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Roger Waters: “David Gilmour and Rick Wright? They can’t write songs, they’ve nothing to say”

Waters is also set to release a reworked version of Dark Side Of The Moon later this year.

Roger Waters performs in Moscow, 2018

Roger Waters performs in Moscow, 2018. Credit: Epsilon / Getty

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Roger Waters has levelled fresh criticism at his former Pink Floyd bandmates David Gilmour and the late Rick Wright, proclaiming they “can’t write songs”.

In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph where he revealed that he had been re-recording Pink Floyd’s iconic 1973 album Dark Side Of The Moon from scratch without the knowledge of his former bandmates, Waters reminisced on his role as the band’s de facto leader when frontman Syd Barrett had “gone loopy” due to drug use. “They said I was autocratic,” he said, adding that he had taken the attitude of “You play the guitar and sing and do as you’re bloody well told” with Gilmour.

Waters went on to explain that his main problem with his former bandmates was that they couldn’t write material. “Well, Nick [Mason] never pretended,” he qualified, adding, “But [David] Gilmour and Rick [Wright]? They can’t write songs, they’ve nothing to say. They are not artists! They have no ideas, not a single one between them. They never have had, and that drives them crazy.”

Wright passed away in 2008. Waters also opined that Wright’s final solo album Broken China, released in 1996, was “not as vacuous as Drake, but it’s pretty vacuous”.

Waters’ reworked Dark Side Of The Moon is reportedly set to be released later this year in May, with a launch concert in the works. The album was originally scheduled to be released in March, but Waters is not done with the tracks.

Waters and Gilmour have been at odds as of late, with Gilmour’s wife, novelist Polly Samson, publicly criticising Waters as an anti-Semite and a Putin apologist, among other claims. Samson’s accusations appeared to be prompted by Waters’ interview with German newspaper Berliner Zeitung, in which he gave his position on Ukraine, Putin, and Israel.

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