General Archives - Roger Waters

Globo Interview – September 2023

September 6, 2023

You’ve said, “I hope that we can gain more from “The Dark Side Of The Moon” than we did back in 1973 when it first came out because it’s been part of all of our lives for 50 years, and yet we are still not yet breathing in the air. Breathe. Breathe in the air.” What do you mean precisely by that?

I mean that in 2023 we are still living under the same suffocating cloud of hundreds of years of European colonialism and at least a hundred and twenty years of US imperialism, that we were living under in 1973. The air is so polluted with the deadly influence of outdated supremacist ideologies and predatory capitalism that it is hard to breathe. “Breath, breathe in the air, don’t be afraid to care.” The important bit of that couplet is “Don’t be afraid to care”. We absolutely have to care, we have to empathize with, and care for, all our brothers and sisters all over the world irrespective of their ethnicity or religion or nationality. We need to take a deep breath and start to cooperate with one another. We need less NATO and more BRICS.

Would you please share with us a couple of your best memories from making “Dark Side of the Moon” half a century ago?

The best memory is waking one morning in 1972 with the idea that there are a number of very specific things which unduly effect and mould our lives. This is a universal phenomenon I thought to myself. Wow! Great concept for a record. I called a band meeting, which we had in Nick Mason’s kitchen and I explained my idea. They bought it. And after a lot of work it ended up like this:

Speak to me: An overture, a beating heart the symbol of life.
Breathe: verse 1 “Breath in The Air” The pursuit of love, verse 2 “Run rabbit run…” The pursuit of wealth.
On the Run: The eternal battle between the pursuit of love (Good)and the pursuit of wealth (Evil)
Time: Time keeps slipping away. Time catches up with us all. It’s always later than we think. We may have missed the starting gun.
The Great Gig in The Sky: Religion, heaven and hell? The fear of death.
Money: The Devil, the love of money, the Dangers of The Faustian Pact.
Us and Them: No man is an Island, there is only one race, the human race, we are all from Africa originally, we are all related.
Brain Damage: The air we breathe is toxic, it is all too easy to stop smelling the roses and drift towards the dark side. This was the first song of the record I wrote and is where the title of the whole piece resides. “I’ll see you on the Dark side of the Moon.”
Eclipse: The last song I wrote, it was tacked on the end at a gig in Bristol halfway through a tour in 1972. It sort of sums it it all up. “All that you touch ……but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.” All your life will ever be? The choices you make are your own.

Another good memory is the adding of additional voices. I wanted to feature the voices of ordinary people on the record so one of the things I did was a series of interviews but with no interviewer present. We set up a mike in the studio in front of a table. On the table I put a pile of small white cards each with a single question on the back. The interviewee had to pick up a card and turn it over before he or she could read it and respond. So the answers were sequential. The questions started off completely innocuous, like “What is your favourite colour?” and ended up, at the: “Are you afraid of dying” end of the emotional spectrum. It was exciting and fun. Jerry, the Irish doorman at Abbey Road Studios was one of my favourite interviewees. “And I am not afraid of dying anytime will do”

Another favourite interviewee was the late Henry McCullough, who was recording with Paul McCartney and Wings at the time. Somewhere in the middle of the cards were these two consecutive questions. 1.“When was the last time you were violent?” and 2. “Were you in the right”. Henry’s answer to the first question was “Last night” and to the second. ”I don’t know I was really drunk at the time!” A precious memory Henry McCullough RIP.

Will we hear some songs from “Dark Side of the Moon Redux” at your concerts this time in Brazil? And are there any changes planned for the Latin America tour of “This is not a drill”?

You will hear songs from DSOTM, but not the REDUX versions. There is one new song in the show, “The Bar”, there may be changes in that one from gig to gig but apart from that the set remains the same as the North American and European tours.

The world has changed enormously in the last 50 years, and so have you. What have been your main accomplishments as an artist and a human since 1973, and what are your main regrets?

I have been too lucky to entertain many regrets in my life. I do however regret that, largely due to the inordinate greed of the ruling class, the very existence of the human race on this beautiful planet still hangs precariously in the balance.

The show will arrive in Brazil after cities in Germany attempted to stop your concerts there based on what their leaders believed were anti-semitic statements and “mock-Nazi imagery” in “The Wall”. The U.N. Israeli ambassador wrote that you “seek to compare Isreal to the Nazis.” How do you react to these accusations? And what’s your take on the state of Israel’s democracy after Netanyahu’s-driven judicial overhaul? The pro-demcoracy protests that are taking place in Israel could also help the Palestinian citizens?

Phew! Ok, where to start? I’ll start with a brief history of THE WALL. I wrote, recorded and released THE WALL in 1978/9, the first shows were in 1980. I made a movie of it with Alan Parker and Gerald Scarfe, starring Bob Geldof which was released in 1982. I put on an all-star production of THE WALL in front of 400,000 people in Berlin to celebrate the tearing down of the Berlin wall in 1990. I toured a full production of THE WALL all over the world starting in Toronto in October 2010 and finishing in Paris at The Stade de France in September 2013. Until last year THE WALL tour was the highest grossing tour ever by a solo artist. In 2014 ‘Roger Waters THE WALL’ a film based on that tour, premiered at The Toronto International Film Festival. As anyone familiar with any iteration of THE WALL will know, there is an episode in the narrative where Pink, a rock star and the central character, in a psychotic episode imagines himself to have degenerated into a ‘Nazi style’ tyrant. It is a satirical theatrical attack on tyrannical ideologies. Happily, later in the narrative, Pink wakes up from his psychotic episode and through the self-examination of a mock trial rehabilitates himself. At no time does THE WALL narrative glorify Nazism or promote anti-Semitism. So why after fifty years of complete acceptance for what it is, a thoughtful humane piece of theater, have both the work itself, and me it’s author, become the objects of mendacious and co-ordinated attacks by the Israeli lobby?

In a word?

Palestine.

I maybe the loudest voice in my industry raised in support of equal human rights for all the people, irrespective of their ethnicity, religion or nationality, living between the Jordan River and the Sea. That would include the Palestinian people who for the last fifty years have lived under military occupation with no rights at all. I joined the BDS (Boycott Divestment and Sanctions) movement after touring the occupied territories in 2007. So it is since that date thirty years after the conception of THE WALL that the Israeli Lobby have been trying to silence me by muddying the water with their false accusations.

To address your second related question, as far as the current crop of anti-judicial reform demonstrations in Israel is concerned. I am no expert, but they don’t seem to address the overarching elephant in the room which is the question of the human rights of the people of Palestine.

In Brazil, the vice president of the Brazilian Israeli Association and president of the Holocaust Memorial Institute asked the government to ban your Brazilian concerts due to “antisemitism” and “defense of Nazism.” What message do you have to Brazilian fans, especially the ones of Jewish origin, that fear your concerts have anti-semitic content?

I am sorry that the vice president of the BIA and president of the HMI have fallen for the Israeli lobby’s ludicrous re-writing of history (See above 6.) Since you are pursuing it I must clear up one thing about my recent shows in Germany. Many photographs of a black inflatable pig with a star of David painted on it appeared in the press, claiming that those photos were from a show in Berlin or Frankfurt. It was a bare-faced lie. I did fly an inflatable pig in Germany, in Berlin and Frankfurt and Hamburg and Cologne and at the other seventy nine shows on my THIS IS NOT A DRILL tour, but there was no ‘STAR OF DAVID” on it, in fact the real actual pig that flew in all the cities on my tour was white and was inscribed “STEAL FROM THE POOR AND GIVE TO THE RICH”.

A message for my fans in Brazil? Especially those of Jewish origin? My fans are not stupid, they know I am neither an anti-Semite nor a Nazi sympathizer. Speaking of Jewish origin I received this unsolicited letter from an old friend of mine, the film director Peter Medak. Peter Darling, as I call him, has given me permission to share it:

Peter Medak’s Letter:

On Jun 13, 2023, at 1:01 AM, PETER MEDAK

Darling Roger ,
I am so sorry not to have been in touch for so long as I knew you were and are still crazy busy with your European tour .
I am so angry and upset about the unfounded, unfair and unjust Antisemitic criticism of you and your Brilliant Tour , and your music and amazing career. We last saw you here in LA September 2023. All these accusations are such unfounded bullshit. As you well know I am a Jewish survivor and have escaped with my life twice. First in April 1944, when the Hungarian SS surrounded our building in Budapest but we somehow miraculously survived it all. My second escape was in1956 during the Hungarian revolution from Russian Communism when I ended up in England and began my new life and eventually become a film director. We become great friends when we worked together on Dark Side of The Moon in 1972. Many years later when you performed in Hungary, I was there with you and you wanted to see my old house and for me to tell the stories and show you how I escaped all those years ago .
We have been friends and intimately have known each other for 50 years. You are NOT AN ANTISEMITE, YOU NEVER WERE AND NEVER WILL BE.
I have loved you all these years and I am just so proud to be your friend.
Peter

In 2018 you were openly against then-presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, calling him a “fascist” and showed an “#elenao” sign in your concerts in Brazil. In Curitiba, you were threatened with jail. You will be there again, this time with president Lula in power and Bolsonaro unable to be a candidate until 2030 due to his attacks on democracy. Do you feel vindicated somehow? And do you think the U.S. could learn a bit from the Brazilian Justice system about how to deal with Trump?

In my opinion Jair Bolsonaro is a fascist. I repeat #elenao. I tried to visit President Lula in prison when I was in Curitiba in 2018 but was denied permission. Do I feel vindicated? I feel I am on the right side of history and I believe President Lula is too. I love Brazil. I feel at home in your beautiful country. I still mourn for my friend Marrielle Franco, but her seeds are growing new shoots every day. Viva Brazil Libre! Can the US escape its supremacist hubris and learn something about democracy? I hope so. On va voir.

You said you were considering legal action against the writer Polly Samson, also David Gilmour’s wife, due to her attack on your character, calling you an anti-semite and a lip-synching singer, among other things. Are you going to take legal action? And is there any chance of being on better terms with your ex-Pink Floyd colleague in the near future?

That’s two questions. 1. No I’m not taking legal action and 2. What do you think?

You soon will be 80 years old. Is “This is not a drill” a creation of a more hopeful or more pessimistic artist, regarding the world our children will inherit?

What a good final question. And without any hesitation or doubt my answer is more hopeful. Why? Because the truth is that President Lula and I and Marielle Franco stand on the right side of History, we represent a new dawn. The hope is that the flame kindled in hearts of men and women back in the enlightenment has withstood the counter revolution of settler colonialism and corporate greed, and that the tide is turning. To quote a stanza from my Opera about The French Revolution, Ca Ira:

Cooling in the crucible

An idea forms

A nugget of belief

In the hearts of the poor

That maybe in the dawns new light

They have a right to the law.

Well, we’re not naïve, we know the fight is not over. The fight is on, we are in the middle rounds, and it’s a fierce battle. Bolsonaro and Trump and all the other fascists, too many to mention here, believe in the divine right of kings of one kind or another, but mainly the divine right of very rich. We on the other hand, President Lula and me and Marielle and her seeds, believe in democracy, and equality under the law. Our dream is of internationally agreed law, with human rights equally applied to all our brothers and sisters all over the world, irrespective of their ethnicity or religion or nationality or the depth of their pockets. Do I sound like a broken record?

On my upcoming tour of South America, THIS IS NOT A DRILL. We will be playing many old favourites, but we will also be playing one brand new song. It’s called THE BAR. It’s about meeting together and talking to one another. It’s about expressing our opinions openly without fear of censure, it’s about listening to others who may disagree with us, it’s about working on those disagreements, it’s about community, it’s about finding solutions, it’s about listening to the voice of reason, in the end, it’s about love.

My whole show is about love, that and this fight we are in against the dying of the light. Yes, we will be there in your beautiful Brazil to fight for reason, to fight for love, to fight for Marielle and to fight against the dying of the light.

Love

June 2023 – Latest reviews!

June 1, 2023

A Statement from Roger Waters on the controversy over his Berlin Concert

May 26, 2023

My recent performance in Berlin has attracted bad faith attacks from those who want to smear and silence me because they disagree with my political views and moral principles.

The elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms. Attempts to portray those elements as something else are disingenuous and politically motivated. The depiction of an unhinged fascist demagogue has been a feature of my shows since Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” in 1980.

I have spent my entire life speaking out against authoritarianism and oppression wherever I see it. When I was a child after the war, the name of Anne Frank was often spoken in our house, she became a permanent reminder of what happens when fascism is left unchecked. My parents fought the Nazis in World War II, with my father paying the ultimate price.

Regardless of the consequences of the attacks against me, I will continue to condemn injustice and all those who perpetrate it.

A note from Roger. Hajar Al-bahtini.

May 11, 2023

A note from Roger:

Thursday 11th May 2023

STOP KILLING THE CHILDREN. Hajar Al-bahtini pictured was one of the Palestinian children killed the night before last. The persecution of The Palestinians must end.

I am harassed in Germany for speaking up for my brothers and sisters in Palestine.

Germany’s harassment of me is not even a gnat bite.

But, it demands a nod. So this is what it feels like to be maligned, it doesn’t feel good.

“Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K, he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested.”

