by Lisa Verrico
Does a Best Of CD mean Pink Floyd are pals again? Hmm, pigs might fly, Roger Waters tells our critic. For a man of famously prickly views who rarely gives interviews, Roger Waters seems incredibly relaxed when we meet in his suite at the Berkeley hotel in London. Within 15 minutes, he has his feet, clad in fetching pink socks, up on the arm of a sofa and his hands behind his head.
We're here to discuss both Waters's revived solo career and the release this month of a Best of Pink Floyd album, Echoes, which has a promotional budget second only to the Beatles' 1 last year.
On the subject of the band he quit amid rancour almost two decades ago, Waters is reticent. In recent weeks, the guitarist David Gilmour, still with the Floyd, has talked none too favourably in public about his old friend. Asked why he and Waters no longer talk, Gilmour bluntly told one interviewer: "Because Roger's a prick."
But Waters won't be drawn.
The rift went back a long way, Waters says.
Since Waters still owns a quarter share in the band's hugely lucrative back catalogue, projects such as the Best Of compilation have tended to be problematic. For the release of last year's box set of a 1980 Floyd live performance of The Wall, Waters offered his opinions through intermediaries. His suggestions for Echoes, however, seem largely to have been ignored.
In the end, Waters's main contribution was the name.
Waters, though, has not been slow to exploit the old tunes himself. He toured the States in 1999 and 2000 with a show mixing tracks from his three solo albums and lots of old Floyd material.
Waters, who lives in Hampshire, is currently working on a new solo album as well as an opera about the French Revolution, originally scheduled to premiere at the Place de la Concorde in Paris next year, but now postponed for a revamp. In February, he begins a tour that will take in Europe, South Africa, South America and the Far East and come to the UK and Ireland in June, his first shows here since 1987.
So the fabulously wealthy Waters, a father of three, is still happy to tread the boards?
Waters may be going through a divorce, but he's pleased to be house-hunting in West London to be near his two eldest children, who work in the music business.
Like what?
Echoes is out now on EMI
"Dave and I no longer talk, that is true," he says of one of rock's most famous feuds. "I have not spoken to any of the band since I left.
"In the early years, I went through some very tricky times. I hated that they were out playing pieces I had written, particularly The Wall, which was a protest against stadium rock and they were using it to sell stadium tours. But by and large, I'm over all that stuff now.
"If I could have stopped them using the name, I would have. I might have succeeded (in court) if I was trying to get the name to use myself, but I didn't want that. It would have been ludicrous, like John Lennon calling himself the Beatles."
"Everything after Dark Side of the Moon was very difficult. Dave and I just didn't have much in common any more, philosophically, musically, politically, emotionally. There probably was still some connection musically, but Dave thought it was wrong that I was writing lyrics attacking the British Government. He said that it wasn't the place of pop groups to comment on politics. That's a valid point of view, I just don't agree with it."
"I tried to persuade the band to have a secret ballot for the track listing," Waters says. "But they all showed each other their lists."
"I had to, because the name the boys came up with was so awful. What was it? 'Sum of the Parts'. See what I mean?" And are there many songs Waters wouldn't have put on there? "Oh, clearly. Everything made after I left."
"The good thing about playing Pink Floyd songs with my own band is that, while all the musicians are very talented, at the end of the day, they quite rightly understand that it's my vision. It's easier now because there are never any arguments. Everyone just enjoys it."
"When I toured in 1987 with Radio K.A.O.S., Pink Floyd were on the road and I wasn't selling many tickets. It was a real slog. Then I did a gig with Don Henley in 1992 in LA. It was me, Don, John Fogerty and Neil Young, a truly wonderful evening. I walked out and played Mother and felt this real whoosh of love. I knew I had to tour again."
"I wouldn't mind a dock somewhere in the Caribbean, with a fishing boat so that when I'm old, I can potter about in a pair of shorts, tinkering with the engine. But no, I have no interest in retiring. I love working. And I'm much more relaxed, much happier than I've ever been."
"I was 30 years old before I discovered that my life had actually started. It was an incredible shock to wake up one day and find out I wasn't actually preparing for something. This was it. Through 20 years of psychotherapy, I've finally managed to learn to live in the moment, to unburden some of the bad stuff I carried around."
"Well, as a child, I had an enormous fear I was going to be abandoned. I used to jump through hoops in order to please people, so I wouldn't end up alone. I still get psychotherapy - that involves two calls a week to a shrink in New York - but I think I'm getting close to becoming myself, to accepting that it's OK to be me."