Alice:Hey did you have fun working with Bob Ezrin?
Roger:Ya, funy enough I spoke to him the other day.
Alice:He was a hard guy in the studio, wasn't he?
Roger:When you could get him in the studio.
Alice:Man for us he was a slavedriver.
Roger:Ya, no he wasn't that for me.
Alice:But he always beat the best out of me
Roger:In fact you know when we were going through our years of schism he would describe me more of a slavedriver, you know, I was characterized as this awful kind of autocratic monster who drove everybody mad and wouldn't let anybody write songs, but those days hopefully are over now, so we have stopped slinging mud backwards and forwards, but in answer to your question it was good. The end
Roger Waters will be a guest on Nights w/Alice Cooper Wednes
-
momentaryhawking
-
momentaryhawking
Alice:Hey Roger, its been so long since we have talked that you had time to write an opera..
Roger:Ya it has, you know thank you for leaving me alone all those years
Alice:So for 20 years, Roger said to me;don't call me;I need time to write an opera..
Roger:Exactly, you never even called for a game of golf.
Alice:What an interesting thing this opera is, uh, and about the French Revolution, is that something you've always been interested in?
Roger:Umm,I was uh mildly interested in it and knew something about it but in fact uh, the genesis of this project was uh a french couple called Etienne and Nadine Roda-Gil who were friends of mine from Paris, they came and brought a manuscript that theyd created, which is a beautifully illustrated, sort of 50 pages of libretto which I was impressed with and they asked me if I would set it to music, so it wasn't my idea at all, it was somebody elses..
Alice:Oh I see, so it was from that..
Roger:Ya, I then went into my studio at home with an engineer and just using a Linn drum and an old E3 and Piano and a studio 24-track I made a two and a half hour demo of what I thought the piece might sound like and we set up hot-foot to Paris with that and they played it to all kinds of people and it eventually found its way to Francois Matignon who liked it by all accounts and suggested it should become part of the bicentennial celebrations of the revolution in 89. That in the end didn't happen for all kinds of not very complex reasons mainly French shovinism I think it was more than they could bear that A;that I was english and B;that I was from a pop group..
Alice:just a little snobbery there?
Roger:I don't know; I mean I don't want to put them down because the french actually arew very kind of ecumenical(?) about their attitude to the arts; unlike England your allowed to be in a pop group and also write novels or do other things, so its certainly not snobby in that way...and then sadly Nadine Roda-Gil who did all the illustrations for the piece died quite suddenly of Lukemia, and so we did nothing for the next six years, and then I picked it up after that and started working on orchestrations and taking the thing more seriously, and then I recorded a little bit of it with an orchestra and a singer and I went to Sonny with that and Sonny got interested and we did a deal, and then they prevailed upon me to translate it into english which I did and that took a long time and bloody bloody bloody bloody blah here we are its in the shops
Alice:You gonna take it to Broadway?
Roger:No at the moment there are no plans for a production, we will wait and see, the problem is its so expensive to put these things on
Alice:So how was it doing the Live8 thing with the guys?
Roger: It was very cool I have to say..A;the atmosphere on the day was very positive, there were lots of interesting people knocking around on the side of the stage-Kofi Annan and Bill Gates and just a bunch of different people and Geldof was being his usual ebulent self and there was a great feeling
Alice:You know I saw Nick in London and Dave at the Cream show
Roger: Ya I loved the Cream thing it was fantastic , you know they are doing it in New York
Alice:You know I was suprised at Jack Bruce, I thought he pretty much carried the show
Roger:Ya Ya
Alice:The fact that he is 65 and has arthritis and can still get the audience going is pretty amazing
Roger:I thought that they were all absolutely great you know, I'm not a big drum solo person; we were there on the Thusday night; apparently Friday was the great night but I think all the nights were pretty good but I thought Gingers' drum solo was just fantastic
Alice:Well soon as everybody saw that they said maybe Pink Floyd will get back together, everyone was putting bands together
Roger:Ya thats what happens people have great imaginations thank God.
