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The lighter side of Roger Waters.
26.01.2007: Pink Floyd's Roger Waters
is coming to New Zealand for two greatly anticipated concerts. Vicki
Anderson talks to him.
True to his surname, Roger Waters
hopes to be soaking in it when he reaches antipodean shores next weekend.
The first words Waters barks down the line from Manhattan, where he is
slightly red-faced but fresh from a victorious game of tennis, are: "Are
those New Zealand trout nervous? When I'm in New Zealand I hope to go
fishing for trout. I'm a very keen fly- fisherman, I've fly-fished for
the past 30 years."
I don't know about the trout but I'm so nervous to be talking to the
creative genius of Pink Floyd that I drop the phone when I hear his rich
baritone down the line. But far from being the cantankerous, belligerent,
awkward interviewee he has been painted as, 64-year-old George Roger
Waters proves to be an intelligent man possessing warmth, a ripe sense
of humour and a low tolerance for fools and religious zealots.
After we exchange apologies me in a squeaky high pitch for dropping
the phone, he smoothly offering a "sorry" for the long delay in
arranging interview times Waters coughs before sternly stating that
the only thing he's not prepared to talk about is ... cricket.
"Didn't you play the Australians in a one-day match you got beat,
didn't you?" he jokes.
"Don't talk about the war," I reply, but add that it'll be a
relief to watch a winning match at Christchurch's Jade Stadium next
Saturday when he performs Dark Side of the Moon live. The show will
feature the complete Dark Side of the Moon, together with other classic
Pink Floyd hits and Waters' solo works. Comprising two sets, the 234
hour show will showcase hits including Another Brick in the Wall II,
Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Wish You Were Here, Set the Controls for the
Heart of the Sun and others from Waters' 40-year career.
"I hope everybody enjoys the show as much as I always do performing
it. I enjoy it, it's good fun."
Bass-player Waters co-founded the groundbreaking Pink Floyd with Syd
Barrett in 1965, along with Bob Klose, Rick Wright and Nick Mason, and
became the group's sonic architect upon Barrett's departure in 1967
because of his deteriorating mental health. David Gilmour, with whom
Waters has shared an acrimonious relationship, then joined the band.
Barrett fell victim to the darker side of the heady '60s. His copious
indulgence in hallucinogenic drugs pushed an already fragile psyche over
the edge. He died on July 7 last year, aged 60.
Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 to pursue a solo career.
Dark Side of the Moon, for which Waters wrote all the lyrics and some of
the music, was released in March 1973. It was a commercial breakthrough
that became one of the most successful albums in rock history.
It illuminated Billboard's Top 200 best-selling albums chart for a
record-breaking 15 years, and after more than 30 years the album is
still selling more than 8000 copies a week. Total sales are now in
excess of 35 million copies worldwide.
Or as Waters puts it: "It's been moderately successful, yes."
A concert of Pink Floyd material without elaborate video projections,
theatrical staging, and a dazzling array of special effects? Pigs might
fly.
"It started when I was asked to do it by Formula One in France last
summer," says Waters. "That was the genesis of the tour that I did last
year. They asked if I would be prepared to do Dark Side of the Moon ...
actually they wanted Pink Floyd to do Dark Side of the Moon (insert
barky laugh here) obviously that wasn't going to happen and they said,
`well, would you do it'? I thought about it for a while, it was a
strange idea, but decided that maybe it's not that strange an idea so I
said `yeah, OK, why not?' "
The show grew from one gig in France to dozens in Europe and the United
States. After his Australian and New Zealand shows, Waters will flow
into China, India, the Middle East and South America before heading
again to Europe and the United States for the tour's last concerts in
July.
Joining Waters on this tour are son Harry Waters (one of his three
children) on keyboards and organ, Andy Fairweather-Low (guitars and
vocals), Snowy White (guitars), Dave Kilminster (guitars and vocals),
Jon Carin (keyboards), Graham Broad (drums) and Ian Ritchie (saxophone).
Doing backing vocals are Katie Kissoon, P. P. Arnold and Carol Kenyon.
"It's great touring with Harry. We don't actually socialise very much
on the road but it's really good. I'm happy that he's become an
accomplished enough musician to play keyboards in my band although his
great love, I have to say, is jazz piano and that is really what he's
into," Waters says.
"I've never given him advice on the industry. If he was to ask me I
would. I think it's important that parents don't volunteer advice unless
they're asked for it."
With Pink Floyd achieving hero worship, it's hard to find something to
ask Waters that he hasn't already heard a million times before.
Born in Great Bookham, Surrey, Waters grew up in Cambridge. His father,
ardent pacifist Eric Waters, died in action in Anzio in 1944 when Roger
was less than a year old. Waters often alludes to the loss of his father
in his lyrics, and 1983's The Final Cut was dedicated to him. Other
familiar themes in his lyrics are a politically motivated distrust of
authority, particularly relating to education, the government or the
military.
