For being such a big fan of their music, I admit I know surprisingly little about their dynamic. I was unaware Dave recorded the bulk of the bass material. Was also unaware of Waters going on record belittling the instrument so often…I kind of retract my previous statement of adoration for his tone and approach. Replace his name with David Gilmour. Makes sense. His instinct for hitting the perfect notes at the perfect time are legendary. Even against far more technical players, his solos never leave me feeling like they could have been better written.
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Thoughts on Roger Waters as a Bass Player
- Thread starter Pow R Tosh
- Start date
I don't equate Roger Waters with bass at all really. They needed some bass, there was a P bass laying around and he picked up.....inbetween programming the very first sequencer and creating the greatest prog music the planet has ever seen. having said that his lines specially in Dark Side are absolutely perfect.
I've never given him much thought. Not gonna start now. Lol.
Ric5
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- Jan 29, 2008
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Sure. But my point was that the post I was replying to painted it as "rich ******** that have chosen to not get along."
I'll agree that his characterization would be accurate for say, The Eagles in the 80s. Or any number of other bands.
In this case there was a very fundamental betrayal and a decade or so of bad blood. It's more than just "these guys chose to not get along."
As is, Mason and Wright didn't stay with Gilmour as much as Waters abandoned his claim to the name. Mason and Gilmour were the only ones left then as Wright had been fired. Waters assumed they wouldn't be able to continue without his input. As the remaining band members weren't prolific in their writing output.
Which factually wasn't far off. All of the post Waters PF material required an army of outside collaborators. As the remaining members, weren't consistent songwriters. Like. Yes. Gilmour would come up with a few songs per album. But he never came to the table with 3/4+ of an album, outside of Animals.
Which also kinda undermines the "Waters aggressively took over the band" narrative that's been touted for years. That's how he's characterized by the remaining members. In his eyes it was "they didn't show up prepared with song ideas and someone had to take charge." Similar to say Paul McCartney in the Beatles, after Lennon started getting wasted.
So. Again. More complicated than rich guys with their heads up their asses.
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Yeah, I guess Gilmour was Syd's buddy first, not Waters. Gilmour and Syd busked together in Europe before Floyd's bigger fame happened:
In August 1965, Barrett (without the band) together with other Cambridge friends, went to St. Tropez, in France, travelling via Land Rover, meeting up with Gilmour at the end of the journey. There, Barrett and Gilmour were arrested for busking Beatles songs on the streets. Later, they trekked to Paris, camping outside the city for the course of a week and visiting one of the landmarks, the Louvre. After arriving back in London, the entire band was taking acid frequently.
Complicated, indeed.
Really enjoying reading all your thoughts and opinions, thank you. I never really thought about David Gilmour probably playing a lot of the bass in the studio, and maybe writing a good portion of the bass lines. One of my faves, whether it's technical or not, is the bass line played on Have a Cigar. Never could work out how that is played or the effects used etc.
Yet despite having played with Barrett, Gilmour happily said "yes" when he was asked to replace him.
That frankly doesn't paint him in a positive light, in my opinion. Much like how taking over band and butting heads with the primary songwriter, doesn't paint him in a positive light.
It's legit like a bad marriage. So many layers to unravel before you can see a hint of truth.
Imo the truth is that Gilmour's characterization of Waters as being controlling wasn't inaccurate. But that Waters view that he was forced to have an outsized creative impact, because the rest of the band wasn't providing material and were kinda lazy and entitled, wasn't inaccurate either.
The thing that crystallized that to me was seeing Waters and Gilmour live.
Waters poured every ounce of energy he had into his 2 and 1/2 hour+ long shows. All 3 times I've seen him he ran back and forth while singing for the majority of the set. He was like 65 the first time I saw him and maybe 72 the last, which makes it even more impressive. He's clearly very dedicated to getting his message out. His stage show has obvious attention to detail. Every minute of footage is crafted to fit with the song. It's all very high effort.
Gilmour stood still for like 90 minutes and played a bunch of Floyd material note for note. Didn't really interact with the crowd. His light show in 2016/2017 was the same as the one he'd had on his On An Island tour in 2006 or whatever. Super basic. It was very low effort.
Ticket price for either was more or less the same. Despite the dramatically different production values.
Very stark contrast. Made it clear to me which party cared, and which put in as little effort as possible.
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Fair one. I was only ever fortunate to see Pink Floyd in 1994 at Earls Court, so glad to have seen them at all. I'll check out some Roger Waters vids online, thanks. I gotta be honest, not a fan of Endless River, or majority of Momentary Lapse, but really like Division Bell - suppose because that was the period I saw them. If I had a time machine I'd go back to the Barrett era though for sure!
Because he didn't, unless of course you assume the album credits are wildly inaccurate. The only albums he's credited with playing a large percentage of the bass on are Animals and The Wall, and even on the latter Waters played a large percentage of the bass lines.
As far as Mason and Wright go their presence in the post Waters Pink Floyd initially seems to have been as much for claiming the band name as their musical contributions. Their actual role on A Momentary Lapse of Reason has been admitted to have been pretty limited, while The Division Bell was far more of an actual band album.
Waters got the job done I suppose, but I vastly prefer Guy Pratt & Tony Levin's playing with Pink Floyd, over Waters.
I don't doubt the truth as to the history of what you're saying, but in my personal opinion it worked out pretty well. While some folks do like the pre-Gilmour stuff, it was after he "took over the band" that they became the Pink Floyd that made most of the music that has made them among the most well known rock acts of all time across several eras of popular music. It's probably hard to know for sure, but if Gilmour was never in Pink Floyd, I think they'd have been a footnote in history at best.
Depends on who else would have replaced Barrett imo.
If it had been someone like Martin Barre, who is super competent but has a very chill ego, I think they still would have been a memorable band. We just would have seen Waters become a more dominant force, earlier.
That's usually a safe assumption in the 60s-90s. That album credits may or may not be truthful.
There wasn't anything mandating they were, unlike film credits. The corporations producing them had a vested interest in maintaining the illusion.
According to Guy Pratt, Gilmour played bass on half their songs. But since most of those sessions weren't filmed there's no way to definitively know.
Did David Gilmour play half of Pink Floyd's basslines?
All this talk of Gilmour potentially responsible for some of the bass lines / work etc. I wonder if Syd had any input on Roger regarding ass lines in the early days, or if he let him do his own thing. There's a great bum-note that Waters hits towards the end of Lucifer Sam that's noticeable, but also charmingly awesome
Roger Waters is insignificant as a bassist and a human flea, still trying to suck blood from a band he quit in 1984.
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