Roger Waters

George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English musician and singer-songwriter.

Waters was born on 6 September 1943, the younger of two boys, to Mary (née Whyte; 1913–2009) and Eric Fletcher Waters (1914–1944), in Great Bookham, Surrey.

His father, the son of a coal miner and Labour Party activist, was a schoolteacher, a devout Christian, and a Communist Party member.

In the early years of the Second World War, Waters' father was a conscientious objector who drove an ambulance during the Blitz.

He later changed his stance on pacifism, joined the Territorial Army and was commissioned into the 8th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers as a Second Lieutenant on 11 September 1943.

He was killed five months later on 18 February 1944 at Aprilia, during the Battle of Anzio, when Roger was five months old.

He is commemorated in Aprilia and at the Cassino War Cemetery.

Waters enrolled there in 1962, after a series of aptitude tests indicated he was well suited to that field.

He had initially considered a career in mechanical engineering.

By September 1963, Waters and Mason had lost interest in their studies and moved into the lower flat of Stanhope Gardens, owned by Mike Leonard, a part-time tutor at the Regent Street Polytechnic.

Waters, Mason and Wright first played music together in late 1963, in a band formed by vocalist Keith Noble and bassist Clive Metcalfe.

They usually called themselves Sigma 6, but also used the name the Meggadeaths.

Waters played rhythm guitar, Mason played drums, Wright played any keyboard he could arrange to use, and Noble's sister Sheilagh provided occasional vocals.

In 1965, he co-founded the rock band Pink Floyd as the bassist.

Following the departure of the songwriter, Syd Barrett, in 1968, Waters became Pink Floyd's lyricist, co-lead vocalist and conceptual leader until his departure in 1985.

Pink Floyd achieved international success with the concept albums The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977), The Wall (1979), and The Final Cut (1983).

By the early 1980s, they had become one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful groups in popular music.

Later that year, he reunited with Pink Floyd for the Live 8 global awareness event, the group's only appearance with Waters since 1981.

Waters's solo work includes the studio albums The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking (1984), Radio K.A.O.S. (1987), Amused to Death (1992), and Is This the Life We Really Want? (2017).

Amid creative differences, Waters left in 1985 and began a legal dispute over the use of the band's name and material.

They settled out of court in 1987.

In 1990, Waters staged one of the largest rock concerts in history, The Wall – Live in Berlin, with an attendance of 450,000.

As a member of Pink Floyd, he was inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005.

He has toured extensively as a solo act since 1999.

In 2005, he released Ça Ira, an opera translated from Étienne and Nadine Roda-Gils' libretto about the French Revolution.

He performed The Dark Side of the Moon for his world tour of 2006–2008, and The Wall Live, his tour of 2010–2013, was the highest-grossing tour by a solo artist at the time.

Waters incorporates political themes in his work and is a prominent pro-Palestinian activist with regards to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

He has called for the removal of the Israeli West Bank Barrier and supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

He has described Israel's treatment of Palestinians as apartheid.

Some of his comments, such as his likening of Israel to Nazi Germany, and elements of his live shows, have been accused of being anti-Semitic.

He has dismissed the accusations as a conflation of anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.

On 18 February 2014, Waters unveiled a monument to his father and other war casualties in Aprilia, Italy and was made an honorary citizen of Anzio.

Following her husband's death, Mary Waters, also a teacher, moved with her two sons to Cambridge and raised them there.

Waters' earliest memory is of the V-J Day celebrations.

Waters attended Morley Memorial Junior School in Cambridge and then the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys (now Hills Road Sixth Form College) with Syd Barrett.

The future Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour lived nearby on Mill Road and attended the Perse School.

At 15, Waters was chairman of the Cambridge Youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (YCND), having designed its publicity poster and participated in its organisation.

He was a keen sportsman and a highly regarded member of the high school's cricket and rugby teams.

Waters was unhappy at school, saying: "I hated every second of it, apart from games. The regime at school was a very oppressive one ... The same kids who are susceptible to bullying by other kids are also susceptible to bullying by the teachers."

Waters met future Pink Floyd members Nick Mason and Richard Wright in London, at the Regent Street Polytechnic (later the University of Westminster) School of Architecture.