'I have seen my brothers' ghosts': The last surviving Bee Gee Barry, 70, opens up about losing his siblings and bandmates Robin and Maurice

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The last surviving Bee Gee believes his brothers may be stayin’ alive, after experiencing life-after-death visions of them.

In a moving interview with The Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine today, Barry Gibb says he and his wife, Linda, have seen deceased bandmate Robin as well as younger brother Andy – and found the manifestations disturbing.

Father-of-five Barry, 70, says: ‘It’s not fun because you’re not quite sure what it was about. If it was real. I saw Robin and my wife saw Andy. Maybe it’s a memory producing itself outside your conscious mind or maybe its real.’

In a moving interview with The Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine today, Barry Gibb says he and his wife, Linda, have seen deceased bandmate Robin as well as younger brother Andy

He adds: ‘The biggest question of all is: is there life after death? I’d like to know.’

As the Bee Gees, Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb’s catalogue of hits includes pop classics Jive Talkin’, Stayin’ Alive, Night Fever, How Deep Is Your Love and Tragedy. Barry, the oldest of the three Bee Gee brothers, also went on to enjoy success outside the band, most notably on Guilty, his duet with Barbra Streisand.

He says the loss of three of his brothers had a devastating effect on those left behind, including his mother, now 95. His younger brother, Andy, a star in his own right but not part of the band, died aged 30 in 1988 after years of drug abuse.

There was further heartbreak in 2003 when Maurice, then 53, died in hospital after he suffered complications from a twisted intestine. And Robin died from cancer at the age of 62 in 2012.

Barry says: ‘Mo was gone in two days. Maybe that’s better than long and tortured? Which is what Robin went through. Andy went at 30. All different forms of passing and for our mum, devastating.’

Robin Gibb (left) and Barry hold their CBE's after receiving them from the Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace in 2004 

The star admits he considered turning his back on music altogether following Robin’s death.

But after winning rapturous applause when he joined Coldplay on stage at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, he is looking forward to promoting In The Now, his first solo album in more than 30 years. And the star reveals that the pain of no longer being able to perform with his brothers has been eased by the fact that he now shares the stage with his son Stephen, 42.

He adds: ‘It’s not hard if your eldest son is standing next to you. He’s not a Bee Gee. He wouldn’t like that. He’s Stephen. He’s covered in tattoos. He’s a metalhead with a heart of gold.’

In a searingly emotional interview, Barry Gibb – the last surviving Bee Gee – opens up as never before about the pain of losing all three of his brothers... and how they haunt him to this day 

By Chrissy Iley

Barry Gibb is telling me he has seen ghosts. ‘Yes and it’s not fun because you’re not quite sure what it was about. If it was real. I’ve seen two brothers.’ Which brothers? ‘I saw Robin and my wife saw Andy. 

Maybe it’s a memory producing itself outside your conscious mind or maybe it’s real.’ He likes pondering the big questions. ‘Yes. The biggest of all, is there life after death? I’d like to know.’

Barry still has the leonine quality he has been famous for throughout his career

Andy, the youngest Gibb brother, died in 1988 aged just 30 after years of drug abuse, Maurice died 13 years ago at the age of 53, and Robin died in 2012 at 62 after a protracted battle with cancer. And Barry, who has never spoken with such emotion about his loss, is clearly haunted by their deaths.

I meet the last surviving Bee Gee in his local Indian restaurant just around the corner from his rarely visited British family home in Beaconsfield (he has lived mainly in Florida for the past 20 years). The sole remaining brother, who turned 70 on Thursday, still looks leonine, with a full-ish mane of hair and thick beard.

He talks about the death of his brothers almost without prompting. ‘After Rob died I just sat moping around thinking that was the end of it and I would just fade away. I thought I was quite happy about fading away, but then the President of Columbia Records, Rob Stringer, came to see me and signed me and said: “We’re gonna move your ass!” And I thought: “Oh well, that’s OK.” So I’m back.’

