At 79, British rock icon Roger Waters could actually be gentle with his age. Instead, the former progger, who left his old buddies from Pink Floyd as a founding member in a dispute in the mid-eighties, is firing on all cylinders.
In a three-hour conversation on the Spotify talk show “The Joe Rogan Experience”, his self-controversial host revealed that he had absolutely nothing to do with “loud rock ‘n’ roll”. By this, Waters doesn’t mean rough styles like Death or Trash Metal, but rather the sounds of well-established colleagues.
“I’m not really into raucous rock ‘n’ roll. A lot of people might love him, but I don’t give a fuck about AC/DC or Eddie Van Halen or anything like that. I don’t care who plays it. But I don’t ask ‘Who?’ Of course I know the names. And Eddie may be brilliant, a great guitarist, or even wonderful. But I just don’t care!”
Once warmly spoken, Waters also admitted that he doesn’t know much about rock history. With the most “popular music” he could do little. “There are definitely certain people that I’m a big fan of. Mainly the poets and singer-songwriters; Dylan, Neil Young and such. But I don’t want to make a long list here, even though I could certainly do that.” Rock of a somewhat heavier nature is definitely not one of them.
His idiosyncratic statements on the Ukraine war and his rabid commitment to the Israel-critical boycott movement BDS had repeatedly made him headlines, most recently with an explosive interview with the American ROLLING STONE (October 4).
Similar to Kraków in Poland, there is also resistance in Munich to his spring 2023 concert as part of the “This Is Not A Drill” tour cycle. According to a report in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) has positioned himself against Waters’ appearance in the Wiesn metropolis. While there is already a mood of rejection in Poland, a broader social debate in this country seems to be just beginning.
The US industry journal “Variety” also claims to have learned that the mega deal for the sale of Pink Floyd’s music catalog (for an estimated 500 million dollars) is in danger because of its politically relevant statements.
Meanwhile, Rogers himself tipped his talk host Rogan that he was working on a book with revelations about Pink Floyd. He described the material as “difficult things to write about.”