Mike Love

26:17So Brian had been off a touring for a couple of years, or he came back and subbed for me for a while. That's really interesting. But that was the only time that I ever missed. That's interesting though that you came back to sub for you. It's very interesting. Did it always feel like it was the family band, like your family with the Wilson's and out? And it was Brian's family. Brian's family. So did it always feel like a family operation pretty much the whole time? Well, it absolutely was. Matter of fact, the first time I remember Brian singing was on Grandma Wilson's lap singing Downey Boy when he was maybe 10.

27:01Wow. So I made it, it might have been 11. Yeah. My mom was a Wilson, Emily Glee Wilson. She was sister to Murray Wilson. It was the Brian Dennis calls father. And it was all about music in the Wilson situation. The brothers were singing a quartet. My mom sang in high school on a trio, a man on butterfly, in a light opera. And she would wake us up to go to school to opera music. Maria Collins, she wanted to ballty and sell these. And that was incredible to have them wake up at the morning. That will get you out of the house though. But if we turned on the high five set to even halfway on rock and roll, that was a bad thing, according to her.

27:51Anyway, every birthday, thanks to you being Christmas you name it. We would get together musically. And we would literally rehearse Christmas carols. And if we walked by the Coleman's house, there were Jewish. We would lay something white on them like jingle bells.

28:09Then we do, you know, a little town of Bethlehem down the street. So, you know, it was always about music. It sounds like always about harmony because the hymns were harmony. Exactly. Brian and I are my sister Morin who played harp on a couple of early records. We would go to Wednesday night, youth night at Angela's Mesa Press Maternity Church and sing the songs they had to sing there. Then on the way home we do three part harmony and our elderly brothers. What does it feel like when you're singing harmony with other people with good voices and you find your part? Tell me what that experience is.

28:50Well, it's not only the parts, but as you know, it's the blend. The thing that distinguishes the beach boys musically from so many other groups of sing harmonies. They can sing two parts, they can sing three parts, some a few sing four parts. But it's the blend in addition to singing the part. So the idea was that we sang with many people over the years, I mean, because Brian and Carl and myself could blend really well together. Dennis, not so much as voices with rougher, was fine for a lead, but it didn't blend like that beautiful celestial blend that the beach boys were known for. Alan Jardine could blend, yeah.

29:35And so right now we have a guy who's our musical director for our live band, who was 18 years with the four freshmen. Wow. A recent incarnation obviously, not the original ones, but those guys were amazing in terms of their blend and the fantastic harmonies that they did. Yeah, so we did this filming of a get together paradise cove for the documentary we, the Disney Plus, just the two documentaries. And we sang the hearts full of spring, four parts right there. Wow. On the beach. Wow. Yeah, it wasn't on the documentary, but we did that. Yeah. You know, I mean, we'd sing some other songs too, surf and safari.

30:17Yeah. You know, hearts full of spring though, was four parts, acapella. No track, no. And when you sing together, do you feel it become one thing? Yeah. That's the beauty of the blend. You supplement your individuality to create the group sound. And do you discuss in advance like when to breathe or... It comes naturally, I think, according to the, you know, held a song structure, you know. I always sang the bass part, the lower part. I don't have volume, but I have resumments. And I imagine you have to sing it the same way every time, because otherwise the parts won't work. You basically learn your part and you play your part exactly right.

31:00And everyone does it together. You can't be fucking around. Like some people think, well, can't you take up musicians to play and... You can't do that. Yeah. No, our songs are so structured. Yeah. In order to do them well, you have to replicate them as close to the record recording as possible.

31:21Someone said it in the documentary about comparing the beach boys and the Beatles. Someone said, we were singers, they were players. And I thought that was a really interesting, astute, way to look at it. I think it's really accurate. Yeah. You guys started as singers and then became a band, but you always sang together. We always sang together, family style. Yeah. And then we made the first record. It was a snare drum, a stand -up bass and a guitar. That's it. That was a track. So you're right. You're singers. And other people were playing their ass off since they were ten years old or whatever.

32:05And it really is apples and oranges. It's an interesting way to think about it. Did you feel like you had peers making music or did you feel you were on an island doing your own thing? Hmm. That's a really interesting question. Probably the mom and the pop -ups might have been a peer. They were great. Yeah. And they had harmonies. Yes. They didn't have the blend we had. No. They definitely had great... They had something. Music and harmonies. Great songs. I mean, the lyrics come on. California Dramas. I believe it was. That's fucking on. Beautiful. Great song. We do our own version. We did a video of it in the church and it stopped along the way.

