Mike Love

He's keeping the summer alive and is about to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame...you'll definitely learn some stuff you don't know!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob Leftsett's podcast. My guest
today is the one and only Mike Love, of a
gigantic Beach Boys fan. It's a thrill to have him here.
He has just been nominated and will be inducted to
the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Mike, before we get into

(00:28):
the music, your brother Stan recently passed. What can you
tell us about Stan.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well? I can tell you there was a fantastic athlete.
You know, our our family was not only musical, but
athletic as well. In fact, my father, Milton Love, was
the All City inn at Washington High School in Los
Angeles at seventeen years old. And he went to UCLA

(00:56):
and he went out for football there and he got
knocked out. So he said, well he's going to throw
in the towel and do something different. But his he
was the smart one that failed me. Is UCLA report
card I guess he could call it was scary German trigonometry, physics,

(01:18):
stuff like that, you know, Oh my gosh. And he
was a boxer too. My dad was about six three
and a little over a couple hundred pounds, and he
did not want to make him angry. My mom, however,
was from the Wilson side, and they had no money.

(01:39):
But what they did have his voices, and they loved
singing together. My uncle's sang harmonies, you know, four parts
they sang together. And my mom sang on the radio,
which is a big deal in the thirties and in
early forties. And and yeah, she sang light opera and

(02:03):
woke us up to go to school. I went to
Dorsey High School, and she would wake us up to
her opera music, which was brutal. But I grew up
in a family home with a grand piano, some Dneway
baby ground, a ham in Oregon, and a lion and

(02:24):
Hailey harp. I have two sisters that play the harp.
One Maureen played on a couple of her earlier songs.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Oh so you know catch a wave exactly, which Jenn,
indeed we did, is a sidewalk surface. But at any event,
let's go about how many generations was your family in California.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
My mom came out five years old on a train
from Kansas during the dust bol days, which preceded the
Great Depression, and they didn't have any money. They called
the people that came out to California and and camped
on the beach. They call him Okie's, So all there
was from Kansas there were Oakie's. And ironically they camped

(03:10):
on the beach for a little while and before they
found a home. And ironically, a generation later we sang
about that very same environment and it caught on all
around the world, which is pretty pretty amazing.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Okay, so your father's side of the family, how did
he get to California.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
My grandfather came from northern rural Louisiana plane dealing Louisiana
in nineteen oh nine and started love sheet metal. He
did kitchen equipment primarily. They did the galleys for worships
during World War Two, and they did the UCLA Medical

(03:51):
Center after the war. And he did a lot of
Big Bob's Big Boy drive ins and things like that. Yeah,
different things. So I was a an apprentice, a local
one O eight, the sheet Metal Workers Union one O
eight that, but you know, it wasn't that much fun.
And actually, you know, my cousin Brian and I got

(04:12):
together and wrote a song called Surfing in the fall
of nineteen sixty one, and I did pretty well, and
I got the attention of Capitol Records, and we did
our song Surfing Safari and Surfer Girl and four O
nine and that was on our first album. The cover
being filmed or photographed at Paradise Co in Malaidu, Malibu,

(04:42):
which was the site of the final scene of the
Disney Plus documentary which is still streaming. And it was
pretty amazing. Brian and I and Bruce and David Marx
and Alan Jardine, we all got together and we actually

(05:04):
sang together and reminisced and my cousin Brian. He has
physical issues. I mean, it's hard for him to get
around and in fact, recently he has been in Cedar
Sinai with you know, lung problems. I guess you know,
it could be related to pnemonia and stuff, which is

(05:24):
very sad. But he has trouble getting around, but his
long term memory is amazing. He was remembering stuff in
our high school days that I'd honestly forgotten about. And
so it was pretty fascinating to get together and reminisce
and sang and all that it was. It was really

(05:44):
a nice afternoon of good vibrations together.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Okay, so how did your parents meet?

Speaker 2 (05:52):
My parents meet and met in high school in Washington
High School and part of the Southern League of the
La City School System. I went to Dorset High School.
They went to Washington High School. That's where how they met.
My mom was beautiful, she looked like a thirties forties

(06:12):
movie star. And my dad was tall and handsome and athletic.
And my mom was athletic. She she could play golf,
she could play tennis, she could walk up the stairs
on her hands. I mean, she was really amazingly you know, athletic.
But her real love is music. And she created an

(06:36):
atmosphere where there was no way we weren't going to
be able to sing together. Because every Christmas, every Thanksgiving,
every Fourth of July, every New Year's, every Birthday, the
family would get together. And my mom was one of
eight kids that lived in maturity and so there's there

(07:00):
were four aunts and I mean my mom and three
aunts and four uncles, one of which was Murray, the
father of Brian Dennis and Carl Wilson. So we always
got together for music. There's never been a time in
my life when there wasn't music because it was it
was in utero, you know, I mean, she was playing

(07:22):
an opera when when she was carrying me. So where
did you grow up in La the Baldwin Hills. Yeah,
So what.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Were they like then, because it's different today. Who lives there,
et cetera.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Well, there are bars in the window of our house
that we should have, but we live in a place
called Pill Hill because there were so many doctors and
dennis living there. In fact, my friend Michael Coleman I
used to play chess with him. He lived right up
the street. And uh, when we went Christmas caroling, his

(07:57):
family was Jewish, so we would something white on them,
like jingle bells, and we'd leave save away in a
manger for the next house. But we literally Christmas carold
around the neighborhood. My dad would bring a truck home
from Love sheet metal, and adults wo get on the
truck and the kids would run around behind. Literally killed

(08:20):
Christmas Carol. That's how it was in those days. And
we had great friends from all kinds of ethnic and
religious groups. And Dorsey High School was fascinating. There were
there were the Japanese kids who had lived in they
don't call them concentration camps in the United States. Interment. Yeah,

(08:43):
they took their land and their everything away, and these
kids I went to high school with, junior high and
high school with, they taught me Japanese. Really, oh yeah, yeah.
It was really fascinating. I was able to count in
Japanese and say a few words like Tomodachi means friend,

(09:05):
iqin no siameans go ahead, Kuichi means well. Kuichi was
the name. They wouldn't say that person is Jewish, ku
is nine and ICHI's one, but nine and one are
jew in Japanese, so they would say that person's Kuichi.
So you know, we had blacks, and we had Jewish kids,

(09:29):
and we had the Japanese kids and the waspy kids
like me, and and just so many different ethnic groups,
which is real education. And the fact the music that
the black kids would sing in the showers and I
was on the track team and the cross country team.
It informed me in a lot of ways with some

(09:53):
of the the things I would put him in in
the lyrics that I came up with implement Brian's musical efforts, like,
for instance, well since you put me down, I've been
out doing in my head doing in I'll do. You know.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
I always wondered where that came from.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
That it came from high school, and you know, it
was just an amazing, amazing experience, and it was it
was really fascinating. I really loved growing up in la
with all the different I would sit next to Fred Belitzer,
who was a Sephardic Jew, and and he would hit

(10:34):
me to all the if it was Russia, Shana, it
was Joan Kapoor, whatever it was, he would he would
let me know that these days were he was going
to be taken off and I would take off too.
And when the teacher would say, where were you, mister Love,
I said, teach, it was the holidays. And I'm a
spiritual guy. So I was always, always, always had an attitude,

(10:55):
a little smart ass kind of the deal.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
So how many kids were in the family.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
Well, my mom had six kids. I'm the oldest.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
She had six kids. They all lived to maturity. Correct,
what are the other five up to if they're still
with us? Well, my brother Stan just passed away. Yeah,
so that was my sister Stephanie sadly passed away maybe
twenty years ago from cancer. My mom died of cancer

(11:24):
at fifty nine years old.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Wow. Yeah, they have the women on that side of
the family carry that gene for that kind of you know,
uterine kind of cancer and which spreads. Yeah, so that
was sad.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
And the rest of the kids of the family would happen.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
Well, I have a brother who lives in Hawaii, and
I have a baby sister who lives in New York
with her Italian husband.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Okay, so it sounds like your father was doing pretty
well in the sheet metal a music.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
My grandfather and father Love she Mill did very well.
In fact, my grandfather was he was amazing. He was,
you know, just salt of the earth, just blue collar
as he could be, but smart and hard working. And
he he he liked Cadillacs. So we'd buy El Dorado

(12:24):
convertible in the spring and a and a sedan in
the fall. Oh yeah, two Cadillacs a year. So, I
mean he'd be bidding on a job and he said, well,
I'm going to put a couple thousand bucks more for
another Cadillac. So for a couple of years there our
family get handed down. We had a beautiful, uh fifty

(12:49):
five El Dorado convertible. Yeah it was. It was great.
And my dad, Miller in love he was a gearhead.
He bought a fifty eight Chevy pickup and he put
two dual cards on a quads yea. You know, so

(13:09):
that inspired some of the lyrics for the car songs
and actually the energy of the car songs that we
did because we realize that not everyone had an ocean,
but everyone loved the cars coming out of Detroit, and
so we sang yeah songs and we related to all

(13:30):
that with my cousin Dennis had a four on nine.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
Really okay, but ultimately you have megasuccess. You're a household name.
In many cases, that person then buys their parents a house,
or they have kids who live on the payroll. But
your family was already doing pretty well well.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, but then love Sheet Mill had a bankruptcy. They
bid on a thing that was impossible to pay, so
it was a Chapter seven bankruptcy, which means it's over.
So I ended up buying a house for my from
my grandparents and helped out with my parents as well,
which is good.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
Stan ultimately worked with Brian. But your other siblings did
they do okay financially?

Speaker 2 (14:16):
My brother Steve was a business manager for a couple
of years back in the sixties early seventies, and and yeah,
so he did it okay, But he's been living in
Hawaii for decades.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
Okay, so you're the oldest kid, yes, you see, you
have a little bit of an attitude. Well, you know
your parents. Your father's a genius, he's going to UCLA etcter.
Your mother's got these incredible musical skills. What kind of
student were you?

Speaker 2 (14:54):
Not a good one? But I was the most well
read kid in my grade school, junior high on high school.
In fact, they had a thing called the Iowa Tests,
which grades you how it gives you how how you're
doing in terms of the United States, how everybody's doing,

(15:14):
whether you're so I was given a ninety eight on
my first Iowa test and that was in like the
tenth grade, and so that was high there. I was
along with a couple other kids, one of a good
friend of mine, Tom doctor Emil Tom Tom Emil. He

(15:36):
He and I used to chase butterflies when we were
in the in grade school, and he kept on chasing.
Has a degree two degrees in lepidoptery, which is a
study of moths and butterflies, and so he was a
professor of tenured at University of Florida and unfortunately passed away.
A couple of years ago. But yeah, so i'm I'm

(16:00):
wasn't a good student, but I was good at what
I liked, which was history, literature, language, culture, religion, philosophy,
and so I was very well read in certain areas.
And so I kept that up through the sixties and

(16:22):
read some very interesting things. And I was interested in
the fact that that all these religions exist, and they
all have great things to say in all the Ten
Commandments and whatever, but the people can't live up to
the religion religious In other words, nobody's ever delivered world

(16:50):
peace in several thousand years of humanity, and to me,
that's messed up. And that one He met marsh in
December of sixty seven and he invited us, invited me
to go to India, which I did go to India
in the spring of sixty eight. In fact, George Harrison

(17:11):
and I have our birthdays in Rishikesh, India, where the
Ganges River come out comes out of the Himalayas. He
on February twenty fifth, on March fifteenth, so we're both Pisces,
and so that was fascinating. The Beatles sang this song
called Spiritual Regeneration Movement Foundation, which can find online and

(17:32):
at the end of it, they're going happy Birthday, Michael,
Love Happy Birthday Michael, which is great. It was kind
of like fun fun, fun sideways or something. You know.
It's like a Beatles doing a beach boy esque kind
of a birthday song, which was fascinating. And that was
a mind blowing time with Marshie lecturing every day and

(17:54):
encouraging people to go and meditate for as long as
they're comfortable. In fact, Prudence Farrow what would meditate for
three days in a row and they had to go
get her And that's the subject matter of prudence. John
Lennon came up with Dear Prudence, once you come out
and play, it's a brand new day and you know
that kind of thing, right, Okay, what made you such

(18:17):
a big reader? And are you still a reader today?
Not as much as I was, but I read a
lot of stuff, and so I'm very sensitive and interested
in philosophy and religion and all that. And with meditation,

(18:38):
with transident meditation is that this is the technique that Mari,
she teaches. In Sanskrit, they'd probably call it raj yoga
yoga meaning union. So there's different ways of gaining union
with the infinite, and one of them is through meditation.