Alice: You know we play tons of Pink Floyd on nights with Alice Cooper and I always go back to Saucerful of Secrets, Piper at the gates of dawn, I always like the early psychadelia that was so amazing and really had an effect on the Alice Cooper band..
Roger: Syd was an extraordinary writer theres no question
Alice:You know I hear different stories about Syd...
Roger:He lives in Cambridge where most of us came from and he lives in a house sort of on his own and he gets by, I don't think hes particularly happy, hes skitzofranic so he still has those problems...
Alice: Well alot of people attribute that to drugs and back in 68 we used to do the Cheetah Club with you guys and at the time we felt we couldn't possibly be that burned out on drugs so early in life
Roger:No No
Alice: So we always thought there was something a little bit off...
Roger:Well I mean the kind of set of symptoms that put together we describe as skitzofrenia; some people have moments, some hear voices and some don't and some hallucinate; we sort of know what that is,whichever combonation of those symptoms you develop there is no question hallucinigenic drugs can do nothing but exassibate(?) the condition and I'm sure all the acid that Syd did helped him on his way which is very sad..who knows I'm not a neurologist so I couln't tell you whether the symptoms might not have occured had he not been taking the drugs I just don't know.. I suspect that they would have...
Alice:It must have been hard for the band as tight as you guys were seeing him slip away..it was like that with our group;Glen Buxton;we just saw him just drift away...
Roger:It actually happened very fast with Syd, I have to say Right around the time of See Emily play which was the second single, right around the time of the second single, so this is back in sort of 67'. You know he got very weird very quickly and I mean you talking about the Cheetah Club its so strange to remember those times because he was completely gone by then...
Alice: The Cheetah Club was one of the oddest things because it was early in our career and yours and Syd would get up there and hit one or two chords and just stop..we'd be like;kay is that all hes gonna play? I realized it wasn't part of the show...
Roger:Ya I think the first gig we played was actuallt at Winterland and we were third on the bill to Big Brother and Ritchie Havens and we went on and Syd famously..we started the first tune I can't remember what it was and Syd famously started strumming his bottom E string just the one string and turning the machinehead lowering the tone of the string and he turned the machinehead till the string fell off the guitar and then he did the A string then the D and he did all of them and when they were all hanging off the guitar that was the end of his performance for the evening and so we played alot of gigs as a pretty small band...
Alice:Well so much music came out of the Pink Floyd we always looked at you being not mainstream like The Who or The Stones it was more like really weird underground which we related to, now when you say it its like royalty, theres a certain reverence and I think that refers back to your body of work; audiences of all ages really revere you guys...
Roger:Ya well you know those kind of classic albums in the middle years;DSOTM, WYWH, The Wall whatever Animals maybe they do seem to have stood the test of time and they do seem to have affected successive generations in a good way....
Alice:OK the whole Wizard of Oz thing, thats one of those great urban legends...
Roger:Ya its nonsense having worked on the old movie and things over the years what I've discovered is if you stick any image put out with any sound or any peice of music makes a relationship of some kind; the human brain will invent connnections between almost anything and alnost anything else....
Alice:Hey did you have fun working with Bob Ezrin?
Roger:Ya funy enough I spoke to him the other day
Alice:He was a hard guy in the studio wasn't he?
Roger:When you could get him in the studio
Alice: Man for us he was a slavedriver!
Roger:Ya no he wasn't that for me
Alice:Ya but you know he always beat the best out of me!
Roger:In fact you know when we were going through our years of schism he would describe me more of a slavedriver you know I was characterized as this aweful kind of autocratic monster who drove everybody mad and wouldnt let anybody write songs, but those days are hopefully over now, weve stopped slinging mud backwards and forwards, but in answer to your question it was good.
Roger:Ya it has, you know thank you for leaving me alone all those years
Alice:So for 20 years, Roger said to me;don't call me;I need time to write an opera..
