Roger:

In fact, it's been 12 years. Since the Radio KAOS tour I've performed twice. Once in Berlin when I did The Wall in July 1990. Then in 1992 I did a concert for Don Henley for his Walden Woods Project. Henry David Thoreau, lived and wrote Walden : or, Life in the Woods there so it's almost hallowed ground. But the developers are poised to stick little white boxes all over it. don, in his infinite wisdom, decided to try to save it. These days, the only way to save anything is to buy it, so Don's engaged in a project to raise enough money to buy whole chunks of the land, whereby saving it from suburbia, superstores and the rest. I did a gig with him at the Universal Amphitheater in LA.

I played a few numbers, as did Don himself, John Fogerty and Neil Young. It was a wonderful evening and it replenished my appetite for live performance. There was no 'show' to speak of, so I was relieved of that pressure. It was simply a matter of standing on stage and playing. I'd rehearsed for a couple of afternoons with Don's band and with Andy Fairweather Low, who is kind of my right arm when it comes to live gigs. The occasion turned out to be a lot of fun and at the time I thought I'd like to do it again. It's been on my mind ever since.

Nick:

You mean there's life in the old dog yet, Roger?

Roger:

Yes, Nick. I guess I'm at an age now when I feel if I don't do it soon, I might never do it. And I'd regret that. I want to get back up there and bark a bit.

Nick:

I'm intrigued by the tour's title: Roger Waters In the Flesh. I know it's one of your songs, but as the tour's handle it resonates with any number of different meanings. Thinking about it, I came up with about seven...

Roger: OK, Nick, Let me give you my one, then you can give me your seven... Actually, it means a couple of things to me. It's partly about the act of being there, on stage, or for that matter, being anywhere, in both the flesh and the spirit. I don't allude to this in the title as it would be too long and it would also sound horribly pretentious. The point is that for me performing has never been truly about making anything up - inventing a persona that doesn't in some way represent an aspect of myself. It's about being in a place - albeit in this case an unusual place, that is, on stage - and being 'me' there. I suppose, too, I'm like a good many artists in that I find it easier to be myself when I'm doing my stuff - when I'm working - than when I'm not.

Nick:

Then there is at least an oblique reference in the title to you having come out from behind a wall - the 12 year wall of relative silence, anyway? Of laying yourself bare, exposing yourself...?

Roger:

Good God, Nick, I won't be doing any of that. I'm not getting up there in a dirty raincoat...

Nick:

You've already done it! In The Wall...

Roger:

No, it wasn't The Wall. It was in Pros and Cons. Or Radio KAOS... I don't at the moment remember...

Nick:

I want to press you again about the title. Is there any conscious allusion in it to the notion that this is a Roger Waters solo tour? In other words, a reminder to everyone that you've fully emerged from behind the wall, that for you, became Pink Floyd?

Roger:

Not conscious, no. I'm just using the title of a song which I wrote when I was in Pink Floyd, but perhaps that in itself is a little provocative.

Nick:

How so?

Roger: Well, when I went out on my own and performed some of my Floyd songs there was a good deal of muttering along the lines of, 'How dare he?' It was as if people felt all that work was somehow sacrosanct to the Floyd. I think there's often a good deal of resistance amongst fans when someone leaves a successful band to go solo. They'd much rather you stayed in the band they know and love. For a while there's even a little resentment. For example, I still get letters from fans saying they wish I'd return to the Floyd. Now, that's fine. It's a sentiment I entirely understand, and for which I have some sympathy, but unfortunately it's not something I want to do. I'm entirely happy doing what I do now and what I'm doing now would be impossible in circumstances which are absolutely circumscribed by the past. The novelist Thomas Wolfe was right. You really can't go home again. You can't go back. You have to go forward. And part of my direction forward is to establish a new relationship with some of my previous work - certainly with those songs which I happen to think are the most eloquent and which still resonate with me in some way.

Nick:

An obvious question here concerns the way you chose your set program for these performances. In looking at the body of your work, certainly since Dark Side of the Moon, most of it appears to have been made up of narratives, of stories, each of which might just have easily been a book or a film. I wonder whether there was a central narrative, or story you were concerned to locate when you sat down to decide on the present cycle of songs?

Roger:

Yes, it's true that the works have been largely narrative in their construction. I think the reason for this is that narratives are essentially progressive, they move you from one point to another, and there's always an element of discovery in putting them together. For me, they're a way of getting at what I really feel. One only has one's own story and one tells it in a variety of different ways. Certainly, in telling that story, one hopes to find out more about why that particular story is one's own, how one feels about it, and, as one grows older, to discern where the story, or the path, might eventually lead. Lives have certain trajectories, and these trajectories are seldom automatically clear. One significant way I've become clearer about mine is through working: writing, composing, performing.

