How Roger Waters Took Control of Pink Floyd — And Then Lost the Band

By the summer of Nineteen Seventy-Seven, Pink Floyd were one of the biggest bands in the world. But during the final concert of their In the Flesh tour in Montreal, something happened that revealed just how uncomfortable Roger Waters had become with the world surrounding the band.

Standing on stage before an enormous stadium audience, Waters lost his temper with a fan at the front and spat in his face.

Waters was disgusted by what he had done. The incident helped inspire the idea of constructing a wall between performer and audience — an idea that would eventually become one of Pink Floyd’s most ambitious albums.

But another wall was also developing inside the band itself.

Before Roger Waters Took Control

Pink Floyd had originally revolved around Syd Barrett, whose songwriting and personality drove their early psychedelic success. When Barrett’s behaviour became increasingly unpredictable, David Gilmour joined the group and Barrett eventually departed.

That left Waters, Gilmour, Richard Wright and Nick Mason searching for a new identity.

During the years that followed, their different strengths complemented each other. Gilmour brought distinctive guitar playing and vocals, Wright contributed keyboards and sophisticated harmonic ideas, Mason provided the rhythmic foundation, while Waters increasingly concentrated on lyrics, concepts and the overall structure of their work.

That combination reached an extraordinary peak with The Dark Side of the Moon in Nineteen Seventy-Three.

Waters wrote all of the album’s lyrics and provided its central thematic framework, but the finished record remained very much a group achievement. Its enormous success transformed Pink Floyd — and gradually changed the balance within the band.

The success of The Dark Side of the Moon transformed Pink Floyd into one of the world’s biggest bands.

The Balance Begins to Shift

By Wish You Were Here, disagreements over the direction of Pink Floyd were becoming more obvious.

Waters wanted a tightly structured album centred partly around the music industry and memories of Syd Barrett. Gilmour favoured retaining more of the long pieces the band had already developed live. Waters ultimately got his way.

His influence grew further with Animals, and by the end of the subsequent stadium tour, relations between the musicians had deteriorated badly.

The Montreal incident then gave Waters the starting point for his next major concept.

Building The Wall

Waters developed the story of Pink, a damaged rock star who gradually isolates himself behind an imaginary wall. His own experiences — including the death of his father during the Second World War and his growing alienation from Pink Floyd’s enormous audiences — fed into the story.

Producer Bob Ezrin helped turn Waters’s sprawling concept into a workable double album, but the sessions exposed how dysfunctional the band had become.

The greatest casualty was Richard Wright.

Following a bitter dispute during production, Wright was forced out of the partnership. Remarkably, he subsequently returned as a salaried musician for The Wall concerts. The production was so expensive that Wright, receiving a fixed wage rather than sharing the losses, ended up as the only member to make money from the shows.

The Wall became one of Pink Floyd’s greatest achievements while relationships inside the band continued to deteriorate.

When Pink Floyd Finally Broke Apart

By The Final Cut in Nineteen Eighty-Three, Waters’s dominance was unmistakable. The album was even presented as a work by Roger Waters performed by Pink Floyd.

Relations with Gilmour had become extremely hostile, and the collaborative Pink Floyd that had created The Dark Side of the Moon barely existed.

In December Nineteen Eighty-Five, Waters formally left.

He believed Pink Floyd had effectively reached its end.

Gilmour and Mason disagreed.

They began making new music under the Pink Floyd name, leading Waters to launch legal proceedings as the former bandmates fought over whether Pink Floyd could continue without him.

The dispute was eventually settled outside court. Gilmour and Mason retained the ability to continue recording and touring as Pink Floyd, while Waters retained specific rights associated with The Wall and other elements of the band’s work.

Pink Floyd subsequently returned with A Momentary Lapse of Reason and embarked on an enormous world tour.

The man who had gradually become Pink Floyd’s dominant creative force had left believing the band’s story was effectively over.

Instead, Pink Floyd carried on without him.