I have been quoting the famous first line from Franz Kafka’s “The Trial” during my song Run Like Hell in all my shows since 2010. And now here I am living it in Germany. Except of course I haven’t been arrested yet!

The lies in question in my case are that I am a Jew-hating anti-Semite and that I am a Putin apologist on the wrong side of the war in Ukraine, and that in consequence, in Germany at least, I should be banned from performing my work.

These smear tactic lies have been so firmly entrenched in the German psyche that on Monday 8th May, in Koln, at a small protest outside the venue where I was to perform my “This Is Not A Drill” show the next day, no fewer than eight speakers lined up to denounce me as a monster anti-Semite to a small crowd.

I am being demonized because what I say about Palestine and Ukraine contradicts the orthodox view of Big Brother. I am being attacked for expressing opinions and exposing Big Brother’s lies.

So? Who runs the Ministry of truth in Germany? Who is Big Brother? Who gets to define the words in our dictionaries? What is and what is not Anti-Semitism? How did the war in Ukraine start? Was the Russian invasion in February 2022 unprovoked? Did war in Ukraine really start in February 2022 or did it start in 2014 with attacks on the Donbas by the newly installed anti-democratic, possibly neo-fascist supported, government in Kiev? It is true I wrote to Alina a young girl in Ukraine who had reached out to me, I suggested a return to the Minsk protocols for peace in the Donbas, as an alternative to war. I also wrote to Mrs. Zelenska and Mr. Putin suggesting the same thing. Fifteen months later, looking back, was I wrong to encourage negotiations? What has been achieved by pursuing the carnage of proxy war? Was I wrong to call for peace? Was I wrong to sound a warning.

Every night in my song Sheep I sing:

Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away

Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air

You better watch out there maybe dogs about

I have looked over Jordan and I have seen

Things are not what they seem.

I point out in my show that Animals is an homage to George Orwell and Aldous Huxley and how right they were to warn future generations of the coming dystopia. And how right I was to echo their misgivings and predictions when I wrote Animals in 1977.

That the speakers at the anti-Roger Waters protest, outside the gig seek to silence me is mind-numbingly dumb. Particularly because inside the venue I’m singing the same truth that I wrote forty five years ago in Sheep, in a show they now wish to cancel? This takes irony to depths that are beyond this bass player’s understanding.

Anti-Semitsm:

I am not anti Semitic. Never have been never will be. I speak the truth about Israel/Palestine.

1. The Israel Palestine issue is NOT complicated.

In contravention of all international law the apartheid state of Israel engages in building settlements in territory occupied by military force, territory designated by the UN for a Palestinian state, and is committed to the ethnic cleansing of the non-Jewish indigenous population.

2. BDS is not anti-Semitic, its aims, very specifically,

are to promote equal human rights for all the peoples between the Jordan river and the sea. All, in this case, means all ethnicities, all religions, all equally. This is not complicated; a four year old could understand it.

Next stop in Germany is Berlin, 17th and 18th May. Please come and show solidarity with all your brothers and sisters all over the world, irrespective of their ethnicity, religion or nationality, and resist Big Brother and the forces of predatory Capitalism who are destroying our beautiful planet home.

Today I read a statement from the Frankfurt City Council.

They said: “In order to send a signal to society as a whole against anti-Semitism and exclusion, the city and state support the call of the Frankfurt Jewish Community for a peaceful rally under the motto ‘Frankfurt united against anti-Semitism’ on 28 May from 4pm at the Festhalle.”

Here’s my statement: ”Roger Waters stands United with The Frankfurt Jewish Community, in that, he too abhors Anti-Semitism along with all other forms of racism and discrimination.”

Nothing will bring back our sister Hajar Al-bahtini.

I am desolate.

This Is Not A Drill – Live From Prague

April 18, 2023

A live broadcast screening into cinemas worldwide on May 25.
Tickets on sale on April 25.
www.ThisIsNotADrillFilm.com

For one night only, Roger Waters, the creative force behind the golden years of Pink Floyd, presents his first Farewell Tour, “This Is Not A Drill”, Live from Prague, in cinemas around the world.

This cinematic extravaganza is a stunning indictment of the corporate dystopia in which we all struggle to survive and will include 20 Pink Floyd and Roger Waters classic songs, including: “Us & Them”, “Comfortably Numb”, “Wish You Were Here”, and “Is This The Life We Really Want?”. Waters will also debut his new song, “The Bar”.

Waters will be joined on stage by Jonathan Wilson, Dave Kilminster, Jon Carin, Gus Seyffert, Robert Walter, Joey Waronker, Shanay Johnson, Amanda Belair and Seamus Blake to deliver an unforgettable performance with a call to action to love, protect, and share our precious planet home.

Please note this event will been time shifted in some markets to suit local time zones.

Suit filed in Frankfurt today

April 3, 2023

“HEY FRANKFURT LEAVE FREE SPEECH ALONE.”

I’M COMING BRINGING
MY MESSAGE OF LOVE AND PEACE
TO ALL MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS
ALL OVER THE WORLD
IRRESPECTIVE OF THEIR ETHNICITY
RELIGION OR NATIONALITY
54 DAYS AND COUNTING
28th MAY FRANKFURT FESTHALLE
THIS IS NOT A DRILL!
AND THANK YOU TO THE 25,000 + COMRADES
WHO HAVE ALREADY SIGNED
KATIE HALPER’S PETITION

Der Spiegel interview – March 2023

March 21, 2023

Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters has supported the boycott of Israel for years. That is why the city of Frankfurt cancelled one of his concerts. In London, he now met Meron Mendel, the director of the Anne Frank Education Centre, who has just published the book “Talking about Israel”.

Roger Waters, 79, is responsible for “the golden years of Pink Floyd”. That’s what it says on posters with which the Englishman is currently advertising “his first farewell tour”. There is still a dispute about his concerts in Hamburg, Cologne, Berlin and Munich. In Frankfurt am Main, the city’s magistrate has declared that the concert in the Festhalle will be “immediately cancelled extraordinarily for good cause”. This is because Waters supports the BDS movement, which wants to achieve a change in Palestinian policy by boycotting Israel. But he does not want to be accused of hostility towards Jews. That is why he will sue Frankfurt – and wants to talk.

Meron Mendel, 46, is Israeli, German and director of the Anne Frank Educational Centre. During the dispute about anti-Semitism at the Documenta in Kassel, he appeared in public for the first time – as a Jewish intellectual who knows how to differentiate. He has just published “Talking about Israel. A German Debate”, a book on the subject. An ideal discussion partner for Roger Waters.

Waters and Mendel met for an hour at the Rosewood Hotel in London last week.

Live photos by Kate Izor.

SPIEGEL: Mr Waters, the magistrate of Frankfurt am Main has cancelled your concert planned for 28 May in the Festhalle. It wants to send “a signal against anti-Semitism”. Does that surprise you?

Waters: No, they’ve been babbling about it since at least 2018. I read what the Frankfurt magistrate had to say. Of course he is wrong.

SPIEGEL: Of course?

Waters: Yes, of course. I am not an anti-Semite. I have never been an anti-Semite and I will never be one. I have stressed that on many occasions. It is bizarre that my career should now be attacked on the basis of allegations made by the Israel lobby.

SPIEGEL: Can you understand that there are statements and artistic choices that suggest such an assessment? A flying pig, for example, is a highlight of your shows – there was a Star of David on it.

Waters: And therefore I am supposed to be an anti-Semite? The flying pig is part of every show where I play the song “In the Flesh”. This particular pig flew ten years ago as a prop for “The Wall” concerts. In the statement of the magistrate of Frankfurt it says that I gave 200 shows in which a Star of David was supposed to be on it. That is nonsense. I researched it again, there were less than twenty concerts, and only five of them in Europe. Because as soon as people complained about it, on social media after a show in Belgium, I said: Okay, I can understand why some people, some religious Jews, are upset.

SPIEGEL: And then?

Waters: And then I immediately removed the Star of David from that pig. But I stand by my original decision to use it. It was one of many symbols for dogmas of all kinds. Religious dogmas like Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And commercial symbols representing capitalist dogma. In addition to the Star of David, the crucifix and the crescent moon, the McDonald’s logo, the dollar sign and the Mercedes star were also on display at these shows…. No company complained, no Christian, no Muslim. Only the Israel lobby. At the time, the ADL took a close look …

Spiegel: The Anti-Defamation League, based in New York, an organisation that campaigns against the defamation of and discrimination against Jews.

Waters: They decided that there was no anti-Semitism here.

Mendel: I have been in the Israeli peace movement for 30 years and an opponent of the occupation of Palestine ever since. I wonder why you still cannot admit that your pig action not only hurt religious feelings, but that linking the Star of David to symbols of capitalism reproduces classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. And I wonder why you criticise Israel so vehemently but do not apply the same standards to Vladimir Putin or Bashar al-Assad.

Waters: You sit here and tell me you are against the occupation.

Good, we have something in common there. Are we against the occupation for the same reasons? My reason is that the occupation contradicts the very idea of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Paris 1948, according to which all people should have universal and equal human rights? Even those who live in Palestine or Israel – call it what you will?

Mendel: Of course.

Waters: Well, I have the impression that the Israeli government does not believe that.

Mendel: Yes, that’s true.

Waters: Then we have no disagreement.

Mendel: I have been wondering for years how to get the majority of people in Israel to think in terms of human rights. Israel is not perfect, but it is a democracy …

Waters: Aha, a dissent! Everyone knows that Israel is not a democracy. A democracy needs equal rights for all citizens. And Israel doesn’t have those. It is a state in which a certain group, the Jewish people, have supremacy, and Jewish citizens enjoy rights that are denied to their fellow citizens. The government says so openly.

Mendel: You must not ignore the fact that the founding of Israel as a Jewish state took place against the backdrop of the pogroms in Europe and the Holocaust – Israel is the only home for Jews worldwide. And you must have noticed that in the last five or six weeks hundreds of thousands of Israelis have protested against this government. And they are not backing down today. You and I, we may have the same opinion about the current Israeli government …

Waters: Okay, good. That’s a start!

Mendel: And there is no perfect democracy. But the last coalition government involved an Arab party. Israelis themselves fight each other on the political stage. You say yourself, when you talk about other states in the world, that there is not only black and white. Why should it be different in Israel? Maybe Israel is something in between, and you could recognize that.

Waters: We are getting off topic.

Mendel: May I tell you how I came to the peace movement?

Waters: Please do.

Mendel: When I was 14 or 15, there was a project that brought Israeli Jews and Palestinians together. And we learned from each other. Today, the peaceful dialogue has fallen silent. Why? Because of BDS. But without dialogue there will be no peace.

Waters: Do I understand you correctly? You say that the boycott movement has destroyed the peace process?

Mendel: Yes, they have made all initiatives for dialogue impossible. Because dialogue and boycott do not go together.

Waters: We have an organization here, BDS, that campaigns for equal human rights for all those who live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea – I’m just talking about the geographical space. Because people live there who are deprived of their basic human rights. BDS is an attempt to draw worldwide attention to this problem. And you are telling me that this would destroy the peace process? How is that possible?

Mendel: BDS is against any rapprochement. I will give you an example. Rami Aman, a Palestinian peace activist from Gaza, took part in a Zoom conference with activists from Gaza and from Israel. BDS activists denounced him on Facebook and informed the military arm of Hamas. One day later, Hamas arrested him, put him in prison for two months and tortured him there. Since then, Rami Aman has not been active. I could give you many more examples of people in Israel and Palestine who dedicate their whole lives to peace and understanding between the parties – and are opposed by BDS. That is my problem with this movement.

Waters: I don’t know anything about this case, so I can’t comment on it.

Mendel: Let’s talk about principles. One of my principles has always been to talk to people.

Waters: Well, that’s a good thing.

Mendel: Then you also agree that there are Jews in Israel who really want peace with the Palestinians?

Waters: I know that there are. My friend Gideon Levy from the newspaper “Haaretz”, for example. If it’s about the peace movement in Israel, you have to ask him. He lives there, I don’t.

Mendel: But Gideon Levy is not here, so I ask you. BDS punishes these people instead of strengthening them. Liberal and progressive forces don’t have it easy in Israel. And if they want to come to Europe and America, they are boycotted there.

Waters: The mandate and task of BDS is first and foremost to empower the Palestinian people. But since you bring it up: I also know peace activists in Israel who are supported by BDS.

SPIEGEL: Mr Waters, you are not a politician. Doesn’t your music have to do with communication? And also with empathy?

Waters: Of course it does. Everything I have created over the past 60 years expresses my desire and need to empathize with other people. That’s exactly what it is.

SPIEGEL: Then I ask, not as an Israeli, but as a German whose grandfather fought against your father in the Second World War, why this opportunity to communicate does not apply to Israelis, why they have to be boycotted.

Waters: Well, let’s go back to the beginning. I played in Israel and there was not a single Palestinian there. I played in a field of chickpeas near Neve Shalom …

SPIEGEL: … a peace village between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Waters: Yes, that was in 2006. That was when I first saw with my own eyes what was going on…. I was there.

Mendel: Why were there no Palestinians there?

Waters: Because they are not allowed free movement even if they want to see a pop concert.

Mendel: Palestinians from the occupied territories I can understand. But weren’t there Palestinians from Israel there?