But Waters appears bored with questions on these themes, snapping
monosyllabic answers in reply. Ditto to questions on the abuse of drugs
either personally or relating to other band members (yes, Waters has
taken LSD twice in his life and found it wasn't for him); longstanding "creative
differences" with David Gilmour; what it will take for Pink Floyd to
perform a reunion show.
He dispels urban legends that songs come to him as "visions in his sleep"
and that his tooth was once chipped by a penny tossed at him in the
'60s, although he admits that one did hit him rather forcefully on the
forehead once in a pub in Ealing called The Feathers.
Waters would rather talk about his dislike of invasive iPods and his own
personal war on terror.
"I do own an iPod several in fact because people keep giving them
to me for Christmas presents, but I've never used one. I'm sure they're
brilliant, it's just that I don't really like too much music around my
life. I like the sound of the wind and the waves more than music so I
try and keep music away as much as possible."
It seems that one of the world's most treasured musicians would rather
strut a golf course, terrify trout, play pool or read, preferably
something penned by his favourite author Cormack McCarthy.
Waters warms to topics relating to the lunacy of George Dubbya Bush and
says that his song Leaving Beirut was inspired by a trip to the Middle
East when he was 18. His vehicle broke down in Beirut and he decided to
hitchhike back to London.
"Leaving Beirut was originally a short story I wrote about the first
night of my journey when I was taken in by a local family the man had
one leg, the woman was a hunchback and their child had an odd squint
but they were extremely kind and generous to me."
When Waters heard Iraq had been invaded, he was "incensed, distraught,
disturbed and unhappy", and turned his short story into a song.
Ahead of his time, Waters is credited with pioneering the use of
synthesisers but is now not sure of his future musical direction.
"I honestly don't know. I've got a bunch of songs recorded or half
recorded that sometimes seem as if they want to form themselves into
records, but I've never got around to it in the past 10 years or so but
I think I probably will because there's a lot of them there.
"As far as my future in music is concerned, I believe it can only be
political and philosophical because of the invasion of Iraq. I wrote a
little bit about it in Amused to Death, in 1992, and I believe strongly
that the most malign influence on human life in the 21st century is all
the holy scriptures that developed 2000 years ago in the Middle East
Islam and Christianity. Now, that's not to say that all religion is
necessarily bad but it seems to me that an adherence to the writings of
the Buddha not that I'm Buddhist, I'm not at all might have been
more beneficial to humanity."
He's a "devout disbeliever" in religions "whether it's the Jews, the
Christians or the Muslims" which insist on belief in "this God".
"There may well be that there is stuff that we don't understand and
I'm willing to accept that, but the idea of a vengeful a.. hole God is
an absolute nonsense."
Waters believes that New Zealanders are lucky to be far enough away from
the rest of the world as to be "out of touch".
"New Zealand has that whole Calvinist influence, the Scots influence
if you're not cold and miserable there's something wrong."
I snort in protest and Waters chuckles before adding: "Calvinists are
wrong about that, as we both know."
He then launches into an involved Scottish joke, in a more than passable
Scottish accent, that involves sex, fishermen and a church minister.
"I want to go and have dinner soon, any more questions?"
Well, only the odd hundred or so, but I am curious about the
relationship between Barrett and Waters who first knew each other as
nine and 10-year- olds at Saturday art classes.
"My favourite memories of Syd? Before he went crazy... sitting in the
front room of my mum's house in Cambridge. We drew out on a piece of
paper the equipment we were going to use when we made a band when we
were both up in London. It was two Vox 80s and a microphone and we said
the bass and the vocals can go through one and the bass and the
keyboards can go through the other and this was before anybody had any
notion of a PA a separate amplifier and speakers for the vocals."
One incident involving the pair, Waters says, could have spelt the end
of Pink Floyd before they even began.
"I had a 350cc single-cylinder Norton motorcycle when I was 16, so
Syd would have been 15. We used to have races where we would go to a
roundabout that was about five miles away and then ride back again. I
remember one night with him on the pillion riding as fast as I could on
this thing it wasn't that fast, this bike, after it had been chugging
for two miles it would get up to 100mph.
"I'll never forget it. We pulled into the front of his mother's house
in Hills Road, Cambridge, and he said to me `Wow, that was great,' and
as he climbed off the pillion the back tyre went bang. It had a big hole
in it so it could have gone at any moment in the previous 20 minutes.
"We would have both been dead and there would have been no Pink Floyd
... so there we are. I'm sorry I called you so late but I have to go to
dinner now, people are waiting for me."
Will Waters still get pudding if he doesn't eat his meat?
The answer is a resounding yes, and, while in New Zealand, it is assured
that Waters' meat of choice will be trout, which, much like eager
audiences, are sure to be lining up in his honour.
Roger Waters Dark Side of the Moon, Saturday, January 27, at Jade
Stadium in Christchurch and January 29 at North Harbour Stadium in
Auckland.
Š Fairfax New Zealand Limited 2007 |