Roger:Exactly, you never even called for a game of golf.
Alice:What an interesting thing this opera is, uh, and about the French Revolution, is that something you've always been interested in?
Roger:Umm,I was uh mildly interested in it and knew something about it but in fact uh, the genesis of this project was uh a french couple called Etienne and Nadine Roda-Gil who were friends of mine from Paris, they came and brought a manuscript that theyd created, which is a beautifully illustrated, sort of 50 pages of libretto which I was impressed with and they asked me if I would set it to music, so it wasn't my idea at all, it was somebody elses..
Alice:Oh I see, so it was from that..
Roger:Ya, I then went into my studio at home with an engineer and just using a Linn drum and an old E3 and Piano and a studio 24-track I made a two and a half hour demo of what I thought the piece might sound like and we set up hot-foot to Paris with that and they played it to all kinds of people and it eventually found its way to Francois Matignon who liked it by all accounts and suggested it should become part of the bicentennial celebrations of the revolution in 89. That in the end didn't happen for all kinds of not very complex reasons mainly French shovinism I think it was more than they could bear that A;that I was english and B;that I was from a pop group..
Alice:just a little snobbery there?
Roger:I don't know; I mean I don't want to put them down because the french actually arew very kind of ecumenical(?) about their attitude to the arts; unlike England your allowed to be in a pop group and also write novels or do other things, so its certainly not snobby in that way...and then sadly Nadine Roda-Gil who did all the illustrations for the piece died quite suddenly of Lukemia, and so we did nothing for the next six years, and then I picked it up after that and started working on orchestrations and taking the thing more seriously, and then I recorded a little bit of it with an orchestra and a singer and I went to Sonny with that and Sonny got interested and we did a deal, and then they prevailed upon me to translate it into english which I did and that took a long time and bloody bloody bloody bloody blah here we are its in the shops
Alice:You gonna take it to Broadway?
Roger:No at the moment there are no plans for a production, we will wait and see, the problem is its so expensive to put these things on
Alice:So how was it doing the Live8 thing with the guys?
Roger: It was very cool I have to say..A;the atmosphere on the day was very positive, there were lots of interesting people knocking around on the side of the stage-Kofi Annan and Bill Gates and just a bunch of different people and Geldof was being his usual ebulent self and there was a great feeling
Alice:You know I saw Nick in London and Dave at the Cream show
Roger: Ya I loved the Cream thing it was fantastic , you know they are doing it in New York
Alice:You know I was suprised at Jack Bruce, I thought he pretty much carried the show
Roger:Ya Ya
Alice:The fact that he is 65 and has arthritis and can still get the audience going is pretty amazing
Roger:I thought that they were all absolutely great you know, I'm not a big drum solo person; we were there on the Thusday night; apparently Friday was the great night but I think all the nights were pretty good but I thought Gingers' drum solo was just fantastic
Alice:Well soon as everybody saw that they said maybe Pink Floyd will get back together, everyone was putting bands together
Roger:Ya thats what happens people have great imaginations thank God.
Alice: You know we play tons of Pink Floyd on nights with Alice Cooper and I always go back to Saucerful of Secrets, Piper at the gates of dawn, I always like the early psychadelia that was so amazing and really had an effect on the Alice Cooper band..
Roger: Syd was an extraordinary writer theres no question
Alice:You know I hear different stories about Syd...
Roger:He lives in Cambridge where most of us came from and he lives in a house sort of on his own and he gets by, I don't think hes particularly happy, hes skitzofranic so he still has those problems...
Alice: Well alot of people attribute that to drugs and back in 68 we used to do the Cheetah Club with you guys and at the time we felt we couldn't possibly be that burned out on drugs so early in life
Roger:No No
Alice: So we always thought there was something a little bit off...
