Roger Waters - Documentary Behind The Wall Berlin 1990

Subtitles in Español, Francais, Deutsch and Portugues.

From the DVD Roger Waters The Wall Live In Berlin 1990

Roger Waters, John Mellencamp Choose Interviewers for 'Speakeasy' TV Show

BY KORY GROW | January 8, 2015


This month a new music-themed talk show will debut that flips the script and lets musicians choose their own interviewer. Speakeasy's first class includes Roger Waters, who chose TV journalist Bill Weir; John Mellencamp, who picked Rolling Stone founder Jann S. Wenner; Carlos Santana, who selected the "King of Calypso" Harry Belafonte; Nile Rodgers, who opted for singer Valerie Simpson; and Rush's Geddy Lee, who requested Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon. Since the show is a public television series, broadcast times and channels vary.

The producers of the public-television concert series Front and Center spearheaded the show, which they filmed before a live audience at New York City's McKittrick Hotel. "Artists of this caliber have doubtless done thousands of interviews throughout their careers, answering the same questions over and over again," Speakeasy creator and Front and Center Entertainment founder Don Maggi said in a statement. "The beauty of the Speakeasy format is that it affords these artists a level of comfort, which in turn stimulates a unique, compelling and topical conversation that we would otherwise not have an opportunity to hear."

Because of the format and the pairings of artists and interviewers, each conversation is wide-ranging. Waters offers his thoughts on world peace. Mellencamp discusses songwriting and politics, while sharing stories about his personal experiences with the likes of Stephen King, Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. Rodgers discusses the formation of his disco group Chic, as well as stories about producing Madonna, David Bowie and Diana Ross. Santana talks spirituality  and social activism. And the Rush bassist opens up about his family, and how his parents met a concentration camp during World War II.

For information on where to watch Speakeasy, visit American Public Television's website.

From www.rollingstone.com

Hear Roger Waters’ Early, Work-in-Progress Recordings of Pink Floyd’s The Wall

June 17th, 2014

by Josh Jones

My first exposure to Pink Floyd’s rock opera The Wall left me feeling nothing less than astonishment. And though I never had the chance to see the outrageous stage show, with its very literal wall and giant inflatable pig, the film has always struck me as a suitably dark piece of psychodrama. Over a great many subsequent listens, the melodramatic double-album can still blow my mind, but I’ve come to feel that some of the strongest material are those songs penned jointly by Roger Waters and David Gilmour, and those are relatively few. (Mark Blake quotes Gilmour as saying “things like ‘Comfortably Numb’ were the last embers of mine and Roger’s ability to work collaboratively together.) The bulk of the album belongs to Waters, its autobiographical details and personal themes, and the album and film can sometimes feel as stifled and claustrophobic as its protagonist does. This is either a creative failing or a brilliant melding of form and content.

Inspired by an incident in which an exasperated Waters spat on a rowdy fan at a stadium show in Montreal during the band’s 1977 “In the Flesh Tour,” The Wall documents the painful rise and even more painful fall of a fictive rock star named, of course, Pink (played by Bob Geldof in the film version), whose life closely parallels Waters’, down to the spitting. It has always seemed an odd irony that Waters responded to the alienation of touring massive stadiums by creating a stadium show bigger than anything the band had yet done, but it speaks to the bassist and singer’s grandiose personality and obsessive desire to turn his angst into theater. Oftentimes the results were spectacular, other times bombastic and confusing (at least to critics, some of whom are easily confused). The recording of the album, as many well know, strained the band almost to breaking, and by many accounts, Waters’ imperiousness didn’t help matters, to say the least.




All of the behind-the-scenes drama may or may not eclipse the drama of the album itself, depending on your level of fandom and interest in Pink Floyd biography. Lovers of Waters’ epic rock dramaturgy will find edification at the extensive online critical commentary Pink Floyd The Wall: A Complete Analysis, an online work in progress that delivers on its title. For a very brief account of the story behind the story, co-producer Bob Ezrin’s interview with Grammy.com offers perspective from someone involved in the project who wasn’t a member of what came to seem like The Roger Waters’ Band. Ezrin describes The Wall as “Roger’s own project and not a group effort,” and his own role as “a kind of referee between him and the rest of the band.”

In the beginning we had a very long demo that Roger had written. We started to separate out the pieces, and when we looked at the storyline we realized what we needed was a through line, something to get us from start to finish.

Ezrin recounts that he “closed [his] eyes and wrote out the movie that would become The Wall,” handed the script out to the band, and marked songs missing from Waters’ demo as “’TBW’—‘to be written.’” (Among those songs was “Comfortably Numb.”)

The recordings at the top of the post—which surfaced in 2001 with the title Under Construction—represent a step in The Wall’s evolutionary development between Waters’ rudimentary demos (short excerpts above) and the completed album. (See the Youtube page for a complete tracklist. Contrary to the uploader’s description, Roger Waters certainly does not play all the instruments.) While Under Construction has generally been referred to as a “demo,” Rick Karhu of Pink Floyd fanzine Spare Bricks expresses his doubts about the use of a term he takes to denote “a fairly polished recording”: “Demos are not rough recordings or works-in-progress […]. I doubt very much that Under Construction is a demo of The Wall.”

It’s too rough around the edges—at times shockingly so—to be strictly considered a demo recording. At points, things are haphazardly edited together. Songs cut off abruptly, fade unexpectedly or drop out entirely for a moment as if someone at the mixing desk hit the wrong button at some point. Vocal tracks peak-out, often causing anguish to the listener’s ear drums. Some instrument lines (mostly the bass guitar) meander through the background as if the person playing is making up the part as they go. Equalization is nonexistent on most tracks. Overall, most of it sounds like a 4-track recording by a band who has only the vaguest notion of how the equipment works.

Lest we take this description as disparagement, Karhu clarifies: “It is precisely for those reasons […] that I love them dearly and consider them one of the most valuable, unauthorized Floyd recordings to be unearthed. Ever.” Many Youtube commenters agree, some even arguing that these rough sketches are superior to the final polished product. It’s a debate I won’t weigh in on, though I will say that like Karhu, I enjoy the lo-fi raggedness of this version of The Wall. It seems to convey the emotionally frayed edges of these songs in a way the slick production of the studio album may not at times. Either as a mere document of the album’s early history or an alternate, fragmented—and hence more traumatized—take on The Wall, this unofficial version is haunting and strange. Does it perhaps better represent Waters’ desire to make his psychic unease into art? We invite you to judge for yourselves. And if, like me, you can listen to “Comfortably Numb” (and that incredible guitar solo) on repeat for hours on end, you may be interested to hear David Gilmour discuss the song’s composition in the interview below.




Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC.

From www.openculture.com
 

Roger Waters Paris interviews 2006

Roger Waters - In the Studio interview

Audio Roger Waters 1989 interview about The Wall recording.

Roger Waters به عبارت دیگر: گفتگو با راجر واترز

خواننده و موزیسین 
22/10/2013  تاریخ پخش
BBCPersian

Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) NY radio interview 1986

This is a radio interview (Scott Muni WNEW Radio New York) with Roger Waters with some questions by phone and talks are about Pink Floyd, Roger solo projects and politics.

Roger Waters & David Gilmour interview 1984

Audio interview The Inside Track with Roger Waters & David Gilmour 10-22-84. The Inside Track interview with Lisa Robinson.