(18:59):
There are other ways of well, so I was just
fascinating him by the whole thing. He was talking about
world peace. The Vietnam War was going on. In fact,
the woman at the teacher training course in Rishi Kiss
in nineteen sixty eight her son was in the military
and Vietnam. Yeah, and so it was really interesting to

(19:22):
me the dichotomy of here were in a meditation a
treat in India with Marishi. He's talking about world peace.
If enough people meditated, there would become world peace, and
yet at the same time there was all this crap
going on in the world. So to me it was fascinating.

(19:42):
It really it really touched me that the idea of
if enough people were more creative through the meditation, we'd
create our ways out of negative situation rather than kill
each other in genocide, which is been the history of humanity,
which I think is disgusting. And yeah, so I learned

(20:06):
a lot from Marishi and being introduced to what they
call the Vedas, which to these ancient scriptures. Not that
I know a lot about them, but I know several
things derived from them. And so it's been a big,
huge help in my life because with mine meditating regularly,

(20:28):
it kept me from making lifestyle choices let's say, aren't
so positive, you know, with too much alcohol or drugs
or whatever whatever kind of excesses. So it's been a
huge help to my life.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Okay, your mother came from a family eight kids. Was
there a special relationship with the Wilsons headed by Murray
Wilson in that family or did you have relationships like
that with all the Wilsons.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
I think that was the most important because my cousin
Brian was about a year younger than I, and he
and I are very close. In fact, when I went
on a senior trip to Catalina, I invited Brian to go,
and we would go to each other's games and football
games and stuff like that. And by the way, Brian,

(21:25):
Brian Wilson could throw football as far as any NFL
quarterback ever could. He was so strong in his upper
body he could throw that football seventy yards. I mean,
it's unbelievable. So he was at one time in his life.
He is very very athletic, and so he got some

(21:47):
of that athleticism, but the musical part. His mom Mayanne Audrey,
and of course Uncle Murray was a aspiring songwriter. But
my mom said that Anne Audrey was the most gifted
musical person she had ever met, because she could hear
a song and just play it on the rate on

(22:09):
the on the piano after just hearing it once.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Okay, you hear the famous story that Marie and Audrey
go out of town Brian rintz instruments and you record,
surfit What had happened before that? Had you guys talked
about making music, had you been making on a music
at an amateur level, or did it literally start that weekend?

Speaker 2 (22:34):
We were only doing stuff as family, you know, if
there was a family get together and it was let's
say we've done our Christmas caroling, okay, well, then the
kids would Brian and I and maybe Carl and my
sister Mariene would peel off and we do our everly
brothers and our do wop and things like that, just

(23:00):
singing the music of the day that appealed to us
while the parents were doing their their their songs.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
So is that a true story that the parents went
out of town and Brian rented this equipment and you
guys cut music. Is that the way it happened absolutely.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
In fact, Alan Jardine went to his mom to ask
for some money to rent the music instruments and we
did do that and it was pretty pretty funky. There
was I mean, Carl played the guitar, Brian I think
hit the snare drum and it was The song Surfing

(23:38):
was really basic, but it was a patterned after the
dou wop kind of genre. Bomb bomb dipped it it,
bomb bomped it, you know that? But interesting enough. Sunday
yesterday we we did the Beach Live festival in Redondo
Beach and you could look over there and the Redondo

(24:00):
Beach breakwater where cousin Dennis and I went fishing one time,
and then we were talking about surfing, and then he
went back home and talked to his brother Brian about surfing.
And then I got together with Brian and we created
that's first song Surfing. And just after no more than
a month or two, we were on the radio in

(24:22):
southern cal that weekend.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
Did you record surf in that weekend? And was it
written that weekend or before? We wrote it first? And
then we recorded it in a little studio in Hollywood.
The studio was owned by a guy named Height Morgan
and his wife Trinda, and they had us to a
song called Luau that they came up for the B

(24:47):
side of Surfing. But Surfing came out on Candix Records,
and the guy who ran that record company ran it
out of his car. In fact, he declared bankruptcy. We
wouldn't have to pay.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Us right right. So it was pretty basic, but it
did get the attention because it did really well in
LA and a couple other places. It got the attention
of Capitol Records, which as, yeah, how old.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
Were you and what was your life about when Surfing
got on there? I was twenty and your future was
going to be working in the sheet metal.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
Well I don't know about that because I didn't like
it that much. But in fact I told my dad, well,
he said, what if the music doesn't work out? I said, well,
I guess I'll be back here scraping shut off of metal.
Because what you do is there's a.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
Will.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
The will leaves us a little bit of slag on top,
so you have to clean that up and make it
look nice and pretty. So I did stuff like that
and installations and things. It was not fun, but it
was a living and I had a wife and one
child and another child. So Bury my heart school sweetheart
who was cheerleader, and Al was the track star, you know.

(26:05):
So but we, of course, we we came up with
the song and then we recorded it quite soon thereafter.
And then there's a guy named Russ Reagan, who, yeah,
a really nice guy. He was. He was a record

(26:26):
promotion man at the time, and he heard we were
calling ourselves the Pendletones because Pendleton mills, the Pendleton plaid,
Pendleton wool shirts. You would wear those over a T
shirt because when the sun went down and it started
to get cold, it's good to have a penalton on
over your T shirt. And I'm talking about the beach.

(26:48):
And but Russ Reagan said, well, it's called surfing about
the beach. Boys lots better than Penaltons. So it stuck.
Russ Reagan.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Named us, okay, so surfing comes out on Candix. He
heared on the local radio. This Capitol Records approached you
as Murray approached Capital.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
Murray through an attorney, Al Selessinger, who represented him and us.
In fact, the other guys. I was the only guy
when we signed with Capitol Records. I just turned twenty
one in the March, and we signed it after that,
so I didn't need court approval, but the rest of
the guys did, so Yeah, it was Murray who sought out.

(27:36):
It was turned down by several places, but a guy
named Nick Venet, who was a producer at Capital, like
what we were doing. But Brian was such as we
were self voting. Brian was gifted when it came to
working in the studio and he he very quickly. First

(27:58):
of all, he didn't need any help, and he knew
what he wanted to hear, and he very quickly became
a master of the studio, especially with some of the
greatest musicians in California. When La they call him the
Wrecking Crew because the musicians who played in orchestras and

(28:18):
symphonies thought they were going to wreck the music business,
but instead they did all these fantastic, great hits. And
that's how we met Glenn Campbell, who took Brian's place.
And when Brian left the group in the live group
in nineteen sixty four, what people don't really understand is

(28:42):
there have been two groups since nineteen sixty four, the
touring group and the recording group. And of course Brian
was the head of the recording group, and he left
in order to be able to devote all his time
to music and production and arranging and dealing with the tracks.
A case in point, he was in the studio in

(29:05):
nineteen sixty five with the Wrecking Crew doing this great
track with a great overture. It was called California Girls.
And that's all he had is California Girls. And I
stepped out in the hallway and wrote the lyrics. Well,
Theast Coast girls are hip. I really dig the styles
they wear. And the Southern girls and the way they talk.
They knocked me out when I'm down there. The Midwest

(29:27):
farmers daughters, they really make you feel all right in
the Northern girls of where they kiss, they keep their
boy kiss, keep their boyfriend's warm at night. That caught
on all over the place, and yeah, it's still one
of my favorite songs for saying, oh.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
Listen, incredible. So but let's go back. Nick Vinet signed you.
Now you have to do an album on that album
that surf in Safari four oh nine, ten Little Indians.
You gotta have ten songs. Where do you get the
ten songs?

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Well, we made them up.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, Well, did you get were you so young the
you say, oh we can do this in a second.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (30:02):
Yeah, Were you intimidated like we.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
Were intimidated at all? No, we but you know, the
record company Capitol Records division of E. M I Worldwide,
which is the same record company the Beatles were on.
We they were hounding us for an album every few months.
In fact, Brian was working on the Pet Sounds album

(30:26):
and doing these amazing tracks and and he needed more time,
and they were hounding us for records. So we said,
I said, Brian, why don't we do a song called
a party album which consists of a bunch of songs
we just liked singing, you know, And so we did

(30:50):
bar barn Off that album, which right, yeah, and that
was recorded in sixty five, late sixty five, but Barbara
became a huge hit in early sixty six. Then then
that gave us the time to do the Pet Sounds
album properly, which came out in mid sixty six, and
then of course Good Vibrations came out in the fall

(31:12):
of sixty six. That was an enormous year for the
Beach Boys.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Okay, so the second album, Surfing USA. Can you tell
us about shut down or any other songs you wrote
for that album.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Brian became friends with a guy named Roger Christian who
was a disc jockey in LA and he was gearhead.
He came up with some great lyrics. You know. I
was Shutdown, little Loose, coup Car, crazy Cutie, some really
fun songs. I sang the lead on a lot of those,

(31:53):
and of course Brian did his high parts and the
other guys filled in with the harmonies and so yeah,
it was just a lot of energy going on and
a lot of you know, desire for the record company
to have another album, always having another album. So we
we did a whole bunch of albums, and I think

(32:16):
there have been there are gems on each one of
those albums. You know, we did so many of them
back in the day in.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
Such a well, I just know on the second album
there's Farmer's Daughter and there's the Lonely Sea. Yeah really
and okay, so then you wrote the lyrics for Fun, Fun, Fun.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Just well, we were really popular in Salt Lake City.
I don't know why, but we were. And we would
there was a place called the Lagoon, which is a
theme park in Salt Lake City, so we would go
up in the open the theme park in the beginning
of the summer, come in the middle of the summer,

(32:57):
and close the theme park in the early fall. And
one of those times we'd gone up there, we were
we took a taxi from the Holiday Inn in Salt
Lake City to the airport to fly back to la
and I said, Brian, we got to do a song

(33:17):
about a girl who borrows her dad's car and instead
of going to library, she goes cruising with it, and
so that became the intro the you know, Carl came
up with the intro of the guitar intro of fun, fun, Fun,
and we we you know, we had a great time

(33:39):
with that. In fact, we closed our show at the
Beach Life Festival with fun, Fun, Fun, and people love it.
I don't know if the kids these days even though
what a Ta Bird is right, but it's such a
fun song. And when Brian hit that high part at
the end, oh my god. It has to be responsible
for a lot of tickets, because if you're cruising your car,

(34:02):
it's just just like like amazing, uplifting song, you know,
and it's all positive.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
It's all My father had a t bird and my
sister was going to the library, so it became a
family joke exactly. Okay. So then was your time at
the lagoon the inspiration for Salt Lake City on summer
days and summer nights?

