Roger Waters says there’s no way he would consider a Pink Floyd reunion if it were ever put on the table.
The vocalist and bassist was a guest of Rolling Stone on their Special Edition interview series when it was put to him that it might be nice to see old friends across the music world in general setting aside their differences and reuniting in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.
Waters replies: “No, it wouldn’t be nice. It would be fucking awful. Obviously if you’re a fan of those days of Pink Floyd, well then you have a different point of view. But I had to live through it. That was my life.
“I know in the wake of it I’ve been cast as something of a villain by whoever… so be it! I can live with that. But would I trade my liberty for those chains? No fucking way.”
Waters says he also approached David Gilmour and Nick Mason with a “peace plan” but it wasn’t for a reunion.
“It was nothing to do with that,” he says. “This was just, ‘Can we release a remastered vinyl version of Animals without it turning into the third world war. Wouldn’t that be nice?’
“I actually suggested going democratic. I said, ‘Why don’t we just have a vote? There’s only three of us and then we can decide all those things like that and at least we can just get on.’
“But they wouldn’t have that. God knows why.”
Speaking back in December 2018, Mason said an Animals box set was likely to happen at some point in the future.
He told Rolling Stone: “It’s just sort of slow because of differences of opinion about how to do it or what to put on it, but I’m sure it will eventually happen. Of all our albums that have been re-released, that’s the one that would benefit the most from a sort of reworking.”
Waters briefly reunited with Pink Floyd for 2005’s Live 8 concert at London’s Hyde Park.