Tom Dunne: Carefully surfing choppy waters with the battling Beach Boys
The Beach Boys: Dennis Wilson, Al Jardine, Mike Love, Brian Wilson and Carl Wilson. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
I interviewed Mike Love from the Beach Boys some years back. Mike is not the most loved Beach Boy. He would argue that his negative press is just the result of the Brian Wilson camp. They, like most fans, people, and pets, don’t like Mike.
Love is frequently described as “the biggest asshole in the history of rock and roll”. Mike is stoic about this. Like all narcissists, he knows that people who don’t like him are just wrong.
However, as he buttered his own corn, he said something that has stuck with me: “The story of the Beach Boys,” he said, “is the story of who has control over Brian. First it was Murray (Brian’s dad), then Landy (the psychiatrist) and now its Melinda (Brian’s Wife).”
His views came back to me last week as I read new reports about Brian’s health. In the wake of his devastation at his wife’s death, his family have sought to appoint new conservators to administer his affairs. Papers filed in court mention “dementia”.
He is, they say, “unable to properly provide for his personal needs.” He “hears voices” and makes “spontaneous irrelevant or incoherent utterances”. As someone who has interviewed him many times, I couldn’t help but think, was it not always thus?
That Brian Wilson is largely “for the birds” has been a self-evident truth since the early 1960s. He is a rain man, an autistic savant of the highest order.
He is the genius who can hear and decipher the music of the spheres but can’t tie his shoes. I can tie his shoes if he needs it. But only he could write ‘God Only Knows’.
I first talked to Wilson in about 2001. He was just venturing back into the world at that point and word had it that the old familiar Brian, if such a thing had ever existed, was starting to re-emerge. The record company gave me a number to ring.
When he answered he sounded quite distressed. His first words were “How did you find me?” When I explained he countered by saying: “but I’m in the bathroom.” I continued to try and explain that I was calling him from Ireland, but he wasn’t having it.
“You have a radio show called Pet Sounds!” he exclaimed, “You can’t have. I have an album called Pet Sounds!” I interviewed him many more times after that. It never really improved. There were moments, but not many.
If Wilson really was hearing voices in his head, which he maintained as recently as 2006, yours wasn’t one of them. You just had to accept that. Your voice was just annoying him. The others, well, that’s another story.
In a public interview I did with him in 2005, he only really came alive when talking music. He was animated talking about The Beatles Rubber Soul but when an audience member asked him about Mike Love, Brian’s mind seemed to snap into complete focus. “Is it true,” asked the man in row D, “that Mike Love, as he claims, wrote half of ‘God Only Knows’?” You could sense Brian was suddenly 100% present. He smiled wryly: “Mike Love thinks he wrote half of ‘God Only Knows’?” This seemed to be the craziest thing he’d ever heard.
He shook his head. “Mike Love was never alone long enough to write ‘God Only Knows’.” One nil to the genius.
The day after that interview, at Vicar Street, I wasn’t alone in finding Brian’s performance disconcerting. He repeated a script between songs as if by rote. And vocally, when he pulled back from the mic, such was the blend of vocals on stage, it didn’t seem to make a difference. When I met him after the show it was clear he had no memory of meeting me before.
Brian is cherished in music circles. He is name-checked by in songs by Bare Naked Ladies, Tears for Fears, John Cale, Chris Rainbow, Belle and Sebastian, Weezer and Daft Punk. REM, Fleet Foxes, XTC, Elton John, High Llamas and many others have written songs in his style.
You can’t help but think that it hasn’t been an easy journey for Brian. Music is a great escape for all of us. For Brian, you suspect it might be the only escape. Love and Mercy has become his mantra of late. Let’s hope they both find him now. Sail on, Sailor.