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Exactly? It sure was, and we can still do it
whenever we go to Utah, we'll do Salt Lake City
and people love it.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Okay. So then ultimately you have the all Summer Long
album and you're in the movie Girls on the Beach.
Do you remember making that movie?

Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (34:44):
So what was that experience like it was?

Speaker 2 (34:47):
I mean, the beach boys in a movie doing a song.
It's not exactly We're not like you know, Brad Pitt
or anybody you know. We're not Tom Cruise. We're just
a bunch of guys you know, from the neighborhood singing
our songs and we're happy to be doing them on
in the soundtrack of an album. But our music has

(35:08):
been featured in so many soundtracks over the years. I mean,
Shampoo with Warren Beatty.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
That brought back, wouldn't it be nice? Unbelievable it did.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
But also fifty First Dates was huge, I mean, you know,
and and California Girls with the rush Hour films that
Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. They use California Giles I
think three times and yeah. So it's been fascinating to
see how many movies, including Cocktail of course with Kokomo,

(35:42):
have featured our songs. We've been very, very very blessed
to that producers like to use our songs in the movies.
In fact, Cocktail, the movie, the director says, can you
do a song? Tom Cruise a bar turn. He's going

(36:02):
from New York to Jamaica, And we did a song
by assignment. We didn't come up with that song. They said,
can you come up with the song? Well, Terry Milcher
was the producer of the song. He was friends with
John Phillips of the Mamas and Papas, and John Phillips

(36:23):
had this really nice melody off the Florida Keys. There's
a place called Cocomo. That's where we used to go
to get away from Rome. I said, hold on, that's
where we used to go, implies the guy thinking about
as misspent youth or something. I said, I just changed
one thing in the verse. That's where you want to
go to get away from It's a tense change and

(36:46):
it made it inclusive. And then I came up with
the chorus Aruba, Jamaica. Who I want to take it
to Bermuda? Come on pretty much? So come on pretty,
wamos to me. It could be a kid thinking his
mom is pretty. It could be an older couple saying
let's get in the RV and going on to Florida.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
You know.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
So it just fit every generation, and of course it was.
It became the biggest selling single of our career, even
bigger than Good Vibrations, which is saying something. And then
then we got on Full House. John Stamos loved the

(37:28):
Beach Boys and he loves to play drums with us.
He was playing with us at the at the Beach
Life Festival just recently, so he he wanted us on
Full House. And we did that song on Full House,
and we've been seen on TV reruns a Full House
by millions of people over the last thirty some odd years.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
Let's go back though sixty years. Tell us about I
Get Around.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
Brian came up with a song I get Around. He said,
I get around from town to town. I'm a real
cool head. I'm making real good bread. I was thinking
that's a little braggadocius, just a tad and but He
had an intro that was kind of meandering, a lot
of little honeys who were hanging around and all this
kind of stuff. I said, no, no, no, let's start it

(38:17):
like we did Barbaran. Now Barbara is Bob Bob bah.
So I said, let's do round round, get her around.
I get her around. So I came up with that
concept and that hook, and of course he did beautiful
stuff with the harmonies with it, and it came together beautiful.
I wrote the words to the verses, and so it

(38:41):
was a true collaboration. He had the I get around
from town to town. I'm a real cool head. I'm
making real good bread. I came up the round round,
get a round part and the lyrics of the verse.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
Okay, Murray is the manager at this point. He is
portrayed as a tyrant somewhat abusive. What was your experience?

Speaker 2 (39:00):
He was a tyrant and somewhat abusive to his kids.
Mainly they built bore the brunt of it. But he
wasn't nice to me. See, I wrote every single syllable
to surf in USA, but I was not I was
not credited, nor was I credited or to help me
Rondo or California girls or I get around. Murray took

(39:22):
over the publishing. I didn't even know what publishing was.
Come from a sheet metal family background, didn't even know
what publishings. I knew he had to sign a you know,
sign your name to a songwriting contract, but that was
the extent of my knowledge. I didn't know the value
of publishing, and I rely on my uncle and my

(39:46):
cousin to take care of that part because, you know, frankly,
I didn't know anything, and my uncle Murray knew stuff
about that, but he really mistreated me, and he ended
up selling The Sea of Tunes, which destroyed Brian Wilson emotionally.
But Murray was that way. He didn't care. He just

(40:08):
wanted something for himself, you know, and he did. He
got a few hundred thousand bucks and then he died
three years later.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
And tell me about getting rid of him as the manager.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
Well, Brian and I told him that we could no
longer have be manager. But the roay he got even
with me is to disinclude me on on the what
I did with Brian lyrically.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
So to what degree has that been rectified now?

Speaker 2 (40:37):
It's hard to say the percentage of the ones I
just enumerated have been rectified, but there's probably thirty or
forty more songs that have yet to be rectified. And
who owns those songs today? Universal Music they bought the
see if well A and m res Irving. Almo Music

(41:02):
bought Sea of Tunes in the late sixties and then
years later they sold sold their catalog of Beach Boys
songs and others to Universal Music.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
I thought that as a lawsuit that Brian got something back.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
Well, there was a lawsuit. Brian was under the control
of doctor Eugene Landy at one point in time, and
doctor Landy came up with an idea to go and
try to get the publishing back. But they they stopped
short of getting the publishing, and they took something like
ten dollars, which a lot of them went to attorneys

(41:46):
and stuff, and I don't know how much Landy got,
but they solicited me. They wanted me to cooperate with that,
which I did, and they were supposed to compensate me
and start paying me on these songs that I wrote
with Brian, but they didn't. So I was fortunate enough
to find an attorney who was able to pierce There

(42:12):
was some fraud involved, and rather than going to the
ugily details of that, I was able to overcome to
a certain degree. Maybe about thirty five songs. Okay, so
today universal loans of songs. There's the publishing share and
there's the writing share. That's right.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
Are you getting paid on those songs today?

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (42:33):
And are you I'm sure you're happy to get paid
at all as opposed to Candix? Yeah, ripping you off?
But have you made peace with what you're making or
are you still sort of upset you today and can
get the credit and the money you want.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
I am not happy with what happened to me, but
I am very blessed to have a healthy life, a
positive life. I've done six or seven thousand concerts over
the years as the lead singer in the live Beach
Boys group. So there's two groups, the recording group and

(43:09):
the live group. My cousin Karl and I were in
charge of the live group. He the musical side, made
the I would meet with the agents and managers and
talk about, you know, where we're going to go and
who we're going to promote with. There's certain areas that
were controlled by very powerful promoters which you could not

(43:29):
go in without getting you know, you just couldn't buy
the right time at the radio stations or or the
rent the venue, but there were places that you go,
so it was I wasn't busy with that. I always
liked the live music part of things. The reason being
that the audience response is so amazing. It's so uplifting.

(43:50):
So I mean, all agents have a smile on their face,
they're singing along, So how could you not like that,
you know, So I've always favored the live music part
of it. The recording music of music is very necessary
you're in the studio. It's somewhat claustrophobic, I have to say,
but it's fantastic as far as getting the sound that

(44:11):
you want. And so the two different groups coexisted. Of
course when Brian was at his peak, it was just phenomenal.
If you listen to the there's a box set that
they put out years ago of the pet Sounds album.
They had just the vocals and just the tracks. The

(44:33):
tracks are amazing. You listen to us. How did he
come up with that? But he did, and the vocals
we labored over, like wouldn't it be nice? One section
for maybe twenty five takes to make it perfect. In fact,
at that point in time I called Brian dogg ears

(44:54):
because he heard stuff the human beings on them, you know,
so that it was okay? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
So was Brian always one step removed or was he
a normal kid and made a left turn?

Speaker 2 (45:12):
Emotionally? What I think Brian is is extremely sensitive. And
he had a father was, as he said, tyrant, and
he would tell Brian that he didn't know what he
was doing, and that was so wrong because Brian totally
heard what he wanted to hear in that studio, and

(45:34):
you'd have a drunken Murray come in and try to
impose his will on things and stuff, and that's what
we had to get rid of him as a manager.
So but he was very sensitive, but he was also gullible.
People would come and turn him on to various things.
In fact, one of the last tours we were on,

(45:57):
I went to his room and there was a light
bulb and this and that paraphernalia, and I was thinking, WHOA,
this is not good. I was very angry. So he
was experimenting with things due to associates of his that
probably didn't have a well being in mind. Let's put

(46:17):
it that way, and that influenced him in a in
a not so great way. In fact, when we did
the pet Sounds album that was one thing, but the
Smile album, I came up with the term acid alliteration
because some of the lyrics were I don't know, I

(46:38):
couldn't relate to them. I think lyrics are meant to
communicate normally, and sometimes they get a little obtuse.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
Okay, so how did you feel about Van Dyke Parks
who wrote a lot of those.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
That's the guy who inspired my term acid alliteration.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
Okay, you know schizophrenia, assuming we that is his diagnosis.
Without going deep into Brian, it tends to occur in
the late twenties when Brian started to take a left turn.
Do you believe that element was always in there? Do
you believe it was drugs? What do you think changed them?

Speaker 2 (47:24):
My personal philosophy, I don't know if it's true or not,
is that people think they're creative because the drugs they
took I say were creative in spite of it. So
he has an amazing amount of creativity. He could sit
down on the piano right now, and even though he
has a walker in a wheelchair, and he can't get

(47:46):
around very good. He can get around just fine on
a keyboard, and he has his talent, he has his abilities.
But when you take a sensitive person and introduce him
to stuff that, whether it be LSD, cocaine, heroin, pot

(48:09):
whatever it is, you don't know what the results are
going to be. Some people can do that stuff and
come out just fine and some people don't. And so
my cousin Brian, I think he shelved the Smile album
because he felt that he was doing the elements earthwater, fire,

(48:30):
and air, and we did a fire session and there
was a fire not so far away and he felt
that he caused it by doing the fire sessions. So that's,
you know, things that go on that make you diagnosis
paranoid schizophrenia. I don't know if that's the current term,

(48:52):
but that's what it is. You get paranoid from the
stuff you've been doing. I mean, we're all paranoid about
some things and whatever. Life is that way, and we
all have a fight or flight and adrenaline and maybe
too much fatigue, the blood of lactate and all that.

(49:12):
It's all physiological and cycle physiological. But if you put
something into certain people who are very sensitive to begin with,
and you don't know what the outcome is going to be.
Sometimes that outcome can be okay, but a lot of
times it's very destructive.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
Okay. So an album called Smiley Smile comes out, It's
got good vibrations, heroes and villains. Then Wild Honey and
do It Again.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Oh yeah, I love those songs.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
So how does control of the about Darlin?

