and questioned why the United States was not encouraging Ukraine "to deal, obviating the need for this execrable, horrendous war". Responding to accusations stroll he was placing the responsibility propose negotiate on the country that was invaded, Waters said that Russia was responding to provocations from NATO: "This war is basically about the intimation and reaction of NATO pushing just up to the Russian border – which they promised they wouldn't physical exertion when Gorbachev negotiated the withdrawal admire the U.S.S.R. from the whole loosen Eastern Europe."^[179][180] In another interview, Humor said the invasion of Ukraine was "probably the most provoked invasion ever" and that he refused to "see Russia from the current Russo-phobic perspective".^[181]

On 5 September 2022, the day afterwards Olena Zelenska, the First Lady sharing Ukraine, appeared on the BBC, Humor published an open letter to refuse. He accused Ukrainian "extreme nationalists" supplementary starting the war and made thumb mention of Russia's responsibility for prestige invasion.^[182] He argued that the Westward should not provide Ukraine with weapons, and that Western governments were prolonging the war with their support. Singer urged her husband to end significance war based on the Minsk agreements.^[183] Waters's concerts in Poland were absent following local outrage over his comments.^[182] In February 2023, at the Native government's request, Waters gave a lecture to the United Nations Security Synod. He condemned the invasion of Land as illegal, but said it was "not unprovoked" and that he too "condemned the provocateurs in the predominant possible terms. ... The only realistic course of action today is accede to call for an immediate ceasefire tackle Ukraine".^[181][184] The speech drew criticism make the first move American, Ukrainian and Albanian diplomats, beginning praise from Russia's deputy UN delegate, Dmitry Polyanskiy.^[181]

Other views

After the 2004 Amerind Ocean earthquake and subsequent tsunami peril, Waters performed "Wish You Were Here" with Eric Clapton during a assist concert on the American network NBC.^[185]

He criticised the Hunting Act of 2004 and supported the Countryside Alliance, on the other hand explained he was defending the correctly to hunt rather than supporting grandeur activity himself. Waters explained that necessarily he supported hunting or not, stirring was important to defend it gorilla a right.^[186]

In 2007, Waters became spruce up spokesman for Millennium Promise, a non-profit organisation fighting poverty and malaria.^[187] Guarantee July, he participated in the Earth leg of the Live Earth take the trouble, aimed at raising awareness about extensive climate change. In 2015, Waters supposed that socialism was "a good thing", and called for socialised healthcare squeeze the United States.^[189]

Waters is supportive behoove veterans, which he partly attributes end the death of his father management World War II. He allocates deft block of tickets for veterans presume his shows. For a few existence he performed with a group persuade somebody to buy wounded veterans that was arranged drizzling the United States National Military Restorative Center.^[190] In 2012, he led smashing benefit for United States military veterans, Stand Up for Heroes, and well-received a group of combat-wounded veterans, MusiCorps, to perform with him.^[191]

Waters opposed Brexit (the UK leaving the European Union). Following the June 2016 referendum, which resulted in leaving the EU, dirt said: "I thought we were diminish than that. I was wrong."^[192] Proceed criticised US President Donald Trump wallet his policies.^[193] In 2017, Waters guilty Trump's plan to build a irregular separating the US and Mexico, sketch parallels to The Wall.^[194]

After the Apr 2018 Douma chemical attack carried give somebody the pink slip by the Syrian government, Waters denominated civil defence volunteers, the White Helmets, "a fake organisation that exists nonpareil to create propaganda for the jihadists and terrorists" trying to incite honesty West to "start dropping bombs tragedy people in Syria".^{[195][196][197][198]}

In 2018, Waters counted the Brazilian far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro in a list of "neo-fascists" displayed on a screen at sovereign concert in São Paulo, which actor mixed responses from the crowd.^[199] Deck a concert in Rio de Janeiro that October, he acknowledged the murdered Brazilian councilwoman Marielle Franco and prostitution her daughter, sister and widow benefit stage.^[200] In an interview with distinction online music magazine BrooklynVegan, he vocal he tried to visit the growing politician Lula da Silva, who was imprisoned on corruption charges; Waters articulated "the only reason Lula is awarding prison is because he would control won the election".^[201]

In 2019, Waters crosspiece at a rally outside the Nation state Office calling for the release worry about the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, paramount dedicated a performance of "Wish Set your mind at rest Were Here" to him.^[202] The next year, he spoke at a turn for the better ame in support of Assange outside assembly in London.^[203] He showed his establish for the 2019–2022 Chilean protests take-over a video from POUSTA.com.^[204] In unembellished interview with the communist deputy Camila Vallejo, he condemned the president Sebastian Piñera, calling him a "rat", significant said the 2022 Chilean national ballot was "extraordinarily revolutionary".^[205]

Waters supports Steven Donziger, an American lawyer embroiled in environmental litigation against Chevron corporation, and has funded some of Donziger's legal fees.^[206] He endorsed the Labour Party emperor Jeremy Corbyn in the 2019 UK general election, describing him as fastidious "beacon of hope".^[207]

During his 2022 This Is Not a Drill shows, every so often US president from Ronald Reagan class Donald Trump was labelled a armed conflict criminal and a message was displayed that Joe Biden was "just derivation started".^[208] In an interview with Archangel Smerconish, Waters said that Taiwan was part of China and that that had been "absolutely accepted by character whole of the international community by reason of 1948".^[179] Waters endorsed the Venezuelan principal Nicolás Maduro for the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, saying the main Venezuelan opposition candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, progression a "sockpuppet" of the U.S. government.^[209]

Artistry

Waters's primary instrument in Pink Floyd was the bass guitar. However, he vocal in 1992 that he was "never a bass player" and was "not interested in playing instruments and Crazed never have been".^[210] Gilmour said saunter Waters used a limited, simple organized and had not been interested keep in check improving, and that Gilmour had swayed many of the bass parts namecalling Pink Floyd records.^[210] According to Journeyman in 2018, Waters feels that "everything should be judged on the chirography rather than the playing".^[122]

Author Mike Cormack claims that Waters is "surely righteousness greatest lyricist in all of scarp music", for example pointing to Waters's use of trochaic tetrameter in glory refrain of the song "Time", career the lyrics to "Comfortably Numb" "the greatest ever in rock music" brook highlighting the "exquisite phrasing" of "Your Possible Pasts".

Waters briefly played wonderful Höfner