Roger Waters Interview - BBC Radio 4 (2010)

When Pink Floyd star Roger Waters was five months old, his father was killed in the Second World War.

Years later as Roger enjoyed amazing success, he was haunted by a recurring dream about murdering someone, which he only began to understand when he was much older.

Roger Waters was talking to Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs broadcast on Sunday 29 May 2010 at 1115 BST on BBC Radio 4, repeated 0900 BST on Friday 3 June 2010.

Exclusive Interview with Roger Waters

Rock legend Roger Waters speaks to us about music, the role of artists in today’s society and his activism for justice around the world, including in Palestine.

- Recorded 04/12/2013




Frank Barat: When did you make the decision to make the « Wall tour » (that ended in Paris in September 2013) so political ? And why did you dedicate the final concert to Jean-Charles De Menezes ?

Roger Waters: The first show was October 14th 2010. We started working on content of show with Sean Evans in 2009. I had already decided to make it much broader politically than it had been in 1979/80. It could not be just about this whinny little guy who didn’t like his teachers. It had to be more universal. That’s why ‘fallen loved ones’ came into it (the shows are showing pictures of people that died during wars) trying to universalise the sense of grief and loss that we all feel towards family members killed in conflict. Whatever the wars or the circumstances, they (in the non western world), feel has much lost as we do. Wars become an important symbol because of that separation between ‘us and them,’ which is fundamental to all conflicts. Regarding Jean-Charles, we used to do Brick II with three solos at the end and I decided that three solos was too much, it was boring me. So sitting in a hotel room, one night, I was thinking about what I could do instead of that. Somebody had recently sent me a photograph of Jean-Charles De Menezes to go on the wall. So he was in my mind and I thought that I should sing his story. I wrote that song, taught it to the band, and that’s what we did.

FB: A lot of artist would say that mixing arts and politics is wrong. That their goal is only to entertain. What would you say to those people?

RW: Well it’s funny you should say that because I just finished yesterday the text of a new piece which will be a new album of mine. It’s about a grandfather in Northern Ireland going on a quest with his grandchild to find the answer to the question: “Why are they killing the children?”, because the child is really worried about it. Right at the very end of it, I decided to add something more. In the song, the child tells his grandpa: “Is that it?” and the grandpa replies “No, we cannot leave on that note, give me another note”. A new song starts and the grandpa makes a speech. He says: “We live on a tiny dot in a middle of a lot of fucking nothing. Now, if you’re not interested in any of this, if you’re one of those “Roger I love Pink Floyd but I hate your fucking politics”, if you believe artists should be mute, emasculated, nodding dogs dangling aimlessly over the dashboard of life, you might be well advised to fuck off to the bar now, because, time keeps slipping away.” That’s my answer to your question.

FB: When will album be out?

RW: I’ve got no idea. I’m working away furiously on lots of old projects. I’m going to give a first listen to this to Sean Evans. He’s coming to my house tomorrow to listen to it. I’ve made a demo which is one hour and six minutes long. It’s pretty heavy I confess, but there is also some humor in it, I hope, but it’s extremely radical and it poses very important questions. Look, if I’m the only one doing it, I am entirely content. I mean, I’m not, I wish there were more people writing about politics and our real situation. Even from what could be considered extreme points of view. It’s very important that Goya did what he did, same for Picasso and Guernica and all those anti-war novels that came out during and after the Vietnam war.

FB: You’re talking about yourself being one of the only one, in your position, taking radical political positions. When it comes to Palestine, you are very open about your support for a cultural boycott of Israel. People opposing this tactic say that culture should not be boycotted. What would you answer to that?

RW: I would say that I understand their opinion. Everybody should have one. But I can’t agree with them, I think that they are entirely wrong. The situation in Israel/ Palestine, with the occupation, the ethnic cleansing and the systematic racist apartheid Israeli regime is un acceptable. So for an artist to go and play in a country that occupies other people’s land and oppresses them the way Israel does, is plain wrong. They should say no. I would not have played for the Vichy government in occupied France in the Second World War, I would not have played in Berlin either during this time. Many people did, back in the day. There were many people that pretended that the oppression of the Jews was not going on. From 1933 until 1946. So this is not a new scenario. Except that this time it’s the Palestinian People being murdered. It’s the duty of every thinking human being to ask: “What can I do?”. Anybody who looks at the situation will see that if you choose not to take up arms to fight your oppressor, the non violent route, and the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (B.D.S) movement, which started in Palestine with 100% support from Palestinian civil society in 2004-2005, a movement that has now been joined by many people around the world, the global civil society, is a legitimate form of resistance to this brutal and oppressive regime. I have nearly finished Max Blumenthal’s book “Goliath: Life and Loathing in greater Israel”. It’s a chilling read. It’s extremely well written in my view. He is a very good journalist and takes great pains to make sure that what he writes is correct. He also gives a voice to the other side. The voice, for instance, of the right wing rabbinate, which is so bizarre and hard to hear that you can hardly believe that it’s real. They believe some very weird stuff you know, they believe that everybody that is not a Jew is only on earth to serve them and they believe that the Indigenous people of the region that they kicked off the land in 1948 and have continued to kick off the land ever since are sub-human. The parallels with what went on in the 30’s in Germany are so crushingly obvious that it doesn’t surprise me that the movement that both you and I are involved in is growing every day. The Russell Tribunal on Palestine was trying to shed light on this when we met, I only took part in two sessions, you took part in many more. It is an extremely obvious and fundamental problem of human rights which every thinking human being should apply himself to.

FB: The scary thing is that the extreme Rabbinate you were talking about with the extreme right wing views about the Palestinians and the non-Jews are having a more and more prominent place in terms of the Israeli society, regime and power structure and that is very scary.

I wanted to follow up on the Cultural Boycott and about the fact that you are one of the only ones who take such a stand. You could, as many others do, I guess enjoy the benefits of your success and lead a quiet, at least politically, non-controversial life. Why do you do it but more importantly why do you think not more people are doing it? Why a lot of artists who often take position against wars, why don’t they touch Palestine?

RW: Well, where I live, in the USA, I think, A: they are frightened and B: I think the propaganda machine that starts in Israeli schools and that continues through all the Netanyahu’s bluster is poured all over the United States, not just Fox but also CNN and in fact in all the mainstream media. It’s like a huge bucket of crap that they are pouring into the mouth of a gullible public in my view, when they say “we are afraid of Iran, it is going to get nuclear weapons…”. It’s a diversionary tactic. The lie that they have told for the last 20 years is “Oh, we want to make peace”, you know and they talk about Clinton and Arafat and Barak being in Camp David and that they came very close to agreeing, and the story that they sold was “Oh Arafat fucked it all up”. Well, no, he did not. This is not the story. The fact of the matter is no Israeli government has been serious about creating a Palestinian state since 1948. They’ve always had the Ben Gurion agenda of kicking all the Arabs out of the country and becoming greater Israel. They tell a lie as part of their propaganda machinery whilst doing the other thing but they have been doing it so obviously in the last 10 years . For instance, even after when Obama went to Cairo and made that speech about Arabs and the Israelis, everybody was like “Oh, this is a step in a new direction at least”. But as soon as he visited Israel, they said. “Oh by the way, we are building another 1200 settlements”. Exactly the same when Kerry went last year saying, “Oh I am going to try to get the sides together and talk peace”. Netanhayu said “Fuck you. We are going to build another 1500 settlements and we a going to build them in E1, this is our plan.” This is so transparent that you’d have to have an IQ above room temperature not to understand what is going on. It is just dopey.

