114 Facts About Roger Waters

George Roger Waters was born on 6 September 1943 and is an English singer-songwriter, musician, and activist.

Roger Waters is best known as the co-founder of Pink Floyd, initially as the bassist, and later as lead lyricist, co-lead vocalist and conceptual leader until his departure in 1985.

Amid creative differences, Waters left in 1985 and began a legal dispute over the use of the band's name and material.

Roger Waters has toured extensively as a solo act since 1999.

Elements of his live show and some of his comments, such as his likening of Israel to Nazi Germany, drew accusations of antisemitism, which Roger Waters dismissed as a conflation with anti-Zionism.

Roger Waters has been likened as one of the most significant and popular lyricists of his time, and has been recognized for his role in several Pink Floyd albums, especially in the 1970s.

Roger Waters was born on 6 September 1943, the younger of two boys, to Mary and Eric Fletcher Roger Waters, in Great Bookham, Surrey.

Roger Waters's father, the son of a coal miner and Labour Party activist, was a schoolteacher, a devout Christian, and a Communist Party member.

Roger Waters later changed his stance on pacifism, joined the Territorial Army and was commissioned into the 8th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers as a Second Lieutenant on 11 September 1943.

Roger Waters was killed five months later on 18 February 1944 at Aprilia, during the Battle of Anzio, when Roger was five months old.

On 18 February 2014, Roger Waters unveiled a monument to his father and other war casualties in Aprilia, Italy and was made an honorary citizen of Anzio.

Roger Waters attended Morley Memorial Junior School in Cambridge and then the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys with Syd Barrett.

At 15, Roger Waters was chairman of the Cambridge Youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, having designed its publicity poster and participated in its organisation.

Roger Waters was a keen sportsman and a highly regarded member of the high school's cricket and rugby teams.

Roger Waters met future Pink Floyd members Nick Mason and Richard Wright in London, at the Regent Street Polytechnic School of Architecture.

Roger Waters enrolled there in 1962, after a series of aptitude tests indicated he was well suited to that field.

Roger Waters initially considered a career in mechanical engineering.

Roger Waters played rhythm guitar, Mason played drums, Wright played any keyboard he could arrange to use, and Noble's sister Sheilagh provided occasional vocals.

Roger Waters wrote or co-wrote all but one track of their debut LP The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, released in August 1967.

Roger Waters contributed the song "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk" to the album.

Roger Waters said he wanted to "drag [Pink Floyd] kicking and screaming back from the borders of space, from the whimsy that Syd was into, to my concerns, which were much more political and philosophical".

Roger Waters became a dominant songwriter and the band's principal lyricist, sharing lead vocals with Gilmour and sometimes Wright.

Roger Waters wrote most of the lyrics to the five Pink Floyd albums preceding his departure, starting with The Dark Side of the Moon and ending with The Final Cut, while exerting progressively more creative control.

The Wall, written almost entirely by Roger Waters, is largely based on his life story.

Roger Waters's lyrics were critical of the Conservative Party government of the day and mention Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by name.

Amidst creative differences, Roger Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 and began a legal battle with the band regarding their continued use of the name and material.

In December 1985, Roger Waters issued a statement to EMI and CBS invoking the "Leaving Member" clause in his contract.

Roger Waters did not want the band to use the name Pink Floyd without him.

Roger Waters was released from his contractual obligation with O'Rourke, and he retained the copyrights to the Wall concept and the inflatable Animals pig.

Roger Waters toured the album with Clapton, a new band, and new material; the shows included a selection of Pink Floyd songs.

Roger Waters debuted his tour in Stockholm on 16 June 1984.

In 1986, Roger Waters contributed songs and a score to the soundtrack of the animated film When the Wind Blows, based on the book by Raymond Briggs.

Roger Waters's band featuring, Paul Carrack, was credited as the Bleeding Heart Band.

Leonard Cheshire asked Roger Waters to perform the concert to raise funds for charity.

Roger Waters's musicians included Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Cyndi Lauper, Bryan Adams, Scorpions, and Sinead O'Connor.

Roger Waters released a double album of the performance, which has been certified platinum by the RIAA.

In 1990, Roger Waters hired manager Mark Fenwick and left EMI for a worldwide deal with Columbia.

Roger Waters released his third studio album, Amused to Death, in 1992.

Roger Waters described the record as a "stunning piece of work", ranking it alongside Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall as one of the best of his career.

In 1996, Roger Waters was inducted into the US and UK Rock and Roll Halls of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd.

In 1999, after a 12-year hiatus from touring and a seven-year absence from the music industry, Roger Waters embarked on the In the Flesh tour, performing both solo and Pink Floyd material.

