In a newly-released video announcement, Roger Waters is calling out David Gilmour over claims that the guitarist has banned mentions of his solo work from the official Pink Floyd website.
Prefacing his message by stating, “An announcement from me. And when I mention the Pink Floyd website, I also mean the Facebook page and all the rest,” Waters then opened his remarks: “I rarely speak to fans of Pink Floyd, but that is what I’m doing now.”
The bassist first thanked fans for their support of his recent isolation video performance of the group’s classic 1979 track, “Mother”, adding, “Why is this video not available on a website that calls itself the Pink Floyd website? Well, the answer to that is because nothing from me is on the website; I am banned by David Gilmour from the website.”
Waters revealed that he met with his former bandmates “about a year ago” in London to discuss ways in which they could work together to share access to fans via Pink Floyd’s social media sites.
“It bore no fruit, I’m sorry to say,” he explains, “but one of the things I asked for…I suggested that, because whoever the 30 million of you are who subscribe to the webpage, you do so because of the body of work that the five of us created: that’s Syd [Barrett], me, Rick [Wright], Nick [Mason] and David. It seems to me that it would be fair and correct if we should have equal access to you all, and share our projects.
“David thinks he owns [the band’s website]… I think he thinks that because I left the band in 1985, that he owns Pink Floyd, that HE IS Pink Floyd…that I’m irrelevant and I should keep my mouth shut.
"We’re all welcome to our opinions, but there have been rumblings and grumblings in the ranks, I’m told, by friends of mine who follow these things...Some of the questions being asked are: ‘why do we have to sit and watch [Gilmour’s wife] Polly Samson year after year, month after month, day after day, and the Von Trapps reading us excerpts from their novels (a reference to an ongoing series of livestreamed videos promoting her books), to get us to go to sleep at night. And yet, yet we don’t get to hear anything Roger is doing.”
Waters detailed that the Pink Floyd site had no mention of his ‘This Is Not A Drill’ tour, or the recent digital release of his “Us & Them” concert film.
“We are not allowed to even mention such a fact on the official Pink Floyd website,” Waters adds. “This is wrong…we should rise up…or just change the name of the band to Spinal Tap and then everything will be hunky dory.”
The bassist resigned from Pink Floyd in 1985 while launching a failed legal battle for control of the legendary band’s name; in a 2013 interview with the BBC, the rocker admitted he was wrong to pursue the court case.
Waters reunited with the 1970s lineup for the Live 8 concert in 2005; he was joined by Gilmour for a performance at a private charity event in Oxfordshire, UK in in 2010, with the guitarist and Mason making a one-off appearance at a 2011 concert by the bassist...who also joined the drummer for a song during a 2019 show at The Beacon Theatre in New York.
See also:
Roger Waters performs Pink Floyd classic in isolation video
Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason reschedules European tour
Pink Floyd: David Gilmour streams Live At Pompeii concert
Pink Floyd stream rare 1970 US TV performance
Search Pink Floyd at hennemusic