You know I read some piece the other day where it said “apparently only the Secretary State of the United States, believes that these current peace talks are real, no one else in the world does”.

It is a very complicated situation which is why you and I and all the other people in the world who care about their brothers and sisters and not just about the people of our own faith, our own colour, our own race or our own whatever, have to stand in solidarity shoulder to shoulder. This has been a very hard sell particularly where I live in the United States of America. The Jewish lobby is extraordinary powerful here and particularly in the industry that I work in, the music industry and in rock’n roll as they say. I promise you, naming no names, I’ve spoken to people who are terrified that if they stand shoulder to shoulder with me they are going to get fucked. They have said to me “aren’t you worried for your life?” and I go “No, I’m not”. A few years ago, I was touring and 9/11 happened in the middle of the tour and 2 or 3 people in my band who happened to be United States citizens wouldn’t come on the next leg of the tour. I said “ why not? Don’t you like the music anymore?” and they replied “no, we love the music but we are Americans and it’s too dangerous for us to travel abroad, they are trying to kill us” and I thought “Wow!”.

FB: Yes, the brainwashing works!

RW: Obviously it does, that is why I am happy to be doing this interview with you because it is super important that we make as much noise as possible. I’m so glad that this right wing newspaper in Israel, Yedioth Ahronoth, printed my interview with Alon Hadar. At least they printed it. Although they changed the context and made it sound different that what is actually was but at least they printed something. You know, I would expect to be completely suppressed and ignored.

You know that Shuki Weiss( preeminent Israeli promotor) was offering me a hundred thousand people at hundred dollars a ticket a few months ago to come and play in Tel Aviv! “Hang on, that’s 10 million dollars”, how could they offer it to me?! And I thought Shuki are you fucking deaf or just dumb?! I am part of the BDS movement, I’m not going anywhere in Israel, for any money, all I would be doing would be legitimizing the policies of the government.

I have a confession to make to you. I did actually write to Cindy Lauper a couple of weeks ago. I did not make the letter public but I wrote her a letter because I know her a bit, she worked with me on the Wall in Berlin which is why I found it super difficult to understand that she is doing a gig in Tel Aviv on January the 4th. apparently, quite extraordinary, reprehensible in my view, but I don’t know her personal story and people have to make up their own mind about these things. One can’t get to personal about it.

FB: For sure but you can help them, I guess by what you are doing, by writing to them. You can open their eyes because that’s what they need I think.

RW: Yes but if their eyes were going to be opened they would need to either visit the Holy land, visit the West Bank or Gaza or even visit Israel or any single checkpoint anywhere and see what it’s like. All they would need to do is visiting or, read, read a book! Check out the history. Read Max Blumenthal’s book. Then say “Oh I know what I am going to do, I am going to play a gig in Tel Aviv”. That would be a good plan! (sarcastic tone).

From lemuradesoreilles.org

Roger Waters - Keynote Q&A at Billboard Touring Conference 2013

Waters talks with Billboard's Ray Waddell about Pink Floyd's first U.S. gig, the music business today and the monumental success of The Wall tour.

A note from Roger - October 9, 2013

On September 7, 2013, Roger was interviewed by Alon Hadar for the magazine accompanying Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.  The article can be read here. Below is an open letter to the editor from Roger. The transcription that is referred to was pulled from a video recording of the nearly 90-minute on-the-record conversation between Roger and Alon.

To the Editor

Dear Sir,

I do not read Hebrew so I have had to wait for a translation of the article your paper printed on Wednesday, 18th September, based upon an interview I did with Alon Hadar in Amsterdam the previous week.

Without wishing to fan the flames, I feel I owe it to my fans in Israel to correct the record on a number of points.

The article was a serious distortion of the actual interview I gave.

Both questions and answers were changed. I can only assume to suit an editorial agenda.

The measured, reasonable and humane conversation that Alon and I had in Amsterdam was intended as a way for me to communicate with my Israeli fans, to explain my position on Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), to break down Walls, and shed light on possible misunderstandings and our shared predicament. It has been re-written as a combative, ill-natured, dog-fight. It appears, with all its distortions and untruths, to want to maintain the status quo, alienate me from my fans in Israel and retreat from any consideration of the position that all the peoples of the region deserve to live in peace and justice with equal rights for all under the same laws, irrespective of color, race or religion. I have today received and studied a transcript of the interview I gave. The thing that is most strikingly different between the actual interview and what you printed in your magazine is that you have rewritten all the questions. It is very shoddy journalism to hold up to be real, what is in fact, a fabrication. I attach a link to the transcript at the end of this letter, should your readers and my Israeli fans wish to know what really happened, and what was really said.

As for the article itself, the editorial content is littered with misinformation. As you know, I have an agreement with your paper that I have copy approval of my quotes. When I finally got an English translation of the article, even though there was very little time before you went to press, I sat up half the night trying to correct some of the worst errors. You largely ignored my input.

I intend no pettiness or rancor, but will mention two specific untruths.  Firstly, the article claims that I am constantly contacting other musicians trying to persuade them not to perform in Israel.  It’s simply not so. I have never written to Elton John or Rihanna. In fact, I have made no specific approach to anyone except Stevie Wonder, about an IDF fundraiser in Los Angeles, and Alicia Keys. There is one other Englishman, but my letter to him was in confidence and will remain so. That’s it. To their credit, Elvis Costello, and many others, supported BDS before me.

It is true I have recently written an open letter to my Colleagues in Rock and Roll declaring my support for BDS and asking them as a group to join the movement. We are attempting peacefully, through BDS, to encourage your government to change its colonial and apartheid policies.

There are many other distortions and untruths.  I shall mention but one more of them. Alon asked me what I would like to say to Benjamin Netanyahu. In my reply I suggested, that based on his record, it seemed unlikely he would be the one to negotiate a just peace and that he might better spend his time looking for ‘The One,’ the one who might be Israel’s ‘de Klerk.’

For anyone who may not know: F.W. de Klerk was the last white president of South Africa and is best known for brokering the end of apartheid, and supporting the transformation of South Africa into a multi-racial democracy by entering into the negotiations that resulted in all citizens, including the country's black majority, having equal rights. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, along with Nelson Mandela, for his part in ending apartheid in South Africa. To be clear, I’m suggesting that Israel, like South Africa in the past, needs a leader who is prepared to negotiate a just and lasting peace based on equal rights.

I attach a translation of this letter in Hebrew and here is a link to a transcript of the whole on-the-record conversation I had with Alon in Amsterdam.  http://rogerwaters.com/interview/

With respect,

Yours truly,

Roger Waters

From www.facebook.com/roger-waters-the-wall

BBC HARDtalk - Roger Waters (19.09.2013)

Draw up a list of the biggest bands in the history of rock and roll and a remarkable number of them will be British. There's The Beatles and The Rolling Stones of course, but also Pink Floyd, whose albums 'The Dark Side of the Moon' and 'The Wall' remain rock classics. Stephen Sackur speaks to Roger Waters, who was a dominant figure in Pink Floyd until he quit in 1985. He is still performing and he remains the most controversial of rock stars. So what motivates him?