The tour was a financial success in the US; though Roger Waters had booked mostly smaller venues, tickets sold so well that many of the concerts were upgraded to larger ones.

Miramax announced in 2004 that a production of The Wall was to appear on Broadway with Roger Waters playing a prominent role in the creative direction.

In July 2004, Roger Waters released two new tracks online: "To Kill the Child", inspired by the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and "Leaving Beirut", an anti-war song inspired by his travels in the Middle East as a teenager.

In July 2005, Roger Waters reunited with Mason, Wright, and Gilmour for their final performance together at the 2005 Live 8 concert in London's Hyde Park, Pink Floyd's only appearance with Roger Waters since their final performance of The Wall at Earls Court London 24 years earlier.

Roger Waters told the Associated Press that while the experience of playing with Pink Floyd again was positive, the chances of a bona fide reunion would be "slight" considering his and Gilmour's continuing musical and ideological differences.

In June 2006, Roger Waters began the two-year Dark Side of the Moon Live world tour.

Roger Waters released it as a single, on CD and via download, and described it as "a song that captures the themes of the movie, the clash between humanity's best and worst instincts, and how a child's innocence can win the day".

Roger Waters performed at California's Coachella Festival in April 2008 and was to be among the headlining artists at Live Earth 2008 in Mumbai, India, in December 2008, but the concert was cancelled following the 26 November terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

In June 2010, Roger Waters released a cover of "We Shall Overcome", a protest song rewritten and arranged by Guy Carawan and Pete Seeger.

Roger Waters performed with Gilmour at the Hoping Foundation Benefit Evening in July 2010.

In September 2010, Roger Waters began the Wall Live tour, an updated version of the original Pink Floyd tour, featuring a complete performance of The Wall.

Roger Waters performed at the Concert for Sandy Relief at Madison Square Garden on 12 December 2012.

Roger Waters performed at the Desert Trip festival in October 2016.

Roger Waters returned to North America in 2017 with the Us + Them Tour, performing Pink Floyd and solo material.

On 18 April 2019, Roger Waters joined Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets on stage at the Beacon Theatre to sing "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun".

Roger Waters was one of the ten highest-grossing concert acts of the decade.

In January 2020, Roger Waters announced a new arena tour, This Is Not a Drill, that would tour North America and finish one month before the 2020 presidential election.

In 2021, Roger Waters said he had begun writing a memoir during the pandemic.

In 2021, Roger Waters wrote publicly of their disputes over Pink Floyd reissues and credits, accusing Gilmour of distorting the truth, and complained that Gilmour would not allow him to use Pink Floyd's website and social media channels.

Shortly afterwards, Polly Samson, the wife of Gilmour and a lyricist for Pink Floyd, wrote on Twitter that Roger Waters was antisemitic and "a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy megalomaniac".

Roger Waters is a member of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, a campaign for an international boycott of Israel.

Roger Waters first saw the Israeli West Bank barrier in 2006, at the request of Palestinian supporters, when he was scheduled to perform in Tel Aviv.

Roger Waters has criticised numerous other artists who have performed in Israel.

In 2015, Roger Waters published an open letter in Salon criticising the rock band Bon Jovi for performing in Tel Aviv.

Roger Waters narrated the 2016 documentary The Occupation of the American Mind: Israel's Public Relations War in the United States about the methods used by Israel to shape American public opinion.

Roger Waters responded that it was one of several religious and political symbols in the show and not an attempt to single out Judaism as an evil force.

In 2020, Major League Baseball stopped advertising Roger Waters's This Is Not a Drill concerts after receiving criticism from Jewish advocacy groups.

Later that year, Roger Waters said the American Jewish businessman and Republican Party donor Sheldon Adelson was a "puppet master" controlling American politics.

On 25 February 2023, the German city of Frankfurt cancelled one of Roger Waters's scheduled shows, calling him one of the "most widely known antisemites" and citing his support for BDS, the imagery at his shows and his talks with Hamas.

Roger Waters hired a German law firm to challenge the concert cancellation, and released a statement denying the accusations and stating that the cancellation could have "serious, far-reaching consequences for artists and activists all over the world".

Roger Waters has long used similar uniforms for performances of The Wall, in which the protagonist hallucinates himself as a fascist dictator.

The US Department of State called it "deeply offensive to Jewish people" and accused Roger Waters of having a record of using antisemitic tropes.

Roger Waters said the use of fascist imagery was a statement in "opposition to fascism, injustice and bigotry".

Roger Waters pointed out that he had been using Nazi-inspired uniforms in performances since 1980, but they had only recently attracted controversy.

