Roger Waters Says Pink Floyd Kept Him From ‘Tell[ing] the Truth’

As one of the Pink Floyd members, Roger Waters was the artist who invoked the “leaving member” clause and left the rock group in the 1980s. Since then, this musician sometimes reflects on his time with Pink Floyd, still performing Dark Side of the Moon hits today. 

Roger Waters appeared as a member of the ‘Wish You Were Here’ band Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd was the British rock group behind “Breathe (In The Air),” “Wish You Were Here,” and “Comfortably Numb.” One of their most popular songs, “Wish You Were Here,” snagged over 495 million Spotify plays, while “Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2” holds over 600 million plays on the music platform. 

Their song “Marooned” earned the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, marking the first time this band earned an award from the music event. 

The original Pink Floyd members were lead guitarist Syd Barrett (birth name Roger Keith Barrett), bassist Roger Waters, drummer Nick Mason, keyboard player Rick Wright, and guitarist David Gilmour. Eventually, the group split up, with Waters citing “creative differences” as the primary reason.

Roger Waters says he felt ‘constrained’ by Pink Floyd 

The artist officially evoked the “leaving member” clause in December 1985. That marked the beginning of a legal battle with other band members to prevent them from performing under the same name without him. 

Even years later, Waters reflected on his time with the “Wish You Were Here” creators. Despite lacking complete creative control over Pink Floyd’s music, Waters said his time now is overshadowed by his history with the rock band.

“Audiences are far more attentive to what I have to say now than they were then,” Waters said, according to Ultimate Classic Rock. “And, also, I say it more coherently and clearly now than I did then, because now I’m not constrained by the rock group that I was with then. They were always trying to drag me back from my natural instinct, which is to tell the truth.”

Roger Waters still performs music by Pink Floyd

While performing on the This Is Not a Drill tour, Waters returned to hits from Pink Floyd, saying that he feels “under pressure” to play songs from his former group’s Dark Side of the Moon era.

“I enjoy it,” Waters said during the same interview, “because I wrote the songs, and I still like them, and I stand by what I said in ‘Us and Them’ and ‘Money’ and ‘Eclipse.’ I have no problem performing those songs and ‘Comfortably Numb’ and ‘Wish You Were Here’ with this band.”

One attendee at Waters’ concert hoped for a more “upbeat” concert experience, with the artist responding, “[I]f that lady you mentioned wanted to come to a rock ’n’ roll show and listen to old Pink Floyd songs and be comfortably numb, it shows that she never understood the work I was doing in Pink Floyd back then.”