'The Wall' creator is still breaking down barriers

BARRY EGAN – 31 AUGUST 2013


Roger Waters talks to Barry Egan about war, hi-tech snooping and soccer.

A gloomy night in the Ferenc Puskas Stadium in Budapest last Sunday, with 40,000 people watching as wave after wave of war planes dropped bombs. The Hungarian capital has seen more than its share of death and destruction down the centuries – the Siege Of Budapest in 1944 chief among them, as the Red Army battled the Nazi occupiers at a cost of many thousands of lives. So Roger Waters' sensory, if chilling, performance of his anti-war, anti-fascist classic The Wall must have had a deep resonance with the locals, and beyond.

Two hours later, I was sitting in a suite in the Four Seasons with the man himself when some equally chilling news came on the television: America was weighing up whether to respond militarily to the "undeniable" use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in Syria against its own people.

Roger had told me earlier that his father's death in 1944 in the Battle of Anzio against the Nazis was, in his view, during the last just war. He doesn't believe America bombing Syria would be a just war. "Absolutely not. I think it would be an enormous error. I have no doubt that young Cameron would follow him in a heartbeat because they rather like a bit of a war some of these politicians, and not just the right wing, not just the Tories obviously. Blair was a supreme example."

I ask does he think Blair was a war criminal?

"Absolutely. I think he is the most horrific character that English politics has thrown up since Thatcher," he says.

Roger adds that he would never think of going into politics because he is "mistrustful of it".

"I also think it is supremely important and I wish more intelligent, qualified people would. But I think it tends to attract a lot of really, really bad people," he continues. "It attracts people who need to feel important and they like the sound of their own voices. They want other people to listen to them and these are character traits that don't naturally bode well for society or the human race in general. I live in the United States now and it is entirely driven by dollar bills. So the whole thing is intellectually bankrupt."

I mention Bradley Manning, the former US army intelligence analyst, who was jailed for the biggest intelligence leak in US history.

"It is completely iniquitous that they have sentenced him to 35 years in prison. I think what he did was courageous, heroic even . I have supported him as much as I have been able."

Before the song Run Like Hell from The Wall, Roger screams: "Are there any paranoids in the audience tonight? Is there anyone who worries about things?" I ask him does what happened to Manning make him paranoid?

"No! It makes me want to rush up and down 5th Avenue grabbing every person that I meet and scream 'Wake up! Wake up! You are all sleepwalking! Why are you allowing this to happen?'

"So, good for Edward Snowden," he adds, referring to the controversial CIA contractor who leaked some of America's most closely guarded secrets, "for at least showing us part of the mechanism. And how all those companies are absolutely in cahoots with the administration. In secret, they have signed agreements with the government to say: 'Yes, we will spy on every body . . . we do not need grounds to spy on you any more.' I mean, it is like East Germany was," he says in the capital of former communist Hungary.

"It is absolutely incredible. What is interesting, though, is that Snowden hit a nerve in Congress, and all the right-wing libertarians all came rushing out and went: 'Oh my God! They can't do this! I don't want anybody looking through my address book." Despite all that, Waters is optimistic, "weirdly enough", for the future.

Because, he believes, somewhere around the corner something may happen: a light bulb may go on for people and they will go: "Hang on! This is the same old shit. Why don't we do this differently?"

"I think that the reasons that they are getting worse are more identifiable," he explains. "For instance, such small voices as I have are more audible than it would have been 50 years ago. We are sitting here at the very blunt end, and at the sharp end, none of us can imagine how horrific it must be – you know one minute you are playing in your back garden. And the next, in Fallujah (in Iraq), and the next minute you have no legs and you are eight years old and you go: 'What the f*** was that about?'"

The Wall is a powerful piece of political theatre set to some of the angriest music ever composed. The actual wall is 40 feet high and 200 feet across. Images of people who have lost their lives in conflict appear at various points. It is not Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats. It is about human barriers and alienation.

"Most of the barriers between human beings are artificially created for the benefit of the rich and powerful," Roger says. "They accrue power to themselves but in order to do that it is necessary for them to construct artificial walls between ordinary people who would much prefer to have a job and go fishing on Saturday and, bring up their kids, and go to the football match and do all that. . . rather than being nerve-gassed in Aleppo or engaged in this constant foul play which seems to be going on all over the globe at the behest of and much encouraged by the rich and the powerful."

The Wall's dark sense of abandonment had its genesis in a very real sadness and abandonment: Roger lost his father when he was a baby.

"George Henry, my grandfather, was in the Royal Engineers because he was a coal miner," he says, "so they got them to dig tunnels under Jerry and he was killed in 1916, and my father was born in 1914. So he didn't have very long with a father at home, either.

"I discovered in therapy about 25 years ago," he explains, "that this recurrent dream that I used to have of killing somebody was: 'I get it! I think I killed my father!"

"But I didn't," Roger laughs, "because I was only that big."

Roger says he spent his youth and his young manhood "in a very defensive mode. I was very frightened. I was very embarrassed. I was very sexually insecure. And that's why I was so snotty and aggressive, I think".

When he started working on his stage production of The Wall in 2009 – it was released as a Pink Floyd double album in 1979 and sold 300 million copies – he knew that: "I didn't want it to be about a whiney, frightened 25-year-old. I wanted it to be about larger issues.

"One of the very first things that we did was reach out through social media to discover other people who'd lost loved ones either in war or in some kind of political conflict. We invited them to send in photographs and a short story of what happened to this relative. You get a letter from a 25-year-old woman who is deeply attached to the sense of loss that that entails. So it makes you understand just how powerful it is. We watch it on the telly every day and we go 'Oh another death.' Another 40 people killed in northern Baghdad or Homs. We have become so inured to it."

They are just numbers, not human beings with souls who have been killed senselessly, I say.

"The piece you came and watched tonight is us hoping to ask and hoping to pose that question: 'Why?'"

Roger Waters plays 'The Wall' at the Aviva Stadium on September 18

*Win a chance for you and a friend to go behind The Wall when Pink Floyd Legend Roger Waters brings this mind blowing spectacle to Aviva Stadium September 18.

This show features state of the art production and is one of the most ambitious and complex rock shows ever staged and you will get to take a closer look and witness first hand why critics are calling it 'the greatest rock show on earth'.

This an incredible prize for any music fan - and of course as well as a backstage tour, you will also get killer seats to  see the show.

From www.independent.ie
 

Huffington Post - Roger Waters video interview, 15 April 2013

More than 3 decades after Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' debuted, Roger Waters is bringing his iconic rock opera to sold-out arenas around the world. He joins us to discuss music, 'The Wall,' and his criticism of the Israeli occupation.



From live.huffingtonpost.com

92Y - Roger Waters - “Not to talk is not an option”

APRIL 7, 2013




There has been some chatter about the cancellation of my interview at 92Y. By way of clarification, here is what I know.

I was invited by 92Y to take part in an interview at the Theresa L. Kaufmann Concert Hall on the 30 th April this year. I checked out a couple of previous talks on YouTube, and as they appeared to be serious and measured discourse, I accepted the invitation to take part.

