Biography roger water

Waters embarked on a solo career after Pink Floyd, producing three albums and a movie soundtrack that were critically acclaimed but failed to garner impressive sales. As of this production remains incomplete, though parts have been heard publicly. After the downfall of the Berlin Wall in , Waters staged a gigantic charity concert of The Wall in Berlin on July 21, 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. Pink Floyd. The Wall Live — Authority control. Trove 2. Toggle the table of contents. Roger Waters. After writing the majority of the songs on the band's brilliant debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, and several songs on the follow-up A Saucerful of Secrets, Barrett was fired by the band due to his increasingly erratic behavior, believed by some to be the result of years of drug abuse and by others as the onset of extreme mental illness.

Waters stepped into the void left by Barrett and led the band into music that was more and more progressive. The rise of the progressive rock format on American FM radio stations introduced the band, by now featuring the plaintive vocals and guitar playing of Barrett's old friend David Gilmour, to a whole new audience. Waters's autocratic style and seemingly boundless energy led the band to increasing levels of fame and critical approval, culminating with the seminal rock album Dark Side of the Moon in The album's unprecedented success, however, also had a negative impact on the band.

Waters's lyrical obsessions, abrasive personal style, and autocratic nature alienated him from his band mates. He notoriously belittled the musical abilities of Gilmour, Mason, and Wright as the band tried to match the aesthetic success of Dark Side of the Moon, but met with resignation and indifference at best and bitter resistance at worst. By the time Pink Floyd recorded its two-disc opus The Wall, the band had become not much more than Roger Waters's group, with occasional songwriting, guitar playing and vocal assistance notably on "Run Like Hell" and "Comfortably Numb" from Gilmour.

Wright, in fact, had been reduced to a salaried position for touring purposes, and many studio musicians were brought in to realize Waters's vision. The last Floyd album to feature Waters, The Final Cut, might more accurately have been called the Final Straw, as it was for all practical purposes a Waters solo effort with minimal input from Gilmour.

Waters was the first member of Pink Floyd to release a solo album while still a member of the band. Released in , Music from the Body was a film soundtrack collaboration of sorts with experimental composer Ron Geesin. Other members of Pink Floyd also appear uncredited, in addition to female backup singers, giving some advance notice of the direction Pink Floyd would eventually take.

Waters presented the album concept to Pink Floyd at the same time that he presented the concept for The Wall. When the band chose the latter, Waters shelved the project until after they released The Final Cut. Consisting of lyrical fragments and a barely comprehensible dream narrative, the album flummoxed audiences and critics alike.

In Waters released Radio K. Although Waters toured to support the album, its lack of identifiable songs failed to excite either fans or critics. Bookended by two live albums, The Wall Live in Berlin and In the Flesh: Live, the studio album Amused to Death featured stellar guitar work by Jeff Beck on a cautionary grouping of songs about religious fundamentalism, international politics, and Andrew Lloyd Webber , filtered through the consciousness of a gorilla watching the subject matter on a television.

Ironically, Waters experienced some of the best reviews of his solo career with the release of his next compositional work, Ca Ira, an operatic rendering of the French Revolution with lyrics by Etienne Roda-Gil and featuring Bryn Terfel as lead vocalist. Other critics were not so kind. Writing in Opera News, critic Joshua Rosenblum noted, "One ends up wishing that, the gravity of its subject notwithstanding, Waters's first opera had revealed at least a hit of Pink Floyd's brash, visionary iconoclasm and freshness of invention.

Waters continued to quarrel with Gilmour. Gilmour responded to the tweet on Twitter: "Every word demonstrably true. Oh, shut up They're public, and I'm private. That's why I started to consider what the wisdom of an 80 year old could bring to a reimagined version. Waters is a vocal supporter of Palestine in the Israeli—Palestinian conflict. He subsequently moved a Tel Aviv concert to Neve Shalom and called for the barrier's removal: "The wall is an appalling edifice to behold.

It is policed by young Israeli soldiers who treated me, a casual observer from another world, with disdainful aggression. Waters has criticised numerous other artists who have performed in Israel. In , Rabbi Abraham Cooper , the associate dean of the Jewish human rights organisation the Simon Wiesenthal Center , accused Waters of antisemitism for including a giant pig balloon bearing a Star of David in his concerts.

The same year, in an interview in CounterPunch , Waters compared the Israeli treatment of Palestinians to Nazi Germany , saying: "The parallels with what went on in the s in Germany are so crushingly obvious. In a interview with Omar Barghouti , Waters again likened Israel's public diplomacy to Nazi Germany: "The thing about propaganda — again, it's not hard to go back to Goebbels or the s.

You understand the tactic is to tell the big lie as often as possible over and over and over and over again. And people believe it. He said that Adelson believed that "only Jewish people are completely human I'm not saying Jewish people believe this. I am saying that he does, and he is pulling the strings. He said the Americans had studied the technique to learn "how to murder the blacks because they have seen how efficient the Israelis have been at murdering Palestinians in the occupied territories by using those techniques The Israelis are proud of it.

In a February interview with Al Jazeera , Waters criticised the U2 singer Bono for dedicating a live performance of " Pride In the Name of Love " to those killed in the Nova music festival massacre. Waters said it was "so disgusting and degrading when you stand up for the Zionist entity.