32:45It stopped in the church. It passed along the way. I got down on my knees and pretended to pray. It's fucking great lyrics. And the preacher likes the cold. He knows I'm going to stay. Great song. John Phillips. So, did you know him? Yes. In fact, the melody of Kokomo, which is said to be our biggest hit single, the melody of the verses, was by John Phillips. Off the Florida Keys, there's a place called Kokomo. That's where we used to go to get away from it all. That's what he wrote. I said, hold on. That's where we used to go. It sounds like some old guy lamenting his lost youth. That's where he would want to go.

33:33That opens it up to... Inspirational. Yes. And so, that's my only contribution to the first verse. But then I came up a rubage of makeup who wanted to take it. Bernardo Bahama come on pretty molecule or go on to go, maybe why don't we go. So I came up the chorus because the melody to sweet as it was, it didn't have a groove to it. So I came up, I did the R &B thing, a groove. And you know what, the impulse of that is smoky Joe's Cafe. Oh wow. That smoky Joe's Cafe. A rubage of makeup. Oh, I want to take it. Delver right back in the R &B groove, which is what I listened to. And constantly when I was in high school, did you like Duopp as well?

34:21I love it. Barbara Ann was kind of Duopp right now. Tell me about the album that has Barbara Ann on it. It sounds like acoustic guitar. I love that album. It's a party album. We didn't even conceive of it being a hit. But the promotion man for the East Coast for Catwalk Records took it off the album. And got it played in Worcester, Mass, and then I got it played in Boston. And then I got it played everywhere. And it became a significant hit for us. It's a great song. In January, it came out with this in late 65. Because we needed to do something to give us more time to develop the pet sounds album, like Brian wanted to do.

35:03He needed more time to do all those great tracks with all the wrecking crew guys. So I suggested let's do a party album and just take a bunch of the songs we like doing. So we did a Beatles song, a Dylan song, and Barbara Ann was among those songs. It's such a great album. It's just fun. It was just doing a bunch of songs. But he can feel the spontaneous camaraderie. Like you feel the fun. The camaraderie was Dean Torrance, who was with Jan and Dan. They did Surf City, right? He came to the session and sang the high part with Brian. So he had two totally great falsettos on that. Brian always sing falsetto from the beginning.

35:54He could probably listen to the lead of Don't Worry Baby. Unbelievable. What a great, what a great. And even before the Beach Boys, when you guys were singing together, he would always sing harm. He would sing the high part. I would have heard it for a fresh month. He would sing the high part. I'd sing a little part. And Carl was singing there and I would sing here. And would you guys sing Everly Brothers songs too? Oh, absolutely. Lovely, Everly Brothers. And so are the Beatles. It's an interesting one. It's similar inspirations for both of us. Chuck Berry and Everly Brothers. That's two thirds of 100%.

36:34There, that's enough. And that was the Beach Boys. The fun, fun, fun is Chuck Berry. And the concept was every kid wants to bar the car and go cruise him. So the girl tells her dad, I'm going to go to the library. But she does other plans, actually. So it's just a vignette of whatever was going on at that age when you get your driver's license. You want a cruise. What was the first car song, the first hot rod song you guys did, do you remember? 409. Great record. Yeah. And that's what we had what you call double -sided hits there for a while because they would play surf and it's fine. And then they'd turn it over and play 409.

37:20And that went over really well in a lot of parts of the country where they didn't know from surfing or anything. And all over the Midwest and the South, the 409 shut down, little doo scoop. I get around and I eat. Fun, fun, fun. I eat songs. Oh yeah. And I was involved in the lyrics of all those songs. Except Doo scoop. I didn't do anything. I was going to name Roger Christian who was a DJ in LA who was a gear head. You know what I mean? So yeah. Yeah. So cool. What do you remember about the Pet Sound's era? I remember doing the song, wouldn't it be nice? And we would do this one pass. This is one section, maybe 25, 28 times.

38:04Wow. And I started calling Brian Doggier's because he ear should the no other human bit. And he was saying, would. Yeah. Because he wanted to do it again. I said, it was perfect. Why do we have to do this again? He says, no, I just want to just look in for a different feel or something. So we do it again. We did that a lot with the several of songs, you know, the call for the backgrounds to be perfect. And there's a box set of the Pet Sound's album where they just have the tracks. And there's one CD that has just the vocals. And he was saying, oh boy, you understand why. Yeah. And then he started believing.

38:43And then he listened to the tracks. I said, what the fuck came up with those woodlands like that? Brian. Yeah. There was some stuff that doesn't make sense. I mean, I mean, he didn't have to go there for it. He just did. It's so beautiful. It's brilliant. That's the point. Yeah. Yeah. So beautiful. You guys have put out either box set or the packages. That are extensive and amazing. It was one a couple of years ago of surfs up. It's mind blowing. Yeah. I listened to it a thousand times. Come on, really? Seriously. And it's hours and hours of music. It's a master's wisdom. No, it's hours and hours of music.

