Beach Boy

Pop icon Brian Wilson, the songwriting and producing genius behind the Beach Boys, was clearly nervous. Shaking and ill at ease, he appeared not to know what to do or say when we first met at his engineer's studio in the hills north of Glendale.

As someone who grew up with Wilson's songs and as an ardent admirer of both his songwriting prowess and his genius as a producer, I was extremely anxious too. I'd read that Wilson didn't talk much in interviews, and I'd seen the awkward, brief Q&As.

There was no small talk. Wilson asked how long the interview would take: “10 or 15 minutes?”

I wanted the interview to last for days, but I asked, “How about 15 or 20 minutes?”

But he was antsy, asking whether we were going to conduct the interview or take photos first.

He offered me a seat and I began by telling him that I grew up with the Beach Boys, thinking if he knew I wasn't just some kid interviewing someone his parents listened to he might be more forthcoming. But I guess my Beach Boys confessional went on a little too long because he interrupted me: “Okay, let's go.”

Wilson kicked off a new tour with his band on May 11 in New Jersey (where Bruce Springsteen showed up and joined him onstage for “Barbara Ann”) and will begin four California concerts on June 8. The final concert of the tour's US leg will be at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on June 12.

Asked how well he knew Pasadena, Wilson said, “I've been to a Robert Goulet play there one time.” Wilson said his manager, Jean Sievers of the Lippin Group, chose Pasadena, but she told me his booking agent selected the locale.

Sievers keeps his schedule for him. Wilson doesn't want to deal with the money or the business side of things, she says. For him, it's all about the music.

There is certainly an innocent quality to the 64-year-old pop icon. “He's like a kid,” she says honestly.

Despite being a giant in pop music, Wilson seems unaware or unbelieving that he is so highly esteemed by so many. He said emphatically that his life is like anyone else's. He loves being with his kids, ages 9 and 10, and talking with his wife of 12 years, who also “runs his business.”

In his longest answer of the interview, he ran me through a typical day: “I'll get up in the morning, I'll take a shower, I'll go take a walk, then I'll come back to my instrument and spend two or three hours trying to write a song. I'll play with my kids, I'll watch TV, I'll walk around my house, you know, and I go to bed.”

When Wilson and the band travel to Europe, they'll be joined by longtime Beach Boy Al Jardine for 15 concerts, before ending with six concerts at London's Royal Festival Hall in September, where Wilson will premiere a new work commissioned by the Southbank Centre. Wilson has described that project, which he's currently recording, as new songs interspersed with brief narrative. It's titled “That Lucky Old Sun,” after a song performed throughout the years by Frankie Laine, Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, Louis Armstrong and many others.

I asked about his relationship with Jardine, one of the original Beach Boys. Although he hadn't been in touch with him very much, Wilson said Jardine called him up and asked if he could tour with him. When asked how rehearsals have been going, he responded, “Fun, fun, I love the guy, I love him,” adding that it was “real nice” to be in touch with him again and that Jardine's singing and guitar playing were “great … great.”

Wilson's relationship with his cousin Mike Love is another story altogether. The two have been estranged for many years now. Love has the rights to the Beach Boys name and tours under that name with Bruce Johnston, the original stand-in bass player for Wilson back in the early '60s when he stopped touring. Love has sued Wilson on various occasions, the latest case having been decided just days ago. The judge threw out Love's lawsuit claiming that he was harmed financially by the distribution in the United Kingdom of a free CD featuring Beach Boys songs re-recorded by Wilson in conjunction with the release of his 2004 “SMiLE” album.

Unlike the Beatles, there wasn't a critical moment when the Beach Boys broke up. After 1965, even though the Beach Boys sang on all their recordings, they had stopped playing on many of them. According to Wilson, “my professional band played for our tracks after '65. Hal B. and the Wrecking Crew, they called it.” (Hal B. is drummer Hal Blaine.) It became clear that it was really Wilson's band: Asked why his bandmates weren't playing on recordings, he replied, “'cuz I needed some better musicianship.” Obviously the Beach Boys were still good musicians because they toured successfully for many years. But they weren't good enough for Wilson's vision.

Wilson is like a classical composer in the way he puts instruments together for a song. Beginning even before “Pet Sounds,” but especially on that album, Wilson created a tapestry using instruments, many found in orchestral composing, differently than anyone else had done before. He veered away from the traditional guitar, bass and drums of “Surfin USA” and “Fun, Fun, Fun,” using them only sparingly, especially the drums, just as a composer would use timpani, for example. But he doesn't look at producing as composing in a classical sense: “No, it's not composing to me. It's organizing, yeah,” he said.

