Global InformationRoger Waters information
Roger Waters | |
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 Waters at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2020 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | George Roger Waters |
| Born | 6 September 1943 Great Bookham, England |
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| Years active | 1964–present |
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| Spouse(s) | List
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| Members | List |
| Website | rogerwaters |
George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English musician and singer-songwriter. In 1965, he co-founded the rock band Pink Floyd as the bassist. Following the departure of the songwriter, Syd Barrett, in 1968, Waters became Pink Floyd's lyricist, co-lead vocalist and conceptual leader until his departure in 1985.
Pink Floyd achieved international success with the concept albums The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977), The Wall (1979), and The Final Cut (1983). By the early 1980s, they had become one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful groups in popular music. Amid creative differences, Waters left in 1985 and began a legal dispute over the use of the band's name and material. They settled out of court in 1987. Waters's solo work includes the studio albums The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking (1984), Radio K.A.O.S. (1987), Amused to Death (1992), and Is This the Life We Really Want? (2017). In 2005, he released Ça Ira, an opera translated from Étienne and Nadine Roda-Gils' libretto about the French Revolution.
In 1990, Waters staged one of the largest rock concerts in history, The Wall – Live in Berlin, with an attendance of 450,000. As a member of Pink Floyd, he was inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. Later in 2005, he reunited with Pink Floyd for the Live 8 global awareness event, the group's only appearance with Waters since 1981. He has toured extensively as a solo act since 1999. He performed The Dark Side of the Moon for his world tour of 2006–2008, and The Wall Live, his tour of 2010–2013, was the highest-grossing tour by a solo artist at the time.
Waters incorporates political themes in his work and is a prominent supporter of Palestine in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He has called for the removal of the Israeli West Bank Barrier, supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, and describes Israel's treatment of Palestinians as apartheid. Some of his comments, such as his likening of Israel to Nazi Germany, and elements of his live shows, drew accusations of antisemitism, which Waters dismissed as a conflation of anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.
- ^ "Roger Waters". Desert Island Discs. 29 May 2011. BBC Radio 4. Archived from the original on 20 February 2014. Retrieved 18 January 2014.