39:24But it's so beautiful. How did the idea come to start doing these expanded? The idea is, well, the thing is there are a lot of albums that came out that at a period of time where they weren't selling very much product. And yet, the feeling was that there's a lot of good stuff on some of those albums, like the Holland album and the surfs up albums, stuff like that. So why not repackage and put them out? And they've been remastered in different things. So it gives a person a chance if they're interested into diving a little deeper into stuff that wasn't as well known. Yeah. Like for instance, our sounds of summer albums sold about four million copies in the US, which is pretty good.

40:11This is the 50th anniversary of the endless summer album, which came out in 1974. That's fucking amazing. I have a 50th anniversary of the album. I'm a greatest dancer. And we're doing about 17 of the songs, the 20 songs on the double album. Tell me the story of the endless summer albums. I remember when it came out, it felt like it renewed the Beach Boys. It abs a fucking little he did, because endless summer, the same album came out in Great Britain. It was called 20 Golden Grates. And sold a million copies of an double album LP in Great Britain. That's a lot. It's like one of either house or something.

40:55And the thing is, they were songs that were done in capillaries. We were always after that contract ended. We were with reprise, Moas Dunin, that kind of thing. And then we did a couple of years of CBS. But they took all these songs and put them together. And they were going to call it the best of the Beach Boys, volume two or three years on my cyd. There is no such thing. I said, let's call it endless summer. After Bruce Brown's movie, The Endless Summer. Yeah. I'm thinking, Surfing Songs, Endless Summer, it's not a best of. It's a new album to people who don't know of the Beach Boys. It's a concept album.

41:39It's a concept album that is new to the new record -aware person, which there are millions. Between 60 to 74, there are millions of people that got into music. They were out of grade school or junior high or high school. Now they're really into it. And they've changed over those years a lot. Yes. It felt new again. Yeah. Well, what's really amazing is we'll do those songs in concert. And there'll be children, three teens, teens, young adults, and great grandparents. They'll enjoy the music together as one big happy family, which is fantastic. That's a really neat thing to see is the happiness that those songs evoke.

42:27We did a festival on the beach in Wildwood, New Jersey last summer. And this guy comes up to me afterwards backstage and he says, you know, my dad and I bonded over your music. And my dad lost my dad in January of this year. And so that being here at that concert, you playing those songs was like an emotional experience for me. That goes on these days, like by the millions, because people played our music, you know, as these kids were growing up, and going to college and whatever they did, and the parents move on literally. And that was something like in our family, singing together and harmonizing with the multiple generations, got us started.

43:16And that whole vibe continues on in a mega -type way, with people all over the world. Amazing. Yeah. Over the years, how much did you guys play outside of the US? Quite a bit. We and the Beatles were like, for foreign groups, right up there in Germany, you know. In England, we did really well, you know. We even had number one album in Spain, which is a repackage and stuff. We had fan letters in Russia, fan letters in China. I met a real estate agent from around who said that we play your LPs at whatever the sea that they went to during the summer. I mean, so I had the Saudi ambassador in the United States in 1977, was it?

44:07In Washington, D .C., tell me that he had our cassettes in his Austin Hilly when he was going to college in England. That was the ambassador from Saudi Arabia. For me. So you got people from all around the world, and all these places that were, you know, not exactly perceived as friendly to the United States, that have been fans of the Beach Boys. And it always was perceived as American music. I think just American music, California music. It really was the sound of California. There's a lot of people wanting to come to California to cause those songs. So tell me over the history of the band from the beginning, what's the first gig you remember doing ever?

44:56New Year's Eve. December 31, 1961, our song, Serfen, had been in a decent -sized hit in California at that time. And on the show was the Riveringtons with Papa Umau -Mau. And Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm featuring the Ikeps. Tina Turner did a song, I'm Blue Scooby -Doo Scooby -Doo. And she was primordial. Blue my mind. Tina Turner was one of the Ikeps. Is it recording of that song? I've never heard that song. Oh no, oh sure, there's a recording. I'm Blue. I'm Blue. I listen to it. Okay. I love listening to music. She was just unbelievable live. Oh my God. Ladies and gentlemen, greet my friends if you will.

45:50He's the Ikeps.

46:23Gloria Blond declines to battle not just from July 5th on, she even shows up. I say I'm the Prince of Chicago. What I heard, the judges held a pony, my little kid, you were so I hope we're reading more songs, I hope she's most grown from the new bit, not too long, no hope Hey, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come Oh, hello, hello Oh, sounds is great, sounds is great Got the Oh, well, I hope we're reading one more. I hope she was from what you went on to long, long, long. Hey, come on, come on, come on, yeah. I do. You bet you bet, you bet.

