Roger Waters Recording First Rock Album in Over Two Decades

By ANDY GREENE
NOVEMBER 13, 2013



Concept record is 'a quest,' says the Pink Floyd co-founder

Roger Waters performs in Paris.

Roger Waters wrapped up his three-year Wall tour in September, and since then he's turned his attention toward his first rock album since 1992's Amused to Death. "I finished a demo of it last night," he tells Rolling Stone. "It's 55 minutes long. It's songs and theater as well. I don't want to give too much away, but it's couched as a radio play. It has characters who speak to each other, and it's a quest. It's about an old man and a young child trying to figure out why they are killing the children."

He's not sure if he'll support the disc with a tour. "I'm suffering a little bit of withdrawal after ending the Wall tour," he says. "It's sort of a relief to not have to go out and do that every night, but they're such a great team. There were 180 of us together everyday. That piece was very moving every night."

The massive show was staged 219 times at stadiums and arenas all over the globe, grossing upwards of $458,000,000. "I can't top that tour," Waters says. "First of all, you have to accept the fact that I'm not going to live forever. I'm 70 years old. You just have to accept that when you do something as enormous as that tour. The hardest thing in the world is thinking of something to do, so going and doing it is a reward in itself." 

The memory of the tour still brings a big smile to his face. "I found that the loudest fans in the world are in Istanbul," he says. "I remember standing there with the band during 'Hey You.' We were behind the wall, so nobody could see us playing. We started looking at each other going, 'What is that sound?' When they sang 'Don't give in without a fight,' you could feel it. It was like the roof was coming off, even though there was no roof. It was amazing." 

With that in mind, he refuses to rule out the possibility of reviving The Wall tour at some point in the future. "I'm not thinking about that right now," he says. "But that's not to say I won't. I think there's an audience there. We did do 219 shows, which is a lot." 

From www.rollingstone.com

Roger Waters sends poem to vet who located spot father was felled in war

By Nick Squires, Rome and Rosa Silverman  11 Nov 2013


Roger Waters, the Pink Floyd bassist and song writer, has sent a poem to the British army veteran who located the exact spot where the musician’s father was killed in action in Italy during the Second World War

Harry Shindler used British intelligence reports and military maps last month to identify the place where the guitarist’s father, Lieutenant Eric Waters, died in the aftermath of the Allied landings at Anzio, south of Rome.
Roger Waters contacted him and sent him a poem entitled “One River”, along with a letter which he signed “To Harry, with gratitude”.
The rock star was just five months old when his father died at the age of 31 during intense fighting between Allied and German forces in February 1944.
The poem alludes to the acute sense of loss he felt and the pain of never having known his father, who was serving with Z Company of the 8th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers.