Roger:Well I mean the kind of set of symptoms that put together we describe as skitzofrenia; some people have moments, some hear voices and some don't and some hallucinate; we sort of know what that is,whichever combonation of those symptoms you develop there is no question hallucinigenic drugs can do nothing but exassibate(?) the condition and I'm sure all the acid that Syd did helped him on his way which is very sad..who knows I'm not a neurologist so I couln't tell you whether the symptoms might not have occured had he not been taking the drugs I just don't know.. I suspect that they would have...
Alice:It must have been hard for the band as tight as you guys were seeing him slip away..it was like that with our group;Glen Buxton;we just saw him just drift away...
Roger:It actually happened very fast with Syd, I have to say Right around the time of See Emily play which was the second single, right around the time of the second single, so this is back in sort of 67'. You know he got very weird very quickly and I mean you talking about the Cheetah Club its so strange to remember those times because he was completely gone by then...
Alice: The Cheetah Club was one of the oddest things because it was early in our career and yours and Syd would get up there and hit one or two chords and just stop..we'd be like;kay is that all hes gonna play? I realized it wasn't part of the show...
Roger:Ya I think the first gig we played was actuallt at Winterland and we were third on the bill to Big Brother and Ritchie Havens and we went on and Syd famously..we started the first tune I can't remember what it was and Syd famously started strumming his bottom E string just the one string and turning the machinehead lowering the tone of the string and he turned the machinehead till the string fell off the guitar and then he did the A string then the D and he did all of them and when they were all hanging off the guitar that was the end of his performance for the evening and so we played alot of gigs as a pretty small band...
Alice:Well so much music came out of the Pink Floyd we always looked at you being not mainstream like The Who or The Stones it was more like really weird underground which we related to, now when you say it its like royalty, theres a certain reverence and I think that refers back to your body of work; audiences of all ages really revere you guys...
Roger:Ya well you know those kind of classic albums in the middle years;DSOTM, WYWH, The Wall whatever Animals maybe they do seem to have stood the test of time and they do seem to have affected successive generations in a good way....
Alice:OK the whole Wizard of Oz thing, thats one of those great urban legends...
Roger:Ya its nonsense having worked on the old movie and things over the years what I've discovered is if you stick any image put out with any sound or any peice of music makes a relationship of some kind; the human brain will invent connnections between almost anything and alnost anything else....
Alice:Hey did you have fun working with Bob Ezrin?
Roger:Ya funy enough I spoke to him the other day
Alice:He was a hard guy in the studio wasn't he?
Roger:When you could get him in the studio
Alice: Man for us he was a slavedriver!
Roger:Ya no he wasn't that for me
Alice:Ya but you know he always beat the best out of me!
Roger:In fact you know when we were going through our years of schism he would describe me more of a slavedriver you know I was characterized as this aweful kind of autocratic monster who drove everybody mad and wouldnt let anybody write songs, but those days are hopefully over now, weve stopped slinging mud backwards and forwards, but in answer to your question it was good.
Last edited by momentaryhawking on Fri Dec 08, 2006 11:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
-
olzen
- Judge!
- Posts: 2209
- Joined: Sun Oct 05, 2003 6:34 pm
- Gender: Male
- Location: Denmark
-
Coma Divine
- Blade
- Posts: 196
- Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2005 4:31 am
- Location: Australia
![[-D-]](./images/smilies/eusa_clap.gif "Applause"){kind=small}
-
Yucateco
- Supreme Judge!
- Posts: 3153
- Joined: Sun Aug 10, 2003 11:23 am
- Gender: Male
- Location: Munich, Germany
-
momentaryhawking
-
olzen
- Judge!
- Posts: 2209
- Joined: Sun Oct 05, 2003 6:34 pm
- Gender: Male
- Location: Denmark
-
Craig Marion
- Blade
- Posts: 221
- Joined: Mon May 02, 2005 1:30 am
-
momentaryhawking
-
ObscuredEchoes
- Judge!
- Posts: 1842
- Joined: Fri Mar 14, 2003 5:44 pm
- Location: Phoenix, Arizona
-
momentaryhawking