mirror-textfiles.com/music/PINKFLOYD/watrgr92.txt

German ATD Interview, September, 1992
Translated & Transcripted by Bert Oberholz

I used some escape-sequences (not too often) which can be interpreted 
as follows:

/* bla-bla */    my comment 

<< bla-bla >>    re-translation of relevant german dialogues

'bla-bla'        quotes in direct-speech 

[ bla-bla ]      Name of a song that is just being played

<bpa-bxk>        words that are probably mispelled

<???>            words that miss

<* bubble *>     possible synonyms for missing words

...              ellipses are put intentionally to signal breaks,
                 they are no gaps

That looks complicated, but it isn't....

BTW: don't worry about the stupid moderators, we have better ones!
These would better interview a different Roger, you know, 
whose lastname starts with 'W' and ends with 'hitaker'. :-)
Or even better: Tina Turner who already speaks german ...


It took place in a german radio station (SWF3) at September 18, 1992, from
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm (local time).

Mod:    "SWF3 PopShop <<at the microphone>> Markus Lorenz, Markus Brock,
        and ..."
        
RW:     "... Roger Waters." /* they perform this game 4-5 times and Roger 
                               gets increasingly bored with it */

[ Wat God Wants I ] 

Mod:    "The title of the album reminds me of Neil Postman's book.
        So, was it the basic idea?"
        
RW:     "Er, the idea 'no', the title 'yes'. I stole the title from that book,
        because I loved the title. I enj..., I like the book very much.
        This is what I thought, it was very interesting - but the title
        I loved. So I stole it."
        
Mod:    "So, what's the basic idea of the album?"

RW:     "Well, a <theatracally...> characterizes this gorilla watching TV,
        and, er, the gorilla is a metaphor for the human race, or for human
        beeings. And, er, the album is based upon my response to, ehm, TV of 
        the last few years."
        
Mod:    "So, do you watch to TV sometimes?"

RW:     "Er, recently no, ehm, but I was in the habit of watching TV from
        time to time. I've been in the United States for, er, the last eight 
        or nine months, where TV is almost unwatcheable, unless you're 
        interested in american football, er, this sport is ... is, sport
        also is almost unwatcheable, because of the interruptions.
        They're so <???> and irritating."
        
Mod:    /* translates that Roger likes American Football */
        "I remember Pink in the Wall always watching, sitting there and
        zapping, ehm, so was it Roger Waters, very much years ago, always 
        watching TV?"
        
RW:     "Er, no, I've never watched an enormous amount of TV, but, however
        a number of songs from this record are based on, ehm, my response
        to specific, er, bits of news, or, or, documentary stuff, I've seen.
        Ehm, and er, but the beginning of the idea of the album came from
        the song 'Perfect Sense Part 1', er, where ..., so the image of the 
        monkey comes from the opening shot of '2001 - Space Odyssee", the
        Stanley Kubrick movie. Er, well the chimpansee, although it's not 
        a chimpansee, but the early man, if you like, discovers the bone.
        And then he can use this bone as a weapon. And that song precedes
        through a brief history of, er, the human race, until we find our-
        selves returning to the Garden of Eden at the end of this song, to
        have another war."
        
Mod:    /* translates something about 2001 and a monkeys that's running 
        around with a bone. */
        "It's a conceptual album, isn't it? You like doing concept albums ?!"

RW:     /* getting nerved */
        "Yes,   that    is    my    style!"
        
Mod:    "Why? Is it boring for you to do an album, just one song after another,
        or why ... what's the reason for that?"
        
RW:     "I'm not sure that, er, I can explain it and I'm not sure whether
        I should, either, you know, whether, ehm, we don't choose the work that
        we do - the work chooses us, I have a sense, you know. Ehm, I think, 
        er, most people who paint pictures that are interesting, or make
        music that is interesting, tend to be in contact with something which
        chooses them rather than the other way around.
        So, normally, if you'd say 'well, now I'm going to write a song about
        the war in the gulf' it's likely that it will be boring, you know, ehm,
        because it gets <???> in the pedantry of the approach. So, ehm, it's
        always been more interesting to me to produce a work that starts and
        goes through a series of songs that <???> have a relationship - one
        with the other - and then has a middle and finally has an end, than to
        do, er, single songs. I don't know why."
        