Waters: Maybe. How many will there have been? I don’t know. I didn’t go around asking everyone…. But I remember saying to that young audience there, “You are the generation of young Israelis who must make peace with your brothers and sisters, the Palestinians.” Before I said that, 60,000 fans were screaming at the top of their lungs: “Pink Floyd! Dark Side of the Moon! Roger!”. After my plea for peace, there was absolute silence.

Mendel: This is a great moment! This is exactly what these people need!

Waters: The mood tipped from frenzied enthusiasm to: “This guy is nuts”.

Mendel: Isn’t that a great opportunity? There are maybe 50,000 people, mostly Israelis, and Roger Waters tells them, “You are blind! You have to make peace!”.

Waters: Well, they didn’t do it, did they?

Mendel: It would be megalomaniacal to believe that a rock star alone could fix it. But who knows, maybe you made one or two concertgoers think back then?

Waters: Maybe but since then things have got worse and worse. And why? Because too many people in Israel are racist and don’t want peace with their neighbours. You, Mr Mendel, seem to be an exception to the rule. May I ask you a question?

Mendel: Of course.

Waters: How can it be that a monster like the radical settler Bezalel Smotrich is finance minister today? Well? Somebody must have elected him!

Mendel: Hundreds of thousands are demonstrating against him.

Waters: If the people of Israel want peace, let them choose peace. Let them admit that this experiment was a mistake and give the people back their stolen land and the human rights they are legally entitled to. That is all. It’s not complicated.

SPIEGEL: And that’s why you ask colleagues like Nick Cave or Radiohead not to play there?

Waters: That’s right. Musicians like those you mentioned would probably agree with Professor Mendel, and advise me: “Go to Israel, talk to students in the cafés. We can have disagreements and talk about it and everything will be fine.” No, everything won’t be fine talking to students won’t help. The fact in the occupied territories is: if you are Jewish, you have rights. And if you are not Jewish, you don’t have them. It’s as simple as that. I would like to know from you, as a journalist from SPIEGEL, whether you believe that the Bundestag – especially the SPD, CDU, and the Greens – believe in the idea of human rights in general and especially for all those living in the occupied territories? And, more importantly, do you think that the German people as a whole are interested in universal human rights?

SPIEGEL: I can speak neither for the parliament nor for the people. But my impression is that both a majority in the Bundestag and the Germans as a whole are quite interested in universal human rights. But …

Waters: But? But what? But not for the Palestinians?

SPIEGEL: The Germans, as you know, have a special relationship with the Jewish state for historical reasons.

Waters: I know that.

SPIEGEL: And the situation in the Middle East is very complicated. Germany should have an interest in refraining from anything that could make the situation even more dangerous than it already is.

Waters: More dangerous for whom?

SPIEGEL: For the state of Israel.

Waters: Ah, the Jewish state of Israel! Are you saying that the German people are only in favour of human rights when they concern Jewish Israelis, not Palestinians? Because if that’s the case, then it’s not “complicated”. It’s just wrong. Human rights should be enjoyed equally by all.

Mendel: Can’t you empathise with Israel’s certain concerns? Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. All around it are states that are hostile to Israel. Wouldn’t it be helpful to get Israelis to engage in dialogue?

Waters: Meron, you sound like a very old, very, very broken record. That’s why I’m making movements here like I’m pulling my hair out. No, it’s not complicated! Either we believe in equal human rights or we don’t. You can’t say: “Of course, the Rohingya in Myanmar! Of course, the blacks in South Africa! But in Israel? No! Jews live there…”, there is the Jewish state, it’s complicated.

SPIEGEL: Mr Waters, you get quite loud sometimes.

Waters: Well, I am a passionate man, and this issue grieves me deeply. That’s why I’m in the firing line, that’s why my career could be on the line. Because I’m one of the few people in my business who stands up for what he believes in – whatever happens. For all I care, they can try to cancel every concert I do in Germany. I will fight them in court. It’s a tragedy for Germany that they even try. Because the message to the world is: We Germans don’t care about human rights and freedom of expression.

Mendel: We agree that human rights are not only violated in Israel and Palestine, but also in China, Russia or Myanmar?

Waters: Of course we agree on that!

Mendel: So Israel is the only place on earth where you wouldn’t play? What’s helpful about that?

Waters: My refusal to break out of the BDS picket line is disrupting the racist status quo in Israel. That’s what helps. You know the word that we were never allowed to use, but are now allowed to use because it is used all the time, and that is: apartheid. Pointing out that there is apartheid in Israel is as helpful as when it was in South Africa-. It definitely helped to end apartheid there.

Mendel: Unlike in South Africa under the apartheid regime, in Israel all citizens are equal under the law. What is happening in Israel is structural discrimination and racism against the Arab population. And these problems must of course be fought! The concept of apartheid also gives the false impression that there is a racist ideology at the heart of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. This is not the case. This reading ignores that Israel is an attempt by Jews to create a place of safety from anti-Semitism. But to my actual question: Can you understand my discomfort if you were playing in Moscow, in Tehran or Damascus – but not in Israel?

Waters: I just explained it to you. The people of Russia or Iran or Syria have not organised a BDS movement and asked me not to break the picket line. They are not listening! Why am I not playing there? Because there is a picket line organised by BDS. I was asked by the Palestinian people, by every man, woman, child, “Please, please, Roger Waters, creator of this beautiful music, don’t play in Israel!”. If you do, you will help normalise apartheid! So please don’t do it!”

Mendel: Suppose I were to introduce 500 Palestinians to them? And these Palestinians would ask you to play in Israel? So that you can point out the human rights violations in the occupied territories to your Israeli audience?

Waters: I have already been asked by the whole of Palestinian civil society to respect the boycott. So your 500 Palestinians have already spoken.

Mendel: You know that many Palestinians are afraid to speak out against BDS. If they do, they end up in Hamas prison. I’m amazed that for you the situation is always so simple and clear when it comes to Israel. Why is it suddenly complicated when Putin invades Ukraine? As a Jew and a peace activist, I wonder if you are my ally – or an anti-Semite. I’m not sure about that.

Waters: I am sure that your Judaism has nothing to do with it. I don’t want to talk about Russia and Ukraine today. That is a completely different topic. Maybe some other time. Such a conversation would obviously also touch on many questions about human rights.

Mendel: Human rights are the most important thing of all for me, whether in Israel or elsewhere. As an Israeli, I am particularly concerned about the violations of these rights in Israel, in the occupied territories. But the question is: How can we end this occupation?

Waters: I am making my contribution by not singing “Another Brick in the Wall” in Tel Aviv. So can we please stop even thinking about that? Because it’s not going to happen. I’m not going to break the picket line, end of story. The cause of my oppressed brothers and sisters in Palestine is more important to me than the needs of Israeli fans of my music in Israel.I will be there in a heartbeat when human rights apply to all in Israel and the occupied territories. How ironic that the Israelis want to get me to play in Israel – and the Germans are trying to ban me in Frankfurt. That’s crazy!

Mendel: I don’t speak for “the Israelis”, but only for myself. As someone who advocates dialogue and not boycott. Neither of us would have come if we thought the ban was a good idea.

SPIEGEL: We think it’s a mistake to ban concerts on that basis.

Waters: I’m very happy to hear that. I would be very, very happy to see that printed in SPIEGEL.

Mendel: Now if the Ukrainian people would ask you not to give concerts in Russia …

Waters: Which Ukrainian people? One part is for Russia, the other part is for Ukraine.

Mendel: The elected government of Ukraine …

Waters: The elected government of Ukraine was removed in an illegal government coup in 2014.

SPIEGEL: In a revolution.

Waters: Well, yes. We’re talking about the Maidan. You call it a revolution, I call it a coup. Let’s leave it at that. I don’t have any concerts planned in Russia.

Mendel: So you won’t give any concerts there as long as the war goes on?

Waters: That’s none of your business.

SPIEGEL: But it might interest many of your fans in Germany.

Waters: I don’t want to be dragged into this discussion by you. You are Israeli, yes? And you are a journalist from SPIEGEL, right? And I came here to talk about the cancellation of my concert in Frankfurt.

SPIEGEL: That’s what we did.

Waters: Yes, we did. And I thank you for this opportunity to beat my drum. You say, “It’s complicated!” and I say, “It’s not complicated!”. Give equal human rights to the peoples in the holy land. That is my final word.

SPIEGEL: Mr Waters, Mr Mendel, thank you for this interview.

Dark Side of the Moon Re-Working

March 3, 2023

When we recorded the stripped down songs for the Lockdown Sessions, the 50th anniversary of the release of Dark Side of The Moon was looming on the horizon. It occurred to to me that Dark Side of the Moon could well be a suitable candidate for a similar re-working, partly as a tribute to the original work, but also to re-address the political and emotional message of the whole album. I discussed it with Gus and Sean, and when we’d stopped giggling and shouting ‘You must be fucking mad’ at one another we decided to take it on. We are now in the process of finishing the final mix. It’s turned out really great and I’m excited for everyone to hear it. It’s not a replacement for the original which, obviously, is irreplaceable. But it is a way for the seventy nine year old man to look back across the intervening fifty years into the eyes of the twenty nine year old and say, to quote a poem of mine about my Father, “We did our best, we kept his trust, our Dad would have been proud of us”. And also it is a way for me to honor a recording that Nick and Rick and Dave and I have every right to be very proud of.

Happy 50th to Dark Side of the Moon.

Security Council of the United Nations Briefing

February 8, 2023

On Wednesday Feb 8th, I briefed the Security Council of the United Nations:

https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1e/k1e98hhxei

Madame President, Excellencies, distinguished members of The Security Council, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I feel profoundly honoured to be afforded this singular opportunity to brief your excellencies today. With your forbearance, I shall endeavor to express what I believe to be the feelings of countless of our brothers and sisters all over the world, both here in NY and across the seas. I shall invite them into these hallowed halls to have their say.

We are here to consider possibilities for peace in war torn Ukraine, especially in light of the increasing volume of weapons arriving in that unhappy country. Every morning when I sit down at my laptop, I think of our brothers and sisters, in Ukraine and elsewhere, who, through no fault of their own find themselves in dire and often deadly circumstances. Over there, in Ukraine they may be soldiers facing another deadly day at the front, or they may be mothers or fathers facing the awful question how can I feed my child today, or they may be civilians knowing that today the lights will go out, for sure, as they always do in war zones, knowing that there is no fresh water, that there is no fuel for the stove, no blanket, just barbed wire and watch towers and walls and enmity. Or, they may be over here, in a big rich city like NY, here brothers and sisters can still find themselves in dire straights. Maybe, somehow, however hard they worked all their lives, they lost their footing on the slippery tilting deck of the neo liberal capitalist ship we call life in the city and fell overboard to end up drowning.. Maybe they got sick, or maybe they took out a student loan, maybe they missed a payment, the margins are slim, who knows, but now they live on the street in a pile of cardboard, maybe even within sight of this United Nations building. Anyway, wherever they are, all over the world, war zone or not, together they make up a majority, a voiceless majority. Today I shall endeavor to speak for them.

We the people wish to live. We wish to live in peace in conditions of parity that give us the real opportunity to look after ourselves and our loved ones. We are hard workers and we are ready to work hard. All we need is a fair crack of the whip. Maybe that’s an unfortunate choice of idiom, after five hundred years of imperialism, colonialism and slavery.

Anyway please help us.

To help us you may have to consider our predicament, and to do so you may have to take your eye off the ball for a moment, to put your own goals momentarily to one side. What are your goals by the way? And here maybe I direct my enquiries more to the five permanent members of this Council. What are your goals? What is in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Bigger profits for war industries? More power globally? A bigger share of the global cake? Is mother earth a cake to be gobbled up? Does not a bigger share of the cake mean less for everyone else? What if today, in this place of safety, we were to look in another direction, to look at our capacity for empathy for instance, to put ourselves in other’s shoes, like, right now, for instance, the shoes of that chap on the other side of this room, or even the shoes of the voiceless majority, if they have any shoes that is.
The Voiceless Majority is concerned that your wars, yes your wars, for these perpetual wars are not of our choosing, that your wars will destroy the planet that is our home, and along with every other living thing we will be sacrificed on the altar of two things, profits from the war to line the pockets of the very, very, few and the hegemonic march of some empire or other towards unipolar world domination. Please reassure us that that is not your vision for there is no good outcome down that road. That road leads only to disaster, everyone on that road has a red button in their briefcase and the further we go down that road the closer the itchy fingers get to that red button and the closer we all get to Armageddon. Look across the room, at this level we’re all wearing the same shoes.