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Oh? Absolutely, yeah, you know. But there's that, there's the
Friend's album, there's twenty twenty. What is the difference in
recording those records as opposed to, you know, before Smiley Smiled,
before Brian you know, went into his own world.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
Well, we actually put a recording study in Brian's home
in bel Air and we were able to do the
Wild Honey album there. In fact, I went to the
kitchen and he owned a health food store called the

(50:30):
Radiant Radish at the time, and I opened the cabinet
because I was making some tea, and I looked up
and I said wild Honey, And I said, that's a
great title for a girl or a guy who's in
love with this girl and maybe his mom doesn't feel
the same way, like she's good enough for her son,
but he's intent on being with this girl. So I

(50:54):
wrote the lyrics while the guys were doing the track.
And that was because I saw that wild Honey and
I said, what a great title.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
Now on that album, Carl starts to sing more. He sings,
you know, I was made to lover?

Speaker 2 (51:07):
He did.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
Is that just happened naturally? Or is he feeling a
vacancy that Brian used? Tell and how do you feel.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
That, Colonel Bryant. Carl, it was just his own force
of nature when I came to the vocals, I mean
sang the lead on God only knows, Okay, that's phenomenal,
sang the lead the lyrics, I mean the verses of
Good Vibrations, which went to number one. And I don't

(51:36):
know if you knew this, but as a psychologist in Sheffield, England,
a couple of years ago said that Good Vibrations was
the number one song for making people feel good.

Speaker 1 (51:46):
Really, I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
All these years later, I'll take it. It's pretty amazing
and it's true it just puts a smile on piece
of people's faces. But at any rate, so Carl did,
I was I was made the lover, which the Stevie
wonder song. I thought he did an amazing, amazing, amazing
but Darlin I wrote the words that the guys did

(52:12):
the track, Well.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
Where did the words come from?

Speaker 2 (52:17):
It was just a romantic, romantic poem that I came
up with, similar to the poem of good Vibrations. I
don't know if words could say, but Darling will find
a way to let you know what you meant to me.
I guess it was meant to be, you know that
kind of thing. So it was just a beautiful little poem,

(52:38):
a romantic poem about how special this squirrel made you feel.
I think sort of the sweetest songs.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
Okay. Conventional wisdom is that you and Dennis butted heads.
How is your relationship with Dennis and how is your
relationship with Carl?

Speaker 2 (52:58):
Carl was number of Dennis was a problem because he
did drugs and alcohol. We had to actually kick him
out of the group from time to time because he,
you know, he was unstable. But even it was interesting
even though he was had been drinking or something. If
we ever found ourselves together in a situation, he said,

(53:20):
let's meditate. He is the guy who called and said,
you know, I'd gone back to England. From Paris in
December sixty seven when he there his unise show there
and Dennis called and said, you got to come back
to Paris. I said, why because Maurice is going to

(53:40):
teach us to meditate. So you sure He says, yeah,
I think so. I said, we'll find out for sure.
So he did call me back a little while later.
He says, yeah, it's on it. Come in tomorrow and
you're supposed to bring fruit and flowers and a handkerchief,
and which we did. We got some flowers. There was

(54:00):
a Sunday and about the week before Christmas and Mari
she taught many of us meditation. He first he met
with us until it was told us what it was about.
Then he brought us back in and actually taught us,
which was fascinating, and I was the most relaxed I'd
ever been in life through the meditation. I said, well,

(54:22):
this is so simple to do that anybody can do it,
and if everybody did it, it'd be an entirely different world.
And that was his old plan, is to create something
that which could create world peace. So that really affected me.
But Dennis, because of that connection through meditation and we

(54:44):
uh even though he would go off the deep end,
literally and figuratively with alcohol and drugs. I mean we
had to. He was dating the girl who who would
introduce him to heroin, and we had to throw heroin away.
I mean our road manager I had to take and
throw it in the throw it away and as we

(55:05):
went into New Zealand because they don't look kindly importing
heroin there, nor do they like that in Singapore. And
the fact that says on the boarding or the entry
card that says importation of drugs is punishable by death, Yeah,

(55:25):
that'll get your attention. But anyway, so he had these
this he was very generous and all kinds of great things,
but and a lot of energy and charisma. But he
couldn't get off those dependencies and it screwed him up.

(55:47):
I mean he ended up drowning in the La Marina
and under the influence.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Do you think he did ship just to piss you off.
I don't.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
I think he was just out of his mind through
the alcohol and the drugs. I don't think he did
it on purpose. I just think everybody acts differently. Some
people go to sleep if they drink too much, and
some people get crazy when they drink too much. Well,
he was a crazy part.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
Okay, let's go back to the beginning. How does al
Jardine leave the group replaced by Dave Marx in the
Al Jardine come back and replace David Marx.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
Well, he thought he'd be best off going to dental school,
so he'd quit the group after surfing came out. And
there was a neighbor of the Wilson's where David Marx
lived across the street, and they used to play guitar

(56:56):
with Carls. He was a real natural fit. So he
was a rhythm guitarist and he really nice guy. Another
fellow who you know, let his you know, didn't maintain
his sobriety. So great and it's been through a rough

(57:17):
time for a lot of his life. But a great
guy and a good guitar player. But his parents were
I mean, he was a very young guy, fourteen fifteen
years old, and his parents were vigilant. And Murray was
doing what he wanted to do with the group and

(57:39):
they didn't approve of it. So Murray set it up
to fire David and brought out Jardine back in not
as a principal but as a paid employee for a while.
Before he became a full partner.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
So was said that he wanted Al Jardine in the group.
Where did he really want David Marks out?

Speaker 2 (58:06):
He wanted Dave Marks out because I think his parents
were or not, you know, in favor of the whimery
was treating him. But the thing is, Ellen Jardine has
a great voice. He's an amazing singer, and so he
could you know, people can sing a note, but can

(58:28):
they blend. He could blend with Carl and Brian and
myself very well. And so yeah, it was it was
a good addition there. So can you tell us about
the two versions have helped me? Ron It comes out
on Beach Boys Today in one version, then there's a
hit version which is included in Summer Days and Summer Nights.

(58:51):
That's right, Well helped me run to the original version
was what it was. But we thought we could have
a little bit and I came over with a couple
of ball pop bops and stuff. I wrote the words
and Brian did the track and we all did the
harmonies together. So we just thought it was a song
that we thought we could do just a little bit

(59:13):
more with and it worked out. It went to number
one and Al Jordane sang the lead on that one,
by the way.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
Right, That's why I brought it up, Okay, Brian is
often never never Land. You have this incredible string of hits,
the music itself starts to change. There starts to be
underground FM rock radio. There are bands that don't have
conventional top forty hits. To what degree do you feel

(59:40):
internal pressure and external pressure to create top forty hits?
And to what to where are you paying attention to
all these bands, whether it be Cream, there is a
million of them that are on the FF.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
Yeah. Well, I mean the thing is, I think u
uh egotistically, you always want to have a number one record.
Sure you're going You're going to go for it, and
but you talk about the times are a change, and
Bob Dylan said it and uh and so things did

(01:00:16):
change in that that album Oriented Rock came along and
we did a few things that resonated pretty well with that.
But at that point we didn't have Brian in the
in the producer chair. It became more democratic, shall we say. So,

(01:00:37):
we'd have Al come up with a couple of tunes
like California Saga and the on one album and you
have Bruce come up with a couple of great songs,
and and then Carl of course come up, came up
with some nice stuff, and Dennis at his own album
and we did forever with him. In fact, that song

(01:00:57):
was played on Full House and Uncle Jesse got married.
At any rate, we just did it at the Beach
Life festivals, you know, backing up Staymos anyway, so it
became a little bit more democratic, shall we say? It
was different than the early to mid sixties.

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
Okay, your contract with Capital is over, You form your
own company, Brother Records. You put out Sunflower, which is
on Warner Brothers.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
Yes Forpries.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
You know. To me, I listened to that. I'm all
the time, isn't it time? It's got all this stuff?
What was the experience on your side of the fact?
Was Mo Austin disappointed? Did you believe it had the
commercial success you wanted it to have.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
I don't think we had any commercial success to speak
of at that time, I think, But I think there
are a lot of little gems on these albums. You
know that one and Holland and you know Beach Boys today.
All the there's always a really sweet song or two
or three.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
Okay, just to go back one more time, tell us
about Brian leaving the touring group. That was nineteen sixty four.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
He was having what they call a nervous breakdown touring
and stuff, and also there were some things that were
making him feel a little weird in addition to touring,
so he left obstensibly to spend more time producing records
and arranging and recording, which worked out beautifully. But and

(01:02:49):
then Carl and I were, as I mentioned earlier, we were.
He was the musical director of the group at the time,
and I was more of the the lead singer and
the guy who got involved with all the the uh
live music touring stuff. Who were gonna Who's going to

(01:03:12):
be our opening act? I mean, we had some great
opening acts. Buffalo Springfield I saw a tour were Buffalo Springs. Yeah, yeah,
we're out Feerfield University in Connecticut. I was nineteen sixty six.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
Also, we else was that Soul Survivors Expressway to Your
Heart exactly on that bill.

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
We had paid a half million dollars or a quarter
million anyway to get a nice live you know, the
as our music grew and as our the audience grew,
we need a better sound than was afforded by most venues.
So we spent all this money, and I remember Soul

(01:03:53):
Survivors getting our microphones down and banging them on the
floor and stuff. So, and they were going to be
the biggest crew in the world or something.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
Right right, one hit wonder. So all of a sudden,
I mean, the game is changing, music is blowing up
the fillmore East, it's announced it's going to close. You
guys end up playing the closing night of the film, Maurice,
How does that happen?

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
You mean with the Grateful Dead? Yeah, yeah, well we
were invited to join.

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
Oh no, that was actually a different gig. Was this
was the final night you came on like six or eight.
The final night was the Allman Brothers. Oh but you
also played with the Grateful Dead on an earlier.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
Yes, that was the one I thought you were meant
because that was quite memorable.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
Well, so tell me about that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
That was great. I mean we did a few songs
with the Grateful Dead and they played along with us,
We played along with them, whatever it was it was.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
But how did it happen?

Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
Well, you know, I'm not sure. I don't remember exactly
how it happened, except our management got an inquiry and said,
would youize guys like to join us? And so we said, yeah,
why not, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
Okay, So the first album on Warner Brothers is not
commercially successful. The second album my Warner brother sirs Up
is okay. CIRs Up. The song is pulled from you know,
Leonard Bernstein Special years before, and there's success. Did you
feel there was you know, you're on one side of

(01:05:35):
the fence, consumers on the other. Did you feel the
momentum starting with the surs Up album?

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
I think it definitely penetrated that aar field and it
resonated with that whole genre of music. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
So how did you write Student Demonstration time?

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
The song Riot and so block number nine right was
the inspiration for that. It was the same song except
I rewrote the lyrics and the whole idea was, Okay,
there's these problems going on in the world with the
Vietnam and the integration and all these kind of things.

(01:06:18):
But to put yourself in front of a tank or
take your life in your hands, I mean, I just
think it it's better if one finds more creative ways
to resolve or solve problems hopefully then putting your life's

(01:06:44):
and harms way. So that was the concept. Next time
there's a riot, your best stay out of sight.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
Okay, the Beach Boys gain momentum. They're now playing arenas.
Put out a double live out. This is the Beach
Boys in concert. Okay, that's a double live album comes
out at that time, and the Beach Boys are doing
incredible live business. They're playing arenas. So did you feel

(01:07:13):
that momentum and what do you think people finally realized
how great you were? Remember what year that was, seventy three.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
I do remember that Reagan came into power at some
point that during that time period, right, and his sort
of general positivity kind of mirrored the positivity in our
earlier music and later music as well, because we were

(01:07:43):
almost always ex accentuating the positive in our songs. Maybe
not in one hundred percent of them, but for the
most part. So I think just the times changed again
to favor our sort of philosophy in our in our
body of music.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
Okay, The Being Flames put out on a Brother Records label. Ultimately,
Blondie Chaplain and Ricky Fetar end up helping you out
or being members of the group on Holland and Blondie
even things sail on Sailor? Was that just an organic thing?

