October 13th 1992 - MTV Europe

MTV Europe - News At Night

Presenter: Roger Waters has launched an attack on British national radio station Radio One for its play list policy. The singer has blasted the station for refusing to play the first single What God Wants from Waters' latest album Amused To Death.

Roger Waters: Radio One is a national institution, right? This is the only national radio programme here, right, so, I produce a record, OK... I'm one, maybe, you could count maybe if you threw, er, if you picked ten names of the important people in post-war popular music in England, I'M ONE OF THEM, you know. I bring out this record... this is a very important record... I think.

I mean I'm just being honest now, I don't want to sound big-headed, but IT IS. And, er, Jeff Beck is playing this "da-da-da" guitar on it. This, in all the rest of the world, you know, and particularly in Europe, but in North America as well, people in Britain miss this thing because, because...

Jeff Beck is like, you know... he's like Hamada who's the famous Japanese potterist, he's a living sort of national treasure in our musical heritage. He's a very, very important figure in the history of all this - he's also a genius, and his playing, as you've rightly pointed out, on this piece [Amused To Death] is absolutely remarkable, OK?

So, here's a very important writer and performer and record maker, and a VERY, very important guitar player in... within the context of this thing that we call popular music in Great Britain... and these arseholes won't play the record on the radio!