So back to Ukraine. The invasion of Ukraine by The Russian Federation was illegal. I condemn it in the strongest possible terms. Also, The Russian invasion of Ukraine was not “unprovoked”, so I also condemn the provocateurs in the strongest possible terms. There, that’s got that out of the way.
When I wrote this speech yesterday, I included an observation that the power of veto in this council only lay in the hands of its permanent members, I was concerned that that was was undemocratic and rendered This Council toothless…. This morning I had a revelation……..TOOTHLESS! maybe toothless is in some ways a good thing……..If this is a toothless chamber……..I can open my big mouth on behalf of the voiceless without getting my head bitten off……. How cool is that. I read in the paper this morning, some anonymous diplomat quoted as saying, “Roger Waters! To address the Security Council? Whatever next?….. Mr Bean! Hwah! Hwah! Hwah! For those of you who don’t know, Mr Bean is an ineffectual character in an English comedy show on TV. So it’s a penny to a pound the anonymous diplomat is an Englishman, Hwah! hwah! hwah! To you too Sir! Ok, I think it’s time to introduce my mother, Mary Duncan Waters, she was a big influence on me, she was a school teacher, I say was, she’s been dead for fifteen years. My father, Eric Fletcher Waters, was a big influence on me too, he too is dead, he was killed on the 18th of February 1944 at Aprilia near The Anzio Bridgehead in Italy, when I was only five months old, so I know something about war and loss. Anyway back to my Mum. When I was about thirteen I was struggling with some knotty adolescent problem or other trying to decide what to do, it doesn’t matter what it was, I can’t remember anyway, but my mum sat me down and said, “Listen, you’re going to be faced with many knotty problems during your life and when you are here’s my advice, read, read, read find out everything you can about whatever it is, look at it from all sides, all angles, listen to all opinions, especially ones you don’t agree with, research it thoroughly, when you’ve done that you will have done all the heavy lifting and the next bit is easy, “Is it? Ok mum what’s the easy bit?”…….”Oh, the easy bit is, you just do the right thing.“

So speaking of doing the right thing brings me to human rights.
We the people, want universal human rights for all our brothers and sisters all over the world irrespective of their ethnicity, religion or nationality. To be clear, that would include but would not be limited to the right to life and property under the law for, for instance, Ukrainians, and for instance Palestinians. Yup, let that sink in. And obviously for all the rest of us. One of the problems with wars is that in a war zone or anywhere where the people live under military occupation, there is no recourse to the law, there are no human rights.

Today our brief is the possibility of peace in the Ukraine, with special reference to the arming of the Kiev regime by third parties.

I’m running out of time so,

What do the Voiceless millions have to say?

They say
Thank you for hearing us today
We are the many who do not share in the profits of the war industry.
We do not willingly raise our sons or daughters
To provide fodder for your cannons.
In our opinion
The only sensible course of action today
Is to call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine.
No ifs, no buts, no ands.
Not one more Ukrainian or Russian life is to be spent.
Not one.
They are all precious in our eyes.

So, the time has come to speak truth to power. You all remember the story of the Emperor’s new clothes? Of course you do. Well the leaders of your respective Empires stand, in one degree or another, naked before us. We have a message for them. It is a message from all the refugees in all the camps, a message from all the slums and favelas, a message from all the homeless, on all the cold streets, from all the earthquakes and floods, on earth. It is also a message from all the people, not quite starving but wondering how on earth to make the pittance they earn, meet the cost of a roof over their head and food for their families. My mother country England is, thank god, an Empire no more, but in that country now, there is a new catch phrase “Eat or Heat?” you can’t do both. It’s a cry echoing round the whole of Europe.
Apparently, the only thing the Powers that Be think we can all afford is perpetual war. How crazy is that?

So, from the four billion or so brothers and sisters in this Voiceless Majority who together with the millions in the international anti-war movement represent a huge constituency, enough is enough! We demand change.

President Joe Biden, President Putin, President Zelenski,
USA, NATO, RUSSIA, THE EU, ALL OF YOU.
PLEASE CHANGE COURSE NOW,
AGREE TO A CEASEFIRE IN UKRAINE TODAY.

That, of course, will only be the starting point. But everything extrapolates from that starting point. Imagine the collective global sigh of relief. The outpouring of joy. The international joining of voices in harmony singing an anthem to peace! John Lennon pumping the air with his fist from the grave. We have finally been heard in the corridors of power. The bullies in the schoolyard have agreed to stop playing nuclear chicken. We’re not all going to die in a nuclear holocaust after all. At least not today. The powers that be have been persuaded to drop the arms race and perpetual war as their accepted modus operandum. We can stop squandering all our precious resources on war. We can feed our children, we can keep them warm. We may even learn to cooperate with all our brothers and sisters and even save our beautiful planet home from destruction. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Your Excellencies,

I thank you for your forbearance.

Roger Waters

Statement

February 7, 2023

Roger Waters is aware of the incendiary and wildly inaccurate comments made about him on Twitter by Polly Samson which he refutes entirely. He is currently taking advice as to his position.

Berliner Zeitung interview

February 5, 2023

BERLINER ZEITUNG 4^th FEBRUARY 2023

THE TRUTH WILL SET US FREE

Against the backdrop of the outrageous and despicable smear campaign by the ISRAELI LOBBY to denounce me as an ANTI-SEMITE, WHICH I AM NOT, NEVER HAVE BEEN and NEVER WILL BE. Against he backdrop of them trying to silence me because I lend my voice to the seventy five year old fight for equal human rights for all my brothers and sisters in Palestine/Israel, irrespective of their ethnicity, religion or nationality. Against the backdrop, of the ISRAELI LOBBY trying to cancel my 85% SOLD OUT series of concerts in Germany, the National Newspaper BERLINER ZEITUNG, has today, courageously, published an in depth interview with me in their Saturday Magazine. Thank you so much gentlemen.

And to MY FANS who have purchased tickets for my forthcoming shows in Europe,

FEAR NOT! I AM DEFINITELY COMING.

WILD HORSES COULDN’T KEEP ME AWAY

AND NEITHER CAN THIS APARTHEID RABBLE

THE TRUTH WILL SET US FREE.

LOVE

Interview translated into English from German:

Roger Waters can rightly claim to be the mastermind behind Pink Floyd. He came up with the concept of and wrote all the lyrics for the masterpiece “The Dark Side of the Moon”. He wrote the albums “Animals”, “The Wall” and “The Final Cut” single-handedly. On his current tour “This Is Not A Drill”, which comes to Germany in May, he therefore wants to express that legacy to a large extent and play songs from Pink Floyd’s classic phase. The problem: Because of controversial statements he has made about the war in Ukraine and the politics of the state of Israel, one of his concerts in Poland has already been cancelled, and in Germany Jewish and Christian organizations are demanding the same. Time to talk to the 79-year-old musician: What does he mean by all this? Is he simply misunderstood – should his concerts be cancelled? Is it justifiable to exclude him from the conversation? Or does society have a problem banning dissenters like Waters from the conversation?

The musician receives his visitors in his residence in southern England, friendly, open, unpretentious, but determined – that’s how he will remain throughout the conversation. First, however, he wants to demonstrate something special: In the studio of his house, he plays three tracks from a brand new re-recording of “The Dark Side of the Moon”, which celebrates its 50th birthday in March. “The new concept is meant to reflect on the meaning of the work, to bring out the heart and soul of the album,” he says, “musically and spiritually. I’m the only one singing my songs on these new recordings, and there are no rock and roll guitar solos.”

The spoken words, superimposed on instrumental pieces like “On The Run” or “The Great Gig in the Sky” and over “Speak To Me”, “Brain Damage” “Any Colour You Like and Money” are meant to clarify his “mantra”, the message he considers central to all his work: “It’s about the voice of reason. And it says: what is important is not the power of our kings and leaders or their so-called connection with God. What is really important is the connection between us as human beings, the whole human community. We, human beings, are scattered all over the globe – but we are all related because we all come from Africa. We are all brothers and sisters, or at the very least distant cousins, but the way we treat each other is destroying our home, planet earth – faster than we can imagine.” For instance, right now, suddenly here we are in 2023 involved in a year old proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Why? Ok, a bit of history, in 2004 Russian President Vladimir Putin extended his hand to the West in an attempt to build an architecture of peace in Europe. It’s all there in the record. He explained that western plans to invite the post Maidan coup Ukraine into NATO posed a completely unacceptable existential threat to The Russian Federation and would cross a final red line that could end in war, so could we all get round the table and negotiate a peaceful future. His advances were brushed off by the US and its NATO allies. From then on he consistently maintained his position and NATO consistently maintained theirs: “F… you”. And here we are.

Mr Waters, you speak of the voice of reason, of the deep connection of all people. But when it comes to the war in Ukraine, you talk a lot about the mistakes of the US and the West, not about Russia’s war and the Russian aggression. Why don’t you protest against the acts committed by Russia? I know that you supported Pussy Riot and other human rights organizations in Russia. Why don’t you attack Putin?

First of all, if you read my letter to Putin and my writings around the start of the war in February….

…you called him a “gangster”…

…exactly, I did. But I may have changed my mind a little bit in the last year. There is a podcast from Cyprus called “The Duran”. The hosts speak Russian and can read Putin’s speeches in the original. Their comments on it make sense to me. The most important reason for supplying arms to Ukraine is surely profit for the arms industry. And I wonder: is Putin a bigger gangster than Joe Biden and all those in charge of American politics since World War II? I am not so sure. Putin didn’t invade Vietnam or Iraq? Did he?

The most important reason for arms deliveries is the following: It is to support Ukraine, to win the war and to stop Russia’s aggression. You seem to see it differently.

Yes. Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I am now more open to listen what Putin actually says. According to independent voices I listen to he governs carefully, making decisions on the grounds of a consensus in the Russian Federation government. There are also critical intellectuals in Russia, who have been arguing against American imperialism since the 1950s. And a central phrase has always been: Ukraine is a red line. It must remain a neutral buffer state. If it doesn’t remain so, we don’t know where it will lead. We still don’t know, but it could end in a Third World War.

In February last year, it was Putin who decided to attack.

He launched what he still calls a “special military operation”. He launched it on the basis of reasons that if I have understood them well are: 1. We want to stop the potential genocide of the Russian-speaking population of the Donbas. 2. We want to fight Nazism in Ukraine. There is a teenage Ukrainian girl, Alina, with whom I exchanged long letters: “I hear you. I understand your pain.” She answered me, thanked me, but stressed, I‘m sure you’re wrong about one thing though, “I am 200% certain there are no Nazis in Ukraine.” I replied again, “I’m sorry Alina, but you are wrong about that. How can you live in Ukraine and not know?”

There is no evidence that there has been genocide in Ukraine. At the same time, Putin has repeatedly emphasised that he wants to bring Ukraine back into his empire. Putin told former German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the saddest day in his life was in 1989, when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Isn’t the word origin of “Ukraine” the Russian word for “Borderland”? It was part of Russia and the Soviet Union for a long time. It’s a difficult history. During the Second World War, I believe there was a large part of the population of western Ukraine that decided to collaborate with the Nazis. They killed Jews, Roma, communists, and anyone else the Third Reich wanted dead. To this day there is the conflict between Western Ukraine (With or without Nazis Alina) and Eastern The Donbas) and Southern (Crimea) Ukraine and there are many Russian speaking Ukrainians because it was part of Russia for hundreds of years. How can you solve such a problem? It can’t be done by either the Kiev government or the Russians winning. Putin has always stressed that he has no interest in taking over western Ukraine – or invading Poland or any other country across the border. What he is saying is: he wants to protect the Russian-speaking populations in those parts of Ukraine where the Russian speaking populations feel under threat from the far right influenced post Maidan Coup Governments in Kiev. A coup that is widely accepted as having been orchestrated by the US.

We have spoken to many Ukrainians who can prove otherwise. The US may have helped support the 2014 protests. But overall, reputable sources and eyewitness accounts suggest that the protests arose from within – through the will of the Ukrainian people.

I wonder which Ukrainians you have spoken to? I can imagine that some claim that. On the other side of the coin a huge majority of Ukrainians in the Crimea and the Donbass have voted in referenda to rejoin The Russian Federation.

In February, you were surprised that Putin attacked Ukraine. How can you be so sure that he will not go further? Your trust in Russia does not seem to have been shattered, despite the bloody Russian war of aggression.

How can I be sure that the US will not risk starting a nuclear war with China? They are already provoking The Chinese by interfering in Taiwan. They would love to destroy Russia first. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature understands that, when they read the news, and the Americans admit it.

You irritate a lot of people because it always sounds like you are defending Putin.

Compared to Biden, I am. The US/NATO provocations before February 2022 were extreme and very damaging to the interests of all the ordinary people of Europe.

You would not boycott Russia?

I think it is counterproductive. You live in Europe: How much does the US charge for gas deliveries? Five times as much as its own citizens pay. In England, people are now saying “eat or heat” – because the poorer sections of the population can hardly afford to heat their homes. Western governments should realize that we are all brothers and sisters. In the Second World War they saw what happens when they try to wage war against Russia. They will unite and fight to the last ruble and the last square meter of ground to defend their motherland. Just like anyone would. I think if the US can convince its own citizens and you and many other people, that Russia is the real enemy, and that Putin is the new Hitler they will have an easier time stealing from the poor to give to the rich and also starting and promoting more wars, like this proxy war in Ukraine. Maybe that seems like an extreme political stance to you, but maybe the history I read and the news I garner is just different from you. You can’t believe everything you see on TV or read in the papers. All I am trying to achieve with my new recordings, my statements and performances is that our brothers and sisters in power stop the war – and that people understand that our brothers and sisters in Russia do not live under a repressive dictatorship, any more than you do in Germany or I do in the US. I mean would we choose to continue to slaughter young Ukrainians and Russians if we had the power to stop it?

We can do this interview, in Russia this would not be so easy… But back to Ukraine: What would be your political counter-proposal for a meaningful Ukraine policy of the West?

