Which one's Pink?: The battle of words

edited by Dave Ward

Gilmour: "We never assumed that it [Pink Floyd] was defunct, but the growing tide of rumors and Roger's vocal output combined made it almost like an avalanche. We couldn't keep issuing press releases saying, 'No, we haven't split up.' It wasn't worth the bother. Our assumption—my assumption, anyway—was that we would do another record." —Rolling Stone, 19 November 1987

Waters: "Let's be fair to our public, for pity's sake, and admit the group disintegrated long ago!"— Penthouse, September 1988

Gilmour: "I've been working on my career with Pink Floyd for 20 years-since 1968. I'm 44 now, too old to start all over at this stage of my career, and I don't see any reason why I should. Pink Floyd is not some sacred or hallowed thing that never made bad or boring records in the past. And I'm not destroying anything by trying to carry on!"—Penthouse, September 1988

Waters: "Pink Floyd is finished as a creative force and should remain that way. And if Pink Floyd is going out as a band, it's a rip-off. If Pete Townsend is not in The Who, then it isn't The Who. If I'm not in Pink Floyd, then it's not Pink Floyd. The fact that the band's name is being used to make money is offensive."—Classic Rock magazine, 1998

Gilmour: "I don't see any reason why I should stop. It took decades of care and feeding for Pink Floyd to find its loyal audience, and I won't throw in the towel, especially after Lapse of Reason has been such a huge success. Roger doesn't have the right at present to tell me what to do with my life, although he believes that he does. And he'll not ruin my career, although lately he's been trying to."—Penthouse, September 1988

Waters: "I would be terribly happy for you to like what I'm doing and to like what he's doing, if it wasn't for the fact that he was calling himself Pink Floyd. He isn't. If one of us is going to be called Pink Floyd, it's me.... That's my pig up there, that's my plane crashing. It's their dry ice."—Rolling Stone, 19 November 1987

Gilmour: "I had an awful lot of time invested in the group. It was an intolerable situation, but I was damned if I was going to be forced out. I am an extremely stubborn person, and I will not be forced out of something I consider to be partly mine."—Rolling Stone, 19 November 1987

Waters: "There is the legal issue, which is the only thing that can be resolved in court. And that is, who owns the piece of property that is the name Pink Floyd? That is a legal issue; you go to court and fight over it. The other issue is... what is or isn't a rock group. What is the Beatles? Are Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr the Beatles? My view now is they're not, any more than The Firm should have been called Led Zeppelin, even if John Paul Jones had been there."—Rolling Stone, 19 November 1987

Gilmour: "He's [Waters is] making it painful and it shouldn't be like that. He walked freely away from it to get on with his own life, and I can understand that, but then he tries to control us afterwards. I see no logical sense in it except that he's jealous. I have no idea what we ever did to him to make us break it up. It's a simple matter of freedom; he's free to do what he wants and we are going to be free to do what we want. Personally, I think he's damaging his own career. People don't like to hear Roger bitching about him doing everything."—Only Music, December 1987, issue #12

Waters: "My one pathetic victory was that they had to put testicles on the pig. If the pig had been exactly the same as the pig that I designed, I could have stopped them using it in their shows. So they put balls on my pig. Fuck them. Gilmour and Mason now own the name 'Pink Floyd'. They keep it in a box."—Q, November 1992

Gilmour: "The lawsuits were more like threats and prelitigation stuff. It never got to court. There's been a little bit of posturing since but nothing serious."—Interview Magazine, July 1994

Mason: "It's a shame we didn't manage it better. If my children behaved like that, I'd be very cross. Genesis is a better example of how it should be done. Peter Gabriel left. No one was thrilled, but at least they behaved in a grown-up way. With Roger, it seemed like a contact sport. It shouldn't matter who sells more records or tickets, as long as you make the living you want to. This isn't the Super Bowl."—USA Today, 25 April 1994