Robin, Maurice and Barry Gibb in 1989. Like all siblings, the brother often argued, but, as barry says, they were incredibly close

A few months ago there was his rapturous appearance at Glastonbury with Chris Martin and Coldplay. He performed Stayin’ Alive to a blissed-out ovation. ‘Glastonbury came out of the blue. The whole experience is amazing. Chris is such a gentleman, and I met Gwyneth.’ He says he also met Noel Gallagher and that they’d arranged to have a curry together soon.

He’s written some of the greatest pop songs of all time – Stayin’ Alive, Jive Talking, Massachusetts, How Deep Is Your Love, To Love Somebody, Words, and sold more than 220 million records. In 2012, Billboard ranked the Bee Gees third for the most Hot 100 No 1 hits in history, with nine in total, behind the Supremes’ 12 and The Beatles’ 20. Yet I’m not sure he believes in himself. ‘I’ve never had self-esteem. Every person that I’ve met and admire has the same lack of self-esteem. I’ve seen it with Michael Jackson, I’ve seen it with Barbra Streisand.’

He goes on to explain: ‘Self-confidence and self-esteem are very different things. I’ve always been trying, trying, trying and I think that’s good. That’s the hunger that keeps you alive no matter what and there’s been bad times where I didn’t really want to.’

After the death of his remaining brother he certainly had a slump. But I’m amazed when he tells me what he turned to for solace in those dark days. 

Barry at Robin’s funeral. Barry says: ‘You are in a kind of tunnel. You have to come out the other side and I waited for that and I watched television. Downton Abbey – that got me through it, and Ray Donovan and Billionaire'

‘You are in a kind of tunnel. You have to come out the other side and I waited for that and I watched television. Downton Abbey – that got me through it, and Ray Donovan and Billionaire. I love them more than movies. I love the cliff-hangers. We get British television in America because I have Apple TV.’

It’s a surprising confession but Downton helped him recover. ‘We loved it. My wife was sitting next to Maggie Smith recently at Wimbledon and told her.’

He reveals that Paul McCartney also helped him through the grieving process. 

‘He always got me through everything,’ he says of the man who’s been a lifelong friend. ‘I met him for the first time at the Saville Theatre in 1967. He brought Jane Asher to see a show and he said: “You guys have got something, you should keep going, and I always found that very encouraging.” 

The Bee gees playing together in 1998. Andy, the youngest Gibb brother, died in 1988 aged just 30 after years of drug abuse, Maurice died 13 years ago at the age of 53, and Robin died in 2012 at 62 after a protracted battle with cancer. And Barry, who has never spoken with such emotion about his loss, is clearly haunted by their deaths

'The last time I saw him was at Saturday Night Live in 2013 when we were both playing. We had adjoining dressing rooms. We started talking about the time before we had any success. We talked about being naive. Not understanding what was happening. About being a great band and being happy and not competitive.’

Competitive with The Beatles? ‘No... about not being competitive with each other.’ He’s in a cloud of nostalgia now. ‘Those days of not understanding the business and not knowing why everybody wanted to know when for a long time they didn’t. That naivety.’

How intense was the sibling rivalry in the Bee Gees? ‘Well, I don’t think it’s any different from any other brothers or sisters.’ A mix of competition and closeness? ‘Yes. All of those things, and you have enormous arguments. Then you become incredibly close and you have really angry moments with each other. Nothing different from any other family except our obsession with music. That’s how it was.

‘There was always competition within the group. We weren’t competitive with The Beatles. We were just another pop group, but they changed the world.’

McCartney gave him fascinating singing tips, as well as style inspiration. ‘McCartney hasn’t changed his keys down. He’s still singing in the keys he always did and I’m still doing that. A lot of artists have lowered their keys. He’s always been inspiring to me. What he said was, “Always look down [when you’re singing] on your highest note,” and I said yes, OK.’

The Beatle was also responsible for his famous Bee Gee beard. ‘I grew it in 1968 because McCartney grew a beard for The Long And Winding Road. He’s always been that big of an influence on me. Even when The Beatles broke up! I thought, “That’s it, we should break up.”’

Did he feel as the oldest Bee Gee he was always the leader? ‘Yes, yes, because the oldest brother is always put in that position. Watch over Maurice and Robin, watch over Andy. And often they didn’t want to be watched over. Maurice and Robin were twins so they were always secretly chatting. I was the one that had to make sure we got paid.