47:51Hey. Come on, come on, come on, come on, yeah. I do. You bet, you bet, you bet.

48:02I do. You bet, you bet, you bet. Yeah. Incredible. Yeah. Unbelievable. I imagine hearing them live with the Kings of Rhythm and like, wow. Yeah. So that was your first show. Yeah, I blew my mind. And we only had like three songs. Yeah, I say it's pretty good. 500 bucks, three songs. We do 60 bucks, eight, or something like that. I don't know. We went back about 10 years later, it made in the many thousands. It's an improvement. Yeah. How many people were at that show? Do you remember? Maybe a thousand. A thousand. That's a pretty big show for a first show. It was a rich, balanced, memorial dance and show.

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50:32So up until this point, surf music had been purely instrumental. Correct. The ventures and Dick Dale and Adele Towns. How many years would you say surf music was around two or three? Pretty new sound. And it was guitar driven, you know, which is correct. And do you know if surf music was big all over the country or was it mainly a Southern California thing? I don't know about all over the country but it was big in Japan. The ventures didn't really well on the Japan. It's interesting. They still travel not the original guys around anymore. How did the idea come to sing about surfing? My cousin Dennis and I would go fishing or we go to the Ruddondo Beach.

51:20And the surfers and the Hodehads, meaning there are the people, the Pendleton shirts and the T -shirts and the jeans and stuff. And talk to certain way, have a certain lingo. If the waves are up, they cut class into the beach, you know, that kind of thing. And so on the record, surfing, I got up this morning turned on the radio. I was checking out the surf and seeing if I would go on when the DJ tells me that the surfing is fine. That's when I know my baby and I will have a good time going surfing. Bomp, bump, did it. So yeah, which is a little R &B kind of a bump, bump, did it. Kind of do -oppy thing.

52:03So we just were the first to make up a song about going surfing, you know, which became a phenomenal kind of thing. And then surfing is far, if all of that up, then surfing the USA was really big. It was number one or something. And I would look at the foreign charts in Billboard. We had surf in the USA, it would have been the top 10 in Israel or South America or Australia or Norway, Sweden or Denmark. I mean, you know, that kind of thing. It's pretty fascinating to see our music from California showing up worldwide. Amazing. And surfing was still a pretty new thing. And there weren't millions of surfers in the world.

52:47There were probably thousands. Yes. It was a small subculture. Yes, that's for damn sure. Probably you guys didn't want to spread surfing than anyone else. Because even in places where there weren't waves, they could listen to your music. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And there's a t -shirt, a surf Ohio. You know, there's this guy that just took a bomb, self -to -do, a surf Ohio shirt, which has been doing it for 40 years or more. Yeah. If you look at the history of the band, do you think of it in chapters? Well, there's definitely the original band. And then when Brian decided to go and not do the touring, but stay and do the recording and producing a recording or arranging an all -lapse that comes along with that, there became two bands.

53:39So I don't know if you call it chapters, but it's just two bands. And then we've had different changes in the live band over the years. The most success we had record -wise, I think, in the 60s was good vibrations. I don't think there's any question about that. Pet Sound was great. However, it wasn't. The record company didn't know how to promote it. It wasn't received as well in the marketplace. But with people who are musicians or producers or anything to do with writers or anything, listen to the album and say, wow, that's pretty cool. And now it's considered one of the top albums in the history of music.

54:21Rolling Stone Magazine did a thing maybe 20 years ago, the top 500 albums of all time. Number one was Sergeant Pepper. Number two was Pet Sound. The band is bad. Not bad. The band is a good company, two, one and two, right up there on the top of 500 albums, which is pretty amazing. Now everybody has their own taste and appreciation of music. So it's going to vary, I think, according to what group of people you're going to... I mean, I think Marvin Gade probably came in pretty high with a group of people who listen to this music. I don't think we've ever sold as many singles as some people have.

55:01Like, three dog night, joy to the world, several million copies, you know. Great song. Yeah. And Creedence Clearwater had some amazing singles. So they would do more numbers, I think. But we did okay. We didn't do anything for 40 top. I don't know how many top 40 records. You talk about being the studio band and being the live band. We think of that as being unusual for the Beach Boys, but if you think about it, the record crew played on the Birds albums, Simon and Garfunkel, Mom is a poppin. Yeah, most of the things that were coming out of California. Even the specter stuff. Yeah, the Phil Specter.

55:45So they were the California house band for pretty much everybody. They were. Yeah. Huge. I think the main difference was Brian deciding not to go on the road is the thing that was unusual. But actually, he got to spend all the time working on the music, which was beneficial to you guys. Yeah. It was unusual, but it worked out. Yeah, it was. And you know, Glenn Campbell took his place for a few months. And he was incredible. Yeah. He was one of the greatest guitar players ever. Yes. You know, and a self -taught from Mark and Saw. And could sing. You could sing a Zasaw. Which obviously became very famous and did all those great songs.

