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“THE IMAGES ARE OUT OF MY HEAD, NOT ROGER’S.”

From page 32 of Classic Rock Magazine June 2011

Cover of June 2011 issue.

Legendary artist Gerald Scarfe on The Wall, then and now.

GERALD SCARFE: “Roger Waters came to me with the idea of The Wall a nd played his raw tapes to me. My job, really, was to illustrate his lyrics, but the images are out of my head, not his head. For example, when it came to the judge in the trial scene, I saw him as a huge arse, which I know Roger didn’t. But he has this philosophy that is wonderful for artists, which is that if you employ an artist, you don’t try to change what he does.

“For the inflatable puppets, I started with a drawing that I showed to Roger, and then I made a small sculpture about 10 to 12 inches high. Finally I painted it so that the people who were making the big one had a guide.

“I re-made the inflatables for the new show. I was never really satisfied with how they turned out originally. They were fairly unsophisticated, although people said they were pretty effective. They can now move around much better than before. The mother is more of a watchful figure, a kind of omnipresent force. She turns her head and rakes the audience with her searchlight eyes. The teacher is still the most popular character. There’s always a huge roar when he comes on. In fact he’s probably a teacher from back in my day. He’s still pretty skinny but that’s because he’s a mean bastard.

“I created a new animated character to illustrate Waiting For The Worms. He’s crouching by the wall, and then he gets up and runs towards us, swiping at us as he runs. I also added some graffiti on the wall in what Roger calls my ‘iconic’ script.

“The new show has got tremendous oomph. Every minute of it is packed with something. Not necessarily something happening, but some sort of emotional feeling.” The Making Of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, by Gerald Scarfe, is out now.