Many fans view Pink Floyd’s 1983 album The Final Cut as effectively a Roger Waters solo outing, with the recording plagued by growing tensions within the band. Waters officially left Pink Floyd in 1985, and many assumed that would be the end of the group.
It wasn’t. Not long after Waters’ departure, David Gilmour and Nick Mason reconvened with plans for a new Pink Floyd album. They also brought keyboardist Rick Wright back into the fold after he had been unceremoniously fired by Waters during the making of The Wall.
The resulting album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, surfaced in 1987. But its release ignited a bitter feud and legal battle between Gilmour and Waters over the right to use the Pink Floyd name.
The dispute was eventually settled out of court, with Gilmour’s camp retaining the right to carry on as Pink Floyd. But what had caused the acrimony that had been simmering behind the scenes for years?
For longtime Pink Floyd roadie and tour manager Chris Adamson, it can be traced to one thing.
She basically said to Roger one day, ‘What the hell do you need those other guys for?’ That started the split.”
— Chris Adamson
“What messed them up was the age-old thing — wives!” Adamson tells Guitar Player. “Before that, there was none of that thing going on. David and Roger really complemented each other. But then the wives got involved.”
Adamson — who recently shared his recollections of Floyd during the making of Meddle and The Dark Side of the Moon — believes the group’s internal dynamics began to fray once Gilmour and Waters entered new relationships following the breakdown of their first marriages.
“With all the original wives, the band and all of us used to go on holiday together, the wives, the kids, everyone,” he says.
That changed in the late 1970s. Waters had been married Judith Trim, but their marriage ended in 1975. While on tour in America, the bass guitarist met Carolyne Christie, who worked for EG, the management company whose roster included Roxy Music, King Crimson, T. Rex and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, among other artists.
“They ended up living together and then getting married and having two kids together and everything. But she was incredibly strong — demanding, whatever. She basically said to Roger one day, ‘What the hell do you need those other guys for?’
“And that’s when the rot set in. That started the split.”
Adamson’s recounting is given further weight in Mark Blake’s 2008 biography of Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd. “Carolyne was landed gentry, and had all the attitudes associated with her class, and she seemed to have this huge effect on Waters,” Blake writes, noting that “he seemed to change completely.”
Adamson says a similar scenario played out in Gilmour’s personal life in the early 1990s. He had been married to artist and former model Virginia “Ginger” Hasenbein since 1975, but they divorced in 1990. He soon began dating English novelist and journalist Polly Samson, whom he married in 1994.
“By this time the split had happened in the band,” Adamson says, “but she pushed any chance for a reunion right out the door when she said to Dave, ‘What the hell do you need them for?’”
The Wall co-producer Bob Ezrin told Blake that Samson’s presence in the band further fueled the internal tensions.
I asked him, ‘Is there any chance of you and Roger getting together?’ He said, ‘Not a fuckin’ chance now.’”
— Chris Adamson
“It wasn’t easy at first,” he said. “It put a strain on the boys’ club, and it was almost clichéd to have the new woman coming in and then get involved in the career.”
Even Gilmour acknowledged in a Mojo interview that “Polly has a tendency to ruffle everyone’s feathers. I’m not aware of her having ruffled Nick or Rick’s feathers, but she certainly ruffled the management’s.”
Years later, Adamson was working with John Mayer at London’s Royal Albert Hall when he decided to approach Gilmour in the hope of mending the rift between him and Waters.
“I really did think I could get the band back together. I was at the bar with Dave and he introduced me to his new wife. She was all very friendly until she found out I was from the past. Then suddenly the long knives came out.
“I remember standing at a bar with Dave and asking him, ‘Is there any chance of you and Roger getting together?’ And he looked at me and said, ‘Not a fuckin’ chance now.’”
Adamson believes the death of Floyd keyboardist Rick Wright in 2008 severed the remaining thread keeping the group’s former members united. The four musicians last shared a stage in 2005, when Pink Floyd reunited for Live 8.
When Rick passed away, things continued to drift apart. And unfortunately that situation is how it is today.”
— Chris Adamson
Gilmour’s most recent public performance with Waters was in 2011, when he made a surprise appearance at Waters’ The Wall Live tour to perform his iconic guitar solos on “Comfortably Numb.”
In the years since, Gilmour and Waters have moved even further apart. In 2023, Samson publicly attacked Waters over his political views in a tweet in which she called him “anti-Semitic” and a “Putin apologist,” among a long list of other accusations.
Gilmour subsequently responded: “Every word demonstrably true.” Significantly, he insists Pink Floyd will not regroup.
So while Adamson believes time can heal old wounds, he thinks Pink Floyd’s rift has gone too far to repair.
“Getting the band together is never going to happen,” he says. “When Rick passed away, things continued to drift apart. And unfortunately that situation is how it is today.”
