we publlish an excerpt from www.theguardian.com by Alex Petridis
it is hard to think of anyone who made heavier weather of being a vastly successful musician than Waters did once Pink Floyd went stratospheric in the 1970s – he is also, legend has it, far more prickly and defensive than you might expect someone who’s sold more than 250m albums to be.
He is ever watchful for a slight, real or imagined, such as suggesting that he wasn’t the band’s main creative genius after the departure of the late Syd Barrett in 1968, or that his subsequent solo career may have failed to match that of his former bandmates.
I receive what I think is a tacit warning from his publicist about one line of questioning. It takes the form of a story about a foreign journalist who attempted to kick off a recent interview with the words: “A friend of mine wanted to ask you if Pink Floyd would be re-forming.” Waters is reputed to have responded: “Tell your friend to fuck off.” Especially if you ask about Wish you were here song 'Have a Cigar'
"I'm still bitter because I wasn't asked to sing the band's Wish You Were Here album fan favourite ‘Have A Cigar’ - I believes i would have done a better job than singer Roy Harper.
Harper was recording at Abbey Road in London while the rock supergroup worked on the album in a nearby studio and when Waters and bandmate Dave Gilmour were struggling to find the right voice for the anti-music industry song, they agreed to let their folk singer pal give it a go.
Gilmour loved Harper's version and persuaded his bandmates to use it on their classic 1975 album - but 30-plus years later, Waters still thinks he would have done a better job with a little time.
. “Well, over the years, I’ve come to realise how lucky I am that people like what I’ve done and are happy when I walk into the room and start playing my songs,” he says. “It never really dawned on me until, I think, 1999. Don Henley asked me to do a charity gig in Los Angeles. It’s about 6,000 people, and I walked up and felt this whoosh of what you could only describe as love from the audience. I thought, ‘Fuck me, this isn’t bad!’”
I always used to look at books and wonder how anybody could come up with so many words. But my divorce and then falling in love with somebody else has released in me an ability to write in other ways apart from songs.
It is a point underlined by the new film, which matches footage of Waters visiting a memorial to his father, who was killed in action in Italy in 1944 ."War is hugely profitable. It creates so much money because it's so easy to spend money very fast. There are huge fortunes to be made. So there is always an encouragement to promote war and keep it going,"
“I’ve become confident, a lot more confident, and lot more comfortable on stage.” He thinks it might have something to do with an occasion some years back, when he was asked to speak to pupils at his son Harry’s school.
“The most terrifying thing I ever did. The idea of standing in front of 80 10-year-olds was absolutely terrifying. I’m serious. Couldn’t sleep for weeks. I couldn’t think what I was going to do. It was really weird, I couldn’t work out why I was so scared. So that’s something I had to confront. And I’ve transcended it in some way. I don’t know what’s happened, but something inte
He says one of his demos for the forthcoming album contains a caveat, that may or may not make it to the finished version: “There’s a bit in it where it goes, ‘If you’re one of these people who says, ‘Roger, I love Pink Floyd, but I can’t stand your fucking politics …’” He pauses and laughs. “‘You might as well fuck off to the bar now.’”
“I’ll tell you what I’d like you to do: check the archive,” he says. “If I’m wrong let me know. Sometimes I get things completely wrong. And I’m always happy …” He corrects himself: “Not happy, but very prepared to be wrong about everything.”
