David Gilmour has opened up about his fractured relationship with former Pink Floyd bandmate Roger Waters, noting that he had no regrets about what has recently transpired between them.
Specifically, Gilmour told Mojo that a tweet he sent in January 2023 regarding Waters’ alleged antisemitism “was boiling up. … It had to come out – and I have no regrets about it. No regrets whatsoever.”
After Gilmour and Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason released a single, “Hey Hey Rise Up,” under the band’s name in 2022 as a protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Waters called the song “content-less [and] flag waving.”
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Gilmour’s wife and collaborator Polly Samson then wrote on Twitter that Waters was a “Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy megalomaniac.” “Every word demonstrably true,” noted Gilmour as a follow-up to his wife’s tweet.
For his part, Waters said he had “no comment, it’s private,” when asked about the tweet during an interview this year.
Gilmour was also asked in the Mojo interview what he thought of Waters’ 2023 remake of Pink Floyd’s classic The Dark Side of the Moon. He said he didn’t listen to it and said questions about his relationship with Waters are “wearisome.”
“Do you know what decade of my life I was in when Roger left our pop group?” he asked. “My 30s. I am now 78. Where’s the relevance?”
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Gilmour recently released his fifth solo album, Luck and Strange, and has a series of live shows in the U.S., his first in eight years, starting on Oct. 29. He begins a run of European tour dates on Sept. 27.
He had previously stated that he may not perform any songs from Pink Floyd’s ’70s albums during the upcoming shows. Gilmour clarified his stance to Mojo.
“There are songs from the past that I no longer feel comfortable singing,” he said, pointing out that he loves the music for The Wall‘s “Run Like Hell,” “but all that, “You’d better run, run, run,” I now find that all rather, I don’t know … a bit terrifying and violent.
“‘Another Brick in the Wall” is another one I shan’t be doing. I don’t think I’ve done that with my own band, but I certainly did it in the post-Roger Pink Floyd, against my better judgment. The same with ‘Money.’ I won’t be doing that. I’m going to be sticking with the ones that are essentially my music, and I feel some ownership of. ‘Comfortably Numb,’ ‘Wish You Were Here,’ ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond,’ maybe.”
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