In a new interview with The Coda Collection, former Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason rolled his eyes at claims by Roger Waters that he’d been bullied by other members of the band. “Stalin was bullied,” Mason chuckled.
Waters’ eyebrow-raising remarks came in an August episode of Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast. “They were always trying to drag me down,” Waters said, calling out David Gilmour and the late Richard Wright in particular. “They were trying to knock me off of whatever perch I was on.”
Upon hearing this, Mason threw back his head and laughed. “I’m slightly flabbergasted by it,” he said. “But I think that’s a slightly over emotional way of putting that there was some sort of division within the band. Because Roger was always looking beyond the music, in a way. I think it was artificial, but I think possibly there was the side that wanted to do inflatables and films, as well as music, and those who just wanted to do music. But, I don’t think they were mean to him, particularly. It’s hard to imagine being mean to Roger!”
Here he added in a bemused voice, “Stalin was bullied…”
Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985, and his relationship with his former bandmates has seemed to deteriorate by the year. In 2020, he complained that he’d been “banned” from the Pink Floyd website and Facebook page, adding that the rest of the group “should just change the name of the band to Spinal Tap.” The fight continued this past summer, as Waters shared what he called “redacted” liner notes from the album Animals, which he claimed that Gilmour wanted “to remain secret,” because it gave most of the songwriting credit to Waters. Revisit his eight most incendiary quotes now.
Earlier this year, Waters announced that he had said “no fucking way” to a “huge amount of money” from Facebook and Instagram to use his music in a commercial. He also rescheduled his “first farewell tour” for 2022, and tickets are available through Ticketmaster.