Things were complicated when the Opera House in São Paulo, Brazil requested my presence for four full productions of Ça Ira, my opera on the French Revolution, around conflicting dates. In the end, the date for the dress rehearsal of Ça Ira fell on the 30 th April, and so, reluctantly and very apologetically, I asked the team at 92Y if my appearance could be re-scheduled. Assistant Director Jennifer Hausler, who had been helping all along, couldn’t have been more understanding, gave me some alternative dates in June and I accepted June the 19th. Everyone was happy. Well, perhaps not quite everyone.

On April 3rd, my publicist in NY received a phone call from Susan Engel, the Director of Lectures at the 92Y, cancelling my re-scheduled engagement without explanation. She did leave a telephone number which we called, but it was only an answering machine with the message that 92Y was closed for Passover. We left messages asking to talk to Susan Engel but have so far received no reply.

I have since been made aware of rumblings on the net suggesting that resistance in the local Jewish community to my coming engagement may have had something to do with its cancellation. If that be the case it saddens me. In these troubled times, opportunities for serious, measured discourse are too precious to be discarded on the altar of sectarian prejudice. Not to talk is not an option.

Also our conversation at the 92Y would not necessarily have needed to be restricted to our hopes for just and peaceful outcomes for both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. I have other interests, we could have talked about how Pink Floyd got its name, or whether David and I will ever get back together (sorry, irony) or suicide rates among returning veterans or Las Madres de Malvinas, or the missing in Mexico, or the concept of Us and Them.

To bundle up in our dread beliefs serves us not at all.

Not to talk is not an option.

Roger Waters 7th April 2013

PS, At time of posting we have still had no response.

From www.rogerwaters.com

Roger Waters, wspaniały człowiek i artysta

SpiritoLibero 2011-02-18


W świecie, w którym od Palestyny po Irak, poprzez Afganistan, wiele niewinnych istot jest codziennie gnębionych i zniewalanych przez barbarzyńskie armie, poniżanych i pozbawianych wszelkiej nadziei, wolności i godności ludzkiej słychać głos artystów, którzy poświęcają swój talent i własne nazwisko by powiedzieć „nie!” barbarzyństwu. Są światełkiem nadziei.


Rogers Waters, legendarny gitarzysta i wokalista mitycznych, nieistniejących już dziś Pink Floyd jest jednym z tych artystów o nadzwyczajnej odwadze.


„ Zabawianie publiczności nigdy mnie nie interesowało, to czego pragnę to poruszyć ją” powtarza zwykle Roger.


Podziwiany w dużo szerszym kręgu niż jedynie świat rocka, wyczulony na walkę narodów ciemiężonych przez potęgi, skazanych na nierówna walkę, Roger Waters ma bardzo ważne przesłanie do przekazania. Swoje albumy zadedykował „poległym na wojnie”. Dla niego mówienie o cierpieniu spowodowanym wojną „służy ich zapobieganiu i powstrzymaniu”


W 1979 album The Wall, którego jest kompozytorem i autorem tekstów, stał się hymnem całego pokolenia. Był to okres, gdy ruch przeciwko wojnie był jeszcze potężny. Teraz śpi.

Roger Waters, osoba o ogromnej pasji, uważa, że każdy powinien coś robić by na nowo rozniecić ten płomień.

„Wydaliśmy ten album pod koniec wojny w Wietnamie. Dziś jesteśmy w trakcie wojny w Iraku i Afganistanie. The Wall było potężnym przesłaniem przeciwko wojnie; to przesłanie jest aktualne także dzisiaj” - powiedział ostatnio. Nie znosi myśli, że całe narody rzuciły się w wir bezsensownej i niczym nie usprawiedliwionej wojny. To ma być przesłaniem jego następnego tourne – The Wall Tour:


"Sens tego wszystkiego jest dla mnie taki: technologie komunikacji naszych czasów mają służyć do wzajemnego zrozumienia czy są oszustwem i doprowadzą do podziałów między nami?
Uważam, że jest to sprawa najwyższej wagi i decyzje jeszcze nie zapadły. Jest wielki szum(w Sieci, przyp.SL) o charakterze handlowym i wiele propagandy lecz czuję, że pod warstwą tego coraz więcej miejsca zaczyna zajmować współczucie. Musimy kontynuować używania blogów, Twittera by się porozumiewać i podzielać opinie(…)


Jako artysta czuję obowiązek by wyrażać mój ostrożny optymizm i dodawać odwagi innym by czynili to samo”


By oddać hołd ofiarom wojen, Roger Waters poprosił rodziny uwikłane w te zdarzenia by pokazywały fotografie swoich bliskich na jego koncertach:


„Proszę Was o to bo wierzę, że wiele z tych tragicznych strat można było uniknąć. Odczuwam empatię z rodzinami wszystkich ofiar i czuję wściekłość na „wszystkich potężnych”, odpowiedzialnych w jednakowy sposób(…)

Na świecie jest wszystko co niezbędne by zaspokoić głód wszystkich, by się ogrzać i żyć w suchym miejscu i mieć telewizor i samochód.

Uczą nas, że mamy obawiać się dzielenia tego wszystkiego z biednymi bo dla nas nie zostanie nic.

Obawiamy się, że w pewnym momencie mogą zechcieć zabrać nam to wszystko i wydajemy pieniądze na armię, dużo więcej niż byłoby im potrzebne by się wyżywić, godnie mieszkać i wykształcić swoje dzieci.


Jest jeszcze jeden mur między nami. Ten mur to media. W rzeczywistości jest środek używany do odciągnięcia naszej uwagi od niewygodnych prawd.


Za słowami Rogera Watersa idą czyny.


W czerwcu 2006, biorąc do serca postulaty palestyńskiego ruchu BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.), odmówił występu w Tel Avivie, przystępując do bojkotu Izraela. Wyjaśnił, że:


„Cierpienia narodu palestyńskiego podczas trwającej 40 lat okupacji są niewyobrażalne dla nas, ludzi Zachodu. Uważam, że jest to walka o wolność. Zmieniłem miejsce mojego koncertu, który miał się odbyć w Neve Shalom bo solidaryzuję się z tymi głosami rozsądku, palestyńskimi i izraelskimi, które starają się znaleźć drogę bez przemocy do sprawiedliwego pokoju”.


Tak na marginesie, Leonard Cohen nie posłuchał tego apelu i w 2009 wybrał Tel Aviw na miejsce swojego koncertu. Jest jakaś różnica?

W czerwcu 2009 Waters odwiedził mały obóz dla uchodźców w Aida na Terenach Okupowanych. Po tej wizycie powiedział:


„Ludzie, którzy nigdy nie widzieli tego co tu się dzieje, nie mogą sobie tego wyobrazić.”

Poruszony tym co zobaczył obiecał wrócić by zagrać koncert na tej umęczonej ziemi jak tylko mur apartheidu zostanie obalony. Był to sposób na podkreślenie swojego poparcia dla bojkotu państwa odpowiedzialnego za apartheid.


W grudniu 2009, w bardzo emocjonalnym liście, publicznie wyraził swoje uznanie i poparcie dla osób wszystkich narodowości zaangażowanych w konkretne akcje zmierzające do wywarcia nacisku na Izrael, by ten przerwał blokadę Gazy:


„Nazywam się Roger Waters. Jestem angielskim muzykiem i mieszkam w Stanach Zjednoczonych.


