The remaining band members tell the inside story of the album's remarkable ingenuity - and of life with troubled genius Brian Wilson
On 23 December 1964, Brian Wilson had a breakdown on a flight from Los Angeles to Houston. The Beach Boys mastermind was with his bandmates on tour when the first obvious manifestation ofsurfaced.
The band – brothers Dennis and Carl, cousin Mike Love and childhood friend Al Jardine – hadn’t previously noticed much wrong.
“Not up until that point,” guitarist Jardine tells me over video call from the solarium at his home in Big Sur, California. “ he was just a very unusual person. He was very creative. ” Wilson immediately quit touring.
“It was obvious he was not happy being away from home that much,” singer and lyricist Love says separately on the phone from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. “So as sad as it was to see him leave us, we realised it was much better for him. And it turned out better for the group, too. ”and the history of pop.
At just 22, Wilson retreated into the studio and set about redrawing the boundaries of what was possible within popular music. His 1966 magnum opus– transformed The Beach Boys’ trademark sound of 50s rock ’n’ roll surf-rock hits that captured the carefree abandon of Californian youth into something lavishly symphonic and devastatingly beautiful.
, Wilson’s singular vision paired pop and classical in sophisticated arrangements and complex harmonies, with the experimental use of theremins, flutes, bicycle bells and the sounds of barking dogs and Coca-Cola cans; it was unlike anything that came before. Brian Wilson during the recording of ‘Pet Sounds’ in 1966; he liked to experiment with studio technology was a relative flop on release; unsupported by their label, Capitol Records, it was met with an equally confused reaction from the public.
“But musicians always loved it,” Love says. Paul McCartney called the album’s celestial centrepiece “God Only Knows” the best song ever, and declared “no one is educated musically until they’ve heard that album”. ,” Jardine says – an artistic rivalry pushing both bands to new heights.
“It was an inspirational rivalry, maybe. You can’t write songs to get even with somebody. And our music was so different than theirs. Brian was more inspired by The Beatles than us.
But we would have done, Wilson was moving into bold new territory. Obsessed with Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound production technique, Wilson was experimenting with studio technology and chamber pop sounds on 1965’s. The 1965 classic “California Girls”, with its gorgeous, melancholic orchestral introduction, was a signifier of Wilson’s new direction.
“We got derailed by Dennis Wilson being a surfer and the sex symbol of the band,” Jardine says. “We ended up doing surf songs, car songs, you name it. And it was fun. But Brian got a little tired of that.
” On returning from a tour of Japan in January 1966, the band were stunned to hear what Wilson had been working on: not just the orchestral and complicated nature of the tracks, but also the lyrics, written mainly by Tony Asher, an advertising copywriter and jingle maker whom Wilson met at Western Studios in California.
“I thought it was great,” Jardine says. “He found a songwriter that could complement his vision lyrically. And so you just adjust your focus to a new reality. It was tough for Mike to adapt to a new direction, because he wasn’t part of it.
” Love had written the good-time lyrics to many of the early hits.
“Mike said – ‘don’t mess with the formula. ’”; the “don’t mess with the formula” quote, as well as some others have followed him for years.
Not true, he says.
“There were some not-quite-accurate things said about that. Somebody attributed to me ‘don’t mess with the formula’, which is not true. It’s not what I said. ” So what did he think of the tracks?
“It was mind-blowing how brilliant they were and how unique they were. I think anybody who’s musically orientated would say, ‘How did he come up with that?
'”, although, again, legend has it the title was a jab. “Brian didn’t know what to call the album. But at the end of the album, there’s dogs barking at a train going by, and I said, ‘What aboutAsher’s lyrics channelled Wilson’s growing disillusionment. Youthful boasts about fast cars, surfing and girls were replaced with a sense of longing, sadness and disenchantment, where even the naivety of young love is underpinned by the need to belong .
Elsewhere, songs tackle struggling to find one’s identity the transient nature of love , social isolation and, on “I Know There’s An Answer,” a search for deeper meaning. Love had refused to sing the song’s original title, “Hang on to Your Ego”, and insisted it be changed.