Of course, there are always distractions and diversions and anyone who is familiar with my work will know what I take to be the most pernicious: the gaps in our understanding of ourselves, our alienation from one another. I tend to think both of these are induced and then encouraged by dysfunctional institutions - schools, families, governments (not all of them, but a great many) - so that we wind up, avid acolytes and consumers, subscribing to an economic system which doesn't serve our best interests. The interests, if you like, of our true trajectories, our individual stories. If we are not alert to the possibility, we lose ourselves. Often many of us do. Naturally, I hope that in casting some light on my own story, I'll connect with others, an perhaps illuminate a little of their stories too. As to the present program; the selection of songs and the order in which they fall is determined by aesthetics. In other words according to the shape and dynamic of the whole show. They're not, on this occasion, chosen for any particular philosophical, political or historical reason.

My concern was absolutely musical; which songs sounded good alongside which. Nor are they in anyway chronological. I dip here, I dip there. It's sort of collage. One makes a whole new piece by using various songs from various works, bringing them together in a novel way. Beforehand, I listened to all my work and in the end the songs I didn't reject just presented themselves. They were really the songs I most loved and which sat best together.

Nick:

Did you try to balance the number of songs you include from your work with Pink Floyd with those from your work as a solo artist?

Roger:

Yes. I was faced with that requirement because the evidence obviously suggests that the work I've done with the Floyd is better known - at least by the general public - than the work I've done since. It's more popular, too, despite the fact that I think some of the songs I've written for my solo albums are at least as good as those I wrote for the Floyd.

Two things append to this, though. One is that I hope that the people who've got tickets for the shows will know all my work. I don't think Pink Floyd fans who come to the concerts will look askance if I play songs from Amused to Death, for example. I hope, and I'm pretty certain, they'll now that album too. The second is that the division between my work with Pink Floyd and my work after Pink Floyd can be described largely in terms of numbers. Numbers, or figures, are the reason I left Pink Floyd in the first place. I mean, by the end it had become like a very bad marriage, held together by numbers - units sold, money, greed.

For a long while, it was a good marriage, but for me that's eventually why it became a bad one. Notwithstanding my disappointment over the comparative lack of success in terms of sales with my work post Pink Floyd, I have to accept that the focus on units sold was the reason why I left and I have to be content with whatever response I've subsequently had. Of course, I'm the first to admit that it would have been wonderful if everybody had said, 'Oh wow, this is great!' But enough people did say that for it to be very satisfying. At any rate, it gave me the chance to take a long hard look at the seductive nature of numbers, which, as one of those diversions and distractions, has been part of my story.

Nick:

Lets move on to the theatrical aspects of a Roger Waters performance. You might agree that one of your major contributions to rock'n'roll, aside from the great albums, has been to the development of the gig as a piece of theater, as a spectacular event. Without detracting from any element of surprise fans may wish to savor, can you tell me whether there's going to be any sort of 'show' on your current tour?

Roger:

Yes, I do recognize that contribution. It started with Dark Side of the Moon - you know, aeroplanes running the length of the hall into the back of the stage, dropping molten crap over the heads of the audience, which you certainly couldn't do now. Then it took off with Animals when we used inflatable pigs and the rest.

That was at a time when we were beginning to play huge stadiums (those numbers again) and I felt it was necessary to produce something that could be seen from every seat. Those vast open air amphitheaters may be fine for football or for tribal ceremonies, but they're not conducive to good musical gigs. Before our shows the best other bands came up with to humanize the scale of these places was a big screen behind the stage with images of the live performances on it. That's generally very unsatisfying because light travels faster than sound, consequently Mick's giant lips would always be out of sync...

There will be a 'show' on this tour and it's something I've been thinking about for a while. It came to me in a slightly different form during the making of Amused to Death. When that album was released I told the record company that I'd go on the road if getting a sufficient number of people to make it worthwhile wasn't going to be like pulling teeth. Previously, I'd played the Radio KAOS tour to very small audiences, and I have to say it was difficult. Anyway, Amused to Death didn't sell in huge numbers, or anyway not enough to merit a full scale outing. But, as I've said, I'd already toyed with ideas for the show and I've incorporated some of those into In the Flesh. We'll be using front projection to project stills: very, very, powerful projectors that can light up the sides of skyscrapers. We used them in the Berlin concert to project the architecture on to the wall... that Albert Speer effect. We'll have lots and lots of images which will change slowly and subtly throughout the performance. We'll also be using follow spots to light up a vocalist or someone playing a solo. What we won't have is a lighting truss and that's because I've grown increasingly bored with them. I don't go to many rock'n'roll concerts, but the ones I occasionally see on TV all seem to have lighting trusses. You see the lights flicking on and off all the time, and the whole thing turns into a dull blur. With a truss you lose that magical effect you tent do get in a theater when an unseen overhead spot suddenly throws a dramatic pool of light onto the stage.