‘I had to look out for business. I enjoyed it. It was important that we were not cheated and I think that was pretty common. You hear all these horror stories about the manager making a fortune. Robert Stigwood was kind to us. We were all given about £100 per week and in 1967 you could live well on that money – and that was before we had any real success.’

The Bee Gees in their late Sixties and Seventies heyday were known as Medallion Men. Today Barry is wearing beaded bracelets under his black shirt and a discreet silver neck chain with a mystic symbol on it (‘I’ve outgrown all that gold and diamonds and chains that I used to wear, but I do love jewellery.’)

They were never style icons. Kenny Everett used to do a fabulous take-off of the Brothers Gibb. They were mocked at the time when the cool kids were into Bowie and Roxy, but over time Bee Gees songs have been reassessed, with How Deep Is Your Love lauded as a pop song as flawless as Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. By the time they created the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever in 1977, their falsetto came into its own.

The Bee Gees (with brother Andy, right) in 1975. They were unbelievably productive. Some of the most famous songs, such as How Deep Is Your Love and Jive Talkin’ were written in less than a day

They were unbelievably productive. Some of the most famous songs, such as How Deep Is Your Love and Jive Talkin’ were written in less than a day. ‘Yes, there was a half-day when we wrote Too Much Heaven, Tragedy and Shadow Dancing and a couple of other songs in one afternoon. I think we were high. Amphetamines, nothing heavy. We never took heavy drugs like heroin or cocaine. There were no songs written on that,’ he says adamantly.

Does he have any vices now? ‘I never drink alcohol except sake, which I love. You don’t get a hangover. You never feel bad.’ He tells me that the last time he got drunk was as a teenager. ‘I got so drunk mixing different drinks at a convention, I woke up in the bridal suite. I was so violently ill they put me in the room and left me but when I woke up I did wonder if there was a bride. Fortunately there wasn’t.’

He starts to talk about his new album In The Now but he’s drawn irresistibly back to his brothers. ‘It’s about the denial of the past and the future. Yet it’s about the moment and how to seize it. It’s about the loss of the people closest to you so it’s live in the moment, grab every moment because you see what happens.’ The eyes tangibly sadden. ‘Mo was gone in two days.’ He died from complications from a twisted intestine in hospital in Florida.’ Maybe that’s better than long and tortured? ‘Which is what Robin went through. Andy went at the age of 30. All different forms of passing and for our mum devastating. She’s 95. She had a mild stroke two weeks back.’

He seems overcome with sadness. ‘There’s been so much passing in my family that at one point I said I’d prefer to go in my sleep or on stage but I never said [that] while singing Stayin’ Alive’ [as was reported a few years ago]. Perhaps that was made up because it’s a funny line.’

There are 12 songs on the new album and three bonus tracks. ‘Daddy’s Little Girl is one of them and that’s written for my daughter Ali. She’s 24 and still lives with us. I’ve never met a lady with a stronger opinion. Star Crossed Lovers is written for [his wife] Linda.’ They met at a taping of Top Of The Pops in London when she was the reigning Miss Edinburgh.

After the death of his remaining brother Barry certainly had a slump. It’s a surprising confession but Downton Abbey helped him recover

‘When we first met our manager didn’t want me to have a girlfriend so she always had to stay at home. I always had to seem available. Everyone was against it but that made her stronger and we’re still together 49 years later.’

After the high of Glastonbury, is he up for another tilt at the summit, this time without his brothers? ‘I’ll happily hit the road if this album means something. It’s an enormous effort to go on tour without that momentum and I want that momentum.’ Is it harder to go out on stage when he’s been used to his brothers standing beside him? ‘It’s not hard if your eldest son is standing next to you. He’s not a Bee Gee. He wouldn’t like that. He’s Steven. He’s covered in tattoos. He’s a metalhead with a heart of gold. He plays on the album. He’s part of the band, in fact it’s the best bunch of musicians I’ve ever had. I want to be on tour so I need to create a reason for people to come and see me. I need to feel that full-cycle feeling, you know? That I can come back.’