“When the wind sighs through the crop and good men fall, And children soft in their mothers' arms cringe, unbelieving, from the desperadoes' casual blade, My father, distant now but live and warm and strong, in uniform tobacco haze, Speaks out 'My son',” the poem begins.
“He says, Stay not the passion of your loss, But rather keen and hone its edge, That you may never turn away, Numb, brute, from bets too difficult to hedge.”
Mr Shindler, 93, who served at Anzio and is now head of the Italy Star Association of veterans, said he was deeply touched by the poem.
“It’s very moving indeed,” he told The Telegraph. “I think Roger was grateful that I went to all this trouble to find where his father was killed. I see my job as to make sure that nobody forgets all the lads who died down there and what happened after the landings. I came through it, fortunately, but many didn’t.”
Mr Shindler used War Office records at the National Archives in Kew and military maps to find the location of Lt Waters’ death - a fox hole a few miles inland from the sea, on the outer perimeter of the Allied bridgehead.
“It’s in a field surrounded by ditches, near a stream. It’s a pretty damp place and it was even worse in February 1944 – the weather was awful, we had a shocking winter and it was very muddy,” he said.
Roger Waters is expected to travel to Italy in February to mark the 70th anniversary of his father’s death.
“We’re expecting him to come on Feb 18 to unveil a monument to his father,” Mr Shindler said. “The town of Anzio wants to give him honorary citizenship.”
Lt Waters’ body was never recovered but his name is commemorated at the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery at nearby Monte Cassino, also the scene of intense fighting.
Mr Shindler is negotiating with local authorities in the town of Aprilia, near Anzio, to erect a plaque to commemorate not only Lt Waters, but all the Allied soldiers whose remains were never retrieved from the battlefield.
The 70th anniversary of the start of the Anzio landings, which were codenamed Operation Shingle, falls on Jan 22 next year and is expected to be attended by veterans and dignitaries from Britain, Commonwealth countries such as New Zealand and Canada, and the United States.
The Allies suffered around 40,000 casualties in the battle of Anzio, which eventually led to the liberation of Rome.
The British intelligence summary found by Mr Shindler revealed that on the night of Feb 17, 1944, Lt Waters’ company came under sustained assault from a German counter-attack involving tanks and infantry.
By the morning of the next day, Feb 18, the situation was desperate, the unit was eventually surrounded and Lt Waters was killed.
Mr Shindler, who lives in Italy, heard of the story after Roger Waters visited Monte Cassino, south-east of Rome, in March this year in a tribute to his father.
The death of his father inspired several of the songs that Waters, 70, wrote for Pink Floyd, in particular When The Tigers Broke Free, which also appeared in the film The Wall.
He once said the loss of his father had left him very angry.
“It took me years to come to terms with it. Because he was missing in action, presumed killed, until quite recently I expected him to come home.”
Roger Waters, who wrote the poem in the 1990s during the Balkan conflict, said Mr Shindler's discovery had been "an extraordinary turn of events".
He told the Telegraph that he had spoken to the veteran on the phone a number of times now and was looking forward to meeting him in Italy in February for the anniversary of the battle in which his father died. He planned to take Mr Shindler out for a drink.
"Harry is such a remarkable man," he said. "This isn't a one-off for him.
"He has been doing it for years and years.
"He's made it his life's work to find out what happened to men who served."
While knowing where his father died could not provide closure, it had offered him "the opportunity to connect with a lovely man like Harry Shindler," he said.

From www.telegraph.co.uk
 

Bruce Springsteen, Roger Waters Rock New York for Wounded Veterans

By ANDY GREENE
NOVEMBER 7, 2013



Bruce Springsteen is a man of many talents, though stand-up comedy is most definitely not one of them. But as the final performer of the annual Stand Up for Heroes benefit last night at the Theater at Madison Square Garden – which also featured Roger Waters and short sets by comedy superstars Jon Stewart, Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Cosby and Jim Gaffigan – he was unable to resist the urge to tell a few jokes. "I'm puzzled," he said. "This is a night of comedy with soldiers in the audience, but the entire night went by without anybody telling any dirty jokes? I can't let that happen."

With that, Springsteen got uncharacteristically bawdy. "An old man is having trouble getting an erection," he said shortly after walking onstage clutching an acoustic guitar. "He goes to the doctor and he tells him the story, 'I can't sustain an erection. I've tried Viagra. I've tried it all, like jellybeans. Nothing.' Doctor says, 'You may be beyond medical help, but there's a gypsy around the corner. Go around to her and tell her this.' The gypsy listens and she says, 'Take this vial, and when the time comes, sprinkle it a little bit where it counts and say: "One, two, three." And then it's Washington Monument, Louisville Slugger time. But it's only going to work once.' The guy goes, 'Great, great. How do I get it back down?' 'That's easy, say, "One, two, three, four." It's going to go down.' The guy runs home, all excited, sees his wife and tells her to get into bed. He hops in, gets his clothes off and sprinkles a little bit on and says, 'One, two, three.' His wife goes, 'I don't get it, what's the 'One, two,three for?'"

