“There are a lot of songs that are not on there,” Roger Waters said last spring, pointing to the CD on a mixing console in a Manhattan recording studio – an advance copy of his latest album, Is This the Life We Really Want? “There’s so much stuff that I’ve produced over the years that I never put out,” the ex–Pink Floyd singer-bassist went on. “I don’t really think about it. I’m focused now on what I’m doing, so I can’t really remember why I didn’t make a record for all that time. I have no idea.”

Read the new interview with Roger Waters here and find out why it took 25 years for him to record a new album, his writing process, growing up in postwar Britain and politics.