I'd like to add that we'll also be using quadraphonic sound and this will be married to the above. I always loved it with the Floyd: the illusion of footsteps, etc., reverberating round the arena. So, yes, there will be a good deal of theater.

Nick:

A word or two about your band?

Roger:

Of course. On rhythm guitar is Andy Fairweather Low with whom I've worked for a long, long while, and who was crucially involved in Amused to Death.

He's an old and trusted henchman of mine and I'd prefer not to go out on the road without him. Then, of course, there's Snowy White who did the very first Wall shows, not to mention The Wall in Berlin. I can't wait to hear him again. Graham Broad, the drummer, I've worked with a good deal. He's a great drummer and a lovely man with no side to him. You can't go out on the road with anybody who's got an attitude, and believe me, there's plenty of them in rock'n'roll. Graham's not one of them. John Carin, on keyboard, I don't know yet (as of mid-June). In fact I've only spoken to him on the phone. He played with... what the hell was that name? ...I think it was Pink Floyd 1987 Ltd. Yes, he's been on those tours and it will be an advantage in many ways because he obviously knows much of the music. There's another keyboard player - Andy Wallace - who was recommended to me by Andy Newmark, the great drummer on Pros and Cons. Guest vocalists are P. P. Arnold and Katie Kissoon, both of whom I've worked with on my solo projects. The lead guitarist/singer is Doyle Bramhall who was recommended to me by Pat Leonard, and old shooting and fishing pal, who also happens to have produced Amused to Death.

Nick:

OK, so just a few last stabs. Is this tour likely to be the start of something big? I mean, do you plan more of them in the future?

Roger:

If this one is good fun and it goes well, I'd certainly like to do it again. We're only playing the North East on this outing, so logically there's still the North West and the middle. There's also Europe. I'm confident it'll go well. I feel a real surge of energy and renewed excitement. The tickets are selling well, too, which of course is a relief.

Nick:

What's next coming down the tracks?

Roger: I think that anyone who follows what I'm up to knows I've been working on an opera. Actually, I've been working on it for a while. It's based on the French Revolution and it's nearing completion. I've just recorded the orchestral and choral parts in Paris. (late May/early June), so I need to find the soloists: a tenor, soprano and baritone. I only need to record them, and to complete the sound effects to finish it. It will come out on Sony Classical, entitled ‚a Ira. The original libretto was in French by Etienne Roda-Gil and illustrated by his wife Nadine, but I've written an English translation. I've stuck very much to the spirit of Etienne's original, although I've added to it a little. It's rooted in the history of the Revolution, but its philosophical slant is, I suppose, contemporary as well. It's a piece about the potential for human change. I hope there'll be performances in 2000. It's been written for an 82 piece symphony orchestra, three soloists and, in live concerts at any rate, 100 singers. The music is written very much in the early nineteenth century symphonic tradition, but I hope anyone who knows my work will give it a shot. It's a long extension, rather than an abrupt departure. I'm sure people who know my oeuvre will understand that.

Nick:

A final question. When you dip into the considerable catalogue of your work, are you able to pluck out a favorite piece or album

Roger:

I'm enormously proud of Amused to Death and the fact that I include several songs from it in the present tour program suggests how much I love it. Of my work with the Floyd, I think The Wall was the summit. The fact that succeeding generations go on appreciating it, as well as Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, gives me tremendous satisfaction.

That some many schools put on non-commercial productions of The Wall is especially rewarding. Schools are the only institutions to whom I give my permission to perform it, even though I'm continually badgered by requests from people eager to mount commercial productions. I've already dabbled at writing a theatrical version for Broadway, so I'm probably saving that project for myself. The problem with the film was that it wasn't funny although it was supposed to be. It fact, Gerry (Gerald Scarfe, animator of The Wall ) and I recently did a commentary over the film for DVD (Digital Video Disc). It's going to come out at some juncture in the future. It'll have the movie, plus five other tracks, one of which includes our voice-overs. I think we provide the wit that sadly wasn't there in the original film.

The other thing which has always niggled me about The Wall is I never really knew how to end it. After 20n years I'm beginning to understand. On the record, at the very end, you can just hear me say, 'Isn't this where we came in'. The story at last seems to have some kind of completion which it didn't then. One of the reasons I'm excited about the tour and about what I'm doing now is that it's different from the stuff I've done before. And it's different because I'm different. I'm no longer that remote geezer dressed in black, smoking cigarettes, ominously off to the side, not talking to anyone. So it isn't exactly where I came in. Although it's where you and I, for this interview, came in. You're probably right. To answer your first question, yes, I do think I'm coming out from behind my wall, and this tour, in its form, content and personnel, provides the evidence.