Roger Waters recording solo version of ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’
The news comes as his rift with Pink Floyd bandmate David Gilmour deepened
By Joe Goggins
Roger Waters has revealed that he is re-recording his old band Pink Floyd’s seminal album The Dark Side of the Moon.
The record considered by many as the high watermark of progressive rock celebrates its 50th anniversary on March 1, and Waters discussed his plans to cut a new version of the album in a profile by The Telegraph published yesterday (February 8). He has been working on it in secret for months, handling all instrumentation and vocals himself, with the exception of contributions from his long-time collaborator Gus Seyffert, Seyffert’s girlfriend Bedouine, and a “Baptist minister” who plays Hammond organ.
Originally slated for a March release to tie in with the anniversary, it has now been pushed back to May, along with a launch concert, as Waters continues to put the finishing touches to it. The news comes as relations between Waters and his former bandmate David Gilmour, long strained, appear to have sunk to an all-time low. Gilmour’s wife, Polly Samson, launched a Twitter broadside against Waters on Monday (February 6), calling him “antisemitic to [his] rotten core,” as well as “a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching,misogynistic, sick-with-envy, megalomaniac.”
Gilmour later re-shared the post with the caption “every word [is] demonstrably true”. As if to pre-empt a backlash from Gilmour and Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason over the new version of The Dark Side of the Moon, Waters told The Telegraph: “I wrote The Dark Side of the Moon. Let’s get rid of all this ‘we’ [crap]! Of course we were a band, there were four of us, we all contributed, but it’s my project and I wrote it. So… blah!”
The news arrived yesterday as Waters fulfilled a request from Russia to address the United Nations on the issue of the supply of weapons to Ukraine. Waters’ previous refusal to unequivocally condemn Russia’s invasion of its neighbour had caused controversy; the comments by Samson were presumably provoked in part by Waters having condemned his former bandmates in an interview with Berliner Zeitung for recording a charity track in aid of Ukrainian humanitarian causes last year.
Speaking at a meeting of the UN Security Council via video link yesterday, Waters reiterated his view that Russia had been provoked into invading Ukraine. “The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation was illegal and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” he said. “Also, the Russian invasion was not unprovoked, so I also condemn the provocateurs in the strongest possible terms.”