(01:08:24):
How did they end up in the group.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
Well, Carl met them in London and they were performing
there as a group. The Flame and Brother Records hired
them or contracted him to do some music, which we
did with them, and they in fact participated in that
coincided with Dennis screwing up his hands so he literally

(01:08:47):
could not drum. So Ricky Fatar, who was a great
guy and a fantastic singer, he played the drums and
Blondie he came in with his guitar and his soucial
voice and he really tore it up. I thought it
just added a whole different dimension of the Beach Boys.

Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
Music. And how do he end up singing sale on Sailor?
I think his voice was just perfect for it. And
the story is that that song was written pretty much
after the album was complete they went to Brian. Is
that a true story?

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
I don't recall. I wasn't totally involved with that, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
Jack Riley is involved in the group at this point
in time as a manager. He even sings a song.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
Day and Life of the Truth, right, So what's your
take on that. Well, he was an aor guy out
in LA and he actually did some great lyrics with
Carl Wilson and some of Carl's stuff because Carl that
wasn't particularly astute lyrically, but he was musically is great

(01:10:04):
and vocally obviously brilliant.

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
But or you know, yeah, so he was helped out
a lot by So how did you feel about him
singing a Beach Boys song?

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
I thought it was weird. I thought it was weird,
but hey, people do wear things from time to time,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
Okay, So in the summer of seventy five, Capitol puts
out a double album Greatest Hits on the Beach Boys.
It becomes it was a seventy four or seventy five.
I'm not going to go on record. For some reason,
I thought, I think it's seventy five, to be honest
with you, but it's gigantic.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
Unless summer right.

Speaker 1 (01:10:52):
Do you have any input or are they just doing
it under contracting or sitting at hole.

Speaker 2 (01:10:57):
No. I had plenty of input because one of the
things I always thought, it's good to have an album that, like,
when you do a concert, you want one song to
support the next song, you don't want it to overwhelm
or you know, you don't go four o nine and
that Gonnelly knows, and I get around you go, Gonnelly
knows Sloop John B. Wouldn't it be nice you go?

(01:11:19):
So I would? First of all, I named the album.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
Tell us how you named it?

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
Well, they were going to call it Beach Best the
Beach Boys Volume three or something, right, I said, there's
no such thing. But if you call it Endless Summer,
all these songs that people enjoyed for so many years
in the sixties and now it's the seventies, that people
who are just getting into music are going to think

(01:11:46):
of this as a new album, and when they listen
to it, we're going to sequence it so that it
gives a really nice lift to the person who's the listener.
And you know, you're able to feature your ballads but
also your your mid tempo and your up tempo on
they And so my my deal was in doing concerts

(01:12:12):
is to work on the set list every night, and okay,
which songs are twelve sing songs, so you don't have
to go back and forth doing it. I used to
call it the guitar change ballet. Anyway, so we would
we would plan on it like that. And so that's
what I came up with the album title Endless Summer

(01:12:34):
because there was a huge movie called Endless Summer. It
was a surfing movie, right, So it just made a
lot of sense to me. And then I did I
helped do the sequencings of the album too.

Speaker 1 (01:12:47):
Okay, but it took over the summer.

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
Yeah, it was three million coffee rights and a million
and I'm sure that you had no expectations would be
that big. No, we didn't, not in the beginning, but
we were loving it. We still recall us recent tours
in the summer gold and it's true. I mean, so
many of those songs people still love to this day.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
Okay, So then it's Brian is back, There's fifteen Big Ones,
and there's Beach Boys Love You. What was your experience
on those records?

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
Fifteen Big Olins is pretty cool? You know. I enjoyed
working on that record with Brian, I said, Brian, we
did pretty good with with Chuck Berry and us, why
don't we do rock and roll music? And I went
the top five, which is pretty good beatles of their version.
Chuck Berry obviously is the original but rock and roll music.

(01:13:47):
It was a big hit for us. And what was
it about? Six maybe I fear exactly how many original
and somebody covers?

Speaker 1 (01:14:02):
You know? And then Brian is back. There's a special
featuring Belushian Ackroyd. The album is called Beach Boys Love You.
How did you feel about that?

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
I thought it was pretty funny that they rusted him
fa failure. Yes, that's hilarious.

Speaker 1 (01:14:19):
Classic and he was let's go surfing now everybody's starting
out coming to Safari with us.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
Yeah, it was really fun. I thought it was amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
Yeah, okay, but then Brian starts to fade a little bit.
Ultimately you do La the Light album and you do
a disco version of Here Comes the Night.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
Bruce actually did that one, Okay, Bruce Johnson took over
that dealer.

Speaker 1 (01:14:49):
And in retrospect, good decision, bad decision, irrelevant.

Speaker 2 (01:14:55):
I don't think it was the greatest decision ever. I mean,
you know, the Beg's were the disco kings, right yeah, yeah,
so no, it was, but it was the genre. I
guess it was, you know, an attempt to be part
of the genre, you know, although that's long since gone

(01:15:17):
right right sure? And in the Summer album and the
Sounds of Summer album lives on.

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
Okay, tell me about Glenn Campbell being in the group
and then being replaced by Bruce Johnston.

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):
Glenn Campbell was one of the Wrecking Crew. He was
one of the greatest musician, unbelievable guitar player, but he
also sing really well. He could sing high, like as
in falsetto that Brian did, and so we needed somebody
to be able to take over for Brian for a
few months before we found a more permanent replacement. So

(01:15:56):
Glenn built in from sixty four to early sixty five,
you know, like, and Bruce joined us in The first
song he sang with was California Girls in nineteen sixty five.
But in the meantime, Glenn was with us for a
while and he was great. He was so funny, he
was so such a brilliant musician. He played bass with us,

(01:16:20):
just like Brian played bass, because that's what we needed
bass player. So that was nothing for him to do.
I mean, I mean, people will guitarists will listen to
his guitar playing, they say, how the hell do he
do that? So and the greatest thing about it was
his sense of humor at the time, he kept us
in stitches at Arkansas farm Boy humor. It was hilarious.

(01:16:43):
But he was a true genius musically, true genius. It
was the greatest.

Speaker 1 (01:16:52):
So did he say, you know, I want to leave
and have my own solo career. How did he end
up va?

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):
Well, he was on his way to becoming Glenn Campbell,
you know, own what do you call golf thing going
on and great records and hugely successful. So yeah, but
he was destined to be a huge star. But he
was a blessing to have for a little while there

(01:17:19):
in nineteen sixty five.

Speaker 1 (01:17:22):
And how did you get Bruce in the group?

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
I met Bruce in Las Vegas and I said, we
need somebody to fill in for my cousin Brian. We've
had link Glenn Campbell for a while, but he's he's
not going to do that permanently. So he called around
and he couldn't find anybody, said, well, let me try it.
So he we hired him and he went and learned

(01:17:47):
to play bass for the gig. And in fact I
went to see him and we were in Florida and
I went to his room to see how he was doing.
And he had the TV and the bed u. I said,
what's the TV doing in the bed? He says, well,
it's not well And I should have run at that point,

(01:18:08):
but it didn't, you know. But anyway, he very gifted musician,
you know, got a Grammy for writing. I write the songs,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
And he.

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
Did some beautiful songs on on our albums, really nice ones.
I mean they weren't typical Beach Boys songs, but they're
they're his style of writing.

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
Well, you know, the end of really before the Cocomo era,
you make one album with James William Guercio, Keeping the
Summer Alive. How was that experience?

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
That was interesting? It was Carl writing with what was
it the guys from Canada taking care of business and
working on bt O Bachman Turner Overdive. Yeah, so Randy
Bachman he just said a lo to us. We just
did a tour in Canada month or Sogo, and yeah,

(01:19:03):
he was a writing partner on Keeping Summer Live with Carl,
and I think it was great, good concept. I mean
for the Beach Boys to we've been keeping the Summer
Alive so to speak, for decades. Now.

Speaker 1 (01:19:25):
Okay, so let's go all the way back to being
we go to sixty two, we go to surfing. You know,
you're married, you got a kid, you got another kid
on the way. It's on Candix Records, it's on Capitol.
You have success. The four seasons on the East Coast
have sort of big success. But you know, there's a

(01:19:48):
lot of independent labels at the time, a lot of
Top forty, and then the Beatles come in a what
did you think of the Beatles coming in in their
music and and you ultimately met the Beatles, Yeah, we did.

Speaker 2 (01:20:05):
I thought it was pretty interesting that they had a
contest kf W Beatles or kf W Beach Boys. It
was a competitions, a rivalry in a competition. We were
on the same label, which is good for Capitol, Rutgers
and AMI internationally. But they were fantastic and meteoric, right.

(01:20:28):
They were huge for how many years, you know, and
their music is their catalog lives on, you know, it's
a fantastic one. In fact, the Rolling Stone magazine did
that top five hundred rock albums of all time and
Sergeant Pepper's number one and Pat Sounds number two. It's

(01:20:51):
a good company. So, yeah, we we went to see him.
I remember Carl BLUs and I went to Portland, Oregon
and met with him backstage. They were doing a concert
there and John Lennon's voice was out and he says, well,
when we get to that part of the song, shake
your heads and girls of scream and no nobody even

(01:21:12):
hear anything. But what are we talking about? Girls and cars?
My cousin Carl had an Aston Martin dB five. Really yeah.
George Harrison loved racing cars and I was an audio.
I was an Anglo file when it came to I
had a forty eight MG, thirty nine Rules Royce, an

(01:21:33):
x K E in the middle, this is all in
the sixties, and a Jaguar Sedan.

Speaker 1 (01:21:38):
So yeah, we were.

Speaker 2 (01:21:42):
We were rivals, but I think it was really positive.
In fact, we had a birthday party at Carl Wilson's
house he was renting in Malibu, and Paul McCartney came
to that party, he and his wife Linda, and he
says to Brian, who was there. He says, Brian, when

(01:22:02):
are you going to give us some of the pet sounds.
I was listening to the album going through Mohan Drive
and tears coming out of my eyes, you know, so
he loved pet Sounds album, and he loved Only Knows
and What's Not the Life with Yesterday and all these
great songs that he came up.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):
Okay, so you start in the early sixties, music starts
to dominate at the culture in a way that people
today can't understand. Are the Beach Boys their own thing?
Are you now interacting with all the other hit acts?

Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
I don't know about interacting. I've always thought that the
Beach Boys are a sonic oasis. It's like its own thing,
and some of the songs are the potential to be immortal,
and so you know, it's just it's coming from a
place of love, the love of harmonizing together. I mean,

(01:22:58):
forgetting the you know, whether you're famous or successful financially
or anything like that, at the core, it's the love
of the harmonies, and that I think gives a certain feeling,
an uplifting feeling that people they feel it. I don't

(01:23:20):
know if they intellectually understand it, but they feel it.
You know, it touches them, touches their hearts. And you
see that irrespective of the age, when you see a
crowd of fifty sixty seventy thousand people singing along and
having a great times. It's joyous and so that you

(01:23:43):
know that I've always said were a sonic oasis. We
weren't trying to keep up with anybody, weren't trying to
put anybody down because they were doing so great or something.
And there's always been people who were fantastic. I mean
about Michael Jackson, you know, phenomenal and brilliant, and you

(01:24:06):
know so many other people you can mention that We've
loved all the music. I'm almost I was friendly with
Marvin Gay.

Speaker 1 (01:24:17):
We did, but how does how do you meet a
how do you meet him? And he was notoriously edgy personality,
so how'd you get along with them?

Speaker 2 (01:24:26):
I'm gray with him. I smoked a joint with him
at the Tammy Show out on a break and we went.
We were on tour and in in Europe, and he
was there on the tour we were on and we
did silly things like you know how people set out
their shoes to be shined at night. We would change

(01:24:49):
the people's shoes around and stuff. And this is Marvin
Gay and Mike Love and so he he he had
he lived in Holland for a while because he was addicted,
unfortunately to heroin, and so he could get what he
needed without being without it being a problem. But the
I R S took everything from him. So we had

(01:25:11):
some friends who were helping to get back together on
tour and I went and visited with Marvin and he
was He was telling me songs that he had come
up with, which which were amazing, and and I actually
went on and saw him on his final tour. That
was the when he got home, that's when his father

(01:25:31):
shot him.

Speaker 1 (01:25:33):
What about Jean Berry?

Speaker 2 (01:25:35):
Jan Berry was very aggressive guy. He took Brian came
over with the idea for Surf City and jan Berry
took it over. And my uncle Murray wasn't happy about
that at all, but yeah, but he was, he was.
You know what the interesting thing about Jan and Dean was,
it was Jan and Arnie originally with baby talk. But

(01:25:59):
Jan and Dean I said, well, we can do is
least as well as them. And they'll say there was
sort of an inspiration. They preceded us by a year
or two. And so when we did surfing, we said
in Surf and SAPARi, we said, oh we can do
as well as those guys.

Speaker 1 (01:26:16):
Can you tell us how we stole Surfing City.

Speaker 2 (01:26:19):
Uh well, I think Brian was just open an open book,
you know. He he would share anything with anybody, and
he he you know, he happened to I don't know
how that happened because I wasn't there, but he did

(01:26:39):
to the two girls for every boy, that kind of thing, right,
and got that song going and and Jan finished it up,
of course, but uh yeah, Michael Murray was not happy
with that. It was the number one song, right in
a great song.

Speaker 1 (01:26:56):
So you're married, but you're on the road, and you know,
today they had cell phone cameras. They didn't used to
have that, but there are groupes opportunities. What's it like
being an early twenty something guy out on the road.

Speaker 2 (01:27:12):
Well, that led to my first divorce. You know, I
was married to my high school sweetheart and we had
two children. But then it was a huge show what
do you call it, temptation to be the lead singer
in a rock group and early to mid sixties and stuff,

(01:27:33):
and so I you know, I enjoyed that for a while,
but then they got it to be a little bit
you know, superficial and a little bit not the greatest,
and so I got remarried again and two more great children,
one of which is performing with us. His name is
Christian Love and he sings God only Knows beautifully and

(01:27:55):
it harmonizes perfectly, and so it's a family tradition again.
Still so yeah, so there is an element of that.
I'm sure that every group has been, you know, tempted
to do things and you then after a while you

(01:28:18):
understand what that is and what that means. And it's
a lot of times it's ego. A lot of times
it makes you feel like you're a big star or
something like that, or being you can be kind of
charming for a night or two. But you know, so
there was that phase. But yeah, I learned that that's

(01:28:42):
not the greatest way. I've been married for thirty years.
I've been together with with Jacqueline for probably thirty seven years.

Speaker 1 (01:28:52):
How many times have been married?

Speaker 2 (01:28:55):
I was married five times before meeting jocclin Well. One
of them was in what do you do annuled?

Speaker 1 (01:29:05):
Okay, we live in California.

Speaker 2 (01:29:08):
You get divorced, you lose half of what you got,
not necessarily.

Speaker 1 (01:29:13):
Not necessarily because you could have a pre existing contract
and if we have, but divorce is expensive.

Speaker 2 (01:29:19):
Can be, but I haven't. I haven't found it to
be a problem really that way, and and and you know,
let's put it this way. We were so successful in
the sixties that, you know, ultimately getting the publishing and

(01:29:41):
the writing back for some of the big huts and stuff.
It all works out. And we've always been continually touring
all along. I've done several thousand shows over the years.

Speaker 1 (01:29:52):
Okay, So you talk about George Herisin and you talk
about all the cars in your garage. Were the economics
different then or were you just making so much money?

Speaker 2 (01:30:05):
I don't know if we're making so much money. We're
making enough money to go to England and order five
or six rolls Royces.

Speaker 1 (01:30:17):
They were never cheap.

Speaker 2 (01:30:19):
Well yeah, but they weren't as much as they are now.
Maybe the money's uh not worth as much these days
as it once was. But no, yeah, we were successful
enough to enjoy a lot of the perks of that success.
But also you come to understand that that's that's not

(01:30:39):
the only thing in life. I mean, because you may
be doing well, but how is the world doing? You know?
So that that really bugs me that we as collectively
as the creative community, aren't doing enough to help help,
you know, like we are the world. When we did

(01:31:03):
Live Aid, we did our show from Philadelphia, they were
singing along to us in Wembley Stadium. And so that's
going to be re released. I think you probably know when,
but more than most.

Speaker 1 (01:31:18):
Actually I do not know when that's going to be.

Speaker 2 (01:31:21):
So it's in the works.

Speaker 1 (01:31:22):
So you've been married five times, well six six, excuse me,
one was annulled. So what's the key to a successful marriage?

Speaker 2 (01:31:33):
Well, in my case, my wife was a nurse when
I met her. She's brilliant and she's protected, and we
have two great children together, and we have a together
as a family. We have a club, Cocomo Spirits Rum

(01:31:55):
primarily a line, and we're promoting that and my my
son Brian is doing a fantastic job marketing wise there,
and my wife and I are also involved with with
him in helping to promote and be creative about things.

(01:32:19):
And she's she's really creative and really great and and
just a really devoted, great person. She's very spiritual in
her own way, and so that that's that's good stuff,
you know, that's good stuff to warrant, you know, to

(01:32:40):
have a good relationship where people love each other and
care about each other and forego any other kind of
situations that get complicated.

Speaker 1 (01:32:52):
So you're kind of saying like she keeps you in line.

Speaker 2 (01:32:57):
Yeah, more than in line. She's she did pulmonary h
what do you call it? The lungs she worked for
When I met her, she was a nurse working for
a doctor who is a pulmonary specialist. If I breathe
the wrong way, she's on my case.

Speaker 1 (01:33:14):
And how many kids do you have?

Speaker 2 (01:33:17):
I have eight kids?

Speaker 1 (01:33:22):
And how's your relationship with all eight?

Speaker 2 (01:33:24):
Good? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:33:25):
And are they off the payroll?

Speaker 2 (01:33:28):
Pardon?

Speaker 1 (01:33:28):
Are they off the payroll? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:33:31):
No, My son, Christian sings with us, right, yeah, and
so and he's great. But my oldest daughters, my two
oldest daughters both worked for Southwest Airlines really and then
so you know, everybody's great and we all have a
good time together, and we all spend the holidays together,

(01:33:54):
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:33:54):
And where are you living right now?

Speaker 2 (01:33:56):
I live in Inclined Village, Nevada.

Speaker 1 (01:33:58):
Right Lakely. I'd you end up there? I went there
as a kid.

Speaker 2 (01:34:03):
My father used to like this to fish in the
Trucky River, and I just love that place all my life.
I thought it was so beautiful, and so in nineteen
eighty one I bought a property up there, so I've
lived there full time for the last thirty years. You

(01:34:24):
used to live in Santa Barbara, which is gorgeous, but
California is also punitive tax wise in other ways as well,
So we're enjoying it. It's clear air, fresh air, beautiful and.

Speaker 1 (01:34:38):
If you go on the road, you're an inclined village.

Speaker 2 (01:34:41):
How do you get to the gig Reno? I drive
down of Reno and take any number of airlines wherever
I gotta go.

Speaker 1 (01:34:58):
So you talk about taxes. Starting in the eighties, he
came out that you were on the right side politically,
right as opposed to left, as opposed to correct or incorrect. Man,
you would not come out politically to the general public
before that. What are your political beliefs? And do you
believe making political statements is good, bad, necessary, unnecessary?

Speaker 2 (01:35:23):
Mainly in terms of politics. I remember a guy coming
up to me when we did a place coach in Chautauqua,
New York. There's a nice amphitheater there. It's a Christian community,
goes back over one hundred years, and he came up
to me and said, you know, I was really happy

(01:35:46):
to come to a concert and not have to hear
anything about politics. So I have a philosophy about what
we say in public from the stage, which is no politics,
because I know there are people, you know, on this side,
that side, the other side, all kinds of sides and

(01:36:06):
opinions and everything. I think our job is entertained and
be positive and you know, literally create those good vibrations.
So I don't like to do anything in a concert

(01:36:26):
setting that you know, might make people feel uncomfortable one
way or the other. So but on the other hand,
you know, we've performed for Donald Trump's fiftieth birthday party
in Atlantic City. He has been nothing but nice to us.

(01:36:47):
And I understand that these things are going I mean,
unbelievably climactic changes are going on, but that's the nature
of the relative, the nature of the material world, and uh,
there's always going to be changed and always going to
be upheaval. Unfortunately, there's always been negative stuff going on.

(01:37:13):
So personally, if I have an experience with somebody, whether
there left, right or middle or or nothing, then then
that's that's there. What do you call it? That is

(01:37:36):
their right to be the way they want to think
and act and what they want to get involved with.
I think it's sad that there's so much vilification that
that's it's it's not good. It's not good. There's too
much negativity going on. I mean, you should be able
to have a I mean, that's what free freedom of

(01:37:58):
speech is all about. You should be to say what
you want to say. And you may not like what
you're hearing, but it's good if you can at least
allow a person to express themselves and you're going to
do what you want to do anyway, and you're whatever
group you're affiliated with is going to do what they're

(01:38:18):
going to do. They're not going to change their minds
because somebody's vehement proposals. So I just think it's I
guess it's from years of meditation. I just like to
transcend a come out and be positive and try to
do the best I can to be a good person

(01:38:41):
and try to help out with our celebrity where we may.
But you know, so we were invited to do New
Year's Eve actually the Saturday before New Year's Eve at
mar Logo. So we did it and people loved it.

(01:39:02):
And I've got lots of compliments, but that doesn't mean
that we're going to do stuff on stage that that
that are pro anything.

Speaker 1 (01:39:14):
Well, a gig is a gig. If you've got a
offer to play for Nancy Pelosi, would you play for her?

Speaker 2 (01:39:20):
I'm not sure she does gigs.

Speaker 1 (01:39:23):
I mean, she has a fundraiser and she says, we'll
pay your fee to come perform.

Speaker 2 (01:39:30):
I don't know. I don't know. That's a hypothetical question,
I think, But I.