(…) Wszyscy widzieliśmy, oniemiali, brutalny atak izraelskich sił zbrojnych na mieszkańców Gazy i ciągłe, bezprawne oblężenie. Cierpienia zadane mieszkańcom Gazy podczas inwazji i oblężenia są niewyobrażalne dla tych, którzy tak jak my żyją poza tymi murami.


(…) Używam celowo słowa 'zbrodnie' bo blokada i inwazja zostały określone jako nielegalne przez ONZ i wszystkie najważniejsze organizacje praw człowieka.

Jeśli nie będziemy przestrzegać praw międzynarodowych, jeśli niektóre rządy będą uważały się za stojące ponad prawem to oznacza, że jesteśmy już tylko o krok od barbarzyństwa i anarchii.

(…) Cała ropa Bliskiego Wschodu nie jest warta życia jednego dziecka.(*)


Gdy człowiek, muzyk, poeta jest zdolny wznieść się na taki poziom lojalności i solidarności gdzie czuć prawdę i szczerość to jego słowa maja niezwykłą moc. To co mówi i jak to wyraża świadczy o jego wielkości. I dzieląc się tym z publicznością daje wszystkim niezwykły impuls do działania.

To chyba jest cel życia każdego artysty.


Ofiary palestyńskie, irackie, afgańskie i z wszystkich innych miejsc, do których kierowane jest to przesłanie miłości, zawieszone między życiem a śmiercią, desperacją i nadzieją, wiedzą, że ich ból słyszany jest także przez poetę, w tym przypadku przez Rogera Watersa.


W 2010 roku Roger Waters, razem z innymi artystami ( Le Corbusier e Jean-Luc Godard) został oskarżony o „antysemityzm” przez osobników wyznania mojżeszowego, których jedynym celem jest podtrzymywanie mitu o nieistniejącym „zagrożeniu antysemickim”. [...]

(*) Slowa Rogera Watersa pochodzą z /www.rogerwaters.org

(tł. J. Ruszkiewicz - SL)

Za spiritolibero.blog.interia.pl

Interview with Pink Floyd's Roger Waters about his support for the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

Published By: Organised Rage - 8 April 2013



Roger Waters is the most famous rock star to have publicly supported the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

A founder of Pink Floyd — a British rock group which has sold more than 250 million albums — Waters decided to become active in the international Palestinian solidarity movement following a trip to the West Bank in 2006. Shocked by the oppression that he witnessed, Waters spray-painted the words “we don’t need no thought control” — a line from one of his biggest hits — on Israel’s wall.

More recently, Waters has served as a juror on the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, an initiative aimed at drawing attention to how Western governments and companies aid Israel’s violations of international law. In that capacity, he addressed the United Nations during November last year.

Visiting Brussels for the tribunal’s final session, Waters said he would explore the idea of releasing a single urging musicians not to perform in Israel. He intends to discuss this project with Steven Van Zandt, the guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, who assembled many well-known musicians to record Sun City, a protest song against apartheid in South Africa during the 1980s.

Waters spoke to electronicintifada.net David Cronin.


David Cronin: Do you think the campaign for a cultural boycott of Israel is having an impact?

Roger Waters: I’d like to think that it was.
My experience when I speak to people to and say “don’t go” is either they reply “that sounds good”or they say “don’t you think it’s better to go there?”

Well, no, I fucking don’t.

I think that the kind of boycott that was implemented against the apartheid regime in South Africa back in the day is probably the most effective way to go because the situation is that the Israeli government runs an apartheid regime in Israel, the occupied territories and everywhere else it decides. Let us not forget that they laid waste to most of Lebanon around the time I started getting involved in this issue. They destroyed airports, hospitals, any public buildings they could.

They are running riot and it seems unlikely that running over there and playing the violin will have any lasting effect.

DC: Have you personally asked any fellow musicians to boycott Israel?

RW: Yeah, I have.

DC: Would you prepared to say who those musicians were?

RW: No, I wouldn’t be. It was entirely private between me and them.

All I would say is that part of my involvement here in the Russell Tribunal today and tomorrow is that I am about to publish an open letter written to all my colleagues in the music industry, asking them to join me in the BDS movement. This is not just to colleagues in the UK or US but around the world.

What caused me to write this public letter was an affair where Stevie Wonder was hired to play a gala dinner for the Israeli Defense Forces on 6 December last year. I wrote a letter to him saying that this would be like playing a police ball in Johannesburg the day after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. It wouldn’t be a great thing to do, particularly as he was meant to be a UN ambassador for peace. It wasn’t just me. Desmond Tutu also wrote a letter.

To his eternal credit, Stevie Wonder called them [the gala’s organizers] up and said “I didn’t quite get it” [and canceled the performance]. This happened one week after I made a speech to the UN. Neither of these events were reported anywhere in the mainstream media in the United States of America.

Both events were almost as important as [TV personality] Kim Kardashian’s bra size. The way they are not being reported means the media must be under instructions from somewhere not to report these things to the American public, on what grounds I cannot guess.
DC: How do you feel about the support for Israel offered by David Cameron’s government in your native Britain?

RW: Cameron has absolutely adopted Tony Blair’s wolf’s clothing that he [Blair] adopted so eagerly and happily when he went to war in Iraq on George Bush’s coat-tails.

Cameron is entirely content for Great Britain to be a satellite nation of the US. None of us can quite understand why.

There is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. The EU’s diplomatic emissaries [in the West Bank] joined together [recently]. They protested the settlements and asked for sanctions. This is almost unprecedented. But the governments of these emissaries have done nothing and continue to do nothing.

I have been very disillusioned with UK foreign policy really since [Harold] Wilson [a Labor Party prime minister during the 1960s and 1970s]. It was such a political turnabout from [Labor leaders] Keir Hardie and [Clement] Attlee and the principles of British socialism. It was a precursor for taking over the country with the appalling monetarist strategies of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. I’m quite ashamed of the way we have behaved. The UK has been royally fucking the world over for centuries — not least you bog Irish.

DC: One of your fellow jurors on the Russell Tribunal, Stéphane Hessel, died recently. Did you know him well?

RW: I knew him very little. What a brave, eloquent, good-hearted, brilliant man.

DC: As a musician, have you had a chance to check out the vibrant Palestinian hip-hop scene?

RW: I haven’t. But if it thrives, I can’t find anything negative about that, so long as it’s not about bling and booty and wearing a baseball cap sideways. So long as it’s about protest and realism, rather than the flight from realism that hip-hop is in the US.

DC: In your speech to the UN, you paid tribute to Rachel Corrie. Is there anything you would like to say about Rachel Corrie, given that it’s the tenth anniversary of her murder?

RW: Her parents attended the [Russell Tribunal] session in New York [last year]. It was very moving.

DC: Do you support the hunger strikes being undertaken by a number of Palestinian prisoners?

RW: The thing about political prisoners is: it doesn’t matter if you are in the Maze [in Northern Ireland] or in a prison somewhere in Israel, your options are very limited. Hunger strikes or dirty protests are some of the very few options to bring attention to your specific predicament.

I respect the brave men and women who go to those lengths. As we know, hunger-striking is not like going on a diet. It is real, dangerous and painful. You don’t do it without compelling reasons.