Many of Wilson's answers came in one or two-words spurts, often mimicking part of the question in an almost “Rain Man”–like way. It wasn't clear whether he was impatient to end the interview because he was nervous or just eager to get on with his recording. I got the impression that Wilson tends to be impatient even with Sievers, his manager of eight years, and Mark Linett, his recording engineer of 20 years.

Such feelings should be no surprise: Wilson has led a storied but troubled life. From past reports and interviews, we know that his father was physically abusive — and probably verbally as well. In fact, in a Larry King interview in August 2004, Wilson revealed that he hears voices saying, “I'm going to hurt you,” “I'm going to kill you,” and “You're no good” — perhaps echoing how his father used to talk to him.

It is also widely known that Wilson had a nervous breakdown, as he describes it, in the early '60s. He then went through periods of heavy drug use, depression, huge weight gain and exploitation by others, including nine years from 1983 to 1992 during which his psychologist, Eugene Landy, had complete control of his life.

And then there were the deaths of his two brothers, Dennis in a 1983 accidental drowning and Carl in 1998 from cancer. All of this certainly justifies his quiet, even untrusting demeanor.

That personality might be hard to reconcile with the sunny sounds of “California Girls” and “Good Vibrations,” but there are plenty of other Beach Boys' songs that give a glimpse of Wilson's more serious side.

Even as early as “Pet Sounds,” there were songs such as “I Just Wasn't Made for These Times,” “I'm Waiting for the Day,” “Let's Go Away for Awhile” and “That's Not Me” — and, of course, before that there was the famous “In My Room” in 1963, presaging dark days ahead. Because of his traumatic history, Wilson's highly anticipated “SMiLE” album, originally scheduled for 1967, wasn't released until almost 40 years later. The album that was released, “Smiley Smile,” included songs such as “Heroes and Villains” that were a far cry from the simpler surf songs a few years earlier.

Wilson said the whole surf theme was Love's idea, and he knew they'd hit a gold mine. Pumping out all those songs over the years, Wilson never got tired of it. And he eventually stopped touring to have more time for songwriting. In his words, he “went off the road to write some songs for them.”

The songs he wrote during that period were among the best songs he ever wrote and also among the biggest hits the Beach Boys ever had, including “Wouldn't It Be Nice,” “God Only Knows” and “Good Vibrations,” all of which ended up on the “Pet Sounds” album.

Since so much has been written about “Pet Sounds” and other early Beach Boys records, I wanted to ask about some of my other favorite albums, especially the three that came out in the early 1970s: “Surf's Up,” “Carl and the Passions: So Tough” and “Holland.” Although they were met with mixed reviews on release, each has stood the test of time. For “Carl and The Passions” and “Holland,” Carl brought in two South African musicians, Blondie Chaplain and Ricky Fataar, who sang, wrote songs and played bass and drums.

Their addition brought a distinctly more bluesy rock sound to the Beach Boys. Wilson's participation on the latter two albums was minimal because, by all accounts, he was in the throes of mental illness. However, his songs on these albums — “Day in the Life (of a Tree),” “Surf's Up” and “'Till I Die” (on “Surf's Up”); “You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone” and “Marcella” (on “Carl and The Passions”); and “Sail on Sailor” (which became a hit for them) and “Funky Pretty” (on “Holland”) — were as good as anything he had written earlier. Even he described them as “all heartfelt, inspired songs. They were all very inspired.”

Wilson said matter-of-factly that he wrote the music first and then he or his lyricists wrote the words — and that's always the way it works. The lyrics “just popped into my head, just popped into my head,” he said.

“‘Funky Pretty' was written in Holland. I was very inspired that day when I wrote it. And the lyrics were written by, I think, Michael. Mike Love.” Asked what had inspired him, he added slowly, almost cautiously, “My … wife.”

When I mentioned the songs, “You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone” and “Marcella,” Wilson said “those are the ones I like the best.”

Although Wilson began recording solo albums many years ago, he just started touring on his own about eight years ago. But now, he said, “I love it. I love to perform. It's a good feeling. It's a great feeling.”

In the Pasadena concert, Wilson will perform Beach Boys favorites as well as his solo songs. In one of the few statements he volunteered, Wilson wanted to be sure to add, “I just hope people around the United States enjoy my tour.”