10 Musicians That Walked Away From HUGE Bands
2. Roger Waters - Pink Floyd
When you're playing with the same musicians over the course of decades at a time, there comes a moment when you start to want a break. You can never really count on 5 different people being on the same page about everything, so it would make sense that everyone try to stretch out their muscles every now and again. As the '80s got underway though, Roger Waters quickly found that his musical vision was becoming much bigger than even Pink Floyd could handle.
After making some of the biggest headtrips of the '70s like on Wish You Were Here and Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall was entirely Waters' brainchild, being a concept album that told the semi autobiographical story of a rock star slowly losing his sanity. Though the album and accompanying movie turned into one of the biggest triumphs that the band had ever seen, Waters wanted to go even further, to the point where the next album The Final Cut gets labeled as a Roger Waters' solo album in disguise.
It's not like Waters was avoiding that title either, with most of his ambitions for the future being a lot more cerebral for Floyd, leaving David Gilmour to carry on with the band for albums like A Momentary Lapse of Reason and the Division Bell. The musicianship was still there, but every Floyd fan could tell there was something missing. Gilmour may have the pure muscle as a member of Floyd, but Waters was the beating heart that held everything together.