David Cronin is a contributing editor with The Electronic Intifada. His book Europe’s Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation is published by Pluto Press.
---------------------------------------------------
Thanks to Tony Greenstein for heads up.

From www.organizedrage.com
 

Nick Mason talks about Dark Side of the Moon

BBC Radio 4 - The World Tonight, 28 February 2013

"PinkFloyd's groundbreaking concept album "Dark Side of the Moon" is FORTY years old tomorrow. You could say its themes are just as relevant today - madness, money, identity, disorientation, all the stresses of the modern world. But in 1973, its construction was startling - with its musical episodes flowing one into the other, and its looped and layered sound effects. Its credited as one of the most influential rock albums of all time. This afternoon we sat down with Pink Floyd's drummer Nick Mason in his North London loft, and asked him whether they'd ever suspected the album would be so big..."

http://www.bbc.co.uk
audioboo.fm

listen to ‘Pink Floyd interview’ on Audioboo

Trent Reznor meets Roger Waters - Revolver 11/2000 - In The Flesh

By Alan Di Perna

Roger Waters is waiting for Trent Reznor. "Presumably, they have to rouse him from a drug-induced coma," Waters remarks dryly. "These young rock stars..." Just then Reznor turns up, and, far from being comatose, he seems well-rested and sharp. In fact, anticipation has driven him from bed at an hour most unbeceoming a rock star. "I woke up at 7:30 this morning," he confides. "I was going 'God, I'm gonna talk to Roger Waters today!'"


REVOLVER: Trent, what role has Roger's music played in your own life and work?

Trent Reznor: I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania. Not to sound too kiss-ass, but when The Wall came out, it was a turning point for me. I was in high school at the time, and I remember that music had always been my friend--a companion, the brother I didn't have, or whatever. I came from a broken home. I was alone a lot as a child. And when The Wall came out, that record seemed very personal to me, even though I was in a completely different lifestyle, place, and situation than Roger would have been at that time. I'd never heard music that had that sort of naked, honest emotion. I had that sense of, 'Wow, I'm not the only person who feels this way.' When it came time to start writing my own music, after some failed attempts at generic lyrics, I realized that if I went inward and took journal entries and turned them into songs, it seemed to strike a chord in others.
And then when I made my second album, The Downward Spiral, I aspired to start with a story. I tried to write songs that fit into the slots in the plot line. I soon realized how hard that is. I tried to abandon it. But when I got toward the end of the record, I realized I had kind of done that anyway--what I thought I couldn't do.

Roger Waters: Forgive me, Trent. I don't know your work. I tend not to listen to rock and roll very much--if at all. But it sounds to me as if what you're doing fulfills all the functions that you've described in my work. So there are still those kids on farms in the middle of Pennsylvania yearning to find some meaning in their own lives and discovering it--some of them at least--in music that could be described as underground, or at least not in the mainstream of popular culture.

REVOLVER: Both of you have adopted the full-length concept album as your main medium. You tend to make large statements about the human condition in your work. What is it like to do that in the current musical climate, so characterized by disposability, one-off hit singles, and short attention spans?

TW: It's very difficult, as I've discovered with my most recent record, The Fragile. It's a double album, and it's pretty dense. It takes about five or 10 listenings to really get into it. As a fan, that's what I want when I buy a record--to dig in and go several layers deep. That's the thing about your work, Roger. If you look deeper, you find things.

RW: But not everybody wants to go that deep.

TR: I fully understand that, too. And I think there's something to be said for a nice, appealing surface. But when you want to go looking for a deeper meaning, it ought to be there too. But nobody seems to have the time for that anymore. I guess from hiding in my studio for the past five years, making The Fragile, I wasn't quite aware of how disposable the scene has become. It's a tough blow to withstand--just the way commercialism has turned music more into product than art. You're judged immediately by the first three weeks of your sales. And if it isn't what somebody at the record label said it would be, then it's a failure.

RW: But don't you think it was always that way? All record companies are profit oriented. The holy grail for them is to discover the motherlode of popular taste, in order that they should move huge numbers of product. And they were always that way, in my view. Ahmet Ertegun or anybody else. You know, there are these mythic kind of figures from the early days, like Sam Phillips. But Sam Phillips wouldn't have stuck with Elvis if people hadn't bought the records!

TR: But are the record companies really catering to what the public taste is? Or do they, to a degree, dictate that taste to the public? MTV pumps out their boy bands and their generic blonde teenage icons to the masses. And I wonder how much of that is the public saying, 'What are we supposed to like?' And they're bombarded with that.

RW: I'm sure you're right. MTV is pure Big Brother. It's pure Brave New World. And there's no question but that those who make decisions about the way society works become the arbiters of the quality of human life. In North America, the general trend has been this: You find a piece of wilderness. If there are people or animals living on it, you kill them. Then you build a strip mall that contains a number of the most obviously successful and recognizable icons of the culture you're trying to spread over the land. So, inevitably, there's a McDonald's, a Sam Goody, and all those things. I assume the reason for this is that it's convenient for the policy makers.

It provides them with a system where there's plenty of cream floating around the top to be skimmed off. And I suppose the reason the human race goes along with it is that, as yet, we don't know any better. That seems to be enough for most human beings. Although, if you ask most people, they don't actually feel a great sense of satisfaction in their lives, buying that dream. It's interesting, Trent, that you should be voicing these concerns about this kind of stuff. I find myself not caring about that, really, or about the way the record industry is or what's going to happen to it. Maybe that's very selfish of me. But it may be that that wall of unconcern is almost necessary to some of the rest of us, in order that we should have a reference point to develop against.

REVOLVER: Speaking of the demands of the marketplace, you are both in the midst of preparing DVDs of your recent tours. What is it like to encapsulate something like a rock and roll tour in this new medium?

TR: Roger, is your DVD basically your live show?

RW: Yeah, it's the live show--and a documentary, if we can get it all on. Well, actually, we can't get it all on. So I'm trying at the moment to persuade the record company to give the documentary away with the rest of the stuff. This particular DVD can be only two and half hours long, and our show is two-and-a-half hours long. So I'm under a lot of pressure to edit it--take stuff out.

TR: Make your product more appealing to the marketplace?

RW: Yeah, exactly. We were under that pressure with the live album of the shows, as well. 'You should really put this out as a single CD, because it's more marketable.' And I confess I did have a look at editing. I wrote a few song lists and thought, 'I can't do this. This is ridiculous.' So we persuaded the record company to sell a double CD at a reasonable price. I think live albums should be much less expensive than studio albums. The costs of making a live album are minimal compared to a studio album. You just take a mobile to two or three gigs, record them, and choose the best bits.

REVOLVER: Are you taking the same kind of approach on your DVD, Trent--a straight document of the show itself?

TR: That's the focus of this one. And I'm taking a very hands- on approach. In the past I've made the mistake of hiring 'the guys who really know how to do this.' What happens is your concert footage ends up looking just like everyone else's. So for this one, we just got seven good digital video cameras and filmed the last 10 shows of the tour from seven different perspectives--some locked-off shots, some hand-held, a lot from the audience--to give a sense of what it was like to be there, in a non-professional kind of way. We adopted that same kind of attitude in post production too. We thought wewould edit it here in my studio on a Mac in Final Cut Pro. That led to, 'Maybe we could adapt our studio for 5.1 Surround Sound,' which we ended up doing. There have been a lot of hassles, but it's also been very educational.

