Roger Waters is known for his outspoken and controversial behavior both on and off stage. A man of his word, he is not shy about sharing personal, very attacking opinions. Even his own bandmates have been victims of his passionate attitude. People often call him cynical and pessimistic, and that’s something only Rogers knows.
Rogers was behind the bass while he was in the band. He was also a member of the and from its formation in 1965 to 1985. Even though he was the bassist, he did go on to write some of their best songs. Some of them are, ‘Comfortably Numb’, ‘Wish You Were Here’, and ‘Another Brick in the Wall’.
He has laid out his opinion on his contemporaries and as expected he doesn’t like much of them. He has talked well about Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, and a few other prominent artists. Whereas for others, “As far as my contemporaries, I am monumentally surprised how fucking scared my fellow musicians are to stick their heads out. There aren’t many rock ‘n’ roll acts I would ever listen to or care about.”
His view on modern music is very interesting. He opened up on it and said, “I don’t listen to today’s popular music, so I am not an expert. But it seems to me from what I have listened to the main drift for most of the people that call themselves artists is completely narcissistic and completely consumer-orientated. They don’t touch any real part of their capacity to feel love or joy. That’s how it seems.”
Over the years, he has opened up on which bands he doesn’t like. And here are seven of them.
Bands Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters Hates:
AC/DC and Van Halen
Roger doesn’t like loud music. Also, he has very little interest in modern music and modern forms of it. While sitting down and talking about music with Joe Rogan. He had things to say about AC/DC. He commented, “I’m not interested in most popular music. [I’m] not really interested in loud rock ‘n’ roll — which some people are, and they love it, but I couldn’t care less about AC/DC or Eddie Van Halen or any of that stuff.”
Quite a shock. He continued it is just because he doesn’t care about such kinds of stuff. Also, he is not really interested in their music. He added, “It’s just, who? I don’t go, ‘Who?’ because obviously, I know the name. And I’m sure Eddie’s brilliant and a great guitar player and wonderful. It just doesn’t interest me.”
U2
This calls for a personal thing. Water’s dislike for U2 comes due to U2’s comment on Pink Floyd’s project. Roger said it was because Bono criticized them for their work. According to him, “I remember when we did The Wall, being criticized by Bono. U2 are a very young band, and they’re going [in a mock Irish accent], ‘Oh, we can’t stand all that theatrical nonsense that Pink Floyd do. We just play our music and the songs unto themselves and blah, blah, blah.” He revealed this to Rolling Stone Magazine.
The Sex Pistols
Rogers was harsh with The Sex Pistols. No matter how you try to look at the statement, it comes out a little harsh and cold. While talking with Rolling Stone he said.
“The Sex Pistols were just trying to make noise. It was so clearly contrived. You know, they were managed by a bloke who ran a shop selling silly clothes! And then one of them died, so you got that iconic thing that lives on. If somebody dies, that’s always good. Except for him, obviously, and his mom and dad, and [his girlfriend] Nancy; but for everybody else, it’s brilliant.”
According to many legends, John Lydon was included in The Sex Pistols when he was spotted with a ragged t-shirt with the words, ‘I Hate Pink Floyd’. Even Gilmour has passed comments when it comes to The Sex Pistols. He said, “I don’t think we felt alienated by punk, we just didn’t feel it was particularly relevant to us. We weren’t frightened by it. A lot of good things came out of punk, but there were an awful lot of people leaping on it as a bandwagon, who leapt off when they’d got to the top.”
The Weeknd & Drake
Both of them are modern artists. And, we all know what he thinks of modern music. He believes modern music is muzzled. He says they don’t care about the craft and hard work at all. While talking with Vanity Fair, he said, “I have no idea what or who the Weeknd is. People have told me he’s a big act. With all due respect to the Weeknd or Drake or any of them, I am far, far, far more important than any of them will ever be, however many billions of streams they’ve got.”
Quiet a statement. He explains the system nowadays is more corrupt. “But most people in the music industry either couldn’t give a f*** about other people. Or it never crosses their mind. Or it does, but they’re scared to say anything because it speaks against the status quo… It’s a desperately rotten, corrupt system, and you’re causing untold misery.”
Pink Floyd
Rogers co-founded Pink Floyd in 1965. It’s always hard to walk away from something you’ve created. But anyways, Rogers left the band in December 1985, and he also had an assumption that the whole group would disband. However, they didn’t. He had left the band due to creative and personal differences from the other band members.
Waters has even called his former bandmates ‘toxic’. After the split, he stated, “They were very snotty and snippy because they felt very insignificant, I think. I could have been an architect, but I don’t think I’d have been very happy. Nearly all modern architecture is a silly game as far as I can see.”
He and the other bandmates even had some legal problems regarding the name of the band and songs. Rogers took everyone to court and tried to prevent them from using the name but couldn’t. “I think he thinks that because I left the band in 1985,” Waters commented, “that [Gilmour] owns Pink Floyd, that he is Pink Floyd and I’m irrelevant, and I should just keep my mouth shut.”
