Roger Waters lashed backed to David Gilmour, claiming that his former bandmate is refusing him to access Pink Floyd’s website, including the band’s social media accounts.
Just recently, Waters streamed a lockdown video of The Wall classic Mother, which led him to question why he’s not granted access to promote his work through Pink Floyd’s official channels.
In his statement via a video uploaded to Twitter:
“One and half million of you have viewed our new version of Mother, which is lovely – it really warms my heart. But it does bring up the question: 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.
“About a year ago, I convened a sort of Camp David for the surviving members of Pink Floyd at a hotel at an airport in London, where I proposed all kinds of measures to get past this awful impasse that we have and predicament we find ourself in.
“It bore no fruit, I’m sorry to say, but one of the things I asked for, I suggested that because whoever the 30 million of you are who subscribe to the web page, you do so because of the body of work the five of us created: That’s Syd, me, Rick, Nick and David over a number of years.
“And in consequence, it seems to me that it would be fair and correct if we should have equal access to you all and share our projects.”
It seems to me that it would be fair and correct if we should have equal access to you all and share our projects
Waters added:
“David thinks he owns it. I think he thinks that because I left the band in 1985, that he owns Pink Floyd, that he is Pink Floyd and I’m irrelevant and I should just keep my mouth shut.”
Waters also wonders why Pink Floyd’s social media promotes Gilmour’s wife Polly Samson’s Von Trapped Family.
Waters says: “We’re all welcome to our opinions, but there have been rumblings and grumblings in the ranks. I’m told by friends of mine that some of the questions being asked are: ‘Why do we have to sit and watch Polly Samson, year after year, month after month, day after day – and the Von Trapps reading us excerpts from their novels to get us to go to sleep at night?’
“It’s a very good question, and yet we don’t get to hear anything about what Roger’s doing, about This Is Not A Drill, or when he makes a piece of work. None of his work is publicised, or his film with Sean Evans US + Them, which has just gone out is not mentioned.
“We’re not allowed to even mention such a fact on the official Pink Floyd website. This is wrong. We should rise up… or, just change the name of the band to Spinal Tap and them everything will be hunky dory.”
Last month, Waters interviewed by Rolling Stone shared his meeting he had with Gilmour and Nick Mason in London, saying he wanted to work out a “peace plan” to discuss a remastered vinyl release of Animals.
But it never happened, nor possible, Waters saying: “It wouldn’t be nice. It would be fucking awful.”
He added: “Obviously if you’re a fan of those days of Pink Floyd, well then you have a different point of view. But I had to live through it. That was my life.
“I know in the wake of it I’ve been cast as something of a villain by whoever… so be it! I can live with that. But would I trade my liberty for those chains? No fucking way.”
Keep going for the video below:
An announcement from me. And when I mention the @pinkfloyd website, I also mean the Facebook page and all the rest. pic.twitter.com/x9T8CIAAMp
— Roger Waters ✊ (@rogerwaters) May 19, 2020