[ Watching TV ]

Mod:    "<<we talked in the meantime about the intruments on 'Watching TV' ..>>
        ... there are some interesting on that song ?!"
        
RW:     "Yeah, this er, er, those are a small group of chinese musicians that 
        call themselves 'The Peking Brothers'. I believe, they've <*escaped*> 
        from the National Peking Orchestra when they were in London, a few years
        ago. So there's, you know, a <*instrument*> and a lute and a 
        <*instrument*> and a bass and a girl singing, as well."

Mod:    /* translates */

RW:     "But also a more interestingly: in the middle of the piece, after 'I 
        grieve for my sister', you hear a girls voice in chinese, which was
        a tape, that was smuggled out, er, from <???> after the Tiananmen
        Square massacre from one of the leaders of the student demonstrators
        there. And she, er, it's an extraordinary tape. The whole thing is 
        called 'Waiting for Our Executionars' and the bit that I've got on
        the record <???> is the end of her tape, and she says: 'People in
        China, do not forget, do not forget the children who died for you.
        Long live the Republic!'. It's really a moving thing."
        
Mod:    /* breaks and translates */
        "... you are not singing alone this song. You're singing together with 
        Don Henley. So, how was it, working with him together? Is he a friend
        of yours?"
        
RW:     "No, he's a, he's a friend of a friend of mine, ehm. The discjockey
        on Radio Kaos, <Jim Ladd>, is a friend of Don's. And, er, he's been 
        trying to get us together, coz, er, you know, he felt we <???> like-
        minded people. And, er, I thought that this song would work <???>
        with two male voices. So, I said 'Hey, you will maybe ...', er.
        I asked him first whether he'd be delighted to, and I said 'How about it
        you are?' he said 'fine'. So, I played him the song and he liked it
        and came in the studio and we did it in a session, you know."
        
Mod:    /* translates */
        "It is the first album after five years, after the Kaos-album.
        Did you work for five years on that album?"
        /* translates */
        
RW:     "No, I've done other things in the meantime. I wrote the music for,
        em, er, an opera called <ca guerre> which is about the french revo-
        lution, with <???> written called Etienne <???>ille. And, er, maybe
        even that will be next thing that I work on, after this. And, er, I 
        did one or two other things."
        
Mod:    /* translates */
        "How do you work when you compose an album? Do you write first the 
        lyrics, or do you compose first the music?"
        
RW:     "It's, er, it, it, er ... 

Mod:    /* translates */
        
RW:     "It's, er, it depends. It varies a lot, Recently, I've moved more and
        more towards a technique, whereby having-been-moved-by-something
        enough for the idea for a song to form in my mind. I will then, er,
        record a demo of some music. And then, er, I'll wait until I have a 
        pregnant feeling. When I feel that the lyrics may be ready to appear
        and, er, will go into the studio and put the tape on. And I put the 
        headphones on and stand in front of the microphone an the engineer 
        will play the tape. And when the moment comes, when the song should
        start, I sing, with nothing written down on paper. And sometimes I get
        3-4-5-6 line out, straight away. And then - some of it, of course, is  
        rubbish - and then I'll go back and drop in record<???> of what I've
        done and build the song up that way. And when, when the mood is right
        sometime, I can get a whole song in about, you know, half an hour, 40 
        minutes, so it is very efficient. But also it takes the eager out of
        the writing, you know, and, er, it reduces the amount of craft and 
        increases the connection with whatever the muse is that enables me
        to write songs in the first place."
        
Mod:    /* translates */
        "How long did you really work in studio with that album?
        Because there are fantastic sounds, ehm ..., must ..., need a long time
        ... to do this ?!"
        
