Pink Floyd bassist, Roger Waters, stopped by the infamous Howard Stern radio show yesterday (Jan.18) to promote the return of his 'The Wall' tour to the US, reports UltimateClassicRock
Stern wasted no time in approaching the gloomy subject of Waters departure from the band and he (Waters) admitted that it was wrong of him to fall out with his former bandmates after his departure.
Stern asked: "Don’t you think the bravest thing you ever did was getting out of that band and going off on your own? Cause you could’ve stayed in the security of that band if you put up with their bullshit."
To which Waters replied: "Yeah I could have done that… but no, no, I had to leave."
After being asked by Stern if he (Walters) thought it was wrong that the band conitued playing his songs after he'd left the psyc-rock legends, Waters quite openly replied:
"No, I don’t think so. I think I was wrong to think they were wrong."
Stern then enquired what portion of 'the Wall' Waters wrote, to which he replied:
"Well all the ideas generated (on ‘the Wall’)…I think 96% of it is officially down to me"
Stern continued: "So would you say most of the Floyd stuff is just you, do you ever just wish you’d done it solo?"
"Oh absolutely not, no!," Waters shot back. "We were a cracking team when we were younger. From ’68 to ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ we were a pretty tightly knit group."
Waters was then quizzed on the notorious spitting incident which inspired 'The Wall' :
"I love that story about how one night you got so angry on stage that you spit on somebody in the audience and that’s where the idea came that you wanted to build a wall between yourself and the audience. Is that correct?" queried Stern. To which Waters humbly replied:
"It is…to my eternal shame. But he was climbing up the front of the fucking stage!!!".
Nearing the end of the interview the Stern asked when the band first started to make real money, and how that affected band relations negatively.
"1973, ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ was the first time we made any cash," replied Waters, "we were reasonably generous with one another at that time. I think once you’ve achieved that measure of success, you’ve really done what it was that you set out to do together. From then on it was really about clinging to the trademark in a kind of frightened way, not wanting to lose the umbrella with the words Pink and Floyd together."