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Legendary rock photographer Mick Rock was a friend and onetime roommate of Pink Floyd's original frontman, Syd Barrett, who died July 6 at age 60. EW asked Rock about his memories of the cult icon, who spent more than three decades as rock's most famous recluse.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What was Syd like to have as a roommate?
MICK ROCK: Well, if you see a lot of the pictures I have of him, he's laughing. I found him to be a very sweet guy. I met him originally at a Christmas party, before Floyd were well known. Then I shared a flat with him in London in 1969 [after Barrett and Pink Floyd parted ways], and I'm aware that there was some pretty outlandish behavior going on around that time. But whenever I was with him, it was pretty friendly and low-key, and smoke a spliff and listen to some music and laugh a bit. But, obviously, something did happen — certain situations, he just didn't want to deal with anymore.
Do you believe his problems were drug-related?
That might have been the trigger. But obviously, a lot of people did acid, and not everybody ends up like that. What can you say? It's very hard to state with dead certainty what happens with other people's minds. He wasn't that weird on acid. Some people I've taken acid with, you just want to get the f--- out of there. But not with Syd. He'd do a lot of laughing and laying around listening to music. He said that all he ever wanted to do as a kid was jump around and play guitar. But he found that things got in the way of that. He was an improviser, basically. And he didn't enjoy having to go out and play hits. He didn't want to be on Top of the Pops. He was more like Charlie Parker. He looked like a rock star and he had all the trimmings, but that isn't really what he wanted to be. Syd turned into a ghost, which is a sad thing. But, on the other hand, if he hadn't gotten out of the game, he almost certainly would have died, because he couldn't deal with it.
How vital was Syd to the success of Pink Floyd in the early days?
Totally. He was Pink Floyd. He named the band after two blues singers. He wrote almost all the early stuff. He sang. He played guitar. He was involved with the early liquid light shows. In the beginning Pink Floyd was Syd Barrett, and Dave [Gilmour] and Roger [Waters] will totally acknowledge it.
You interviewed him in '71 — what was he like then?
He'd retired to Cambridge; he was living in his mum's house and he was actually more mellow in many ways. He said, ''I'm full of dust in guitars.'' Which is such a great description of Syd.
Was that the last time you saw him?
No, the last time I saw him was about '74. He would occasionally show up at my apartment in London. He wasn't very talkative.
Do you see his influence on other artists?
Yeah — when I first knew David [Bowie], he used to talk about Iggy and Lou and Syd. Syd was the first rock & roller that sang with an English accent. So, in that way alone, he was incredibly influential. Because even the Beatles and Stones, they were clearly influenced by American singers. But you couldn't trace that in Syd's music.
Do you think the rest of Pink Floyd felt guilty about going on without him?
I don't know what they could have had guilt about. It was impossible to work with him. He wouldn't do what was necessary to be done in this business. They would only have had to feel guilty if they hadn't got him his money. But from what I can make out, they've always gotten him his due. And Dave Gilmour, I know, deliberately made sure that Syd had several tracks on Echoes [Pink Floyd's 2001 best-of compilation], so he got a good bite of that. He died a millionaire. When Echoes came out, I was having tea with his music publisher in London one afternoon and I said, ''Oh, poor Syd.'' I just meant it in a spiritual sense, but he said, ''Poor f---ing Syd, man? He made two and a half million quid last year on Echoes alone!''