We need to get all our leaders around the table and force them to say: “No more war!”. That would be the point where dialogue can start.

Could you imagine living in Russia?

Yes, of course, why not? It would be the same as with my neighbours here in the south of England. We could go to the pub and talk openly – as long as they don’t go to war and kill Americans or Ukrainians. All right? As long as we can trade with each other, sell each other gas, make sure we’re warm in the winter, we’re fine. Russians are no different from you and me: there are good people and there are idiots – like everywhere else.

Then why don’t you play shows in Russia?

Not for ideological reasons. It is simply not possible at the moment. I’m not boycotting Russia, that would be ridiculous. I play 38 shows in the USA. If I were to boycott any country for political reasons, it would be the US. They are the main aggressor.

If one looks at the conflict neutrally, one can see Putin as the aggressor. Do you think we are all brainwashed?

Yes, I do indeed, definitely. Brainwashed, you said it.

Because we consume western media?

Exactly. What everyone in the West is being told is the “unprovoked invasion” narrative. Huh? Anyone with half a brain can see that the conflict in Ukraine was provoked beyond all measure. It is probably the most provoked invasion ever.

When concerts in Poland were cancelled because of your statements on the war in Ukraine, did you just feel misunderstood?

Yes. This is a big step backwards. It is an expression of Russophobia. People in Poland are obviously just as susceptible to Western propaganda. I would want to say to them: You are brothers and sisters, get your leaders to stop the war so that we can stop for a moment and think: “What is this war about?”. It is about making the rich in the Western countries even richer and the poor everywhere even poorer. The opposite of Robin Hood. Jeff Bezos has a fortune of around 200 billion dollars, while thousands of people in Washington D.C. alone live in cardboard boxes on the street.

Ukrainians are standing up to defend their country. Most people in Germany see it that way, which is why your statements cause consternation, even anger. Your perspectives on Israel meet with similar criticism here. That is also why there is now a discussion about whether your concerts in Germany should be cancelled. How do you react to that?

Oh, you know, it’s Israeli Lobby activists like Malca Goldstein-Wolf who demand that. That’s idiotic. They already tried to cancel my concert in Cologne in 2017 and even got the local radio stations to join in.

Isn’t it a bit easy to label these people as idiots?

Of course, they are not all idiots. But they probably read the Bible and probably believe that anyone who speaks out against Israeli fascism in the Holy Land is an anti-Semite. That’s really not a smart position to take, because to do so you have to deny that people lived in Palestine before the Israelis settled there. You have to follow the legend that says, “A land without a people for a people without a land.” What nonsense. The history here is quite clear. To this day, the indigenous, Jewish population is a minority. The Jewish Israelis all immigrated from Eastern Europe or the United States.

You once compared the state of Israel to Nazi Germany. Do you still stand by this comparison?

Yes, of course. The Israelis are committing genocide. Just like Great Britain did during our colonial period, by the way. The British committed genocide against the indigenous people of North America, for example. So did the Dutch, the Spanish, the Portuguese even the Germans in their colonies. All were part of the injustice of the colonial era. And we, the British also murdered and pillaged in India, Southeast Asia, China…. We believed ourselves to be inherently superior to the indigenous people, just as the Israelis do in Palestine. Well, we weren’t and neither are the Israeli Jews.

As an English man, you have a very different perspective on the history of the State of Israel than we Germans do. In Germany, criticism of Israel is handled with caution for good reasons; Germany has a historical debt that the country must live up to.

I understand that very well and I have been trying to deal with it for 20 years. But for me, your debt, as you put it, your national sense of guilt for what the Nazis did between 1933 and 1945, shouldn’t require your whole society to walk around with blinkers on about Israel. Would it not be better if it rather spurred you to throw away all the blinkers and support equal human rights for all your brothers and sisters all over the world irrespective of ethnicity religion or nationality?

Are you questioning Israel’s right to exist?

In my opinion, Israel has a right to exist as long as it is a true democracy, as long as no group, religious or ethnic, enjoys more human rights than any other. But unfortunately that is exactly what is happening in Israel and Palestine. The government says that only Jewish people should enjoy certain rights. So it can’t be described as democratic. They are very open about it, it’s enshrined in Israeli law. There are now many people in Germany, and of course many Jewish people in Israel, who are open to a different narrative about Israel. Twenty years ago, we could not have had a conversation about the State of Israel in which the terms genocide and apartheid were mentioned. Now I would say you can’t have that conversation without using those terms, because they accurately describe the reality in the occupied territory. I see that more and more clearly since I’ve been part of the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, ed.).

Do you think they would agree with you here in England?

I can’t say for sure because I’ve hardly lived here for the last 20 years. I would have to go down to the pub and talk to people. But I suspect more and more would agree with me every day. I have many Jewish friends – by the way – who whole heartedly agree with me, which is one reason why it’s so crazy to try to discredit me as a Jew-hater. I have one close friend in New York, who happens to be Jewish, who said to me the other day, “A few years ago, I thought you were crazy, I thought you had completely lost it. Now I see you were right in your position on the policies of the state of Israel – and we, the Jewish community in the US, were wrong.” My friend in NY was clearly distressed making this remark, he is a good man.

BDS positions are sanctioned by the German Bundestag. A success of the BDS movement could ultimately mean an end to the state of Israel. Do you see it differently?

Yes, Israel could change its laws. They could say: We have changed our mind, people are allowed to have rights even if they are not Jewish. That would be it, then we wouldn’t need BDS any more.

Have you lost friends because you are active for BDS?

It’s interesting that you ask that. I don’t know exactly, but I very much doubt it. A friendship is a powerful thing. I would say I’ve had about ten real friends in my life. I couldn’t lose a friend because of my political views, because friends love each other – and friendship begets talk, and talk begets understanding. If a friend were to say, “Roger, I saw you flew an inflatable pig with a Star of David on it during your Wall concerts!”, I explain to them the context and that there was nothing anti-Semitic either intended or expressed.

What is the context then?

That was during the song “Goodbye Blue Sky” in “The Wall” show. And to explain the context, you see B-52 bombers, on a circular screen behind the band, but they don’t drop bombs, they drop symbols: Dollar signs, Crucifixes, Hammer and Sickles, Star and Crescents, the McDonalds sign – and Star of Davids. This is theatrical satire, an expression of my belief that unleashing these ideologies, or products onto the people on the ground, is an act of aggression, the opposite of humane, the opposite of creating love and peace among us brothers and sisters. I’m saying in the wrong hands all the ideologies these symbols represent can be evil.

What is your ideology? Are you an anarchist – against any kind of power that people exercise over each other?

I call myself a humanist, a citizen of the world. And my loyalty and respect belong to all people, regardless of their origin, nationality or religion.

Would you still perform in Israel today if they let you?

No, of course not. That would be crossing the picket line. I have for years written letters to colleagues in the music industry to try to convince them not to perform in Israel. Sometimes they disagree, they say, “But this is a way to make peace, we should go there and try to convince them to make peace” Well we are all entitled to our opinion, but in 2005 the whole of Palestinian Civil Society asked me to observe a cultural boycott, and who am I to tell a whole society living under a brutal occupation that I know better than they.

It is very provocative to say that you would play in Moscow but not in Israel.

Interesting that you say that given that Moscow does not run an apartheid state based on the genocide of the indigenous inhabitants.

In Russia, ethnic minorities are heavily discriminated against. Among other things, more ethnic non-Russians are sent to war than ethnic Russians.

You seem to be asking me to see Russia from the current Russo phobic perspective. I choose to see it differently, though as I have said I don’t speak Russian or live in Russia so I’m on foreign ground.

How do you like the fact that Pink Floyd have recorded a new piece for the first time in 30 years – with the Ukrainian musician Andrij Chlywnjuk?

I have seen the video and I am not surprised, but I find it really, really sad. It’s so alien to me, this action is so lacking in humanity. It encourages the continuation of the war. Pink Floyd is a name I used to be associated with. That was a huge time in my life, a very big deal. To associate that name now with something like this… proxy war makes me sad. I mean, they haven’t made the point of demanding, “Stop the war, stop the slaughter, bring our leaders together to talk!” It’s just this content-less waving of the blue and yellow flag. I wrote in one of my letters to the Ukrainian teenager Alina: I will not raise a flag in this conflict, not a Ukrainian flag, not a Russian flag, not a US flag.

After the fall of the Wall, you performed “The Wall” in reunified Berlin, certainly with optimistic expectations for the future. Did you think you could also contribute to this future with your own art, make a difference?

Of course, I believe that to this day. If you have political principles and are an artist, then the two areas are inextricably intertwined. That’s one reason why I left Pink Floyd, by the way: I had those principles, the others either did not or had different ones.

Do you now see yourself as equal parts musician and political activist?

Yes, sometimes I lean towards one, sometimes the other.

Will your current tour really be your last tour?

(Chuckles) I have no idea. The tour is subtitled “The First Farewell Tour” and that’s an obvious joke because old rock stars routinely use Farewell Tour as a selling tool. Then they sometimes retire and sometimes go on another Final Farewell Tour, it’s all good.

You want to keep sending something out to the world, make a difference?

I love good music, I love good literature – especially English and Russian, also German. That’s why I like the idea of people noticing and understanding what I do.

Then why don’t you hold back with political statements?

Because I am who I am. If I wasn’t this person who has strong political convictions, I wouldn’t have written “The Dark Side of the Moon”, “The Wall”, “Wish You Were Here”, “Amused to Death” and all the other stuff.

Thank you very much for the interview.

“The Lockdown Sessions”

December 9, 2022

Listen now!

“Comfortably Numb 2022”

November 18, 2022

Before lockdown I had been working on a demo of a new version of ‘Comfortably Numb’ as an opener to our new show “This Is Not A Drill”. I pitched it a whole step down, in A Minor, to make it darker and arranged it with no solos, except over the outro, where there is a heartrendingly beautiful vocal solo from one of our new sisters Shanay Johnson.

It’s intended as a wakeup call, and a bridge towards a kinder future with more talking to strangers, either in “The Bar” or just “Passing in the Street” and less slaughter “In Some Foreign Field.”

Here it is. Love R. The video is by Sean Evans. The mix is by Gus Seyffert.

https://rogerwaters.lnk.to/comfortably-numb-2022

Dear German fans

November 4, 2022

I’ve heard there is a rumor going round that I may not be coming to Germany on my European tour, because of opposition from the Israeli Lobby. RUBBISH! I WOULDN’T MISS MY GIGS IN GERMANY FOR ANYTHING!

The Mayor of Munich and some members of the Green and SDP political parties and some other mouthpieces for the Israeli lobby have been slandering me, accusing me of being an anti-semite and also a Putin apologist. I am neither of those things. Never have been and never will be. I am however well-known for being a passionate supporter of peace movements in general and The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as signed in Paris on the 10th of December 1948 in particular. That document has 30 articles, they are readily available, if you haven’t read them please do. Particularly Olaf Scholz, and the Mayor of Munich and the rest of the German Political Ruling Class. What upsets these people is that along with the Universal Declaration to which I refer, I support equal human rights for all my brothers and sisters all over the world irrespective of their ethnicity or religion or nationality. That means I support basic human rights for you all, including Olaf Scholz and the mayor of Munich, to the same extent that I support basic human rights for all the peoples of the Levant, an area that would include what is now called Israel and Palestine and the Occupied Territories and Gaza. The problem is that whole area is being run by force as an apartheid settler colonialist enterprise by one ethno/religious group, the Jewish State of Israel, at the expense of basic human rights, including but not limited to the right to life and to own property, of all the people indigenous or not who make up the population of all those lands, but who are not of the Jewish faith. This is unacceptable. If your government thinks it is acceptable, or if you do, ask yourselves this, how would you feel if it were you? Your mother, your father, your son, your daughter, your house, your land, your olive tree that your great grandfather planted hundreds of years ago?

Your Ruling Class and your media want to ban me from bringing my message of love and peace and revolution to enrich your lives. WELL I’M COMING, and together we will raise the roof on this charade, this looking the other way, as one ethnic group commits slow genocide upon another. When Elie Wiesel, describing the holocaust, said, “To stand by silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.” Maybe he was wrong, maybe an even greater sin is to stand by and applaud.

WELL I’M NOT INDIFFERENT, I’M CERTAINLY NOT APPLAUDING, AND I WILL NOT BE SILENT AND, I AM COMING TO GERMANY!

