>>>An article from the ROLLING STONE archive
Mister Rock, you were a close friend of Syd Barrett’s from the early Cambridge days. What do you think is the biggest misinformation circulating about him?
That he should have been a depressed person. When I look at the many photos I took of him – you would be surprised to see how many of them he’s laughing in! He was quite a happy person, and he certainly wasn’t crazy, despite what many people think. Eccentric would be a more appropriate expression. He had weird impulses, although I only know those stories second-hand: how he locked a girlfriend in his bedroom and wouldn’t let her out. Some episodes suggest that he was an unstable character. On the other hand, I’ve seen enough people in the rock ‘n’ roll business who were way, way crazier than he was.
Did you get the impression that Syd realized how the drugs were harming him?
He didn’t see it that way. Besides, as far as I know, he actually stopped doing drugs in the mid-70s. I would say: If he hadn’t been so consistent and ended his career, he wouldn’t have survived much longer. He couldn’t take the pressure, and at least he knew that for sure. Don’t forget that he passed away just a few weeks ago. His sister has said that he was anything but a nursing case, that he chatted while shopping and rode his bike around. Of course, he led an extremely reclusive, solitary life, but that’s what a lot of people do.
The pressure you speak of – where did that come from? from the record company because they wanted hit singles from him?
No, certainly not from the record company. Rather from the underground, which was becoming an important trend in London at the time, with the political radicals and the acidheads and rock’n’rollers. Syd Barrett was her idol, he had a dark glamor about him like no other. If you went to the “UFO Club” in 1967, there were many bands, but Pink Floyd were the absolute stars, the kings of the psychedelic scene. And that at a time when the other three members of the group hadn’t even tried LSD. Syd implied that. In any case, he was the center of attention and that was definitely a huge pressure.
Did he carelessly throw away fame?
It didn’t mean anything to him. People think he must be crazy just because he had it all back then, because theoretically he could have been one of the biggest, most successful rock ‘n’ rollers of all time, given his talent and his good looks. But I think that at some point he realized how little he enjoyed the unlimited attention of the audience. The fact that he simply gave up the big dream that so many people dreamed of at the time – maybe that wasn’t so crazy after all. It might even be the smartest thing Syd has ever done.
When his first solo album “The Madcap Laughs” was finished, you shot the cover photos.
He had just moved to Earl’s Court from his flat in South Kensington. Syd didn’t have many possessions back then – you can see it in the pictures, his room is almost empty. On the third try I managed to find him at home. He was in the process of painting the floor, but because he hadn’t swept it first, garbage and cigarette butts were stuck to the drying paint. The girl on the cover is Iggy, who lived with him. She wasn’t explicitly his girlfriend, she might have slept with him, those were different times back then. She didn’t undress for the photos either, she was already naked when she opened the door. But that wasn’t a big surprise back then.
When was the last time you saw Syd?
1974 or ’75. Although he had already moved back to his mother in Cambridge by then, he often came to London. He never called before, he just stood at the door. We had tea together, smoked a joint, listened to some music, and then he left. He seemed pretty distracted last time, and when I asked him what he was doing, he didn’t know what to say. He was in some mental impasse that he couldn’t get out of. Yoga might have helped him, but I couldn’t get him excited about it either. Indirectly, however, I heard something from him in 2002. He signed 320 copies of my illustrated book. His nephew sent word that Syd really liked my photos and the book. That was the last message from him.
With Syd Barrett, we don’t need to be afraid of posthumous records with archive treasures either.
No, there is definitely nothing there. Although people have been begging him for years to record something new. A few years ago I had lunch with Bryan Morrison from Syd’s music publishers and during our conversation I said in some context, ‘Poor Syd!’ Bryan jumped up and yelled, ‘Poor Syd? He made £2m and a half last year!’ Even the solo records are said to have brought him a quarter of a million a year in royalties, but he’s spent virtually none of that. That’s the great irony: how to do nothing and still make a lot of money doing it.
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