RW:     "Yeah, wee woo, I thought, that I'd finished this record at one
        point in 1990. And then, you know, when you, when you, think you've
        finished something, the day comes when you put it, you sit <???> 
        and listen to it, and you know whether you have finished it, or 
        not. And I realized that I had. And I was then, er, ehm, I started 
        looking for a co-producer to work with. And eventually, er, ... I 
        spoke to many people and eventually, er, Pat Leonard and I got together
        and we then worked on it. And Pat and myself and Nick Griffiths, who's
        the engineer on the <righthood> have spend many pains, taking hours, 
        er, trying to ... express the feelings that are inherant in these 
        songs."
        
Mod:    /* translates */

[ Late Home Tonight Part 1 ]

[ It's a Miracle ]

Mod:    " ... you have a chorus on this song, The London Welsh Choral, 
        but it's not a normal choral, I think ?!"
        
RW:     "Er, no they, they, this is the 2nd version of the song that we did.
        Ehm, because the 1st version was at twice this tempo. It was done with
        a strong drumming beat in the background. But it didn't fit within the
        context of this part of the album, so, we had to re-record it. And
        we'd used The London Welsh Choral over it. But because we changed the
        tempo, we couldn't no longer use that recording behind the songs, so, 
        what we did - it was Pat Leonards, actually - was to take the, ehm, 
        choir and to isolate the sound of the choir and to cut them up into
        80cm length, throw it all in dustbin, and stick it back together at
        random. Backwards, forwards, however it come out, and then play it 
        against the track. And because it is in the same key as the track, the 
        random <???> position of what we real recorded at a differnet tempo
        and that ... strange ... ehm, hm, you know, conglomaration of bits of
        tape works, I think, really well and gives it that weird atmosphere
        in the background.
        THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA, PAT!"
        
Mod:    /* translates */

RW:     "It's an old Beatles trick, I have to say, it's been something he's
        been dying to do, for like 20 years."
        
Mod:    /* translates */
        "You are working a lot with real voices and real instruments, why?"
        
RW:     "Ehm, I think, er, there are real feelings and the need real people, 
        playing real instruments, to really interpret them really well."
        
Mod:    "Haha.." /* translates */
        "Do you like the modern synthesizer stuff?"
        
RW:     "Er, I'm not ..., I'm very bored with drum machines, you know, if I 
        hear another record that goes 'woom-woom-tick-wa-tong-kung-ka-tick',
        you know, I'll think <???> to myself, but, er, the problem with these
        things is, that it makes it very easy for people to make something
        that _sounds_ like a record. This is like a facsimile of a piece of
        Rock 'n' Roll, very easily. You are going to the shop, you buy an 
        Roland <Data 8>, you bring it home and you plug it in, and then you
        are ..., you can make records, you know. And if you speak over them
        then that's a rap record. And, er, <by enlarge> what you produce is, 
        is that stuff that has a ... at least e <fossile> attraction, but that, 
        ehm, you don't want to listen to the next day. Well, I don't."
        
/*  Just for fun, and for echoers which are interested in contemporary       */
/*  drumming: What Roger actually sang above was a slow 4/4-Funkrhythm       */
/*  (about 90 bpm) which could be transcribed, with a 16th feel, as follows: */
/*                                                                           */
/*  hi-hat     ****************                                              */ 
/*  snaredr.       o       o                                                 */
/*  bassdr.    o o   oo o o                                                  */


Mod:    /* translates */
        "And that ..."
        
RW:     "Sorry to interrupt, but anyway I think, to encourage people to learn
        to play instruments, that's a good job, you know, and it's a job that's
        disappearing. It's, It's ... one of the jobs around here somebody can
        learn as technique and it's a fulfilling satisfying thing for them 
        today, and also, er, for us to hear. And the same goes for choirs, you
        know. Choirs are wonderful things and the more we use them the better,
        in my view."
        