Thankfully for the large audience of rock fans, military vets and deep-pocketed benefactors, there were far better jokes throughout the three-hour show. This was the seventh annual Stand Up for Heroes benefit, and the biggest one yet. ABC News reporter Bob Woodruff and his wife Lee put the first one together at New York's Town Hall in 2007, a little more than a year and a half after a roadside bomb in Iraq left him in a coma for 36 days. He awoke with an intense desire to help injured soldiers returning home from war, and they've raised $16 million for the Bob Woodruff Foundation through these annual benefits, which always attract the biggest names in comedy. Springsteen has played all of them, and Waters has participated in the last two. The event is part of New York Comedy Festival, and Caroline's on Broadway founder Caroline Hirsch plays a crucial role in putting it all together.

After introductory remarks by the Woodruffs and a stirring rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner," Stewart kicked off the night with a mini-set focused on subjects familiar to anyone who has watched The Daily Show in recent weeks. "They always say the Democrats are playing checkers and the Republicans are playing chess," he said in a hysterical bit about the troubled Affordable Care Act website. "But right now the Republicans are playing chess and the Democrats are in the nurse's office because they glued their balls to the inside of their thigh. That is the one injury that I have had."

He then handed the mic over to Bill Cosby, who sat on a chair and delivered a 20-minute (occasionally rambling) set focused almost entirely on his epic fights with his parents and siblings while growing up in Philadelphia. "I'll tell you now, after reading the Bible, I sided with Cain," he said. "The whole time through that story I just kept saying, 'I'm with you, brother.'" The only time he deviated from the childhood tales was when somebody in the audience interrupted a joke. "Let me tell my story," he said. "I don't care what war you were in, you will behave when I'm talking. I was in the service way before you guys were born. I was there when there was no guns. We just dug a hole and yelled at each other."

Jim Gaffigan came up next, and devoted his 10-minute set largely to food and self-depreciating fat jokes. "I just want to eat something healthy," he said. "I recently saw an apple and for a moment, just a moment, I didn't recognize it. I was like, 'What is that? Oh, it's an apple! It's so weird to not see it in a pie.' No one really wants fruit. It's a bunch of work. You got to wash it and peel off that sticker that Al Qaeda put on there. It's too much work. Some people make the gathering of fruit into an activity, 'Why don't we go apple picking?' Because I'd rather die."

Jerry Seinfeld was the final comedian of the night, and he killed with a 15-minute routine that dealt with his standard topics of raising children, dealing with his wife and the awkwardness of public bathrooms. "My daughter is having a birthday party tomorrow," he said. "Do you find that other people's children never look quite right? 'Is that boy's head supposed to look like that? He's a melon-head.' Then the parents come to pick him up and it's, 'Oh, they're melon-heads too. It's just a big melon-head family.'"

Waters played with a small band of veterans last year, but this year he assembled 20-plus soldiers who joined up with a handful of members of his touring band, including guitarist G.E. Smith and keyboardist Jon Carin. Waters is as anti-war as they come, but he's always a strong supporter of the troops and he's spent weeks organizing this four-song set, even going down to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington D.C. to meet wounded soldiers and form a unique rock orchestra. There was a huge choir, three drummers (one of whom had one arm, but didn't miss a beat) a bassist, about six acoustic guitarists and many others. They all blended together seamlessly.

Waters grabbed an acoustic guitar and sat on the side of the stage, allowing 22-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Timothy Donley, who lost both legs and part of his right arm in Afghanistan, to sing a rousing rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." This is a song that's been dusted off for a lot of benefits over the years. Adam Sandler even mocked the tradition at the 12/12/12 Hurricane Sandy benefit last year, but Donley sang his heart out and made the familiar tune feel fresh again. He deserved the huge standing ovation.

