How David Gilmour rates Roger Waters as a bass player

David Gilmour and Roger Waters created, alongside Nick Mason and Richard Wright, some of the most influential and successful albums of all time with Pink Floyd. It was a perfect combination that came to an end in the mid-’80s when the bassist, singer and main lyricist decided to leave the group.

Although there was a brief reunion in 2005, it has been well known for decades that David and Roger don’t get along, but they don’t deny the fact that their songwriting partnership was important to the recording of those songs. But how does David Gilmour rate Waters as a bass player?

How David Gilmour rates Roger Waters as a bass player

Gilmour said Roger Waters was a good bass player when he wanted to be, as he said in a letter he sent to Bass Player magazine after they said in an article that in his opinion Waters’ bass playing was horrible. “About your Classic Rock Revisited piece on Pink Floyd‘s ‘Animals’ (March ’98): I don’t think I ever described Roger Waters’ bass playing as ‘horrible’. If I did I must have been having a bad day. He was a good bass player when he wanted to be, which he often didn’t, and when he didn’t he often asked me to take over the chore.”

“On ‘Animals’ Roger played bass on ‘Dogs’ and I played bass on ‘Sheep’ and ‘Pigs’. Most of the bass line on ‘Sheep’ (apart from the ending) was what Roger had been playing onstage, as we had been performing it as ‘Raving and Drooling’ for a couple of years. However, in the studio Roger had a rhythm guitar part he wanted to play. So we swapped roles. On ‘Pigs’ the part and the playing are mine,” David Gilmour said via fax to Bass Player magazine in 1998.

A couple of years earlier, when talking to Musician magazine, he said Roger was never really interested in improving his playing. Also that he used to thank him for appearing on best bassists polls. After being asked if Waters’ playing was effective, he said: “He had developed his own limited, or very simple style. He was never very keen on improving himself as a bass player. Half the time I would play the bass on the records. Because I would tend to do it quicker, right back to those early records. I mean, at least half the bass on all the recorded output is me anyway.”

He continued:

“Well, I think it’s been said (that I recorded the bass guitar many times). But it’s certainly not something we go around advertising. Rog used to come in and say ‘Thank you very much’ to me once in a while for winning him bass-playing polls.” The guitarist was then questioned if he was the one who played the fretless bass on “Hey You”. He replied: “Yeah. Hmm. Roger playing fretless bass? Please! (laughs)”.

Waters already said he doesn’t consider himself a bass player

Like many bassists in Rock and Roll, Roger Waters also was an incredible songwriter and the driving force behind the lyrics and concept of the most successful Pink Floyd albums. Interestingly, he never considered himself a bass player. “I was never a bass player. I’ve never played anything. I play guitar a bit on the records and would play bass.”

“Because I sometimes want to hear the ‘sound’ I make when I hit a string on a bass with a pick or my finger. It makes a different sound than anybody else makes, to me. But I’ve never been interested in playing the bass. I’m not interested in playing instruments and I never have been,” Roger Waters told Musician magazine in 1992. More recently in 2019, Roger described himself as “not a virtuoso bass player or guitar player or singer or anything,” in an interview with Brooklyn Vegan.

Cream’s Jack Bruce was one of Waters’ heroes but he didn’t like Pink Floyd

One of his favorite bass players was Cream’s Jack Bruce. He had the chance to see playing back in 1966 at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London. He studied there and it was where he formed Pink Floyd with Richard Wright, Nick Mason and Syd Barrett the next year. “Jack Bruce, probably the most musically gifted bass player who’s ever been,” Waters once said.

That night was also when Jimi Hendrix, who had recently arrived in England, asked to join Cream on stage. He jammed with them, leaving everybody with their jaws dropped. But once when remembering that night, Jack said he remembered Pink Floyd members were in the audience, but also said that he believed they were a band for people who didn’t like Rock and Roll.

“Coincidentally, the guys that became Pink Floyd were in the audience. Apparently seeing that event made them become Pink Floyd. When I saw them recently, they told me that. I knew they were there, but I didn’t know that we were responsible for them getting together. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing I leave that for you to decide. I always thought that Pink Floyd were a band for people who don’t like music or Rock’n’Roll.”

In “One of These Days” Roger and David Gilmour divided the bass parts

Another Pink Floyd classic song “One of These Days”, which is driven by the bass guitar, the recording was divided by Roger and David. As Gilmour recalled in an interview with Guitar World, Waters came up with the basic riff. Then both of them worked on the song featured on “Meddle” (1971).

“(…) Yes (I played the bass too in that track). The opening section is me and Roger. On ‘One of these Days’, for some reason, we decided to do a double track of the bass. You can actually hear it if you listen in stereo. The first bass is me. A bar later, Roger joins in on the other side of the stereo picture.”

“We didn’t have a spare set of strings for the spare bass guitar. So the second bass is very dull sounding. (laughs) We sent a roadie out to buy some strings. But he wandered off to see his girlfriend instead,” David Gilmour said in 1993.

Funny enough, bassist Guy Pratt (Roxy Music), who has been playing with David Gilmour for years, once said that when people come to him and say, “You’re as good a bass player as Roger Waters,” he finds it funny because it was actually Gilmour who recorded most of the bass tracks.