But Barry is unsure if in the afterlife he will meet his singing brothers Andy, Robin and Maurice, known for their high-pitched harmonies.
“When people say, ‘Your brothers are looking down on you and smiling’, I don’t know if that’s true. But maybe, if there’s any truth to that stuff, one day I’ll bump into my brothers again. And they’ll say, ‘What kept you?’”
He has just finished a US tour, but doesn’t see himself going on forever.
He said: “I will not end up in a casino somewhere – I can’t do that.
“But I have to keep this music alive.
“Before my brothers died, I wouldn’t have thought of it that way. But that’s my job now. It’s important that people remember these songs.
“That’s what we loved doing: writing a song that people liked and that would be remembered.”
Barry is still in mourning from the loss of brother Robin from cancer two years ago.
He didn’t realize immediately afterwards, but for 19 months he was suffering from depression. “I went on as normal,” he told Rolling Stone: “But that’s not how I felt. I was groping around. I didn’t know what to do with myself.
“When suddenly you’re on your own after all those years, you start to question life itself. What’s the point in any of it?”
He thanks his wife Linda for driving him from wasting his life “on the couch” – and then Beatles star Paul McCartney for helping him recover.
