While Pink Floyd has prepared for the 50th anniversary of its seminal album The Dark Side of the Moon with an expanded reissue featuring a live concert, remastered songs, and much more, Roger Waters apparently has his own celebration in mind. In a new interview with The Telegraph, Waters revealed he has rerecorded one of the best-selling albums of all time without the rest of his former bandmates and that he intends to release it in May.
“I wrote The Dark Side of the Moon. Let’s get rid of all this ‘we’ crap!” Waters told The Telegraph. “Of course we were a band, there were four of us, we all contributed—but it’s my project and I wrote it. So… blah!”
Waters wrote the lyrics for all ten of the album’s tracks and is credited as writer or co-writer on half. In the interview, he went on to deride the writing capabilities of his bandmates David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright, the latter of whom died in 2008.
“Well, Nick [Mason] never pretended. But [David] Gilmour and Rick [Wright]? They can’t write songs, they’ve nothing to say. They are not artists!” Waters said. “They have no ideas, not a single one between them. They never have had, and that drives them crazy.”
Waters, who left Pink Floyd in 1985, rerecorded Dark Side of the Moon with multi-instrumentalist Gus Seyffert, vocalist Bedouine (Azniv Korkejian), and “a Baptist minister on Hammond organ.” Though he sings vocals throughout the album his only instrumental contribution is playing bass on “Us and Them”.
The Telegraph‘s Tristram Fane Saunders was given an advanced copy of the album, saying that “parts are very good indeed.”
“‘Time’, that young man’s lament for mortality, sounds terrific with his old man’s timbre,” he observed. “‘Breathe’ is wonderfully reimagined as a slow, acoustic groove. A country-tinged ‘Money’ could be a late Johnny Cash cut, with Waters growling charismatically at the very bottom of his register.”
Some of Waters’ most drastic alterations come on the album’s instrumental tracks, which now feature the bassist reading spoken word. “On the Run” now includes Waters reciting a poem based on a dream he had. “It was a revelation, almost Patmosian whatever that means… a fight with evil, in this case an apparently all-powerful hooded and cloaked figure… it brooked no rebuttal.”
Waters said he rerecorded the album “because not enough people recognised what it’s about, what it was I was saying then.”
The album was due to arrive in March but has since been pushed to May. Waters said a “lavish vinyl release” is in the works, but noted there may be issues stemming from his exodus from the band nearly four decades ago. “I’m no copyright expert, but might there be some obstacles to that?”
This revelation comes the same week that Waters, Gilmour, and Gilmour’s wife and Pink Floyd collaborator (during the post-Roger era) Polly Samson engaged in a public war of words. In response to a recent interview Waters gave to a German newspaper in which he continued to sympathize with Russia, she called him, among other things, “antisemitic,” “a Putin apologist,” “misogynistic,” and a “megalomaniac” on Twitter, with Gilmour retweeting the criticism noting, “Every word demonstrably true.” In a post refuting Samson and Gilmour’s statements, Waters noted, “He is currently taking advice as to his position.”
Every word demonstrably true https://t.co/KWk4I3bMTN
— David Gilmour (@davidgilmour) February 6, 2023
View this post on Instagram
Rounding out an eventful week, Waters addressed the U.N. security council hearing on Ukraine on Thursday morning. Changing course slightly, Waters called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “illegal” but “not unprovoked.” He condemned both the invaders and the provocateurs in “the strongest possible terms” and called for a ceasefire on both sides.
Ukraine Rebukes Roger Waters’ Ceasefire Call As ‘Brick In The Wall Of Russian Propaganda’
[Video: Guardian News]