Many people think he never actually went away. While there was no conscious decision to stop, there was no decision to write a new album while Robin was alive either. His illness took a toll on any creative output. ‘The feeling is I am reintroducing myself as an individual.’ When he did Guilty with Streisand, a huge hit in 1980, he was an individual, not a Bee Gee. ‘But I was never allowed to go on about it. We won best duet at the Grammys and my brothers never mentioned it. It’s that kind of brothers and sisters thing. If I would ever say we won this many Grammys they would always go one less saying “No, no, it was this many.”’

Is there a vault of unreleased Bee Gees songs? ‘No. Robin always emptied it out. I would always say, “That’s not good enough to go on the album, Robin” and he would say, “Yes, but it’s another song. Let’s put it on.” In the eyes of the record company the more songs you give them the better deal it is for them, but I don’t feel it was necessary.’

Does he see the Bee Gees’ influence in any of the current music-makers? ‘I always felt that I used to hear it with Prince and Michael Jackson. The multi harmonies, the grooves. A lot of people have told me that I made a difference to them, and I’d like to keep doing it for as long as I possibly can.’

This year there’s been a pop icon death overload. Bowie, Prince. How did this affect him? ‘Prince!’ he says adoringly. ‘I’ve always loved Prince. I didn’t quite understand a lot of David Bowie because he was such an artist. I admire it but I was more involved with people like Prince. The R ’n’ B influence, the falsetto is more me. We worked in his building where he lived in Minneapolis. We did a performance for the music industry of Minneapolis at one point. He was there but hiding behind a speaker so we never met.’ Hiding behind a speaker? ‘I know. You can’t be that shy, right? But there you are.’

Does he have a bucket list of things he wants to do before he dies? ‘No, I have a f*** it list. I have a list of things that I know I’ll never do. I’ll never walk through the Grand Canyon, not with my ankles. I’ll never get to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I hate heights. I just think in terms that I’m going to be quite happy with whatever comes around the corner.

‘I’ve grown up in three different cultures. I’ve seen the Pyramids and I’m a real fanatic on the ancient worlds. There is no evidence of how that civilisation developed. Those people might already have been there before. I’m fascinated by civilisations that were around 20,000, 30,000 years ago that could be as advanced as we are now in different ways.’

Does he feel he’s been here before? ‘Perhaps. I’ve had a few incarnations. I try not to question it. There’s been so much loss in my family, for me it’s a standing mystery.’ Does he believe he will see them again? ‘I don’t want to question it. Don’t want to go there.’

Barry with his good friend Sir Paul McCartney

Part of him is very modern. His shirt and bracelets, his attitude. And part is very old school. ‘I don’t do Instagram or emails but I do text. I have a Twitter account that goes through Ashley, my second-eldest son. I try not to think about that stuff too much.’

In the olden days he always used to see himself as a lion with his virile mane. In a 1979 authorised, illustrated biography of the brothers called The Greatest, there were caricatures of him as a lion, Robin as a red setter and Maurice as a badger.

I assumed he would have been a Leo and he says, ‘I’m actually a Virgo. I’m ambidextrous, left-footed, play the guitar right-handed and I think I’m a little too old for a lion but I’ve still got a bit of a mane going on.’ Pause. ‘Although I have always associated myself with a lion,’ he says rather proudly. ‘In South Africa I bought a walking cane with a silver lion’s head on it so if there’s ever a time when I can’t walk I’ll be able to be helped by the lion and it’ll still be a lion walking.’

Although he’s known pretty well at his local Indian, he says restaurants are rare for him. ‘I’m such a home body. I don’t rise early and I don’t get going till about noon. I’m still useless to everybody till 2pm and then I get sharp and I start to look forward to what’s on TV that evening. I read three books at a time. I love ancient history. At the moment I’m reading a book about the French Revolution, another about the conscious mind and I’m obsessed with Egyptology. I’m into the unknown, the supernatural. All that world. I like things that can’t be explained – like ghosts.’

In the meantime his album ponders all kinds of shadows, yet he’s not a sad man. He laughs a lot and jokes with me. ‘And I love a good curry,’ he says. 

Barry Gibb’s new album ‘In The Now’, is out on October 7