RW: You're lucky enough to be in a position where you can make those choices, which is great.

TR: Well, the timeline might be running out on that, given the sales of my last record. But I'm trying to keep as much in-house as possible. You see, I had a really bad experience with the first record label I was signed to. And when I finally got out of that situation and onto a new label, I said, 'Here's the deal. You give me a chunk of money and I'll give you a record. I don't want A&R. I don't want any interference. I'll give you magazine ads. I'll give you a video. I don't want your help.' So that provided me with an in-house situation where I could do what I want without meddling fingers from record label strangers.

And now I'm trying to get this DVD done to meet what is a pretty unrealistic deadline. And trying to get my head around the fact that almost nobody is ever going to listen to this with the right setup. Most people can't set a stereo up, let alone six speakers with the right level balance and the right distance between speakers.

RW: I actually think you're fighting a losing battle, trying to recreate anything like the experience of being at a rock and roll show with a DVD. Basically, they're home movies. I regret not having made home movies of The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking and the Radio K.A.O.S. tours [1984 and '87, respectively]. And I'm so glad that I will have a home movie of the 2000 In the Flesh tour. I want to have it to put in a cupboard somewhere and maybe show to my grandchildren. But I don't know if it's something that interests me that much, I have to say. I don't really care about it. Frankly, I'd rather be fishing. Or reading. But you know, I'm 56 years old. How old are you?

TR: 35.

RW: So it's kind of relative. There's 21 years? difference. I might have cared more when I was 35. Not that I'm saying that you will eventually achieve fishing.

TR: I'm looking forward to it, actually.

RW: But from the tenor of this conversation, it sounds like you're more involved in this stuff than I am.

TR: I suppose I can't help it. My first record came out 10 years ago. It unexpectedly touched a nerve. The second record got 10 times bigger than we ever thought it was going to be. We just happened to be in the right place at the right time. It propelled us 20 levels higher than we should have been, really.

RW: You mean 20 levels more popular.

TR: Yeah. You find yourself being referenced by popular culture now.

RW: Well, you do. But you can either choose to reference yourself like that, or not. And we all chose to do that, to a certain extent. If you're in rock and roll, you have to accept that part of the reason why you're there is because you like being patted on the back. Probably didn't get enough of it when you were a kid. That's certainly true of me. If we didn't have those needs we wouldn?t be in rock and roll anyway.

TR: That's true. But I disappeared for five years to get my brain straightened out. I came back with a really dense album that I think is the best I can do. But it's substantially different from what I've done in he past. It's not as obvious. And it sold well, but it didn't sell great. So now I'm settling into this...When I first started out, I'd ride around the country in a van 10 times if I needed to. I'd do interviews all day if I needed to.

RW: But you sound confused by this, slightly.

TR: Well, I'm getting over the hump of realizing that I'm settling into what is right for me, artistically. But it might not be accessible for mass consumption.

RW: Well, okay. So it's not. So you've recognized that. All you need to do is recognize that and then forget about it. Because it's uncontrollable. I think the one thing we all have to understand is that you can't go chasing the audience. That would be a living death for anyone who is serious about what they do. It sounds like you're agonizing about this stuff. And this is now me being wise after the event. I've been through the same agonies. But at the end of the day, I've had to understand that all you can do is your work. Maybe nobody will buy any of it. That could happen. You might make a record five years down the road and four people will buy it, you know?

TR: Right.

RW: Modigliani never sold any pictures. Van Gogh peddled his pictures for a bowl of soup. Some of these geniuses never got any reward at all in their lifetimes. Except the reward that comes from doing your work and understanding your connection with the mathematics of life, or God, or whatever you want to call it.

TR: That's obvious to me. But it's really nice to hear you say that.

RW: I've been through some of the same things, clearly. I've had a couple of big hit singles in my life, when I was with Pink Floyd. And I feel good about the work that I've done since then, particularly Amused to Death [1992]. I've sold a few records. Not big numbers. But that's just the way it is. The cool thing is the moment when you put that last brush stroke to the painting, stand back and go 'Ahhhh.' You know you've done good work. That's all you can expect.

REVOLVER: All these concerns about how your work is received by the public--do they become more acute, more stressful, when you're touring?

RW: Not any more for me. On my last tour the audiences were ages 15 through 50, but more 20-year-olds than anything else, as far as I could see. And they knew the songs. They like them. The songs have meaning to them. It was kind of a warm, touchy-feely experience for me. And I'm ashamed to say that I loved it. I'm now in a state emotionally where I can recognize, absorb, and enjoy that connection with the audience. Whereas maybe 10 or 15 years ago I couldn't. Because I was still essentially the tall guy in black, standing in the corner scowling at everyone: 'Stay away. Leave me alone.'

TR: I know that guy.

RW: And I don't feel like that now. So it was fun. And we have really good relationships within the band, so I wasn't going through all that muck I went through with Pink Floyd.

TR: It's gotta feel good to look out and see an audience of some young people who are just discovering your music, realizing that it has a timeless quality to it.

RW: It's great. We're only just beginning to discover that about rock and roll. It didn't really start until the mid-Fifties, so it's still a very young thing. And it may be that some of us will eventually turn into Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong. The artists involved in rock and roll only have to get old enough for people to say, 'Hey, what a big surprise. They lasted. It wasn't just an overnight teenage rebellion thing. It was jazz!' So there's room for what you and I do, Trent, and there's room for the boy bands and all the soft porn that's out there masquerading as rock and roll. Actually, it doesn't masquerade as rock and roll. It calls itself pop music. And I guess it was always that way.

REVOLVER: Do either of you resent being portrayed in the media as gloomy purveyors of depressing music?

TR: When Nine Inch Nails first got big, I got labeled as the most gloomy person in the world. I realized in time that my own self image was starting to become what I'd read about myself. Or how I was being treated by people around me, who only knew what they'd read about me. So it became a self-fulfilling prophecy, because there was no time for rational thought amidst the madness of touring and not having a home. No time to get a perspective of how my life was changing--from poverty to wealth, from obscurity to being some sort of icon. In the end, it took some time to say, 'Okay, who is really underneath all these layers of shit that have been built up?' From that point on, you realize that the media's just a game. The celebrity thing means nothing to me. It's more of an irritant than anything else.

RW: About the time Pink Floyd really got popular--which was after Dark Side of the Moon [1972] and during The Wall, I guess-- I just distanced myself from everything. On the Animals tour [1977] and the one before that we had a publicist, and his job was to say no [i.e., to interview requests]. Just politely say no to everything. I did that for years and years. Looking back on those days, I'm so glad I refused to do The Tonight Show, refused to speak to Barbara Walters or do the covers of magazines. Particularly the chat show TV thing. I think if you start doing that stuff, you're saying to people, 'Okay I'm yours. Take me.' But hey, guys, il faut partir. I must go.

REVOLVER: Thanks for doing this, Roger.

RW: Hey, it's been a pleasure. And nice talking to you, Trent.

TR: Really nice, Roger.

RW: Now I'm going to have to buy one of your records to see who you are.

TR: Maybe I'll even send you one.

RW: That would be great. Why not all of them? That would be good. I look forward to hearing them.

From www.pink-floyd.org