Roger Waters served as a central creative contributor for the spacey, psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd from 1965 to 1983. While in London studying to be an architect, Roger Waters formed Pink Floyd as the vocalist and bass player along with drummer Nick Mason and keyboardist Rick Wright. Filling out the original lineup, Syd Barrett, a childhood acquaintance of Waters, soon joined the band as lead guitarist. Originally, Barrett served as the primary songwriter for Pink Floyd, but once he was replaced by David Gilmour due to personal issues and band tensions, Waters took on a more prominent role in the songwriting department, contributing multiple tracks to Floyd's first post-Barrett album, A Saucerful of Secrets.
As Pink Floyd's commercial success began to ramp up, so did Water's songwriting and composition duties. For the album The Dark Side of the Moon, one of the most successful records in rock history and released in 1973, Roger Waters was responsible for all the lyrics and the majority of the music. He took an increasingly dominant role in future releases, writing most of Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall, while writing all of 1983's The Final Cut, which marked the final album of the Waters era of Pink Floyd.
Following his exit from the band, Waters went on to record solo material, releasing the gold record The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking in 1984. Tensions between Waters and his Pink Floyd bandmates didn't exactly subside after their breakup. Discouraged by his solo career, David Gilmour rallied Mason and Wright to re-form Pink Floyd, to which Roger Waters sued, hoping to prevent this new version of his band from touring under Pink Floyd moniker. Waters lost the case, and the Gilmour-led Pink Floyd went on to tour and record with commercial success.
Waters continued to write and record on his own material, including an opera set during the French Revolution called Ça Ira. In 2005, Waters reunited with Pink Floyd for a one time only performance at the Live 8 Benefit concert in London. Waters still performs both his solo material and Pink Floyd catalog, including his massive multi-year tour of The Dark Side of the Moon Live.