John Lennon's "Imagine" was the next selection, and Waters handled the lead vocals. "This is one of the songs that I suggested for this concert," he said. "I sent it to the guys through Bob and Lee Woodruff. I wasn't entirely sure they would want to do this." It's easy to understand his hesitation. "Imagine" has been called the "socialist national anthem" and it's certainly anti-war, but a good song is malleable and can mean different things at different times. At this show, it felt like everybody (onstage and off) was imaging a world where these brave soldiers didn't have to go overseas and return home with devastating injuries.

Some people in the audience were yelling out "Pink Floyd!" by this point, but the set continued with Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come." Waters switched over the bass for this, and former Marine JW Cortes belted out the civil rights-era tune with incredible passion and intensity. He sounded like a mixture of Marvin Gaye and John Legend, absolutely stunning most everyone in the room.  The Pink Floyd fans were finally satisfied when Waters dug out "Comfortably Numb" for the finale. Donley handled the David Gilmour vocal parts, and the famous guitar solo was impressively replicated, though nobody does it like Gilmour.

There were a lot of Springsteen fanatics in the audience and calls of "Brooooooce" filled the hall about a minute after Waters and his band left the stage. (Fun fact: Springsteen has made fewer U.S. live appearances in 2013 than any year in his career, going all the way back to 1965.) After telling his erectile dysfunction joke, he played a barn-burning solo-acoustic "Dancing in the Dark" and followed it up with a joke about an "Amazonian" prostitute named Hurricane Tessie that farts on men and spanks them. It was weird. Patti Scialfa came out for a tender duet on "If I Should Fall Behind," and then Springsteen sat at the pump organ for a stirring"Dream Baby Dream." Pre-recorded guitars, synths and strings kicked in midway through, and Springsteen stood up and  poured himself into every word of the Suicide cover, before quietly ending it back on the pump organ.

They were dangerously closed to the 11 p.m. curfew after Springsteen's brief set, so Brian Williams quickly rushed onstage to help auction off one of Springsteen's electric guitars. As Bruce strummed out the bluesy chords to "Mystery Train" on the instrument, a bidding war broke out in the audience. When the price hit $140,000, Springsteen sweetened the pot by tossing in an hour of personal guitar lessons. That sped up the process, and at $230,000 Springsteen added an invitation to watch him record at his home studio. That was enough to get an extra $20,000, and a gray-haired man in a leather jacket won the entire package for a quarter of a million dollars.

The cost of going over curfew at MSG is apparently $10,000 a minute (one hopes they make an exception for this event), so as soon as the auction wrapped Bob and Lee Woodruff ran out to quickly thank everybody and wave goodbye. It's unclear when Springsteen will perform an American show again, but he'll certainly be back for Stand Up for Heroes again next year. Maybe they'll even upgrade it to the arena at Madison Square Garden by then.

From www.rollingstone.com

Roger Waters Stand Up For Heroes 2013

"Roger Waters and more paid tribute to the sacrifices of our military members at The Bob Woodruff Foundation and New York Comedy Festival Production's "Stand Up for Heroes" benefit at New York City's Madison Square Garden.

Waters performed Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here," accompanied by a group of injured soldiers who are also musicians"

Rock Legend Roger Waters Teams Up With Wounded Veterans

Pink Floyd musician teams up with Musicorps to help Army vets rock and roll.
11/11/2013

Breaking News

Roger Waters 'Absolutely Determined to Make Another Album'

By PATRICK FLANARY
NOVEMBER 6,2013



More than 20 years since making a rock concept record, Roger Waters tells Rolling Stone he has finished a song for an album tentatively titled Heartland. Completed on lunch breaks during the elaborate Wall tour that ended in July, the untitled song confronts what Waters calls "religious extremism."

"I'm not sure what it will be called," Waters said in an interview Monday in Manhattan, where he will perform at the Bob Woodruff Foundation's Stand Up for Heroes benefit, part of this week's New York Comedy Festival. "I'll tell you what the first line is – I haven't told anyone else, and I may be sticking my head too far above the parapet – but the first line is, 'If I had been God . . . '"

Waters, who last referenced God outright on 1992's Amused to Death in the three-part song "What God Wants," said this song was just what he needed to move forward with Heartland.

