Roger Kynard "Roky" Erickson (July 15, 1947 – May 31, 2019) was an American musician and singer-songwriter. He was a founding member of the 13th Floor Elevators and a pioneer of the psychedelic rock genre
Like Syd Barrett, a common point of reference, Roky Erickson rose to cult-hero status as much for his music as for his tragic personal life; in light of his legendary bouts with madness and mythic drug abuse, the influence exerted by his garage-bred psychedelia was often lost in the shuffle. In 1965, he penned his most famous composition, "You're Gonna Miss Me," which he first recorded with a group called the Spades. The song and his high, swooping tenor brought him to the attention of another area band, the psychedelia-influenced 13th Floor Elevators, whose lyricist and jug player Tommy Hall invited Erickson to join; the Elevators soon cut their own version of "You're Gonna Miss Me," and took the single to number 56 on the pop charts in 1966. While on the surface the Elevators rise to fame seemed ordinary, underneath things were anything but. The Elevators became the subject of considerable police harassment, and after Erickson was arrested for the possession of one lone joint in 1969, he pleaded insanity to avoid a prison term. A three-and-a-half year stint in the state's Hospital for the Criminally Insane followed; Erickson was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, and subjected to extensive electroshock therapy, Thorazine, and other psychoactive treatments. Though released from the hospital in 1973, Erickson was never the same person; he returned to performing with a new band, the Aliens, but his songs -- a series of horror film-influenced records including "Red Temple Prayer (Two-Headed Dog)," "Don't Shake Me Lucifer," and "I Walked with a Zombie" -- found little success. He did retain a devoted cult following, however, but his popularity was fully exploited by managers who took advantage of his instability to draw the singer into a series of unfair publishing contracts that resulted in a steady stream of unauthorized releases from which Erickson earned not a cent. In 1982, he signed a legal affidavit declaring that a Martian had taken residence in his body, and gradually disappeared from music as the decade wore on. By the '90s, Erickson was struggling to survive on a $200 monthly Social Security stipend; after an arrest on mail theft charges (later dropped), he was re-institutionalized. In 1990, however, artists like R.E.M., ZZ Top, John Wesley Harding, and the Jesus and Mary Chain recorded his songs for the album Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye: A Tribute to Roky Erickson, which brought his work to a wider audience than ever before.