LOVE

2023 European tour

September 23, 2022

Mar 17 – Lisbon, Portugal – Altice Arena

Mar 18 – Lisbon, Portugal – Altice Arena

Mar 21 – Barcelona, Spain – Palau St Jordi

Mar 23 – Madrid, Spain – Wizink

Mar 24 – Madrid, Spain – Wizink

Mar 27 – Milan, Italy – Mediolanum Forum

Mar 28 – Milan, Italy – Mediolanum Forum

Mar 31 – Milan, Italy – Mediolanum Forum

Apr 01 – Milan, Italy – Mediolanum Forum

Apr 04 – Amsterdam, Holland – Ziggo Dome

Apr 06 – Amsterdam, Holland – Ziggo Dome

Apr 07 – Amsterdam, Holland – Ziggo Dome

Apr 11 – Oslo, Norway – Telenor

Apr 12 – Oslo, Norway – Telenor

Apr 15 – Stockholm, Sweden – Tele2

Apr 17 – Copenhagen, Denmark – Royal Arena

Apr 18 – Copenhagen, Denmark – Royal Arena

Apr 21 – Bologna, Italy – Unipol Arena

Apr 23 – Budapest, Hungary – MVM Dome

Apr 25 – Zurich, Switzerland – Hallenstadion

Apr 28 – Bologna, Italy – Unipol Arena

Apr 29 – Bologna, Italy – Unipol Arena

May 3 – Paris, France – AccorHotels Arena

May 4 – Paris, France – AccorHotels Arena

May 7 – Hamburg, Germany – Barclays Arena

May 9 – Cologne, Germany – Lanxess Arena

May 12 – Lille, France – Stade Pierre Mauroy

May 14 – Antwerp, Belgium – Sportpaleis

May 17 – Berlin, Germany – Mercedes Benz Arena

May 18 – Berlin, Germany – Mercedes Benz Arena

May 21 – Munich, Germany – Olympiahalle

May 24 – Prague, Czech Republic – O2 Arena

May 25 – Prague, Czech Republic – O2 Arena

May 28 – Frankfurt, Germany – Festhalle

May 31 – Birmingham, England – Utilita Arena

Jun 2 – Glasgow, Scotland – SSE Hydro

Jun 3 – Glasgow, Scotland – SSE Hydro

Jun 6 – London, England – The O2

Jun 7 – London, England – The O2

Jun 10 – Manchester, England – Manchester AO Arena

Tickets and information at: rogerwaters.com/tour

Response to Mrs. Olena Zelenska’s Tweet

September 16, 2022

TO QUOTE THE GREAT JOHN LENNON, “GIVE PEACE A CHANCE”

14th September 2022.

Roger Waters responds to Mrs. Olena Zelenska’s Олена Зеленська Tweet of 5th of September.

This is the text of Mrs. Zelenska’s tweet:

It is Russia that invaded Ukraine, destroys cities and kills civilians.

Ukrainians defend their land and their children’s future.

If we give up—–we will not exist tomorrow.

If Russia gives up—–war will be over.

Dear Mrs. Zelenska,

Please excuse my tardy reply to your Twitter response to my open letter. I am in the middle of a North American tour. I confess I never dreamed you would respond personally. I am bowled over, so thank you. I note what you say, but I’m fairly sure that ‘giving up’ just like that, is not an option that any side is considering. I feel I’m getting to know you a little, I see that you, like me, trained as an architect, so maybe we have a common interest in building things. That is good because we all need to focus on building something now, and obviously that something is peace in your country. My research leads me to believe that peace in the Ukraine is what the vast majority of the people of the Ukraine voted for when they elected your husband as President. And that majority, expected him to use his huge mandate to negotiate a settlement between the Ukraine and the Russian Federation that would meet the security needs of both nations and provide a credible alternative to this disastrous war.

I believe even after hostilities began, last April, two months into the war, such a settlement was on the table, it was in Istanbul wasn’t it? What happened?

You were so close to a ceasefire. I smell interference from Washington, I’m quite prepared to be wrong of course, but in my experience, if it smells like fish and looks fishy, it’s probably what passes for foreign policy in Washington DC. Anyway, it’s all water under the bridge now. What I am suggesting is that the only sane course is for all sides, and I say all sides, not both sides, because clearly this is a proxy war that involves the USA, so all sides need to agree to an unconditional ceasefire and the beginning of talks. I for one Olena will continue to bang the drum of peace, however unpopular that may be in these bellicose times. The mainstream media in the West seems intent on encouraging public support for escalation of the proxy war between the USA and the Russian Federation that is raging in the Ukraine, even to the point of contemplating playing nuclear chicken. Wow! How very irresponsible of the gentlemen of the press.

Back in 1962, we faced a very similarly deadly situation in the Caribbean. It was called the Cuban missile crisis. The whole human race came perilously close to extinction in a nuclear war, and we all knew it. That crisis came about because the USA, quite rightly, perceived an existential threat because the USSR was installing nuclear missiles in Cuba, only a stone’s throw from the US mainland. Today the roles are reversed, it is the USA that seeks, through NATO to install nuclear weapons in Ukraine, right on the Russian border only a stone’s throw from Moscow, and The Russian Federation perceives that as an existential threat. So Ukraine has become today’s Cuba.

That we all survived the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, if only just barely, can be partially explained by two things that happened. The first, and probably most important thing was that, unlike in the current crisis, in 1962 the Presidents of the USSR and the USA, Nikita Khrushchev and John Fitzpatrick Kennedy spoke to one another, repeatedly, soberly, politely and respectfully, on the telephone.

The second thing was just as crucial and is fascinating, and also, at least in the West, very little known.

It is the story of a Russian hero.

Vasily Aleksandrovich Arkhipov (Russian: Василий Александрович Архипов, IPA, 30 January 1926 – 19 August 1998) was a Soviet Naval officer credited with preventing a Soviet nuclear launch during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Such an attack likely would have caused a major global thermonuclear response.

As flotilla chief of staff and second-in-command of the diesel powered submarine B-59, Arkhipov refused to authorize the captain and the political officer’s use of nuclear torpedoes against the United States Navy, a decision which required the agreement of all three senior officers. After his death, Arkhipov has been widely recognized as someone who had ‘saved the world’ with his actions.

Wow! Vasily, on behalf of the whole human race, thank you for doing the right thing.

I have literally just now, this morning, received an email from MAPA (Massachusetts Peace Action) reminding me that back in 1962, the two Presidents resolved the crisis by compromising. Khrushchev agreed to remove the Russian missiles from Cuba and as a ‘quid pro quo’ Kennedy agreed to remove American missiles from Turkey! They spoke, they compromised, job done? It’s called diplomacy. What has happened to diplomacy? Why doesn’t President Biden do the right thing and speak to President Putin? Why have the powers that be in the USA steadfastly refused to address Russian concerns vis a vis the potential existential threat of a fully-fledged, nuclear armed, Ukraine joining NATO on Russia’s doorstep?

Though you and I, Mrs. Zelenska, are still trying to communicate to promote peace, albeit through the desperately unhelpful fog of partisan propaganda, every day more Ukrainian and Russian lives are tragically lost. Un-fathomably, the President of The United States of America, speaks publicly, in raucous and bellicose tones, of removing his opposite number in Russia from power. What! Mr. President the world is not a uni-polar Marvel Comic strip. What are you thinking? The Powers that Be who pull your strings and presumably tell you what to say, have a powerful echo chamber in the whole of the mainstream media, but ‘we the people’ have a voice too, and we will continue to use it, in spite of your efforts to subvert the law, ignore the constitution of the United States, and suppress basic human rights even to the point of imprisoning journalists who actually believe in liberty and democracy. Yes, Mr. President, I’m talking about Julian Assange.

More and more we are noticing that US foreign policy, as planned thirty years ago, by The Project For The New American Century, by Wolfowitz and Kagan, Kristol, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the neo cons, has increasingly become, the voice of the school yard bully, “Do as we say or we’ll kick your teeth in.” Really? Do you really think the American Empire should be trying to start a war with Russia? And then China? Are you crazy? ‘We the People’ don’t want that, because ‘We the People’ are not crazy. And the Russian and Chinese people don’t want that either, because they too are not crazy, but by God if you do start one, we better all get ready for a bloody nose because as I recall the Russian people didn’t want a war with the Germans either, but twenty six million of them died giving the Nazis a very bloody nose.

So where was I Mrs. Zelenska, I’m sorry I got a bit side tracked, oh yes, why don’t you prevail upon your husband to ‘do the right thing’, and ‘We the People’ in the USA will try to prevail upon poor old Uncle Joe Biden to do the right thing, and the Russian people will prevail upon the ‘stripped to the waist’ Vladimir Putin to do the right thing, and maybe, together, ‘We the People’ can prevail upon all our leaders to do the right thing, and maybe we can save the world from the imminent destruction upon which they seem hellbent. Maybe we can prevent The Powers that Be from sacrificing this, our beautiful planet home, on the altar of their deadly uni-polar warmongering.

Love

Roger Waters

An Open letter to Mrs. Olena Zelenska from Roger Waters

September 5, 2022

“Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?”

An Open letter to Mrs. Olena Zelenska from Roger Waters

Sunday 4th September 2022

Dear Mrs. Zelenska,

My heart bleeds for you and all the Ukrainian and Russian families, devastated by the terrible war in Ukraine. I’m in Kansas City, USA. I have just read a piece on BBC.com apparently taken from an interview you have already recorded for a program called ‘Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg’ which is to be broadcast on the BBC today, September 4th. BBC.com quotes you as saying that “If support for Ukraine is strong, the crisis will be shorter.” Hmmm? I guess that might depend on what you mean by “support for Ukraine”? If by “support for Ukraine” you mean the West continuing to supply arms to the Kiev government’s armies, I fear you may be tragically mistaken. Throwing fuel, in the form of armaments, into a fire fight, has never worked to shorten a war in the past, and it won’t work now, particularly because, in this case, most of the fuel is (a) being thrown into the fire from Washington DC, which is at a relatively safe distance from the conflagration, and (b) because the ‘fuel throwers’ have already declared an interest in the war going on for as long as possible. I fear that we, and by we I mean people like you and me who actually want peace in Ukraine, who don’t want the outcome to be that you have to fight to the last Ukrainian life, and possibly even, if the worst comes to the worst, to the last human life. If we, instead, wish to achieve a different outcome we may have to seek a different route and that route may lie in your husband’s previously stated good intentions.

Yes, I mean the platform upon which he so laudably ran for the office of President of Ukraine, the platform upon which he won his historic landslide victory in the democratic election in 2019. He stood on the election platform of the following promises.

1. To end the civil war in the East and bring peace to the Donbas and partial autonomy to Donetsk and Luhansk.

2. And to ratify and implement the rest of the body of the Minsk 2 agreements.

One can only assume that your husband’s electoral policies didn’t sit well with certain political factions in Kiev and that those factions persuaded your husband to diametrically change course ignoring the peoples mandate. Sadly, your old man agreed to those totalitarian, anti-democratic dismissals of the will of the Ukrainian people, and the forces of extreme nationalism that had lurked, malevolent, in the shadows, have, since then, ruled the Ukraine. They have, also since then, crossed any number of red lines that had been set out quite clearly over a number of years by your neighbors the Russian Federation and in consequence they, the extreme nationalists, have set your country on the path to this disastrous war.

I won’t go on.

If I’m wrong, please help me to understand how?

If I’m not wrong, please help me in my honest endeavors to persuade our leaders to stop the slaughter, the slaughter which serves only the interests of the ruling classes and extreme nationalists both here in the West, and in your beautiful country, at the expense of the rest of us ordinary people both here in the West, and in the Ukraine, and in fact ordinary people everywhere all over the world.

Might it not be better to demand the implementation of your husband’s election promises and put an end to this deadly war?

Love

Roger Waters

Animals – New mix update

May 31, 2021

A note from Roger Waters to Pink Floyd fans:

As I am banned by Dave Gilmour from posting on Pink Floyd’s Facebook page with its 30,000,000 subscribers, I am posting this announcement here today and in full on rogerwaters.com.

First, a warm welcome back to our little band of brothers and sisters who have always kept an open mind, let’s hope some of the fans whose access to my words is suppressed by Gilmour find their way here and discover some truth.
What precipitated this note is that there are new James Guthrie Stereo and 5.1 mixes of the Pink Floyd album Animals, 1977. These mixes have languished unreleased because of a dispute over some sleeve notes that Mark Blake has written for this new release. Gilmour has vetoed the release of the album unless these liner notes are removed. He does not dispute the veracity of the history described in Mark’s notes, but he wants that history to remain secret. This is a small part of an ongoing campaign by the Gilmour/Samson camp to claim more credit for Dave on the work he did in Pink Floyd, 1967-1985, than is his due. Yes he was, and is, a jolly good guitarist and singer. But, he has for the last 35 years told a lot of whopping porky pies about who did what in Pink Floyd when I was still in charge. There’s a lot of “we did this” and “we did that,” and “I did this” and “I did that.” So, two things:

(1). I am agreeing to the release of the new Animals remix, with the sleeve notes removed. Good work James Guthrie by the way, and sorry Mark Blake. The final draft of the liner notes was fact checked and agreed as factually correct by me, Nick and Gilmour. Here they are, enjoy, there’s nothing controversial, just a few simple facts.

Mark Blake: Liner Notes
Pink Floyd: Animals
Despite being recorded in London during the long, summer heatwave of 1976, Pink Floyd’s Animals remains a dark album. Its critique of capitalism and greed caught the prevailing mood in Britain: a time of industrial strife, economic turmoil, The Troubles in Northern Ireland, and the race riots of Notting Hill. The album was released on January 23rd 1977, but the roots of Pink Floyd’s tenth studio album go back earlier in the decade. Following the success of 1973’s The Dark Side Of The Moon, Pink Floyd pondered their next move. During a two-to-three week jam session in early 1974, the band worked on ideas for three new compositions. From these sessions the band developed Shine On You Crazy Diamond, (A passionate tribute to Syd Barrett, words by Roger Waters. Added by me, sorry couldn’t help it.) which became the centrepiece of Floyd’s next album, Wish You Were Here, and Raving And Drooling (composed by Roger Waters) and You Gotta Be Crazy written by Waters and David Gilmour.

