More about: Roger Waters

Roger Waters has slammed US president Donald Trump by comparing him to the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The former Pink Floyd bassist and vocalist was speaking to The Guardian as he prepared to present the band’s 1979 album, ‘The Wall’, as an opera in collaboration with Opéra de Montréal.

He said: “Any despot, whenever they build a monument to themselves, whether it’s Ceaușescu, or Saddam Hussein, or Donald Trump, they always look exactly the same.

“Weirdly, these people have bits missing from their sensibility, so it’s almost as if they build the monument to themselves from a despot catalog and it’s always full of marble and gold taps.

“[Look at] Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York City. It’s perfect. Trump with his gold taps and his all of that. It’s the perfect symbol of everything we need to steer clear of”.

He also criticised Trump for dismissing evidence on global warming whilst drawing further comparisons to Nazi Germany’s Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. He said: “The Americans have just elected somebody to power in this country, the president, who does not believe in climate change. He believes it’s an invention, he doesn’t believe in it.

“That’s the end of the story. He thinks it’s something that people have made up, and he managed to convince a number of other people of that, just by stating it. You just state it. You state the big lie often enough and people will believe it. Who said that? Joseph Goebbels.” 

Reflecting on the opera, Waters said that the location for the operatic version of ‘The Wall’ was fitting, as that was were the original album was conceived after Waters spat in a fan’s face during a 1977 Pink Floyd concert.

He said: ““It was a life-changing moment for me only insofar as my response to it made me think of how alienated I had become. Suddenly a lightbulb went on and this showman in me went, ‘What about doing a rock show and building a wall between the band and the audience, as a physical expression of alienation that caused me to spit on that bloke?’”

Another Brick in the Wall opens at the Opéra de Montréal on March 11.

More about: Roger Waters