56:26But Phoenix and the Carthage Park and all that stuff. Yeah. How did the band change when Dennis passed away? Well, the Dennis situation was a drag because he would go into rehab for one night. It doesn't work that way. And so he couldn't get up off the self -medication, I guess, the drugs or the alcohol. We had a road manager who had to flush heroin down the toilet. And when we went into New Zealand one year, because they don't look kindly towards importation of those types of drugs in New Zealand. The Singapore, they have an importation of drugs, just punishable by death. That's kind of a deterrent.

57:11Very serious. Some people. I don't think McCartney would have taken his weed to Singapore. Didn't he go to jail in Japan? In Japan, yeah. Yeah, he actually spent time in Japan. What was it like at that period of the band anyway? Was it difficult with Dennis' proclivities? It was. It was rough. Because we'd have to tell him, no, you can't come around here anymore. And so we had to get other people to play the drums. So there were times where you would ask him not to come on tour? Correct. Yeah, because he'd be drunk. Couldn't do it. Yeah. Couldn't do his gig. And that's not right. Everybody else is doing their part and he's not able to.

58:01It's not that we wanted to do that. It's just, of course, had to do that for them, of course, to protect the group. Yeah. Was Carl steady force in the band over the years? The most part. He went through some times where he was involved in some of those things he shouldn't have been. But he got up off of that and was a very stable force in the group. He was the band leader, musically speaking. And I was always in promotions and figuring out where we're going to tour and what markets like I lived at two earlier. So it was a good partnership because I knew that the songs were going to be perfectly played in sang.

58:50And I was able to commit a lot of time to songwriting and guiding the group in terms of the one night or some stuff. So somebody gave me an award and chore it this last summer saying that I've done over 6 ,000 shows or something like that. The most of anybody. We like what we do. And I like doing these smaller theaters because they sound great. They look great. You know, economically they're not as big as the amphitheaters and the festivals. There's huge festivals nowadays for the earth. We did stagecoach and there's 80 ,000 people they say at our concert. The stagecoach sold out, which is a huge festival and sold out in advance, which is an amazing thing.

59:38After in the summer you guys were playing huge shows again. Yeah. Did very well. Yeah. So tell me from the peaks and valleys of the size of audiences you've played to over the years. Just tell me the rollercoaster ride. We always try to do the best shows we can. Of course. No matter what the size and stuff. Of course. So I really don't identify so much which are bigger on the smaller shows. Except to say then in July 4th in the mid 80s. We did these shows in Philadelphia and Washington DC. We're in Philadelphia on the July 4th. The Philadelphia inquirer said we had 900 ,000 people in the streets of Philadelphia in front of the, you know, where Sylvester Sloan had his statue.

1:00:29Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then that was the afternoon. And the evening was Washington DC with over a half a million people. And those would be on television I remember. Yes. Amazing. How did those come about? I came up with the idea. It's a great idea. I said, look at the United States has been good to us. At least we can do a single bridge of life for it and do a free concert. Now free concert is anything but free in terms of the cost of putting it on. So we had M -way one year came up with a few hundred thousand dollars for the sound, the lights, the staging, all the transportation for all the different acts and stuff.

1:01:04Because we wouldn't and do just the beach boys, although we headlined, we knew we weren't the only music out there. So we had the OJs one year. Great. We had Joan Jett one year. Great. We had Hank Jr. One year we even had Hulu Eglaceus sing surfer girl with us. We did the backgrounds for an album he did called Bill Error or something. He did an album and we sang the air that I breathed which is great song. Yeah, it's nice. And we were playing some of our songs in the studio and he said, who did these songs? Prior to those songs. And so he was impressed. So we got him a sing surfer girl with us and he did one of the songs from his album as well.

1:01:53And we introduced him to over half a million people. Tell me about each band member from childhood. Tell me about each guy. Okay, well Dennis never touched the drum set before he started. But he learned the drums right off the bat. You know, which was great. And he wasn't singing a group but he did it two and four down one. And he did this good. A lot of energy and charisma stuff. The girl loved him. Alan Jardine was the one who played the rhythm guitar. Carl Wilson played lead guitar. For a while, Alan left the group after surf and we signed surf as a party with a fellow named David Marx who played the rhythm guitar and Carl played lead.

