The 7 Artists That Roger Waters Hates

It’s common knowledge that Roger Waters is a divisive figure in and out of the spotlight. He always sticks to his word, even if that means voicing very negative, personal ideas that even members of his band have felt the wrath of his fiery personality.

If Waters could say anything negative about his former bandmates and others who worked closely with him in the past, he could say a lot of negative things about artists he didn’t like, either because their music wasn’t to his taste or because they were downright rude to him. Below are some of them.

Drake and The Weeknd

Waters never held his tongue when it comes to sharing his dislike of modern music, and said that he has no clue what or who The Weeknd is. “People have told me he’s a big act,” he said. “With all due respect to the Weeknd or Drake or any of them,” he added, now calling out the rapper, “I am far, far, far more important than any of them will ever be, however many billions of streams they’ve got.”

Pink Floyd

As mentioned earlier in this post, Waters never hid his disappointment and loathing for his former band, Pink Floyd. It was a well-known fact that there was tension surrounding every Floyd album session; but things took a downturn when the bassist left in 1985, thinking that the band is no longer “relevant.” To his surprise, Pink Floyd continued, under David Gilmour’s leadership. He also labeled them as “toxic.”

“I think he thinks that because I left the band in 1985,” Waters explained, “that [Gilmour] owns Pink Floyd, that he is Pink Floyd and I’m irrelevant, and I should just keep my mouth shut. They were very snotty and snippy because they felt very insignificant, I think.”

Sex Pistols

The former Pink Floyd musician once aired his dislike of punk-rock, more particularly the group Sex Pistols. “The Sex Pistols were just trying to make noise,” he told Rolling Stone. “It was so clearly contrived. You know, they were managed by a bloke who ran a shop selling silly clothes! And then one of them died, so you got that iconic thing that lives on. If somebody dies, that’s always good. Except for him, obviously, and his mom and dad, and [his girlfriend] Nancy; but for everybody else, it’s brilliant.” It has long been rumored that Sex Pistols’ singer John Lydon was recruited into the group because he wore a shirt that says “I Hate Pink Floyd” in it.

U2

Waters spat on U2 mainly because Bono criticized the bassist’s The Wall project. He then went on to say that the Irish band did nothing but copy Waters. “All they did for the rest of their fucking career was copy what I’d been doing and continue to do. So good luck to them, but what a load of bullshit. If you lead them, people will follow.”

Van Halen and AC/DC

Roger dislikes loud music and isn’t interested in most contemporary styles. He had some things to say about AC/DC and Van Halen, two well-known bands for loud music while chatting about music with Joe Rogan. “[I’m] not really interested in loud rock ‘n’ roll — which some people are, and they love it, but I couldn’t care less about AC/DC or Eddie Van Halen or any of that stuff. It’s just, who? I don’t go, ‘Who?’ because obviously, I know the name. And I’m sure Eddie’s brilliant and a great guitar player and wonderful. It just doesn’t interest me.”