Barry Gibb: The Last Bee Gee and the Brothers Who Visit Him Still
Barry Gibb has lived through the kind of loss most can only imagine. The sole surviving member of the Bee Gees — whose youngest brother Andy died in 1988 at just 30, Maurice in 2003, and Robin in 2012 — carries their absence every day. And sometimes, he says, that absence feels strangely present.
In a candid interview, Barry revealed that both he and his wife, Linda, have experienced what he describes as “life-after-death visions” of his brothers. “I saw Robin and my wife saw Andy,” he recalled. “Maybe it’s a memory producing itself outside your conscious mind… or maybe it’s real. The biggest question of all: is there life after death? I’d like to know.”
For Barry, loss has come in waves. Andy’s sudden passing after years of struggle with addiction was followed by the shocking death of Maurice from complications after surgery. Robin’s battle with cancer was long and cruel. “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.”
After Robin’s death, Barry admits he nearly walked away from music altogether. Days blurred into nights as he sat alone, watching Downton Abbey and other shows just to pass the time. “I thought I was quite happy about fading away,” he says. That changed when Columbia Records president Rob Stringer visited him. “He said, ‘We’re gonna move your ass!’ So I’m back.”
That return came in the form of In The Now, Barry’s first solo album in over three decades — a project made lighter by the fact that he now shares the stage with his eldest son, Stephen. “He’s not a Bee Gee — he wouldn’t like that. He’s Stephen. He’s a metalhead with a heart of gold.”
And yet, despite the music, the interviews, the tours, Barry carries a question he doesn’t want to answer: “Will I see my brothers again? I don’t want to question it. Don’t want to go there.”
For Barry Gibb, the music lives on — but so do the shadows, the memories, and the quiet moments when he swears he can still feel the presence of the brothers who built a lifetime of harmonies beside him.