Speaker 1 (01:39:34):
Let me put it a different way. Is it gig
A gig someone's going to pay you, Are you going
to show up? Or are you going to say? Hmm,
I'm not sure I approve of that person.

Speaker 2 (01:39:44):
Well, it depends. It would depend on the situation and
who's involved and what their their purposes are. I mean,
I'm not a believe me. I'm I'm all about doing gigs.
I'm you know, right, But anyway we I mean, you know,

(01:40:05):
Howard Stern said he was going to talk to anybody
who was pro Republican or something. I think that's wrong,
you know. I mean, Howard's great and brilliant and very
well to do, but that's not the right attitude. I
don't think or somebody in a public situation. But he's

(01:40:28):
entitled to and do and say what he wants, so
he did. I just don't think it's very uplifting because
you can have a nice dialogue with somebody, in a
conversation with and even an argument. But and that's okay,
because that's what our country's been all about for many
a years.

Speaker 1 (01:40:48):
Okay, but you've mentioned a couple of times peace in
the world, and we don't have peace, right You talked
about we are the world being positive. What can we
do as a culture, as entertainers, performers to advance the
cause of peace in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:41:09):
Well, like I said, I learned meditation from Marishi. I
was invited to go in India. He was talking about
world peace at a time when there was all this
stuff going on. And this is after Good Vibrations in
nineteen sixty six where they were talking about nineteen sixty eight,

(01:41:31):
and so Marishi came over with the formula for world Piece,
which involves a lot of people meditating the same time
in the same place, doing a thing called the TM
hyphen Sidhi Tmcity program. And if enough people do that
together at same time place, it creates so much positivity

(01:41:54):
in the atmosphere that the negativity falls away. Now has
it been done, not to any great degree, but once
in nineteen eighty three, and over the Christmas holidays it
was and the war deaths went down, traffic deaths went down,
hospital and missions went down, all kinds of indications of

(01:42:15):
positivity through this group. There were over seven thousand people
meditating during the TM City program. So you know, I
went to a six month long meditation course to learn
the Tmcity program in nineteen seventy seven, three months in
Switzerland and three months in no three months in France
and three months in Switzerland. And it was very interesting

(01:42:41):
because this, if you're able to do get that many
people to meditate together, it creates an amazing, super radiant effect.
It's pretty mystical and pretty fantastic. So the possibility exists
to have the world peace. The possibility will humanity get there?

(01:43:08):
We don't know. It's I don't know if you ever
had anybody talk about the Vedas, these ancient scriptures. Well,
there's a thing called Caliyuga, which is a period of
time started about five thousand years ago, and all the
negativity you see in society and life, and you look
out on your phone every day and you see these

(01:43:28):
horrible things that have happened. That's a symptomatic of caliyuga.
There's a thing called sought yuga, which is all positivity
and peace on earth and no crime, no disease, no starvation,
no nothing negative sought yoga. Marisha came in to set

(01:43:49):
it up to have to create sought yoga within Caliyuga.
Now Coliuga goes for four hundred and twenty thousand more
years of negativetivity, but they'll be they're supposed to become
five thousand years of peace within. You can sought yoga
within Caliyuga. So that's something was foretold by these ancient

(01:44:12):
sages from India thousands of years ago. So you know,
am I going to say that that's not the truth
or not going to work. I mean it, It hasn't
been tried to any great degree, but I think it'd
be awesome if if it were to be possible to

(01:44:35):
have that many people. Like, for instance, if seven thousand
people meditate together, it's like four billion, nine hundred million
people meditating because they're doing it together. Pretty amazing stuff.
Sought Yugo within Caliyuga. You don't find a lot of

(01:44:57):
people talking about that.

Speaker 1 (01:44:58):
No, you don't, but you had, you know, you did
the MIU album. You know they had the Maharishi Center
in Iowa. Switching gears a little bit. You're an icon.
You have also met icons. You talk about Trump, I
know you knew Bush Bush won anyway. Oh yeah, So

(01:45:19):
do you ever get starstruck and tell us about some
of the most amazing people you met.

Speaker 2 (01:45:25):
Marlon Brando tell us that starstruck. We did the UNISEF show.
That's where we went Marichi United Nations Children's Emergency Fund
in December of sixty seven. On the show is Marlon
Brando and his Tahitian bride and dancers, and Elizabeth Taylor
and Richard Burton, the Russian Red Army Choir, the Turkish Ballet.

(01:45:50):
I think there were some great singers. There was an orchestra,
a beautiful orchestra in this beautiful venue in Paris. And
when the curtain opened for our part of the show,
there was Marichi in the front row with John Litt
on one side and George Harrison on the other. But

(01:46:11):
that night there was a party at at an embassy,
and Marlon Brando was there and He says, you want
to go get some breakfast. This is Marlon brown A
talking to Mike lover the Beach Boys, right, and I'm thinking,
here's on the waterfront, you know, and you know Viva's

(01:46:31):
Apoda and so many great movies. And he said, you
want to go get some breakfast. I said, well, yeah,
that'd be nice. But we didn't know anything about Paris.
But he did. He says, well, yeah, there's a private
party at Maxims to Pirie. I says. So he had
a Cadillac and vert will come out. This is December.
Cadillac Bertivo comes up, pulls up. We got in some cabs,

(01:46:52):
the Beach Boys crew and we went to Maxims to Peri.
So we there was a private party in this room
off to the right as you walk in. The restaurants
and nightclubs still ahead. But there was this private party,
and you had Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, you had

(01:47:12):
the director of the festival, and Victor Borgo, who is
a Danish pianist and humorist. He was there as well.
And Marlon Brado walks into the room and then this
lady spread eagles herself for the entry of the room

(01:47:33):
and says, oh, I'm terribly sorry. It's a private, private party.
So Marlon Brando takes a look at her and says, oh,
I'm really sorry. He says, in Tahiti, if one person goes,
everybody goes. It's like family. He says, I think I'd
better leave, and he turns as if you know a

(01:47:56):
Lee Strasper type urn. He turns as if he's going
to leave, and she's going to lose Marlon Brando, Well,
that ain't going to happen. So she let us all
in and it made the party because you know, yeah
it was. It made the party, and so that that
was an amazing time. I thought that guy is about
as cool as you can possibly be, and he just

(01:48:20):
just with a little turn of the head, he got
this alda cave.

Speaker 1 (01:48:26):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:48:27):
The next day I was in the waiting room and uh,
waiting to border our flight to London, and who should
be sitting there with Marlon Browno. So we sat next
to each other on the way to London and I said,
and I asked him, well, how are you getting into town?

(01:48:48):
He says, I'm just going to take a cab. I said,
why do you come with us? We had six Dameler
limousines lined up and we drove into town. He says,
you want to go to a party? Here we go
again and so yeah, I said fine, but let's drop
our luggage. And so we had like ten suits and
corner suites in the London Hilton and I came into

(01:49:09):
the swit sweet to drop my bags and stuff and
he looks one way and looks the other and he says,
manucats really know how to travel. So that was amazing.
But he was That was the last time I saw
him in person. That was nineteen sixty seven. But he
was the coolest. You can't top that story, I don't think,

(01:49:31):
so the said store struck there.

Speaker 1 (01:49:34):
Yeah, I'll leave it at that. The Beach Boys made
a deal selling rights Irving Azos Iconic.

Speaker 2 (01:49:41):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:49:42):
How do you decide to do that? And how's that
worked out?

Speaker 2 (01:49:45):
Well, Brother Records at the end of it, it owns
the Beach Boy's name and I tour. I'm given the
license a tour as the Beach Boys by Brother Records. Well,
Iconic Irving games off about fifty one, which is a

(01:50:05):
good thing because we were pretty dysfunctional, honestly. But he
he organized that a concert that came out a year
before last on Easter Sunday. It was there was twenty
acts doing Beach Boys songs, which was great. And then

(01:50:29):
he also did the deal with Disney plus documentary that
was great. So he's they are working that, the group
Iconic is working on, you know, developing various things that
we never did and so and they've done a great

(01:50:49):
job so far.

Speaker 1 (01:50:51):
So how did you learn how to play the therem in?

Speaker 2 (01:50:54):
It was a little I didn't say a proper theorem
and I a mogue, synthesize or did something with the
little thing, and it was it was hard to do
to hit the right note and not screw up and
sing at the same time. But I did as well
as I could.

Speaker 1 (01:51:13):
So you're talking about the set list. If I went
to every Beach Boys concert, it's not identical set list.

Speaker 2 (01:51:21):
Pretty much a lot of the same components. But we
might if it's if it's a outdoor venue, we might
not do something subtle. But if it's indoor theater where
you can see and hear everything, we'll do something more spiritual,
more and more subtle.

Speaker 1 (01:51:41):
Yeah, And then at this point, you performed some of
these songs thousands of times.

Speaker 2 (01:51:47):
What are your favorite songs to perform? I love California Girls,
I love I Get Around, I love surfing Usa, I
love doing Cocomo. I love doing Good Vibrations Do It
Again went to number one in England, even though we
were transitting from Capitol Records to Reprise Records, and Capitol

(01:52:13):
Records didn't try very hard in the US. But it
went to number one in England, which is nice because
the previous number one was Good Vibrations a couple of
years before that, so that's always a nice one. Our
serving songs are car songs. I get Around, fun, fun,
you know, Little Deuce, Scoop four on nine, shut Down.
They're all good, They're all fun, and so I enjoy

(01:52:36):
so many of them.

Speaker 1 (01:52:45):
I have been on stage where I've literally watched an
act win over a disinterested audience. You hit the stage,
people know who you are, know what the songs are.
Do you just have to stand up to the mic
and sing? Or are you very attentive to what the
reaction is and how you're performing me?

Speaker 2 (01:53:06):
No, I don't assume that anybody knows anything about our music,
or the Beach, Pizonous or anything. Our job is to
create fans. I mean, if they're already fans, that's great,
and we're not going to disappoint them. We're going to
recreate those songs as close as humanly possible to what
you heard on the records or on the radio or

(01:53:28):
TV or ads or or soundtracks of movies. So, you know,
a whole bunch of young people who have seen us
on full House reruns doing you know, Kocomo and I
mean millions and so, but they don't know all the
stuff that we just went over in the last hour

(01:53:48):
and a half or so. They just and I don't think,
I don't assume they would. I don't know old girlfriend
who thought that Ringo might be black, you know, I
mean she did know about the music business, and she didn't.
It was it was past the Beatles, and you know,
it was you know, So that taught me a lesson.

(01:54:10):
I said, people assume because they're they're successful and they
had you know, hit records and stuff, that everybody knows them.
That's not true. I don't think. And and especially they
don't know the individuals. I mean, we have had fan
letters from Russia, fan letters from China. I met a

(01:54:33):
real estate agent in New Jersey who said he's from
Iran and they played our records in Iran in the
summer where they went for summer vacation. I was, I'm
in the eighties. I met the Saudi Ambassador, Prince Bandhar

(01:54:54):
Saudi Radi, Ambassador, Saudi Arabian Ambassador of the US in Washington, DC,
and he told me, Mike, I'm a fan. I played
your cassette in my Austin Hilly while going to school
in England. That's the ambassador from Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 1 (01:55:12):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:55:12):
And then when you added that Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Hall
and Finland. We're going to Poland this summer. South Africa's
South America, and like I said, China and Russia and
all that, Japan. We've had records all over the world
and people really like them still, but I don't ever

(01:55:37):
assume that people really know us and and and our
job as performers is to recreate those songs. It's closest
humanly possible to the records, and we're not everybody's cup
of tea, but we're a lot of people's cup of tea,

(01:55:59):
so a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:55:59):
Of people to reproduce. They have a lot of backing
tracks on hard drive, et cetera. What's your philosophy on that.