Roger Waters felt the criticism was disingenuous and politically motivated, and that he had been attacked at the behest of the "Israeli lobby" in Germany.

Roger Waters said that the Israeli government was attempting to discredit him as they saw him as an "existential threat to their settler-colonialist, racist, apartheid regime".

Roger Waters said he was "pissed off with this Israeli lobby bullshit" and accused critics of "making up stuff because you've been told to by your masters from the Foreign Office in Tel Aviv".

In September 2023, a documentary alleging antisemitism by Waters, The Dark Side of Roger Waters, directed by John Ware, was released by the British group Campaign Against Antisemitism.

Roger Waters responded in a statement that he was "frequently mouthy and prone to irreverence" but not antisemitic, and that the film misrepresented his views.

Ware sued for libel after Roger Waters described called him a "lying, conniving Zionist mouthpiece" and accused him of "cheerleading the genocide of Palestinians" in interview on Al Jazeera.

On 25 February, 2025, a London High Court judge ruled that Roger Waters' comments were defamatory, advancing the case towards trial.

Roger Waters said in an interview with Glenn Greenwald that the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel may have been a false flag operation and that "resistance to the Israeli occupation" is legally and morally justifiable.

The Hyatt Centric and the Regency Hotels in Montevideo denied Roger Waters accommodation based on the right of admission.

On 5 September 2022, Roger Waters published an open letter to Olena Zelenska, the First Lady of Ukraine.

Roger Waters accused Ukrainian "extreme nationalists" of starting the war and made no mention of Russia's responsibility for the invasion.

Roger Waters argued that the West should not provide Ukraine with weapons, and that Western governments were prolonging the war with their support.

Roger Waters urged her husband to end the war based on the Minsk agreements.

Roger Waters condemned the invasion of Ukraine as illegal, but said it was "not unprovoked" and "condemned the provocateurs" and called for a ceasefire.

Roger Waters was praised by Russia's deputy UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy.

In February 2025, Roger Waters made another speech to the United Nations Security Council, which was requested by Russia for the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Minsk II agreement.

Roger Waters accused the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of abandoning the Minsk agreements, in breach of his election promise, and accused the former UK prime minister Boris Johnson of acting for the US to stop peace talks.

Roger Waters criticised the Hunting Act of 2004 and supported the Countryside Alliance, but explained he was defending the right to hunt rather than supporting the activity himself.

Roger Waters explained that whether he supported hunting or not, it was important to defend it as a right.

In 2007, Roger Waters became a spokesman for Millennium Promise, a non-profit organisation fighting poverty and malaria.

In 2015, Roger Waters said that socialism was "a good thing", and called for socialised healthcare in the United States.

Roger Waters is supportive of veterans, which he partly attributes to the death of his father in World War II.

Roger Waters allocates a block of tickets for veterans at his shows.

In 2017, Roger Waters condemned Trump's plan to build a wall separating the US and Mexico, drawing parallels to The Wall.

In 2018, Roger Waters included the Brazilian far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro in a list of "neo-fascists" displayed on a screen at his concert in Sao Paulo, which drew mixed responses from the crowd.

In 2019, Roger Waters spoke at a rally outside the Home Office calling for the release of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and dedicated a performance of "Wish You Were Here" to him.

Roger Waters endorsed the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in the 2019 UK general election, describing him as a "beacon of hope".

Roger Waters endorsed the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro for the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, saying the main Venezuelan opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, is a "sockpuppet" of the US government.

Gilmour said that Roger Waters used a limited, simple style and had not been interested in improving, and that Gilmour had played many of the bass parts on Pink Floyd records.

Roger Waters began using Fender Precision Basses in 1968, originally alongside the Rickenbacker 4001, and then exclusively after the Rickenbacker was lost in 1970.

Roger Waters has used Selmer, WEM, Hiwatt, and Ashdown amplifiers but used Ampeg for later tours.

Roger Waters has employed delay, tremolo, chorus, stereo panning and phaser effects in his bass playing.

Roger Waters plays trumpet during concert performances of "Outside the Wall".

Roger Waters wrote that the lyrics of "Comfortably Numb" were "the greatest ever in rock music".

In 1969, Roger Waters married his childhood sweetheart, Judith Trim, a school teacher and potter.

Roger Waters was featured on the gatefold sleeve of the original release of the Pink Floyd album Ummagumma, but excised from CD reissues.

In 1976, Roger Waters married Carolyne Christie, the niece of the third Marquess of Zetland.

In 2004, Roger Waters became engaged to the actress and filmmaker Laurie Durning.

Roger Waters married his fifth wife, Kamilah Chavis, in October 2021.