Radio K.A.O.S. is the second solo studio album by English rock musician Roger Waters. Released on 15 June 1987 in the United Kingdom and June 16 in the United States, it was Waters' first solo studio album after his formal departure from the band Pink Floyd in 1985. Like his previous and future studio albums and many works of his during his time with Pink Floyd, the album is a concept album based on a number of key topical subjects of the late 1980s, including monetarism and its effect on citizens, popular culture of the time, and the events and consequences of the Cold War. It also makes criticisms of Margaret Thatcher's government, much like Pink Floyd's The Final Cut (1983), another album conceived by Waters. The album follows Billy, a mentally and physically disabled man from Wales, forced to live with his uncle David in Los Angeles after his brother Benny is sent to prison following an act intended to support striking coal miners which results in the death of a taxi driver, and his dismissal from his mining job due to "market forces". The album explores Billy's view of the world through an on-air conversation between him and Jim, a disc jockey (DJ) at a fictitious local radio station named Radio KAOS. Background and inspiration In 1979, Waters met American disc jockey Jim Ladd for a radio documentary on The Wall album, beginning a friendship which remains today. Ladd was an inspiration as he brought some light into Waters's dim view of L.A. life, initially through listening to the bizarre Fish Report from KMET. Waters became increasingly interested in Ladd's plight with his radio station KMET, and his eventual sacking to change the programming format of the station in search of market-researched profits. In 1985, Waters wrote a song called "Get Back to Radio," which seemed to be partly based on the experiences of Ladd, and partly from childhood memories – Waters fondly remembers listening to Radio Luxembourg well into the night as a child. An event from the 1985 miners' strike in Britain where a striking worker threw a concrete block off a motorway bridge, killing a taxi driver who was taking a strikebreaker to his job, seemed to register in Waters's subconscious, emerging in the second song written, "Who Needs Information" and later, "Me or Him." The album, with a working title of Home, took only