Speaker 2 (01:56:07):
We do all of our music live. I'm in the vocals.
We might have some click tracks to keep everybody in
sync a cup on a few songs, but yeah, we
don't have a lot of supplementation like that or sampling
or aning of that stuff. We don't need it. We
have enough vocalists to recreate the vocal blend and harmonies

(01:56:29):
in the sound of the Beach Boys.

Speaker 1 (01:56:31):
So how many gigs a year do you do?

Speaker 2 (01:56:33):
Now? Well, I've done as many as one hundred and fifty,
maybe one hundred and twenty this year. Perhaps, I don't know.
I just do them. That's a lot of work, it is.
The travel can be tiring. We just did a tour
of Canada, went from British Columbia to the Toronto area

(01:56:56):
and it was not good. I was cold, it was
we were taking overnight drives to escape snow that was coming.
So we're not going to do that anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:57:08):
But well, some acts, it all depends on economics. They'll
locate in one city, they'll take a jet, private jet
to different locations. Are you always flying commercial? You go
and buy bus? You're taking private jets, mainly bus.

Speaker 2 (01:57:24):
If we're doing a lot of sequential dates, so we
try to make it so that it's reachable from one
date to the other. Sometimes we'll have to take an
all night drive to get to the next place. That's
okay because when we get in the morning, we get
to rest a few hours. Rest is a huge deal.
So my meditation and my rest. If I get that,

(01:57:45):
I'm good to go, and I can do innumerable concerts.
But honestly, I'm eighty four years old, and so as
I look down the road, I learned my lesson going
to Canada at the wrong time year. So you you
learn new things every day and you learn your limitations,
and so I'll probably do less concerts, but specific to

(01:58:09):
times a year. For instance, we're already getting offers for
next February and March in Florida, and that's when you
should go to Florida, right because all the people from
all the northern areas come down there, the snowbirds, and
that's great. So it's a great time to go.

Speaker 1 (01:58:30):
At this late date, you've been on the road so much.
You're only on stage for an hour hour fifteen actually two.

Speaker 2 (01:58:39):
Really we do an hour with a twenty minute in
minute and intermission followed by another hour. Unless it's a casino,
they don't want you to do an hour and intermission
and another hour, which is two hours of music. They
want you to do maybe an hour and a half
at the most. And so you just do mainly your

(01:58:59):
hits and and they're happy, and people to come to
see you, they're they're happy.

Speaker 1 (01:59:05):
So, yeah, I've seen your two hours show. The last
time I saw you live was its stage coach last year. Yes,
so in a situation like that, that was one hour, right, yeah, okay,
eighty thousand people there. It was fantastic, unbelievable. So how
do you entertain yourself twenty three hours a day, twenty

(01:59:26):
two hours a day, you're on stage for two hours.

Speaker 2 (01:59:28):
That's the highlight? Well, I said, like I said, I risked,
I meditate, I'll do a little exercise, everything moderation, especially
exercise anyway. So yeah, it's just new normal stuff. You know,
family things and you know, calling your kids or talking
to your wife five times a day. So it's it's

(01:59:49):
all good. It's just normalcy. But our our particular way
of life is a little abnormal, honestly, but it's great.
Because people feel good when they come to a Beach
Boys show around the world, by the way, which is

(02:00:09):
we're going to do five shows in Spain, We're going
to we've never been to horse of Or we're going
this year, and then Switzerland and Germany. A nice festival
in Germany, and then we're ten thousand people in England
coming to see us at Englefield, which is you know,
west of no east of London anyway, so we're having

(02:00:32):
a great time.

Speaker 1 (02:00:32):
Well, you know, where's the strangest place you've played? I
mean in terms of my own travel. You know, it's
great to go to London. Everybody speaks English places. I've
been to Bogata in Columbia and everybody I was with
had had a family member killed. It's like I felt
very alive. Yeah, So where are some of the couple

(02:00:54):
of the exotic places you've been to that made an
impression upon you?

Speaker 2 (02:00:58):
South Africa? You know, at the time we went, we'd
go to the beach and says blacks only or whites only.
But in the clubs and stuff, it was mixed, everybody
having a good time to the music. We played in
a place African homelands, it was a big golf course thing.

(02:01:19):
In fact, we met uh Sean Connery there at the time,
so it was an African homeless place. So it wasn't
apartheid was There's plenty of African leaders there in the
in the in the concert. But we did our thing
and it was it's it was an interesting time to go.

Speaker 1 (02:01:41):
It was.

Speaker 2 (02:01:44):
It was before apartheid went away, but they they it
was it was interesting place to see and we're, of
course we're not pro apartheid or anything, but in this
particular place it was mixed. So we felt justified and going.

Speaker 1 (02:02:02):
Okay, you sang about cars. You talked about having all
those cars. What's the best car you ever owned?

Speaker 2 (02:02:11):
Wow, that's a rough one. Corvettes are really nice. X
K's are pretty groovy. But I had a nineteen thirty
nine Rolls Royce Limo that was pretty amazing with the
big huge headlines and stuff. That's beautiful. But I've had

(02:02:34):
some really great So I had a sixty two Bentley
which I had painted a certain way and it was gorgeous.
And I actually went to jail one time because I
was I just had my motor redone and I was
going from from north of Malibu to Oxnard, and there

(02:02:56):
was a straightaway for about five miles and I was
going about one hundred and forty five miles an hour,
and the California Hawaii Highway Patrol lights went on because
I had to slow down. There was a town coming up,
and he pulled me over, handcuffed me, put me in
his car, and he had he had a shotgun and

(02:03:20):
he was using that as an aerial for his boombox.
And on the radio comes rock and roll music and
I said, you know you hear that song? He says yeah,
he says. I said, well, you're just the rest of
the lead singer. He said, well, sorry, I don't know you, Mike,
but yeah, I just wanted to see how fast that

(02:03:40):
thing would go in I went pretty damn fast, but
you know, a couple of times over the speed limits,
and that costs me a small fortune to get out
of going to driving school.

Speaker 1 (02:03:51):
What kind of car was it?

Speaker 2 (02:03:52):
Sixty two Bentley?

Speaker 1 (02:03:54):
So that was the Bentley. He had one hundred and
forty five at Bentley.

Speaker 2 (02:03:58):
They're made for racing.

Speaker 1 (02:04:01):
Okay, you're going to die on stage? You're ever going
to retire?

Speaker 2 (02:04:05):
No, I'll retire, I'll retire. But see my philosophy. If
you can do it, great, If you can't do it, don't.
So the minute I can't sing California Girls right, or
I get around or fun, fun, fun or something, I'm
out of here, which is because I've certainly done enough
concerts over the years, and it's been a blessing, honestly,

(02:04:29):
taking a family hobby which is all about the love
of music and create and morphed into a long lasting
profession which has been a blessing. And so many people
around the world and so many wonderful crowds, just as
recently as at the Beach Life Festival was beautiful, and
all these festivals. We're going to do some more this summer,

(02:04:51):
and I mean there'll be thousands of people singing along
to our song. That's pretty pretty amazing.

Speaker 1 (02:05:00):
Okay, you've been open and honest, you told all these stories.
As say, I'm a gigantic fan. I'll continue to listen
to the record. So great to have you here on
the show talking to us.

Speaker 2 (02:05:12):
Mike, Thank you, Bob. It's an honor to be on
your show.

Speaker 1 (02:05:17):
Listen, I can tell you Beach Boys stories and seeing
the Beach Boys from day one. You know, you know,
no you're not that old, not quite that old now.
But you know the song that I listened to, which
is not is a Carl song, was off the Summer
Day Summer Nights. Girl don't tell me? Oh yeah, little girl,

(02:05:40):
it's me. Don't right, going to last.

Speaker 2 (02:05:44):
Summers have to be your grant.

Speaker 1 (02:05:47):
It's like, wow, the sweet song really all that?

Speaker 2 (02:05:51):
That's the one we don't do on the Endless Summer Elm.

Speaker 1 (02:05:53):
We don't do that, I mean, right, you know? Okay,
So if I sat here and called out any song,
could you sing it?

Speaker 2 (02:06:00):
Which one?

Speaker 1 (02:06:01):
No, any song from the catalog, any thoughts on the
Beach Boys, free.

Speaker 2 (02:06:04):
Enough, you sing the lead or not? If it's a
Carl song, if it's a dentist song, if it's l.
Jardine singing or something. May I can probably do pretty
good on some of them. But yeah, that's a hypothetical question,
and we're gonna have to do another program.

Speaker 1 (02:06:21):
Okay, So any song that you don't regularly sing that
you wish was in the set?

Speaker 2 (02:06:29):
All this is that And all I want to do.
All I want to do is only bring good to you,
to give you all the love I can help you
in whatever you do. Sure as the sun will come
around and start off another day. You can be sure
that in my heart and so I love you in
every way. Yeah, just one final thing. You're selling a

(02:06:53):
message of positivity. You come across as positive. You do
say earlier you're edgy guy. What pisces you off? Apathy?
People who squander their wealth. There are over one hundred

(02:07:15):
million displaced people right now. A guy named Bill Aremony
started a company developed the company goals. Yeah, what's the
one that everybody? Everybody contributes to shoot? Anyway? The point

(02:07:41):
being he said, think to scale. So who's thinking to scale?
All these genius billionaires who are one wants to go
to Mars, wants we want to go somewhere else and
and and you know includes me, I'm I'm apathetic like

(02:08:03):
the next person. I'm doing well, I'm having a good time.
My family's doing well. But we've got to get I
think to scale a little bit better on how to
get humanity to be kind to each other and to more.
I wrote a song called Make Love Not War goes

(02:08:27):
Make Love not War? What in the world is all
the fighting for? Give piece of chance? The earth could
use an evolutionary advance back in the sixties. It was
during Vietnam. I remember brother Marvin saying, what's going on?
War is not the answer. I distinguished, distinct distinctly heard
him say. Yet the same old, same olds happen in
the day. God to say. I'm grateful to the USA

(02:08:49):
and all the folks protecting us every week, every day.
But love's the only way to make hate go away.
And that's why so many people are saying, make love
not war. And it goes gov this everywhere. Pay no
heed to the lack of opportunities for people in need.
Musslm and his new Christian and Jude. Too many don't
appreciate the other's point of view. You repot, you saw

(02:09:11):
that's the truth. Indeed, to raise a new crop, we're
going to need a new seed. Swords into plowshares. Instead
of a fight, spread a little love and let has
shed a lot of light. Make love not more. What
in the world is allifining for give piece of chance
here is could use the evolutionary events. So I really
believe that. And if we can contribute to data coming

(02:09:32):
to pass where more people are taken care of and
not just you know, forgotten about, that'd be great.

Speaker 1 (02:09:43):
I think that sums it up. On that note, we've
been talking to Mike Love, new member of the Songwriters
Hall of Fame. Great thrill for me, Mike, thanks so
much for doing this. Think about it until next time.
This is Bob left sus

Speaker 3 (02:10:03):
Sh