Robin, Maurice, Barry and Andy Gibb in Miami in 1978. Photograph: Michael Brennan/Getty
Then again, the Bee Gees were outsiders from the start. In clips from Australian TV in the early 1960s, they look more like an old-fashioned variety act than a rockânâroll band: a lanky teenager and his little twin brothers, telling jokes and mugging for the camera between songs. Teenagers being what they are, you would have thought the 14-year-old Barry might view being shackled to his 10-year-old siblings as fatally injurious to his cool, but apparently not. âI never thought of them as my little brothers,â he says, frowning. âIt just wasnât like that. There was something we all loved doing, and we kept on doing it. There was nothing more fun than singing in three-part harmony.â