Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters says giving someone a great guitar doesn't necessarily mean they turn into a great guitarist, nor does it mean they immediate…

“It’s like saying: ‘Give a man a Les Paul guitar and he becomes Eric Clapton.’ It’s not true”: Why Roger Waters thinks people are too preoccupied with gear

Can a great guitar make a great guitarist? Roger Waters doesn’t think so, according to this unearthed footage from Pink Floyd’s Live at Pompeii film.

Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters says giving someone a great guitar doesn’t necessarily mean they turn into a great guitarist, nor does it mean they immediately emulate the style of other musicians using similar gear.

As Classic Rock magazine looks back on Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii – from 1972 – archival footage of the band is reviewed and Waters gives his opinion on musicians overthinking the instruments they choose to use.

“It’s a question of using the tools that are available when they’re available,” he says in the Live At Pompeii concert film footage.

He continues: “It’s all extensions of what’s coming out of our heads. It’s like saying: ‘Give a man a Les Paul guitar and he becomes Eric Clapton.’ It’s not true. Give a man an amplifier and a synthesiser… and he doesn’t become us.”

Commenting on his appearance in the documentary years later, Waters would go on to state, “You can see we were fucking stoned. Dave and I were completely out of our brains.”

Following Live At Pompeii, Pink Floyd didn’t go on to release a concert film until 1989’s Delicate Sound of Thunder.

Drummer Nick Mason says, “It’s a rare document of us before Dark Side [of the Moon] and Wish You Were Here. Now you only have to turn on the television and every band you’ve ever heard of has got a live film.”