The new issue (December 2015) of the German magazine Eclipsed features a large interview with Roger Waters under the heading of Live Walls. Despite having a particularly Floydian title, the magazine is a general music publication, and other artists within the pages of this new issue include The Beatles, Def Leppard, and the late Frank Zappa.
The interview starts with the magazine mentioning the stats of The Wall tour - more than 200 concerts, in front of more than four million viewers, the most successful tour by a solo artist. Roger: "I've never thought about it. Of course I'm glad that so many people came to the shows. I hope they all got to draw something positive from it, just as I could in any case." The interviewer notes that despite the original 'dark themes' still being there, there are also hopes of warmth and humanity - how did he integrate these emotions?
Waters: "It is not the question of how you can incorporate these things deliberately in the show. It's just the question of whether one is 30 or 70 years old. In the past 35 years I have learned to look at things from a different perspective. Over the years I have become less narcissistic and do not feel so affected by my personal problems that I had as a young man, when I wrote the piece and performed with Pink Floyd. Now I am working on more general issues. I'm trying to build, through empathy and understanding, connections between all brothers and sisters throughout the world, which are separated. Separated by walls of all kinds, which are built up by our governments and national interests..."
The magazine suggest that Roger's lighter mood, joking at times during the film, is also a sign of how things change over 35 years. "Yes, probably. Also in 1990 at the concert on the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, the atmosphere was much better than at the shows in Los Angeles, New York, London and Dortmund, we had played in 1980 and 1981. The relationship between me and the audience has evolved. In 2010-2013 I felt a very close connection with the audience. In my opinion, it is also because the audience is now much better at understanding what is at stake in "The Wall", i.e. by much more global things, rather than personal problems. To things that concern us all somehow. In 1979 that was not so clear."
The full interview (in German) is in the magazine. Our thanks to Michael Nickel for the information on this publication.
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