1:02:40So it was Brian, Dennis and Carl, Mike and David Marx. We signed the Capitol Records contract and David was at the surf about four albums. And then my uncle Murray didn't like the fact that his parents, he was only like 14 or 15 at the time when you're doing this. And his parents were very watchful for him and my uncle Murray didn't like that because he wanted to have his way with his group. And we fired Uncle Murray, Brian and I did. And his way of getting even with me was because he was administrating the publishing. And he didn't put my name as writer on Help Me Ronda. I get around all the songs you read the word your school, little St.

1:03:28Nick. Yeah, surfing the essay was the biggest ripoff of it all. But yeah. Tell me about the conversation you and Brian had deciding to fire Murray. That's a big deal because he's Brian's dad. Yeah, it was not easy. But Brian wanted to do his music a certain way and his father would come in and say, oh, do it a different way. He was getting in the way. Yeah, he was interfering with the sound that Brian was hearing that he wanted to put on record. And so it became a conflict creatively. In addition to Murray was not a very nice, friendly guy. So we did in fact fire him as our manager, but he hung on to the publishing.

1:04:14And he sold it. Do you remember the conversation where you guys fired him? Yeah. What was it like? It was tough. It was not fun. But we just told him flat out, you know, we want to go our own direction, or physically. And we don't think you understand or capable of letting us do what we want to do. So it was a decision that had to be made, you know, in order to do the records that we quickly thereafter did. But...

1:06:04More focus.

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1:06:21When you were starting, the different members of the band, how were people's tastes the same and how is it different? Well, as I mentioned earlier, Alan Jardine really liked the folk music. Brian, Phil and Love with the Four Freshmen, he would sit at the piano for hours and break it down, break down those harmonies. And so he would have those harmonies in his head. And he would, here's the bass, here's the notes above that and then the middle two parts. And he would sing the high part. So he would sit at the piano and break it all down. And so, and he had that amazing falsetto. He had a great lead in natural voice too, you know.

1:07:08Carl, of course, Carl had a beautiful voice. He could blend with the best of them. And a great lead. He did Wilehoney and Darwin and Good Vibrations leads, still going those. So he was absolutely amazing. Al, saying, we didn't help me Rhonda, which went to number one, I wrote the lyrics and Brian did the ponder of the music. We worked on the harmonies together. Dennis has his own style and on type of music and stuff that he did. It was quite emotional. And we, in fact, John Stamos or actor friend chose to do the song, Demis wrote called Forever, on the episode where Uncle Jesse got married on Full House.

1:08:02And we backed him up on Forever. And if he comes out and does conscious with us, which he likes to do, we'd back him up and he sings that song. You know, people love it. How do you decide who would sing lead on a song? Often it was the range of the song. And of course, you know, I don't have particularly high voice. But if Brian and I wrote a song together quite often, I would end up singing the lead. You know, like Brian had a period where he didn't get out of bed very often. You know, he was just isolated. And so I went over to his house one day and this is regarding Do It Again in 1968. And I got him, it took him down on the beach, walked around a little bit, came back.

1:08:53I remember going back to my house and sitting at the piano in about 15, 20 minutes. We had that song carved out. It came with the concept, wrote the lyrics, sang the lead. He did the track, you know, with the car on stuff. At the studio, we'd put in his house and bill there. So we didn't want to mountain at that point in time. It wasn't a good idea to have mountain Hollywood and the streets. He would stop people and bill there and stop cars and ask him if he could borrow a cigarette. He was doing a lot of cocaine. Do you think bringing him to the beach sparked the inspiration for the song? Oh, absolutely.

1:09:38Yeah. We just gone in the challenge and came up with it in no time and recorded it. And like I said, I went to number one in England, which was good. I mean, not as high in the US because we were at the end of our tenure there. And they weren't trying too hard with us. But they tried okay and 74 was endless summer album. It came back around. Yeah. Coming more about writing lyrics about any times you can think of where you would have the concept in advance, let's say. The concept in advance, we did a show at a place called the Lagoon, which is a place in Salt Lake City, which is a theme park. And we were very popular there.

1:10:26We did a show to open the season, one in the middle of the season, and we showed us close the season. So for a couple of years there, we would go three times a year, all during the summer. And so this one time we played there and I said to Brian, we kind of do a song about a girl who borrows her dad's car. And says she's going to go to the library, but in fact she goes cruising. That was the birth of fun, fun, fun. So and I said it's got to start with the Chuck Berry style of guitar intro. So Carl did do do do do do do do do do do do. So that was the case of the concept. Keen first. And the four of the song.

1:11:09And then Brian Godbizzy with Carl in the studio and came over to track and sang the lyrics. I finished up the lyrics, sang him. And he did that amazing falsetto part at the end, which is mind -blowing. I always thought that was a fantastic part. So there's that. Then another time, November of 1964, there was November 22nd or so. It was, he had moved out of his family home because the contentious between his dad and himself and stuff. So he rented a house not too far away a couple of miles away. And I went and joined him for a songwriting session. He came over this beautiful melody and haunting melody.

