Roger Waters denounces Syd Barrett acid stories as ‘absolute bollocks’

Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters has denounced a series of acid stories about former bandmate Syd Barrett as “absolute bollocks”.

Speaking to The Word Magazine, Waters claimed people “swallowed the notion” that Barrett had been affected by drugs so heavily. The Pink Floyd member would rubbish this and say there was a clear “fundamental” to Barrett’s mental health. Waters said in 2008: “I think it’s a great shame really that people swallowed the notion that he suddenly took a lot of acid and it destroyed him. This is absolute bollocks. There was something much more fundamental about Syd’s schizophrenia than taking too much acid.” Waters went on to describe his sadness at having lost Barrett, but that he had paid tribute to him during live shows by using footage of his former bandmate.

The bassist said: “But I felt very sad. I still feel regret that we weren’t able to enjoy his company for all those years when he disappeared into the illness. But I think of him often. Not least because I’ve been editing some of my shows recently and we’ve been doing Shine On You Crazy Diamond. We now do this with a 60-by-30 LED screen with footage of Syd. 

“I went to the opening of Rock and Roll in New York, having been in London and met Tom Stoppard and became friends with him. Have you seen this play? It’s really, really good. Particularly if you’re me, as it’s about three things I’m particularly interested in – Communism, Cambridge and Syd.”

Speaking to TVNZ in 2007, Waters was asked about how he felt about Barrett’s death. Barrett died on July 6, 2006. Waters said: “Sort of not very hard you know because Syd kind of died forty years ago for me. When we spent months and months and months going ‘what’s happened where are you?’ and he’d kind of gone and he’d stayed gone.

“So obviously I was very sad to hear that he was sick. I heard he was sick about three days before he died. I finally got Rosemary’s phone number and was just about to call when I heard he’d died. I’ve thought about it since on a number of occasions and I think about it still and I find myself going back to the Saturday morning painting classes we did together when he was eleven and I was ten back in 1954.

“I find myself going back to those times but the kind of distance I experience with Syd is an extraordinary thing. It is real and I had tonnes of emails from people saying ‘I’m sorry for your loss and this and that and the other’ but I’m not really half as moved as I thought I would be.”

Waters believes he wasn’t as moved as he thought he would be because it had been some time since he had spoken to Barrett, and that he and Pink Floyd had already mourned him with Shine On You Crazy Diamond.

Waters continued: “Having said that, his illness in a way was the greater tragedy because he was the most extraordinarily loveable companion and friend and fellow band member and everything so when he developed schizophrenia at that very young age that was deeply depressing.”