Roger Waters, co-founder of English rock band Pink Floyd, has defended his ongoing anti-Trump US tour which he says is a “calculated and defiant response” to the “charade” of the American presidency, the media reported.
In an exclusive CNN interview on Saturday, the 73-year-old Waters said he has no regrets about turning parts of his two and a half hour performance into “as much an anti-Trump rally as a rock concert”.
Waters’ 54-date North American tour, “Us + Them”, began on May 26 and coincides with the release of Water’s first studio album in 25 years, “Is This the Life We Really Want?”
The performance features an inflatable pig with Donald Trump’s face on the side; screens that show doctored images of the President throwing up; photos of Trump with Russian President Vladimir Putin; and Trump as Hitler.
“It would be a lot easier to be on tour if I wasn’t doing any of this, if I didn’t have opinions,” Waters, Pink Floyd’s co-founder and a longtime Trump critic, told CNN.
But, he said, 20 gigs in, people, even in Republican states, are “getting it”.
“We started in Kansas City and then we went Louisville, Tulsa, St. Louis,” Waters said, adding “And that was like a -- that was a kind of, whoa, I wonder how this is going to be.”
Generally, the shows have gone “great”, he said, though some fans have demonstrated their objections by walking out.
“If you’re looking for an escape from a connection with other people on this planet, if you want to be, you know, separated from your potential to empathise with others, if you want a life in an ivory tower where everybody is an enemy and you need to build walls and you’ve got to do a better deal with the Chinese or whatever it might be, that this leader that you’ve elected thinks is a good idea, well, that’s what you believe,” he said.
As for what Waters might say to someone who’s looking for escapism rather than politics at a rock concert, the musician didn’t mince his words.
“Go see Katy Perry, you know?” he said.
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