Roger Kynard "Roky" Erickson (July 15, 1947 – May 31, 2019) was an American musician and singer-songwriter. Called an "outsider genius", he was a founding member and leader of the 13th Floor Elevators, as well as a pioneer of psychedelic rock music during the mid to late 1960s. Additionally, he founded the band Roky Erickson and the Aliens in the late 1970s.
Erickson was born at the Nightingale Hospital in Dallas, Texas, on 15 July 1947 to Roger Laverne Erickson and Evelyn Elaine (Kynard). He had four younger brothers. The nickname "Roky", a contraction of his first and middle names, was given to him by his parents. Though Erickson's father had named his son after himself, Roger did not want Roky to be known as "Roger Junior". His father, an architect and civil engineer, was stern and disapproving of Erickson's countercultural attitudes, once forcibly cutting his son's hair rather than allow him to grow it out Beatles-style. His mother was an amateur artist and opera singer, and encouraged Erickson's musical talent by taking guitar lessons herself so she could teach him.
Interested in music from his youth, he played piano from age five and took up guitar at 10. He attended school in Austin and dropped out of Travis High School in 1965, one month before graduating, rather than cut his hair to conform to the school dress code.
He also acted as a child, and was enrolled in the Civic Children’s Theatre School in Austin from an early age. He appeared in several local productions between 1958-59, including roles as the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland, Sonny in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Indian Joe in a dramatization of Tom Sawyer.
Erickson had an early fascination with horror films, and would make unaccompanied trips to the cinema to watch them.
Erickson wrote his first songs, "You're Gonna Miss Me" and "We Sell Soul", at age 15. His first band was The Roulettes, later renamed The Missing Links, before joining The Spades when their original singer left. They would travel round Texas performing at frat events on San Antonio and Dallas. The Spades scored a regional hit with "We Sell Soul", released in November 1965.
The song is included as an unlisted bonus track on Erickson's 1995 album All That May Do My Rhyme and was adapted as "Don't Fall Down" by the 13th Floor Elevators for their debut album.
In late 1965, at age 18, Erickson co-founded the 13th Floor Elevators. Electric jug player Tommy Hall had introduced him to guitarist Stacy Sutherland, drummer John Ike Walton, and original bassist Benny Thurman, who were all previously members of Texas band The Lingsmen.
At a party in 1966, Erickson met Janis Joplin who was back in Texas between stints in San Francisco, and wrote the line "I’ve seen your face before, I’ve known you all my life" about her. It would be included in the band's song "Splash 1", which was otherwise written by Hall's wife Clementine.
The band released their debut album The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators in 1966. It contained the band's only charting single, Erickson's "You're Gonna Miss Me". A stinging breakup song, the single was a major hit on local charts in the U.S. southwest and appeared at lower positions on national singles charts as well. Critic Mark Deming writes that "If Roky Erickson had vanished from the face of the earth after The 13th Floor Elevators released their epochal debut single, "You're Gonna Miss Me", in early 1966, in all likelihood he'd still be regarded as a legend among garage rock fanatics for his primal vocal wailing and feral harmonica work."
In 1967, Erickson appeared on labelmate Red Krayola's debut album The Parable of Arable Land, playing electric organ on "Hurricane Fighter Plane" and harmonica on "Transparent Radiation".
The same year, The 13th Floor Elevators released their second album, Easter Everywhere, perhaps the band's most focused effort. It featured "Slip Inside This House", and a noted cover of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". The album Live was released in 1968 by the band's record label International Artists, with little to no input from the band. It featured audience applause dubbed over studio recordings of cover versions, alternate takes, and older material.
Bull of the Woods (1969) was the 13th Floor Elevators' final album on which they worked as a group and was largely the work of Stacy Sutherland. Erickson—due to health and legal problems—and Tommy Hall were only involved with a few tracks, including "Livin' On" and "May the Circle Remain Unbroken".
Mental illness and legal problems
In 1968, while performing at HemisFair, Erickson began speaking gibberish. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and sent to a Houston psychiatric hospital, where he involuntarily received electroconvulsive therapy.
The Elevators were vocal proponents of marijuana and psychedelic drug use, and were subject to extra attention from law enforcement agencies. In February 1969, Erickson was arrested for possession of a single marijuana joint in Austin. Facing a potential ten-year incarceration, Erickson pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to avoid prison. He was bailed but became a fugitive, returning to Austin to play a comeback show in August, where he was arrested onstage after completing his first set. A riot ensued, during which two police cars were trashed, as enraged fans tried to protect Erickson from the police. After several escapes, he was sent to the Rusk State Hospital in Rusk, Texas, where he was subjected to more electroconvulsive therapy and Thorazine treatments, ultimately remaining in custody until 1972.
During his time at Rusk, he continued writing songs and poetry. Family and friends managed to smuggle some of these poems, and in 1972, self-published the book Openers, intending to use the proceeds to hire a lawyer. (Various sources claim approximately 1,000 copies of Openers were printed; how many copies were actually sold remains unknown.) Six tracks from the 1999 Erickson collection Never Say Goodbye were also recorded during his time at Rusk.
In 1974, after having been released from the state hospital, Erickson formed a new band which he called "Bleib Alien". Bleib being an anagram of Bible, and/or German for "remain", and "Alien" being a pun on the German word allein ("alone") – the phrase in German, therefore, being "remain alone". His new band exchanged the psychedelic sounds of The 13th Floor Elevators for a more hard rock sound that featured lyrics on old horror film and science fiction themes.