Raving And Drooling was a tale of violent social disorder, while You Gotta Be Crazy told the story of a soulless businessman clawing and cheating his way to the top. Both were performed live for the first time on the Floyd’s winter tour of 1974. They were both considered for the Wish You Were Here album, but Roger insisted that neither song was relevant to the overall idea, that “Wish You Were Here” was essentially about absence, and as neither song fitted his conception of the record’s overall theme, neither song should be included. The band eventually concurred. Scroll forward two years, and Roger had an idea for the next Pink Floyd album. He borrowed from George Orwell’s allegorical story, Animal Farm, in which pigs and other farmyard animals were reimagined anthropomorphically. Waters portrays the human race as three sub-species trapped in a violent, vicious cycle, with sheep serving despotic pigs and authoritarian dogs. You Gotta be Crazy and Raving And Drooling perfectly fitted his new concept. In the meantime, a year earlier, the group had bought a set of disused church buildings in Britannia Row, Islington, which they’d converted into a studio and storage facility. Prior to this every Pink Floyd studio release had been partly or wholly recorded at Abbey Road studios. Pink Floyd had also found a new recording engineer. Brian Humphries, an engineer from Pye studios, who they had met while recording the sound track for “More”, a movie directed by Barbet Schroeder. Brian had gone on to engineer Wish You Were Here at Abbey Road, and also helped them out on the road, so they had got to know him very well. Using their own studio marked a significant change in their working methods. There were setbacks and teething problems, but also a great sense of freedom.

Following Roger’s instincts about the new songs paid off, the songs had an aggressive edge far removed from the luxuriant soundscapes on Wish You Were Here. It was a timely change of direction. At Britannia Row, he renamed Raving And Drooling, Sheep and Gotta Be Crazy became Dogs. The narrative was completed by the addition of two new Waters songs: Pigs (Three Different Ones) and Pigs On The Wing.

On Pigs (Three Different Ones), the lyrics namechecked Mary Whitehouse, the head of the National Viewers And Listeners Association. Whitehouse was an outspoken critic of sex and violence on British television and a topical target for Roger’s ire. The subject matter was bleak, but Nick Mason recalled lighter moments over dubbing songs with special effects and barnyard noises. While Sheep also made room for Roger’s blackly comic variation on Psalm 23: “He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places/ He converteth me to lamb cutlets…” The music and the performance mirrored the intensity of the lyrics. Keyboard player Richard Wright’s eerie-sounding synths and Hammond organ cranked up the unease. While David Gilmour’s shared lead vocal on Dogs and his guitar playing throughout Animals offered a striking counterpoint to Roger’s brutal lyrics. In contrast, Animals began and ended on an optimistic note. The verses of Pigs on The Wing were split in two and bookended the album. Roger’s lyrics and vocal performance of acoustic intro and outro (“You know that I care what happens to you/ And I know that you care for me too…”) suggested hope for humanity. The idea for Pink Floyd’s flying pig was also Roger’s. He had already commissioned its building as a stage device for the next tour. Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell of the design company Hipgnosis, had produced a number of design ideas for an Animals sleeve and presented them to the band but none of the band, liked them, and when Roger added his disapproval someone said, ”Well why don’t you come up with something better then?” So he did, on the drive from his house in South London to Britannia Row, he regularly passed Battersea Power Station. He was drawn to the imposing brick building, and by the number four. Four in the band, four phallic chimneys, and if the power station were turned upside down then it resembled a table with four legs. He pursued his idea and had a maquette made, a small scale model of the eventual full scale inflatable pig. He then took photographs of Battersea Power station and created a photographic mock up of an album sleeve. The rest of the band loved it. Storm and Po, who had designed all of the previous Pink Floyd album covers, graciously offered to source photographers for the photo shoot, and did. On the first day of the photo shoot, the pig failed to inflate. On the second day, it broke free of its moorings and disappeared into a beautiful brooding sky, prompting a frantic call to the police and a halt to all flights in and out of Heathrow. The pig eventually crash-landed in a farmer’s field in Kent.

The following day, the shoot went ahead without a hitch, great shots of pig in situ but no brooding sky. So Storm and Po stripped Day three Pig into Day two sky, bingo! History. Animals was a hit, reaching Number 2 in the UK and Number 3 in the US. Pink Floyd’s pig, Algie, made its live debut on their subsequent “In The Flesh” tour in 1977. At stadium shows in America, it was joined by another Water’s idea, an inflatable nuclear family comprising a mother, father and 2.5 children, surrounded by the spoils of a consumerist lifestyle: an inflatable Cadillac, oversized TV and refrigerator. Roger called it Electric Theatre. Both the album and the tour signposted the way to Pink Floyd’s next release, The Wall, and to Roger’s ever more ambitious ideas, both in terms of his music, narratives, politics and stage shows. But his themes and ideas explored on Animals have endured. More than 40 years on the album has been remixed in stereo and 5.1. In troubled times and an uncertain world, Animals is as timely and relevant now as it ever was.
Mark Blake

Thanks Mark, sorry you were redacted.

(2). I am in the middle of writing my Memoirs and inevitably some of it contains references to some of the content above. For anyone with a faint heart, I suggest you sit down, but anyone who likes a good laugh, sit back and fucking howl! 😂 🤣 ✊🏼 I’m going to sit back and howl along with you.

At the beginning of this post on the subject of porky pies, I say, “There’s an awful lot of “we did this” and “we did that,” and “I did this” and “I did that.” Right? So here’s a short extract from my memoir:

“As chance would have it I was doing a bit of delving in a book of press clippings and came across an interview David Fricke of Rolling Stone Magazine did with DG in a hotel room in NY in 1982, DG’s talking about the Cash register tape for the defining 7/8 rhythm on Money. The interview was published in Musician Magazine, so even back then DG was sowing the seeds of the false narrative. I quote this bit of the article verbatim:

David Fricke: “You recorded the sounds for ‘Money’ on a loop of tape.” Gilmour explains: ”You’re trying to get the impact from the cash register, ‘the snap, crack, crsssh,” You’d mark that one and then measure how long you wanted that beat to go, and that’s the piece you’d use. And you’d chop it together. It was trial and error. You just chop the tapes together, and if it sounds good, you use it. If it doesn’t, you take one section out and put a different one in. Sometimes we’d put one in and it’d be backwards, because the diagonal cut on the tape, if you turn it around is exactly the same. We’d stick that in and instead it would go ‘chung, dum, whoosh.’ And sound great so we’d use that.”
Well! The reason everything DG is saying here to David Fricke sounds like gobbledygook is because it is fucking gobbledygook. He has no fucking idea what he’s talking about. Why? Because unless he was hiding under the fucking chair, DG wasn’t there when I made that SFX tape loop for Money in the studio I shared with my wife Judy at the bottom of our garden at 187, New North Road, Islington, next door to the North Pole Pub where I used to play darts!

THE FULL STORY OF WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IS IN MY MEMOIRS!
So, I hope that whets your, and David and Polly’s appetites 😂
Love
R.

“The Gunner’s Dream”

January 18, 2021

Last night I watched the 2013 Documentary film
“The Man Who Saved The World”
The man’s name is Stanislav Petrov.
The year before Stanislav saved the World
In the year 1982 I wrote a song
“The Gunner’s Dream”
It’s weird to think that had Stanislav not been
In the right place at the right time
None of us would be alive
No one under the age of 37
Would have have been born at all.
It is acknowledged by all but the cretins amongst us
That nuclear arms have no value
It is also acknowledged that
They are a ticking bomb
And we ignore them at our peril
Accidents happen
The Stanislavs of this world are a rare breed.
We’ve been extraordinarily lucky.
If I ruled the world, I would heed the words of the wise
I would get rid of nuclear weapons
First thing tomorrow morning.
On Dr. King’s name day.
Of course no-one can rule the world
The world cannot be ruled
It can only be loved and respected and shared.
If we’re still here in the morning
So here is a new recording and video of
“The Gunner’s Dream”
As a gift from me and my lovely band and our friends
To you
With our love
R.

Roger Waters: Piano and Vocal
Dave Kilminster: Guitar
Joey Waronker: Drums
Lucius- Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig: Vocals
Gus Seyffert: Bass
Jonathan Wilson: Guitar
Jon Carin: Piano and Keys
Bo Koster: Hammond

Wrangled together by Sean Evans & Roger Waters
Mixed by Gus Seyffert
Mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters
Edited by Andy Jennison

Us + Them: Available Now in All Formats

October 2, 2020

Available now: https://rogerwaters.lnk.to/us-them

We are pleased to announce the release of ROGER WATERS: US + THEM on Blu-ray, DVD, CD and Vinyl. The ROGER WATERS: US + THEM concert film is currently available for digital rent and purchase and chronicles Waters’ acclaimed 2017-2018 tour.

Everything Under the Sun playlist

September 23, 2020

A note from Roger:

🎧 Here is the playlist of all my recorded songs with and without Pink Floyd:

LISTEN

A note from Roger: Just to be clear.

June 25, 2020

After speaking with Palestinian and Jewish colleagues and friends, I’ve come to understand that some remarks I made during a recent TV interview, about Palestinians suffering under decades of Israeli military occupation and apartheid, have caused some deep offense. Naturally, this is the last thing I would ever want to do, particularly within a justice movement which I care about so passionately.

During the Interview, in expressing my total solidarity with and support for the Palestinian people, when referring to Sheldon Adelson’s support for the racist policies of both Trump and Netanyahu, I used words that evoked metaphorical imagery which, my friends said, were “harmful to Jewish people and to the movement for Palestinian rights” – and for this, I’m very sorry.

At the time, I had no idea that I was evoking an antisemitic trope. I regret any harm or hurt my use of words caused Jewish people, and also any ways it may have reinforced damaging lies about Jews. Nothing could have been further from my intentions. I have only respect and compassion for my Jewish brothers and sisters in our collective struggle for a more just and peaceful world.

The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality, which I strongly support, calls for full and equal human rights for everyone and rejects all forms of racism, including antisemitism. Obviously, I completely agree that in this Palestinian-led movement that is peacefully resisting Israel’s racist system of apartheid and military occupation, there is no room for any racism against any community.

So let me be totally clear, I have no doubt that Trump, Mike Pompeo, and the entire US government, with their extremist right-wing agenda, would support Israeli apartheid with or without the campaign backing of Mr. Adelson.

On another matter, I suggested during the interview that Israeli Police working with US Police forces had introduced to this country the knee/carotid artery choking technique that was used in the murder of George Floyd. Two things. First, I was wrong about that. A friend I called for guidance on this, who is an acknowledged expert on the police exchange programs and connections between American and Israeli state violence, agreed that Israel’s militarizing influence on the U.S. and around the world is a grave and concerning fact. He also confirmed that law enforcement exchange programs with Israel facilitate the sharing of racist practices and repressive technologies that enhance and normalize mass surveillance, criminalization, racial profiling, and the violent repression of communities. But, he told me that Israel does not train US police in tactics, like those used to kill George Floyd. They don’t have to.

As we all know, the USA — a country built on the genocide of millions of Indigenous people, on the enslavement of millions of Africans and on the systemic racism which has persisted since the end of slavery — is clearly not waiting for Israel to teach it how to kill Black and Brown people. American police have been murdering Black people with impunity since the first slave patrols.

The current Black-led uprisings across the United States are a demand for real justice, for reparations, and for ending the brutal state violence and systemic racism against Black people that date back to this country’s founding.

So, second: To my friends in the Movement for Black Lives, I apologize unreservedly for my slip. I fully support the Black led uprising against the systemic racism endemic across America, against the murderous functioning of the Police, and the whole broken and deeply racist justice/penal system. The words “except as a punishment for crime” should be excised from the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution. Those words are a license to a white supremacist system to perpetuate forms of slavery forever.

I have tried in my way to stand firm in support of, not just the Palestinian cause, but many other struggles for justice around the world. I shall continue to use my voice in our common fight for human rights, and I commit to trying to improve my awareness and sensitivity to strengthen my solidarity in pursuit of freedom from oppression and racism, and for justice and equality for all beings, everywhere.

Love,
R

“Two Suns In the Sunset”

June 23, 2020

When I proudly showed my partner Kamilah “Two Suns in the Sunset” on YouTube on Sunday morning, I freaked out because the acoustic guitar entry was a good 5db down in level.

This may seem like a small thing to you, but it’s not to me. Call me obsessive-compulsive, but I can’t watch it like that. So for anyone who’s interested, this is a re-post with that small glitch corrected.

Love
R.

—–

I had an idea to make an album of all the songs we did as encores on the US and Them tour.

We did “Mother” first.

Had to do it remotely because of Covid 19.

“Two Suns in The Sunset” is #2.

Hope you like it. I love it.

What a beautiful band they are.
Love
R.

PS. That we allow Nuclear Weapons to exist in a world controlled by deranged sociopaths is, in itself, a deranged arrangement.

We are many they are few.

We could just say no, to the whole MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) insanity.

It makes zero sense and is potentially omnicidal.