1:11:58And I came up the lyrics to a song called The Wormth of the Sun, which is really beautiful ballad. And we probably stopped writing about two in the morning. And the next day, we were waking up, President Kennedy had been taken to the hospital in Dallas. Yeah. So it was, when we were writing it, he was had to have been in Dallas. It was the early morning hours of the last day he was alive. And so it was an eerie feeling in that music. What I got out of the feeling of it was the loss of some love. Meaning, you were in love with somebody. They didn't feel the same way anymore. Maybe they had a one time that you didn't feel it anymore.

1:12:47So it was never going to happen. And yet, in spite of the fact that it was really screwed up terrible, disappointing feelings, at least you had felt that euphoria that comes along with that kind of feeling of being in love. And so that was trying to take a negative and look at it positively. So I wrote lyrics to go with that mood and the feeling of it. And we didn't change any lyrics because of what happened. We've recorded about a month later, but the emotion was there. Wow. Yeah. Let's listen to that song. The Wormth of the Sun. Yes. One of my favorites.

1:14:00The Sun's at it night. For a little bit this morning.

1:14:13For a little bit this morning. For a little bit this morning. Within me at night. Within me at night. The love of my life. She lived in one place.

1:14:43I cried when she said I don't feel the same way.

1:14:55Still I had a wound. The Sun's at it night. Within me tonight. Within me tonight. I dream of the world. And I'm moving on reeling.

1:15:25Just lighting cheeks in the sun. But we're in a dream. My love, my love. The Sun's at it night.

1:16:15The Sun's at it night.

1:16:26Incredible. Incredible. Yes, beautiful. Incredible. Yeah. What do you remember about recording that? Just that it was done January 1 of 65. Wow. When you do the harmony vocals, would all of you stand around one mic? How would you do it typically? I think it's on my own mic. The other guys would be on their mic if they were doing backgrounds. Whoever is going to do a lead. Would the lead happen at the same time too? I think what we did was in that case, I think we did the backgrounds and they did the lead. Backgrounds first. That's what I recall. Would it typically be the case on a song where there would be lead in backups that you do the backups first for the lead to sit on top of?

1:17:08Yeah, pretty often. Yeah. But, you know, I would sing on my own mic because they don't have volume in that range. Yeah. But I have resonance. It's a nice base of the others. So I'd have my own mic. The other guys singing their more natural ranges. I'm singing low. I'm not singing the lead in that range. Would there ever be songs where the lead would be sang at the same time as the harmonies? In recording? Yeah. Especially as technology grows, you know, you do whatever. Or maybe you just do a verse on the lead and then do the harmonies and then you finish it up. I see. You know, later. It's all no set way.

1:17:55Would you ever record music and vocals at the same time or rarely? The only time I recalled doing that is our Christmas album where we did half the albums with an orchestra. So you did it like Frank Sinatra or Dean Martinwood, you know, sang with the orchestra. I would do the orchestra. So we did that on a few songs. Was that a good experience? Yeah, it was cool. You're actually reading your notes. You know, I was able to read music because I studied piano a little bit. So it was never a good piano player, but at least I'd studied music and I could read the notes. So it was for the eight. Over the years, were there different factions in the band?

1:18:38We used to take two jets from one place to another. One was a smoking jet and one was a non -smoking jet. So that's what made up the factions, the smokers and the non -smokers. Smokers was a euphemism for those who were doing the dope. Or smoke and pot or whatever. And it could be cigarettes too because, you know, not everybody metabolized this cigarette smoke that well, you know. How do you think you escaped the root of drugs in alcohol?

1:19:10Well, because of meditation, I think. Because I was just... You guys meditated too? Yeah, but they also didn't mind experimenting with all these other things. So I was fine with being relaxed and clear and energetic through meditation. It's not like I never smoke any weed. But people would say, oh, this is really great shit. And I was saying, not really. It's the same as it always was. For me, it wasn't that attractive. So I didn't want to graduate to anything else. I guess so. Because you would see people who were doing LSD and they were acting really weird. And if they were doing a lot of coke, they're acting really wired.

1:19:55I'm already energetic enough, I think, just naturally with... I mean, it was very athletic in high school, my... I ran cross -country. Three years across -country, it was in the varsity cross -country. I had a captain on a team. I'd run five miles in the morning before breakfast. So I was... I had some oldie called competitive thing. And I didn't think being drunk or fucked up or stoned is... You're going to put your best foot forward on stage. So transferring that competitive thing on the stage, you want to do the best you can. And you just can if you're under the influence. Do you remember the first time you guys played outside of the US?

