Roger Waters -Pink Floyd - Personnel

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(Pre 1964) Early years

Waters grew up in Cambridge. His mother, a teacher, and father were both communists, and active in CND. Though his father had been a pacifist he fought in World War II, dying in action at Anzio. Waters would refer to the loss of his father often, especially on The Wall and The Final Cut. However, he has said that the character of the mother from the former was nothing like his own.

He attended the same school as Syd Barrett and David Gilmour. He was a keen sportsman and was fond of swimming in the River Cam at Grantchester Meadows.

(1964-1985) Band years

In 1964, Roger Waters was a founding member of Pink Floyd, with then lead singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter Syd Barrett – as well as Richard Wright and Nick Mason.

In 1968, when Barrett's deteriorating mental health led to his departure from the band, Waters set the band's artistic direction, along with co-writer, guitarist, and singer David Gilmour, who had joined the band to augment, and then replace, Barrett. Together, they brought Pink Floyd into the limelight, producing a series of albums that remain among the most critically acclaimed and best-selling records of all time.

At the end of the 1970s, however, Waters' relationship with Gilmour grew strained, as Waters exerted more and more creative control over the band, especially on The Wall. In 1983, the last Waters-Gilmour collaboration, The Final Cut, was credited as being a Roger Waters album "performed by Pink Floyd".

In 1985, Waters proclaimed the band dissolved. The ensuing disagreement between Waters and Gilmour over the latter's intention to continue to use the name "Pink Floyd" descended into lawsuits. Waters claimed that as the original band Pink Floyd consisted of himself, Syd Barrett, Nick Mason and Richard Wright, that the band could not reasonably call itself by the same name now that it was without three of its founding members (Wright was forced out of the band by Waters during the recording of The Wall). Another of Waters' arguments was that he had written almost all of Pink Floyd's lyrics, post Barrett. However, Gilmour won the right to use the name "Pink Floyd" and a majority of the band's songs, though Waters did retain the rights to the album The Wall and all of its songs, and to the famous Pink Floyd pig.

(1985-) Solo years

Waters embarked on a solo career after Pink Floyd, producing three concept albums and a movie soundtrack that failed to garner impressive sales. After Amused to Death in 1992, Waters spent much of the 1990s composing an opera, Ça Ira. In February of 2005, it was announced on Roger Waters' website that it had been completed. It was released as a CD/DVD set by Sony Classical in September of 2005.

After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, Waters staged a gigantic charity concert of The Wall in Berlin on July 21, 1990 to commemorate the end of the division between East and West Germany. The concert took place on Potsdamer Platz, a location which was part of the former "no-man's land" of the Berlin Wall, and featured many guest superstars and at the time was the biggest concert ever staged.

After a long hiatus, he started touring again in the late 1990s, performing live concerts of some of his most well-known work with Pink Floyd, alongside material from his solo career, before sizable audiences.

In 2002 Waters performed at a concert organized by the Countryside Alliance in support of fox hunting, although Waters has never publicly held the Tory allegiances that this might suggest, and in fact viciously criticized the Thatcher government and their policy in the Falklands War on The Final Cut (especially on the tracks "The Post War Dream", "Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert" and "The Fletcher Memorial Home").

Waters' father, Eric Fletcher Waters, a soldier in the British Royal Fusiliers, lost his life in the Anzio Campaign of World War II (which is described in Waters' song "When the Tigers Broke Free"). The effect of this loss has been a recurring theme in much of Waters' work.

Miramax Films announced in mid-2004 that a production of The Wall is to appear on Broadway, with Waters playing a prominent part in the production of it. Reports say the musical will contain not only the original tracks from The Wall, but also songs from Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and other Pink Floyd albums, as well as new material.

Roger Waters In September 2004, Waters released two new tracks, "To Kill The Child" and "Leaving Beirut". These were released only on the Internet. Both of these tracks were inspired by the US/UK invasion of Iraq in 2003. Waters, who currently resides in the U.S., has said that the songs were written immediately after the start of the war, but he delayed releasing them until just before the 2004 Presidential election, hoping to derail George W. Bush's re-election. The lyrics were quite blunt (as is typical of Waters' political songs), such as: "Oh George! Oh George! That Texas education must have fucked you up when you were very small" (from "Leaving Beirut"). Although the songs' criticism was primarily aimed at the American government, Tony Blair is also referenced.

After the tsunami disaster that occurred in late December 2004, Waters performed "Wish You Were Here" with Eric Clapton at the NBC benefit concert.

Waters and Pink Floyd reunited for a performance at the Live 8 concert in London, on July 2, 2005. They played a four song, 20-minute set. Before going into "Wish You Were Here", Waters said:

It's actually quite emotional standing up here with these three guys after all these years. Standing to be counted with the rest of you. Anyway, we're doing this for everyone who's not here, but particularly, of course, for Syd.

Waters remarked shortly after Live 8 to the Associated Press that, while the experience of playing as Pink Floyd again was positive, the chances of a bona-fide reunion would be 'slight', considering his and Gilmour's continuing musical and ideological differences.

He is also known to be working on a new solo album, which (as remarked to Jim Ladd, with whom he worked on Radio K.A.O.S.) has the working title of Heartland, and that it might be released in 2006. Two possible tracks from this album have appeared on In the Flesh Live ("Each Small Candle") and the compilation Flickering Flame: The Solo Years Vol. 1 ("Flickering Flame"). On September 27 2005, His long-awaited opera 'ça Ira' was released. Ca Ira, brought to life by the world-renowned talents of Baritone Bryn Terfel, soprano Ying Huang and tenor Paul Groves, took 16 years of hard work. The original libretto was writtten in French by the late Etienne Roda-Gil, who set the opera during the optimistic days of the early French Revolution. From 1997 onwards Roger rewrote the libretto in English. It is a stunningly beautiful piece of classical music.

Band discography

See the Pink Floyd discography between 1967 and 1985

Solo discography

Studio albums

(1984) The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking - concept album
(1987) Radio K.A.O.S. - concept album
(1992) Amused to Death - concept album

Soundtracks

(1970) Music from "The Body" - movie soundtrack; collaboration with Ron Geesin; features all of Pink Floyd on one track.
(1986) When the Wind Blows - movie soundtrack; includes tracks by others