Jim Ladd: You have always been, without being maudlin about it, but you've always been very respective of being kind of the keeper of Syd's flame, while trying to – and I remember last time you admonished anybody who was even thinking about trying to interview Syd Barrett or bother him in any way, don't. But I've always liked the way that you have kept his contribution and respect his contribution live while not trying to make him some sort of rock and roll mysterious icon. Do you understand what I'm saying?
Roger: Yeah, well he was my friend, you know? We were friends and we were – when I was 17 and he was 15 or 15-and-a-half, I'm a bit older than him–we kind of shared that dream together. And he was extraordinarily creative and full of life before he became ill. And those of us who survived in Pink Floyd owe him a lot because he provided that original flicker of creativity and...well, flicker of creativity, which was so important in the beginning. I mean maybe in the beginning I provided something as well. I mean I provided some kind of push, but Syd provided that initial spark and I think he certainly showed me what was possible if you were prepared to take the risk.
Interviewed via telephone by Jim Ladd
11/8/00
What was so stunning about Syd's songs was, through the whimsy and the crazy juxtaposition of ideas and words, there was a very powerful grasp of humanity. He was a visionary, he was an extraordinary musician.
Syd and I went through our most formative years together, riding on my motorbike, getting drunk, doing a little dope, flirting with girls, all that basic stuff. I still consider Syd a great primary inspiration; there was a wonderful human tenderness to all his unique musical flights.
When 'Emily' was a hit and we were (number #3 in the charts) for three weeks, we did 'Top Of The Pops', and the third week we did it he didn't want to know. He got down there in an incredible state and said he wasn't gonna do it. We finally discovered the reason was that John Lennon didn't have to do 'Top Of The Pops' so he didn't.
I believe Syd was a casualty of the so-called "Psychedelic Period" that we were meant to represent. 'Cause everybody believed that we were taking acid before we went on stage and all that stuff....unfortunately, one of us was, and that was Syd. It's a simple matter, really, Syd just had a big overdose of acid and that was it. It was very frightening, and I couldn't believe what had happened, 'cause, I remember we had to do a radio show, and we were waiting for him, and he didn't turn up. And then he came the next day, and he was a different person.
When he was still in the band in the later stages, we got to the point where anyone of us was likely to tear his throat out at any minute because he was so impossible...
I had no idea that I would ever really write songs, and in the early years, I didn't have to because Syd was writing all the material and it was only after he stopped writing that the rest of us had to start trying to do it. I'd always been told, at school anyway, that I was absolutely bloody hopeless at everything, so I had no real confidence about any of it.
I could never aspire to Syd's crazed insights and perceptions. In fact for a long time I wouldn't have dreamt of claiming any insights whatsoever. I'll always credit Syd with the connection he made between his personal unconscious and the collective group unconscious. It's taken me 15 years to get anywhere near there. Even though he was clearly out of control when he making his two solo albums, some of the work is staggeringly evocative. It's the humanity of it all that's so impressive. It's about deeply felt values and beliefs. Maybe that's what 'Dark Side of the Moon' was aspiring to. A similar feeling.
I think you could say that 'Wish You Were Here' was written, partially specifically about Syd, but largely about my sense of the absence of one from another, and from the band. So as far as I'm concerned, 'Wish You Were Here' was the last Pink Floyd album.
N.S.: 'Shine On' was originally a song concerning Barrett's plight, wasn't it?
R.W.: Yes.
N.S.: Do the other songs also fit in with that?
R.W.: It was very strange. The lyrics were written -- and the lyrics are the bit of the song about Syd, the rest of it could be about anything -- I don't know why I started writing those lyrics about Syd... I think because that phrase of Dave's was an extremely mournful kind of sound and it just... I haven't a clue... but it was a long time before the 'Wish You Were Here' recording sessions when Syd's state could be seen as being symbolic of the general state of the group, ie very fragmented. 'Welcome to the Machine' is about 'them and us', and anyone who gets involved in the process.
[...]
N.S.: A lot of people have made remarks to me over the album's sadness.
R.W.: I'm glad about that... I think the world is a very, very sad fucking place... I find myself at the moment, backing away from it all... I'm very sad about Syd, I wasn't for years. For years I suppose he was a threat because of all that bollocks written about him and us. Of course he was very important and the band would never have fucking started without him because he was writing all the material. It couldn't have happened without him but on the other hand it couldn't have gone on with him. He may or may not be important in Rock'n Roll anthology terms but he's certainly not nearly as important as people say in terms of Pink Floyd. So I think I was threatened by him. But when he came to the 'Wish You Were Here' sessions -- ironic in itself -- to see this great, fat, bald, mad person, the first day he came I was in fucking tears... 'Shine On's' not really about Syd -- he's just a symbol for all the extremes of absence some people have to indulge in because it's the only way they can cope with how fucking sad it is -- modern life, to withdraw completely. And I found that terribly sad... I think finally that that may be one of the reasons why we get slagged off so much now. I think it's got a lot to do with the fact that the people who write for the papers don't want to know about it because they're making a living from Rock'n Roll.
N.S.: And they don't want to know the real Barrett/Pink Floyd story.
R.W.: Oh, they definitely don't want to know the real Barrett story... there are no facts involved in the Barrett story so you can make up any story you like -- and they do. There's a vague basis in fact, ie Syd was in the band and he did write the material on the first album, 80% of it, but that's all. It is only that one album, and that's what people don't realise. That first album, and one track on the second. That's all; nothing else.
N.S.: Some of the reviews have been particularly scathing about 'Shine On'... calling it an insult to Syd.
R.W.: Have they? I didn't see that, but I can imagine because its so easy for them. Its one of the very best kind of rock'n roll stories: - we are very successful and because we're very successful we're very vulnerable to attack and Syd is the weapon that is used to attack us. It makes it all a bit spicy - -- and that's what sells the papers that the people write for. But its also very easy because none of its fact -- it's all hearsay and none of them know anything, and they all just make it up. Somebody makes it up once and the others believe it. All that stuff about Syd starting the space-rock thing is just so much fucking nonsense. He was completely into Hilaire Belloc, and all his stuff was kind of whimsical -- all fairly heavy rooted in English literature. I think Syd had one song that had anything to do with space -- Astronomy Domine -- that's all. That's the sum total of all Syd's writing about space and yet there's this whole fucking mystique about how he was the father of it all. It's just a load of old bollocks -- it all happened afterwards. There's an instrumental track which we came up with together on the first album -- 'Interstellar Overdrive' -- thats just the title, you see, it's actually an abstract piece with an interstellar attachment in terms of its name. They don't give a shit anyway. ... I'm very pleased that people are copping the album's sadness, that gives me a doleful feeling of pleasure -- that some of the people out there who are listening to it are getting it. Not like the cunts who are writing in the papers: - "gosh, well, we waited so long for this", and then start talking about the fucking guitar solo in wierd terms, and who obviously haven't understood what it's about. That guitar phrase of Dave's, the one that inspired the whole piece, is a very sad phrase. I think these are very mournful days. Things aren't getting better, they're getting worse and the seventies is a very baleful decade. God knows what the eighties will be like.
Roger Waters
Interviewed by Nick Sedgewick
I don't know what went wrong with Syd because I'm not an expert in whatever it is, what they call schizophrenia. I don't know a lot about it. Syd was extraordinarily charming and attractive and alive and talented but... whatever happened to him, happened to him.
Roger Waters
Jay Whitten: bperet@yahoo.com