1:20:37Australia, is what I remember. Yeah, Roy Orbison was on the show. Wow. Great hearing him sing live. Oh, yeah. He was an opening act for us. Wow. His last year he was touring before he passed away. What a singer. Oh, and a nice guy too. Yeah. He really was a great singer. Tell me what you remember about the smile album situation. I remember that that was when the drugs was at the worst. Yeah. Yeah. My cousin Brian was doing LSD and whatever else he was doing. Because I wasn't there when they were doing it. And this guy Van Tijk Park was involved with the lyrics and stuff. So I wasn't involved creatively with it.

1:21:24But I sang on all the songs that was asked to sing on. Yeah. But I thought there was just... I called it acid alliteration. I just thought there was too much monkey business as Chuck Berry would have said for me to be involved with. Yeah. So it was not a positive time for my frame of reference. The tracks were fucking awesome. Yeah. It was the lyrics that I had a problem with and the behavior around it. Do you think drugs changed Brian's chemistry? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Was he a different person before he took drugs? Yes. He was very sensitive always, always through it. But any he was compulsive and really like for instance, if your obsessive about music it turned out great.

1:22:20But if you're obsessive about drugs, there's a chance that your psyche is not going to survive. Not without some damage. And even Brian will say to the Stasis, don't do drugs. Because he knows that he harmed himself. He just said too much or too many. And you never know. I mean, it could have happened once or it could have happened over a period of time. Not a psychiatrist or psychologist for that matter. But he was so into it, into the music. And it took him fantastic places, but those drugs I think you can look at it. It's in terms of the timing of his being. I call him the Stalin of the studio.

1:23:11Because he was absolutely the furor of the studio. He was in command and he was great at it. And then after that smile situation, he shelved the whole album. He didn't want to come out. Bits and pieces, dribs and drabs came out over the years. And some of the tracks are really brilliant. But right now he's in a conservatorship because of the damage it was done back then. Did you ever get to meet Eugene Landy? Oh, yeah. What was that like? He was into what he called 24 -hour therapy. He wouldn't allow Brian to talk to his mom, his brothers, his bandmates. He controlled his life totally. And he took plenty of money for the purpose of doing so.

1:24:01Yeah. Yeah. So it was very egregious. And he had to be the producer. We were doing Kokomo and we asked Brian if he wanted to be on the record. Well, Landy wouldn't let him be on the record unless Landy was a producer. And we had Terry Melchor produce that one. And he did the birds and Paul Verna -Raters. And it was very successful. And so we didn't need him. So Landy wouldn't let him participate unless we met his needs. How is it working with Terry? Great. It was really cool. Did you know him for a long time? Quite a while. Yeah. We were asked to do Kokomo for the cocktail album soundtrack. Featured Tom Cruise and stuff.

1:24:45Like I said, I came up with the chorus. Terry came up with the bridge. I want to take it down to Kokomo and get there fast and it will take it slow. That's where you want to go. So he came up with that. And when the director of the film heard the music, he said, this is the best song. He had done since good vibrations. And I said, really? I mean, we're just doing it because we were asked to do the song for the album. Yeah. And sure enough, it went to number one. And it was very successful. Incredible. People sing along to it too. Like because it's been on full house. It's been for years now. And so all these kids sing along to it.

1:25:23I mean, kids from 10 to 30, 40. Amazing. Is it true that Brian had a sandbox in his house? Yeah. And it was okay until the cats found... That's a kitty litter box. Do you sing when you're not on tour? I listen to my music with these ears because I have some hearing loss in certain ranges. And the antidote to that is to listen to your music. So it keeps your sense of pitch. Right. So I'm doing that. How would you say your relationship with music has changed over the course of your life? Before we became a group, it was just a hobby. There was a family hobby and we loved doing it. I think the love of harmonizing together was the impetus, the reason to get together.

1:26:25Even though if you didn't 100 % have the same lifestyle, you would agree with everybody's politics or anything like that. Or religion or for that matter, you could harmonize together. I think it's a life lesson actually. You can harmonize together so much of that negativity disappears, division and stuff. So I think the fact that we loved the harmonies and harmonizing together as a family carried through into our professional times. Who smoked? Who didn't? Who did drugs? Who didn't? Only harmonize. No matter if it was good vibrations. I mean Brian will talk about having smoked some pot. And I got them thinking about California girls who already did something else and helped them write something.

1:27:19I personally think that people are creative not because of it but in spite of. I think there's a billion, a billion neurons going on mentally. I think you have plenty of creativity to uncover. There's no limit to the possibilities. But music, to me, it's kind of interesting because we still have the same feeling about recreating the sound on stage. But we've noticed over the last 50 years that these songs actually mean something. It's on the beat.

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