Roger Waters: Guitar and Vocal
Dave Kilminster: Guitar
Joey Waronker: Drums
Lucius- Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig: Vocals
Gus Seyffert: Bass
Jonathan Wilson: Guitar
Jon Carin: Piano and Keys
Bo Koster: Hammond
Ian Ritchie: Saxophone

Wrangled together by Sean Evans & Roger Waters

Mixed by Gus Seyffert
Assisted by Sean Cook

Edited by Andy Jennison

Us + Them: Digital Film Release

June 17, 2020

Available now: https://rogerwaters.lnk.to/us-them

Pre-order physical release here: https://www.shoprogerwaters.com/

ROGER WATERS: US + THEM, a film documenting the acclaimed 2017-2018 tour, comes to 4K, HD and SD Digital on June 16. Viewers on digital will have access to all-new post-feature content including two additional concert songs not included in the original feature (“Comfortably Numb” and “Smell the Roses”) as well as A Fleeting Glimpse, a documentary short featuring behind-the-scenes moments from the tour.

As the founding member, lyricist, composer and creative force behind Pink Floyd, US + THEM presents Waters’ powerful music in stunning form and highlights its message of human rights, liberty and love. Based around his acclaimed, sold-out US + THEM worldwide tour of 2017-2018, comprising a total of 156 shows to 2.3 million people across the globe, it features classic songs from The Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, Animals, Wish You Were Here, as well as his most recent album, Is This The Life We Really Want?.

#NoUNSC4Canada

June 13, 2020

A note to their Excellencies, the Members of the General Assembly of the UN.

An Irishman, a Norwegian and a Canadian go to a party for a game of Musical Chairs.

There are two vacant chairs on the UN Security Council at the party.

When the music stops let’s make sure the Irishman and the Norwegian are seated at the table where they belong.

And the Canadian kid is left a wallflower until such time as he learns what human rights are.

ART BY: https://twitter.com/Lin244

“Mother”

May 18, 2020

“Social distancing is a necessary evil in Covid world. Watching “Mother” reminds me just how irreplaceable the joy of being in a band is.”

ROGER WATERS 2020 TOUR POSTPONED

March 27, 2020

A note from Roger:

THE BAD NEWS: I’ve had to postpone my THIS IS NOT A DRILL tour until next year. Bummer, but if it saves one life, it’s worth it.

THE GOOD NEWS!!!! A federal Judge in Washington DC ruled on March 25, 2020 that Trump’s Dakota Access Pipeline Executive order was ILLEGAL and demands an E.I.S (Environmental Impact Statement). This is a huge victory for the STANDING ROCK SIOUX TRIBES. POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!! Love R.

Ticketholders are advised to hold onto their original tickets and await further information.

Austin Chronicle interview

March 21, 2020

Pink Floyd fanatics be warned: This document contains NO music. Every word, 7,900 or so, concerns politics. And not by some wonk.

Interviewed by phone Feb. 19 in London on the occasion of a keynote appearance at the subsequently canceled SXSW, Roger Waters should analyze global news on prime time. Televisions would melt. So, no soundtrack here, save for a mention of Meddle and its side-long “Echoes.” And The Wall.

Read full interview here.

Don’t Extradite Assange March, London – February 22, 2020

February 22, 2020

WE ARE HERE TODAY FOR JULIAN ASSANGE.

But I have four names on this piece of paper.

The First and last of course is Julian Assange, A Journalist, a courageous shiner of light into the dark places from which the powers that be would dearly like to have us turn away.

Julian Assange. A name to be carved with pride into any monument to human progress.

Julian is why we are here today, but this is no parochial protest. We are today part of a global movement, a global movement that might be the beginning of the global enlightenment that this fragile planet so desperately needs.

Ok. Second Name. Sent to me by my friend VJ Prashad.

Second name is Aamir Aziz, Aamir is a young poet and activist in Delhi involved in the fight against Modi and his rascist Citizenship law.

Everything Will Be Remembered

Kill us, we will become ghosts and write
of your killings, with all the evidence.
You write jokes in court;
We will write ‘justice’ on the walls.
We will speak so loudly that even the deaf will hear.
We will write so clearly that even the blind will read.
You write ‘injustice’ on the earth;
We will write ‘revolution’ in the sky.
Everything will be remembered;
Everything recorded

This out pouring of the human spirit from India is taking place in a time of revolt, when the fetters of propriety are set aside.

As we meet here in London. Across the Atlantic in Argentina thousands of women are taking to the streets to demand the legalization of abortion from President Fernández.

It’s not just Argentina. This last year we have seen major protests erupt across the whole world against neoliberal/fascist regimes. In Chile, The Lebanon, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, France and now, of course also in Bolivia fighting the new US imposed military dictatorship there..

When will we see the name of England appended to that noble list? I sense the scratching of heads in drawing rooms across the home counties, “What’s he talking about, the man’s a bloody pinko pervert, bloody anti semite, what’s he talking about? We don’t live in a dictatorship, this is a free country, a democracy, with all the finest traditions of fair play, pah!”

Well, I’ve got news for you Disgruntled of Tunbridge Wells. We’d like to think this is a free country, but are we really free? Why? When Julian Assange is brought to the dock in the tiny magistrates court inside Belmarsh prison are so many seats occupied by anonymous American suits, whispering instructions into the attentive ear of the prosecution’s lead barrister, James Lewis QC?

Why?

Because we don’t live in a free country we live in a glorified dog kennel and we bark and/or wag our tails at the bidding of our lords and masters across the pond.

I stand here today, in front of the Mother of Parliaments, and there she stands blushing in all her embarrassment. And just up stream from here is Runnemede, where in 1215, we, the English, laid out the rudiments of common law. Magna Carta, ratified in 1297 article 29 of which gave us Habeus Corpus. Or did it? It stated:

“The body of a free man is not to be arrested, or imprisoned, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way ruined, nor is the king to go against him or send forcibly against him, except by judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.”

Sadly, Article 29 is not enforceable in modern law. Magna Carta is only an idea, and in this propaganda driven modern world, it provides no check in principle to Parliament legislating against the rights of citizens.

We do however have an extradition treaty with the USA and in the first paragraph of article 4 of that treaty it states. “Extradition shall not be granted if the offense for which extradition is requested is a political offense.” Julian Assange has committed no crime but he has committed a political act. He has spoken truth to power. He has angered some of our masters in Washington by telling the truth and in retribution for the act of telling the truth they want his blood.

Yesterday in front of Battersea Power Station I did a TV interview for SKY news to promote this event, there was no visual link, so my only contact with the lady asking me questions was via an ear bud on a curly wire. I learned something about telling truth in the phrasing of her questions to me. She came at me like some crazed Don Quixote every question laced, thick with the smears and innuendo and the false accusations with which the powers that be have been trying to blacken Julian Assange’s name. She rattled off the tired, but well prepared narrative, and then interrupted constantly when I made reply. I don’t know who she is, she may mean well. If she does, my advice would be to stop drinking the Kool-aid, and if she actually gives a fig for her chosen profession get her sorry ass down here and join us.

So England. I call upon our prime minister, Boris Johnson, to declare his colours, does he support the spirit of Magna Carta? Does he believe in, democracy, freedom, fair play, free speech, and especially the freedom of the press? If the answer to those questions is yes, then come on Prime Minister be the British Bulldog you would have us all believe you are? Stand up to the bluster of American hegemony, call off this show trial, this charade, this kangaroo court. “The evidence before the court is in-controvertible.” Julian Assange is an innocent man. A journalist doing very important work for “we the people” by exposing the crimes of powerful sociopaths in the corridors of power.

I call on you to free him today.

I cannot leave this stage without mention of Chelsea Manning, who provided some of the material that Julian published.

Chelsea has been in a federal prison for a year incarcerated by the Americans for refusing, on principal, to give evidence to a grand jury specifically convened to make an example of Julian Assange. What courage. They are also fining her $1,000 a day. Chelsea your’s is another name to be carved in pride, I’ve been reading the latest on your case, it looks as if your legal team are finding light at the end of the tunnel, please god, you get out soon back to your loved ones, you are a true hero. You exemplify the bulldog spirit that I was talking about a few moments ago.

Also Daniel Hale

Daniel is a whistle-blower you may not know yet. He was in a great documentary movie National Bird, made by my good friend Sonia Kennebeck. He was part of the US drone program targeting Afghans in their own country from some mobile command center in Navada. When his stint in the USAF was over. Daniel’s good heart refused to edit out the burden of remorse he carried and he very bravely decided to tell his story. The FBI/CIA have pursued Daniel remorselessly ever since and he is now in prison awaiting trial. Daniel’s is another name to be carved in pride. Those of us who have never compromised our liberty in the cause of freedom, who have never picked up the burning torch and held it trembling over the crimes of their superior officers, can only wonder at the extraordinary courage of those who have.

There are other speakers here, so I will make way, I could stand here all day railing against the dying of the light should we not stand Bulldog like, with arms linked, ranks closed in front of our brother and comrade Julian Assange. And when the lackies of the American Empire come to take him, to destroy him and hang him in the hedge as a warning to frighten future journalists, we will look them in the eye and steadfast with one voice we will intone.

“Over our dead bodies.”

Roger Waters Feb 22^nd 2020

Eric Clapton & Friends, A Tribute to Ginger Baker

February 18, 2020

Eric Clapton assembled an incredible roster of musicians on Sunday evening to honor the late Ginger Baker at the Eventim Apollo Hammersmith in London: Roger Waters, Nile Rodgers, Ron Wood, Steve Winwood and Paul Carrack, along with Baker’s son Kofi.

The show was centered around songs by Cream and Blind Faith; Clapton and Waters kicked it all off with “Sunshine of Your Love.”

MEXICO CITY DATE ADDED

February 5, 2020

MEXICO CITY! WE ARE COMING.

Wednesday 7th October 2020
Palacio de los Deportes

Tickets on sale 10th February 2020 at 11:00am CST
https://www.ticketmaster.com.mx/promo/rhfagy

ROGER WATERS: THIS IS NOT A DRILL – 2020 NORTH AMERICAN TOUR ANNOUNCED

January 22, 2020

THE CREATIVE GENIUS OF PINK FLOYD RETURNS TO NORTH AMERICA

FOR AN AUDIO VISUAL EXPERIENCE IN THE ROUND
Tickets on sale beginning Friday, January 31 at 10:00am

“…the most striking cinematic theatrics ever employed on a rock stage. There should be Oscars for this kind of work.”
– Billboard

Los Angeles, CA – January 23, 2020 – Roger Waters returns to North America in 2020 with an all-new tour, and for the first time, In The Round.

Challenging, thought-provoking, the tour continues Waters’ message of Love.

“It’ll be a new show. It will be no-holds-barred. My work is to think, ‘Well, how can I make rock & roll more interesting or theatrical or exciting or visual or musical or whatever?’ That’s what I’ve spent the last 50 years doing, expressing myself,” said Roger Waters of the upcoming tour in his September 2019 interview with Kory Grow, Rolling Stone.

This Is Not A Drill will play 31 cities across the US and Canada starting in Pittsburgh on July 8, 2020 at the PPG Paints Arena and playing venues not seen on the 2017 Us + Them tour, including New York City, Cincinnati, Raleigh, Orlando, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Salt Lake City.

Roger Waters: This Is Not A Drill marks Waters’ return to the US following his extraordinary performances at the 2016 Desert Trip music festival and his worldwide Us + Them tour in 2017 and 2018.

Tickets for Roger Waters: This Is Not A Drill North American tour go on sale Friday, January 31 at 10:00 am local time.

Roger Waters: This Is Not A Drill is promoted by AEG Presents’ Concerts West.

SXSW 2020 Music Keynote

November 12, 2019

“Roger Waters is a true creative visionary, and we’re pleased to have him participate for 2020,” said Hugh Forrest, Chief Programming Officer. “SXSW continues to be a unique destination for innovation and discovery, and we’re excited about the addition of the many groundbreaking pioneers, influential voices and business leaders that we’ve added to this year’s lineup.”

March 18th, 2020 – Austin, TX

More information: https://schedule.sxsw.com/2020/events/PP1134785

General

Globo Interview – September 2023

June 2023 – Latest reviews!

A Statement from Roger Waters on the controversy over his Berlin Concert

A note from Roger. Hajar Al-bahtini.

This Is Not A Drill – Live From Prague

Suit filed in Frankfurt today

Der Spiegel interview – March 2023

Dark Side of the Moon Re-Working

Security Council of the United Nations Briefing

Statement

Berliner Zeitung interview

“The Lockdown Sessions”

“Comfortably Numb 2022”

Dear German fans

2023 European tour

Response to Mrs. Olena Zelenska’s Tweet

An Open letter to Mrs. Olena Zelenska from Roger Waters

Animals – New mix update

“The Gunner’s Dream”

Us + Them: Available Now in All Formats

Everything Under the Sun playlist

A note from Roger: Just to be clear.

“Two Suns In the Sunset”

Us + Them: Digital Film Release

#NoUNSC4Canada

“Mother”

ROGER WATERS 2020 TOUR POSTPONED

Austin Chronicle interview

Don’t Extradite Assange March, London – February 22, 2020

Eric Clapton & Friends, A Tribute to Ginger Baker

MEXICO CITY DATE ADDED

ROGER WATERS: THIS IS NOT A DRILL – 2020 NORTH AMERICAN TOUR ANNOUNCED

SXSW 2020 Music Keynote

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