Roger Waters took to Facebook on Tuesday, calling out his former Pink Floyd bandmate David Gilmour for supposedly banning him from using the legendary rock band’s website or social media platforms to promote his own solo work.
In the five-minute video rant, entitled “ANNOUNCEMENT,” Waters, 76, said: “Nothing from me is on the website. I am banned by David Gilmour from the website.”
“David thinks he owns [Pink Floyd],” he added, suggesting Gilmour, 74, had taken charge of the band’s publicity since his departure in 1985, despite the group disbanding altogether in 1994.
Waters continued: “I think he thinks because I left the band in 1985 that he owns Pink Floyd, that he is Pink Floyd, and that I’m irrelevant, and that I should keep my mouth shut.”
“We’re all welcome to our opinions,” he said sarcastically.
Waters also revealed he had met up with the surviving members of the band — Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason — last year in London, England, to discuss the issue, which seemingly inspired his Facebook rant.
He said, “About a year ago, I convened a ‘Camp David,’ for the surviving members of Pink Floyd, at an [airport hotel] in London, where I proposed all kinds of measures to get past all this awful impasse that we have.”
“It bore no fruit, I’m sorry to say,” he continued, extinguishing any speculation that the Dark Side of the Moon rockers might ever reunite or even allow him to advertize his upcoming projects via the Pink Floyd website.
Members of Pink Floyd: David Gilmour, center, Nick Mason, right, and the late Rick Wright, left, arrive for the screening of the group’s new DVD at a cinema in central London’s Leicester Square, on Monday, July 3, 2006.
AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis
Waters proceeded to acknowledge the “rumblings” and “grumblings” from Pink Floyd fans who have been complaining about seeing livestreams from Gilmour’s longtime wife Polly Sampson retweeted through the band’s page, as opposed to relevant content.
Among the questions being asked: “Why do we have to sit and watch Polly Sampson, year after year, month after month, day after day?”
That’s a very good question,” Waters said with a laugh.
Referring to some more comments from followers of the bad, the bassist continued: “We don’t get to hear about anything that Roger’s doing, or when he makes a piece of work. It’s not shown and … none of his work is publicized.”
Waters proceeded to list off some of the things he’s been doing which have been omitted from the Pink Floyd website, including his upcoming and postponed This is Not a Drill solo tour and his recently released Us + Them concert film.
Throughout all of his tours, Waters has been known to play a large majority of hits from the lengthy Pink Floyd catalogue as well as some cuts from his own discography.
“Whoever the 30 million of you are that subscribe to the [Pink Floyd] web page, you do so because of the body of work the five of us created,” said Waters, referring to himself and his former bandmates.
“In consequence, it seems to me that it would be fair and correct if we should have equal access to you all and share our projects,” he added.
As of this writing, Gilmour has not publicly addressed Waters’ comments.
For additional information on the “This is Not a Drill tour,” or Us + Them, you can visit the official Roger Waters website.
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