Waters was born George Roger Waters in Great Bookham, Surrey near Leatherhead, and grew up in Cambridge.Although his father Eric Fletcher Waters had been a Communist and ardent pacifist, he fought in World War II and died in action at Anzio in 1944, when Roger was only five months old. Waters would refer or allude to the loss of his father throughout his work, especially on The Final Cut album from 1983 (which is dedicated to his father) and the song named "When the Tigers Broke Free", first used in the movie version of The Wall. However, he has said that the mother character from the latter album was nothing like his own. Distrust of authority, particularly government, educational, and military institutions, is a recurring theme in Waters? writing.



He and Syd Barrett attended the Morley Memorial Junior School on Hills Road, Cambridge, and later both attended the Cambridge County School for Boys (now Hills Road Sixth Form College), while fellow band member David Gilmour attended The Perse School on the same road [1]. He met Nick Mason and Richard Wright while attending the Regent Street Polytechnic school of architecture. He was a keen sportsman and was fond of swimming in the River Cam at Grantchester Meadows. At 15 he was chair of YCND in Cambridge.

In 1965, Roger Waters founded Pink Floyd (after many different incarnations - see Pink Floyd) along with Syd Barrett, Richard Wright and Nick Mason. Although Barrett initially did most of the songwriting for the band, Waters wrote the song "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk" on their debut LP, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. The album was a critical success and positioned the band for stardom. Barrett's deteriorating mental health led to increasingly erratic behavior, rendering him unable to continue in his capacity as Pink Floyd's lead singer and guitarist. Waters attempted to coerce his friend into psychiatric treatment; this proved unhelpful, and the band approached David Gilmour to replace Barrett at the end of 1967. Even the band's former managers felt that Pink Floyd would not be able to sustain its initial success without the talented Barrett. Filling the void left by Barrett's departure, Waters began to chart Pink Floyd's new artistic direction. The lineup with Gilmour and Waters eventually brought Pink Floyd to prominence, producing a series of albums in the 1970s that remain among the most critically acclaimed and best-selling records of all time.

An early picture of Roger Waters with Pink Floyd during the 1960sIn 1970, Waters collaborated with British composer Ron Geesin (who co-wrote Pink Floyd's title suite from Atom Heart Mother) on a soundtrack album, Music from "The Body", which consisted mostly of instrumentals interspersed with songs composed by Waters. Within Pink Floyd, Waters became the main lyrical contributor, exerting progressively more creative control over the band: he produced thematic ideas that became the impetus for concept albums such as The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, for which he wrote all of the lyrics and some of the music. After this, Waters became the primary songwriter, composing both Animals and The Wall largely by himself (though continuing to collaborate with Gilmour on music). He is the sole writer of Pink Floyd's two most successful singles, "Money" and "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II".

While usually credited only as a bass guitarist and vocalist, Waters is also known to play electric guitar (as he did on Animals, where he played rhythm guitar on tracks "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" and "Sheep") as well as add synthesizer and tape effects to earlier works. He also plays acoustic guitar frequently during his live tours, mostly on tracks from The Final Cut.

Waters? band-mates were happy to allow him to write the band's lyrics and guide its conceptual direction while they shared the opportunity to contribute musical ideas (Gilmour described Waters as "a very good motivator and obviously a great lyricist,"[2] even at the height of the acrimony between them in 1995). Some of the band's most popular and beloved songs, including "Echoes", "Time", "Us and Them", "Wish You Were Here" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", feature the strong synergy of Waters? sharp lyrical instincts combined with the melodic talent of Gilmour, the soft, precise drumming of Nick Mason, and atmospheric patterns of keyboardist Richard Wright ("Us and Them", for instance, began as a sweetly melodic Wright keyboard instrumental and gained poignancy when Waters added plaintive antiwar lyrics). Unfortunately, this give-and-take relationship began to dissolve: a consequence of the band's collective ennui, according to Waters. Songwriting credits were a source of contention in these difficult years; Gilmour has noted that his contributions to tracks like "Another Brick In The Wall, Part II", with its blistering guitar solo, were not always noted in the album credits. Nick Mason addresses the band in-fighting in his memoir, Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd, characterizing Waters as being egomaniacal at times. It was while recording The Wall that Waters decided to fire Wright, after his personal problems began to affect the album production. Wright stayed with the band as a paid session musician while Waters led the band through a complete performance of his opus on every night of the brief tour that followed (for which Gilmour acted as musical director).