Biography roger water

What he did a couple of weeks ago in the Sphere in Las Vegas, singing about the Stars of David, was one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen in my life. In July , Waters engaged in heated debate with Piers Morgan on Piers Morgan Uncensored , arguing that there was no evidence of sexual assault by the Palestinian organisation Hamas , that Israel targeted its own citizens in false flag operations, and that Palestinians had a right to "fight back against the oppressor".

On 25 February , the German city of Frankfurt cancelled one of Waters's scheduled shows, calling him one of the "most widely known antisemites" and citing his support for BDS, the imagery at his shows and his talks with Hamas. That May, German police opened a criminal investigation into Waters and the Nazi-style uniform he wore during his Berlin performance for possible incitement.

Waters said the use of fascist imagery was a statement in "opposition to fascism, injustice and bigotry". He said that the Israeli government was attempting to discredit him as they saw him as an "existential threat to their settler-colonialist, racist, apartheid regime". Waters responded at a concert in London the following month, calling Wakeford a "fucking moron" and a "cripple", which Variety said "drew a sharp intake of breath" from some in attendance.

Waters also said he was "pissed off with this Israeli lobby bullshit" and accused critics of "making up stuff because you've been told to by your masters from the Foreign Office in Tel Aviv". According to the documentary, in a email to his crew, Waters described his idea for the inflatable pig to be floated above his gigs, which would have the words "dirty kyke ", "follow the money" and "Scum" written on it.

Waters said in an interview with Glenn Greenwald that the Hamas attack on Israel may have been a false flag operation and that "resistance to the Israeli occupation" is legally and morally justifiable. A week before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February , Waters told an RT interviewer that rumours of Russia launching an invasion were "bullshit" and anti-Russian propaganda.

Responding to accusations that he was placing the responsibility to negotiate on the country that was invaded, Waters said that Russia was responding to provocations from NATO : "This war is basically about the action and reaction of NATO pushing right up to the Russian border — which they promised they wouldn't do when Gorbachev negotiated the withdrawal of the U.

He accused Ukrainian "extreme nationalists" of starting the war and made no mention of Russia's responsibility for the invasion. Waters urged her husband to end the war based on the Minsk agreements. He condemned the invasion of Ukraine as illegal, but said it was "not unprovoked" and that he also "condemned the provocateurs in the strongest possible terms.

The only sensible course of action today is to call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine". He criticised the Hunting Act of and supported the Countryside Alliance , but explained he was defending the right to hunt rather than supporting the activity himself. Waters explained that whether he supported hunting or not, it was important to defend it as a right.

In , Waters became a spokesman for Millennium Promise , a non-profit organisation fighting poverty and malaria. Waters is supportive of veterans , which he partly attributes to the death of his father in World War II. He allocates a block of tickets for veterans at his shows. For a few years he performed with a group of wounded veterans that was arranged through the United States National Military Medical Center.

Following the June referendum , which resulted in leaving the EU, he said: "I thought we were better than that. I was wrong. After the April Douma chemical attack carried out by the Syrian government, Waters called civil defence volunteers, the White Helmets , "a fake organisation that exists only to create propaganda for the jihadists and terrorists" trying to incite the West to "start dropping bombs on people in Syria".

Waters supports Steven Donziger , an American lawyer embroiled in environmental litigation against Chevron corporation , and has funded some of Donziger's legal fees. Waters's primary instrument in Pink Floyd was the bass guitar. However, he said in that he was "never a bass player" and was "not interested in playing instruments and I never have been".

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

In , it was stolen along with the rest of Pink Floyd's equipment in New Orleans. First seen at a concert in Hyde Park, London, in July , the black P-Bass was rarely used until April , when it became his main stage guitar. On 2 October , it became the basis for a Fender Artist Signature model. He has employed delay , tremolo , chorus , stereo panning and phaser effects in his bass playing.

In , Waters married his childhood sweetheart Judith Trim , a school teacher and potter. She was featured on the gatefold sleeve of the original release of the Pink Floyd album Ummagumma , but excised from CD reissues. They had a son, Jack Fletcher. Their marriage ended in In , Waters became engaged to the actress and filmmaker Laurie Durning.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikidata item. English musician, co-founder of Pink Floyd born Progressive rock psychedelic rock art rock blues rock. Singer songwriter composer record producer. Capitol Columbia Sony Harvest.

Judith Trim. Carolyne Christie. Priscilla Phillips. Laurie Durning. Kamilah Chavis. Roger Waters' voice. Main article: Pink Floyd. Formation and Barrett-led period. Departure and legal battles. Israeli—Palestinian conflict and accusations of antisemitism. Fascist imagery and German police investigation. Russian invasion of Ukraine. Main article: Roger Waters discography.

See also: Pink Floyd discography. See also: Pink Floyd live performances. See also: The Bleeding Heart Band. Main article: List of Roger Waters band members. Desert Island Discs. BBC Radio 4. Archived from the original on 20 February Retrieved 18 January The London Gazette Supplement. Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Archived from the original on 22 June Retrieved 1 March Archived from the original on 18 January Retrieved 17 January