"The Heartland idea sort of came from another song I wrote maybe 15 years ago, or longer even, which was a song that I wrote for a movie – a really, really bad movie called Michael that was about an angel," Waters said. "I'm absolutely determined to make another album. And I think this new song may give me the chance to do that. It provides a cornerstone and a core idea for me to write a new album about. You know, it's just one of my obsessions, which is, I'm sort of obsessed with the idea that religious extremism is a maligned factor in most of our lives."

Waters' other obsessions – themes of battlefield bloodshed, threatened liberty, isolation and madness – have advanced much of his solo work beyond Pink Floyd, though he confirmed his next album will not feature former bandmates David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason. Waters last recorded with the group, excluding Richard Wright, on 1983's anti-war opus, The Final Cut.

That album opened with "The Post War Dream," the idea of which "is somewhat in tatters" in the real world, Waters said. "But having said that, it is developing in other parts of the world . . . We are determined to continue to fight against the onslaught, if you like, of a society driven mad by the headlong rush to maximize the bottom line."

Long known for his condemnation of war yet strong devotion to troops worldwide, Waters will rehearse with a band of wounded veterans he recruited from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center prior to Hurricane Sandy. Eight soldiers and three Marines will join him for three songs, including Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here," at Thursday's Stand Up for Heroes benefit at Beacon Theatre, which will also include performances from Bruce Springsteen and John Mayer.

"These guys are good," Waters said of his recruits. "I'm really proud to be working with them."

From www.rollingstone.com

Rogers Waters Returns to Benefit for Wounded

NEW YORK November 6, 2013 (AP)
By JOHN CARUCCI Associated Press



Their faces are young and strong, but their bodies sit in wheelchairs or stand on artificial limbs.

They laugh and smile as Roger Waters holds court in a rehearsal hall. The wounded servicemen are waiting to rehearse their set with the former Pink Floyd frontman ahead of Wednesday's "Stand Up for Heroes," the annual fund raising benefit that supports wounded veterans through the Bob Woodruff Foundation.

They are excited for the chance to perform with the rock great, but these young men are not the only ones with admiration in their eyes.

"I feel a great sense of empathy for the people that live on the sharp end of conflicts and the ones that actually get injured," said the 70-year old Waters at Monday's rehearsal. "I get so much more out of it than I put into it."

Throughout his long career, Waters has written music about victims of conflict, with both "The Wall" and "The Final Cut" having a direct connection to war (he lost his father in World War II, and his grandfather in the first World War).

Last year, he played a touching version of his seminal "Wish You Were Here" while accompanied by 14 wounded soldiers he met at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Waters wants to do his part to help returning veterans wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts because he feels that all too often, they fall through the cracks.

"I'm not a U.S. citizen, but I pay taxes here, and I wish a far greater percent of my tax dollars went to look after these guys," Waters said.

He joins Bruce Springsteen (who's performed at every one of the benefits), "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart, Bill Cosby, Jerry Seinfeld and other guests.

The Bob Woodruff Foundation was started by the 52-year old ABC journalist after he was seriously injured by an improvised explosive device while covering the war in Iraq in 2006. The foundation helps returning veterans and their families reintegrate with society.

"I never imagined any of this when I woke up out of that coma," Woodruff said. "You wake up in the hospital happy to be alive, but then realize we're not the same anymore."

He added: "I wanted to create a way to help these guys because this was a new kind of war."

Not long after, he was approached by Caroline Hirsch, who made the "Stand Up for Heroes" benefit a part of her yearly New York Comedy Festival.

She said she was proud to do it.

"These soldiers will be coming back and need to be taken care of for the rest of their lives; we cannot forget what they have done for us," Hirsch said.

Stand Up For Heroes

From abcnews.go.com