Pink Floyd bassist, songwriter, and visionary Roger Waters says he never really appreciated his musical abilities until he got away from his old band.
In an interview with Marc Maron, Waters described the "toxic" environment that preceded the end of Pink Floyd. He said David Gilmour and Rick Wright, in particular, seemed to be out to quash his musical ambitions wherever possible.
"I always felt insignificant and somewhat inept," he said. After leaving Pink Floyd, Waters came to realize he has "a fairly sophisticated musical brain."
"I think it was really important that I got away when I did," he on Maron's popular WTF Podcast. "I was in a very toxic environment...David [Gilmour] and Rick [Wright] mainly who were always trying to drag me down, always trying to knock me off whatever that perch was."
Waters said his former guitarist and keyboardist would claim "that [he] was tone-deaf."
"'Ooh, he's just a boring teacher-figure who tells us what to do, but he can't tune his own guitar...' They felt very insignificant, I think." Waters qualified that he didn't mean to vilify his former band mates or diminish what they all accomplished together.
"And I'm not putting them down," he said. "Those years that we were together, whatever it was like socially, we did some really good work together...We didn't share the vision but we shared the workload."
Stepping back, Waters says he'll be known for how he revolutionized the live rock experience.
"My major contribution to rock 'n' roll -- I mean I've written some decent songs -- but it was really to develop the theater of arena rock, which I did almost single-handedly back in the middle '70s."
Maron pointed out that Waters had quite a hand in popularizing the concept album, too, but Waters argued that had been done before, especially by bands like The Who.
Waters plans to hit the road in 2017 with his Us + Them North American tour, which includes stops in Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Edmonton, and Vancouver.
Original article by Andrew Magnotta at iHeartRadio