Mod:    /* translates */

[Perfect Sense Part I] /* fade out */

Mod:    /* introduces phone number to audience */

[Perfect Sense Part I] /* cont. */

Call 1: "Will there be a reunion with Pink Floyd and Roger Waters?"

RW:     "No, why not go back to the man from <Ipswich>?"

Mod:    "So, we'll do it later ..."

RW:     "I will do that later, dear ..."

Mod:    "So, you don't want to answer ... ?!"

RW:     "Oh no, I did answer. I said 'No'."

Mod:    "Not more ... not why?"

RW:     "No, I'm not interested in 'Why', I think, its well documented."

Call 1: "Ok."

RW:     "Ok, thanks!"

Call 2: "Hello, I'd like to ask him: 
        whether how you do feel now about Berlin. For the reason that there 
        have been many big stars and I heard about it that it was not so 
        successful as it could be ?!"
        
/* Call 2 discusses with Mod in german */ 

RW:     "Is that it? That was the question, wasn't it? Ehm, yeah, there was, 
        there were many starts there. Er, it, you are talking economically ...?
        ... in terms with the money, right?"
        
Call 2: "Ja."

RW:     "That ... it's that rumour, isn't it? Ok, weel you are absolutely right.
        The memorial fund, I'm afraid was <let> down in a number of ways, by a
        number of people. And the show is still in the 'red'. Ehm, Polygram 
        Records, who took the video and who released the album - and whom I 
        thank and will thank eternally for doing that, because it was very
        difficult, getting the things off the ground in the first place - 
        is still selling videos and records and I have every hope that the
        <sum> in the future will got to the 'black'. Ehm, ... we were promised
        $ 2 1/2 million for the television rights. And the company that took 
        them, who I won't mention, because they'll probably <sew> me if I do,
        but - disgustingly enough - only came up with $ 400.000 at the end of 
        the day, which let us with a <???> of  2.1 million dollars of what was
        promised to us.
        Ehm, and there were problems with all kinds of other things, so, ehm.."
        
Call 2: "Would you try it again ... such a big show?"

RW:     "Ehm, you know, it's a strange ... where you there?"

Call 2: "Pardon?"

RW:     "Where you there?"

Call 2: "What do you mean?"

RW:     "Where ... you ... in ... Berlin?"

Call 2: "I've not  been there, but I ..."

RW:     "Not, ok."

Call 2: "... heard the record. And I think 'If the record is' - pardon -
        as bad as it is, comparing it with, er, normal records, you make, er.
        I think think the show must be, ehm - I don't like to blame you, but -
        er, you know what I mean ..."
        
/* 'to blame' is often mixed up with 'to insult' (maybe in a bit weaker 
    meaning), this is - I think - a common german mistake */

RW:     "Well, you <*told us*> your opinion. I actually think the record is
        a very good record and, ehm, I think, it's very well produced and
        very well engineerd, and ..."
        
Call 2: "OK, he-he"

Call 3: /* asks in german */

Mod:    "That's a good question. He is asking you ... - I don't know whether
        you heard of all the things that happens with the young german 
        people attacking foreign people living in Germany at the moment...?!
        Ehm, he ia asking wether you would play again for german kids."
        
RW:     "Yeah, of course I would. You can't, er, you know, <...> everybody
        with the same brush. Ehm, in every country, in every society all over
        the world there are kids who've been, er, ... and strangely enough
        I had a conversation with somebody about this only the other day.
        And we were trying to decide wether there were social or economical 
        or whatever the reasons for people that behave like that. We have them
        in England just the same as you have them in Germany. Er, I suspect 
        that, if we could produce one generation, who weren't beaten by their
        fathers ..., you know.. I suspect that all of these kids who commit
        these <???> crimes have been beaten, probably severely and <???> over
        long periods of t..."
        
/* Hey, Mr. Sony, why are you 90' tapes getting shorter all the time.

   (There not more than 1 1/2 minutes missing!)

   t o   b e   c o n t i n u e d . . . */