“I thought there was a lot of LSD being experimented with. And I thought it was a little bit too close to an allusion to some of the drug language going on. ” Both agree that Wilson, even with his increasing LSD use, was focused and at the peak of his creativity during recording.
“On top of his game,” Love says. But Wilson put the band and the dozens of musicians – including the legendary classical session group The Wrecking Crew – through their paces. Despite no classical training, Wilson dictated every note to the musicians; the band worked on harmonies for months.
“I called him Stalin of the studio,” Love says, “because he was completely in charge. I called him dog ears because he heard things that ordinary humans couldn’t. ” Making the album was arduous, says Al Jardine , ‘because Brian heard it in his head one way’ “Oh, yeah, it was time-consuming and arduous,” Jardine says.
“Because Brian heard it in his head one way. That’sThe result was astonishing, but Capitol Records was distinctly unimpressed that Wilson had indeed messed with the formula. Capitol insisted they add the jaunty, typically Beach Boys makeover of folk standard “Sloop John B”, a single they recorded in 1966 at Jardine’s suggestion, to make the album more commercial.
“It didn’t fit Brian’s new formula,” Jardine says. “We were outvoted on that. ” Capitol also rush-released a Beach Boys greatest hits album to coincide, meaning“It caused a depression for Brian,” Love says, “because he put everything he could into that album, and then for it not to have been appreciated and promoted was a big disappointment to him.
” Nonetheless, Wilson had another masterpiece up his sleeve: “Good Vibrations”, a staggering pop song of the utmost complexity where Wilson cut and spliced the recording together from over 90 hours of tape. Wilson had even bigger plans for his next album,in scope and scale.
But Wilson’s deteriorating mental health and increasing hallucinogenic drug use, coupled with his obsessive work ethic, made for a famously chaotic working environment: Wilson would record vocals at the bottom of his empty swimming pool and would play piano from inside a sandbox in his living room.
“He was definitely going through some changes,” Love says. “And those changes were influenced by drugs. So it was not my favourite part of our career at all. It was too much self-destruction going on.
” The Beach Boys in 1966 : Bruce Johnston, Carl Wilson, Mike Love, Brian Wilson, Al Jardine, Dennis Wilson was abandoned . Wilson became an irregular contributor to The Beach Boys for the next decade, taking to his bed for years.
“He just retreated,” Jardine says. “I can understand it. He had so many ideas and so little time to do it when you’re not feeling well. I think the schizophrenia started to set in.
” Wilson was eventually diagnosed with bipolar schizoaffective disorder and battled severe mental health problems until his death last year, aged 82. In 2024, Wilson had been placed into a conservatorship due to a “major neurocognitive disorder. ” Jardine saw him regularly in his final days at home in Beverly Hills.
“We would chat, talk over old times. And he looked OK. He’d have moments of serious, extreme clarity but he was struggling. The last time I saw him, he pointed at me and he said, ‘You started the band!
’ And I went, ‘Oh, well, Brian, I’m sure you have something to do with it too’. ” At Wilson’s funeral, both Love and Jardine made speeches. Jardine thought Love’s contribution was disrespectful.
“He basically was talking about himself and about his role and ‘Good Vibrations’ rather than commiserating with Brian’s passing. He’s not capable of it. He needs a lot of approval. ” On Love, he says, “I have no relationship with him.
It’s hard to explain, but sometimes it’s better to leave things alone. He’s very quiet now. He doesn’t talk much. ” They are due to see each other soon at a Beach Boys event.
“When I see him, I’ll see if he’s still talking to me. ” During our interview, Love became ill before I had the chance to ask for his reply; requests for a response via email were not answered..
“Because it’s authentic Brian Wilson genius,” Jardine says. “It’s unique. It’s like Bach, Beethoven, those guys, they saw it their own way, and they captured it. And Brian did the same for us.
The world is very lucky to have Brian Wilson in the pantheon of music. ”
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