Brian Wilson – The Noise11 Interview Archive Series (2002)

The Brian Wilson interview with Paul Cashmere from 2002 as part of the Noise11 Interview Archive Series.

Brian Wilson talks to Paul Cashmere

Paul Cashmere: We are looking forward to your visit to Australia. When were you here last?

Brian Wilson : I was last in Australia in 1978.

PAUL CASHMERE: You have a fabulous band made up members of The Wondermints. How did you come across them?

BRIAN WILSON: We found them in a nightclub in Hollywood one night. We signed them up. They agreed to be my backup band. We just happened to find them by accident. They are the best, the best I’ve ever heard.

PAUL CASHMERE: What is the personal difference you find performing with The Wondermints as opposed to performing with The Beach Boys?

BRIAN WILSON: It feels different. They are better musicians than the Beach Boys were. They are great musicians.

PAUL CASHMERE: You’ve worked with a lot of interesting characters over the years. One in particular, Van Dyke Parks has an increased profile in Australia at the moment. Do you work with Van Dyke much these days?

BRIAN WILSON: He is great. He wrote some great lyrics. I don’t work with him as much as we used to but I might work with him on some songs later, yeah.

PAUL CASHMERE: Did you hear the work he did with the Australian band Silverchair?

BRIAN WILSON: No, I didn’t. How was it, good?

PAUL CASHMERE: It was fabulous. They were originally a hard rock grunge band and you put the Van Dyke Parks touch on there with the orchestrations and it just an amazing record. It is something you must listen to when you get to Australia.

BRIAN WILSON: I will, I sure will.

PAUL CASHMERE: The legendary story about your parents going away on vacation once and leaving $250 for food. Is it true that you really did spend that money on renting equipment?

BRIAN WILSON: Yes, that is very true. That happened. They were proud because we wrote a song. We played them our song and they loved it. It was ‘Surfin’.

PAUL CASHMERE: That was a very worthy $250 investment by them then.

BRIAN WILSON: Yeah (laughs).

PAUL CASHMERE: As a parent, how did you handle those sorts of incidences with your children as they were growing up?

BRIAN WILSON: Well I was a lot nicer to my kids than my dad was to me. I’ll tell you that.

PAUL CASHMERE: There have been some documentaries of the Wilson family we have seen on TV. How accurate are they?

BRIAN WILSON: I didn’t think it was quite factual enough. It was wrong. They didn’t get the facts right. They didn’t talk to me about the facts before they made it.

PAUL CASHMERE: One thing that fascinates me about the Beach Boys career. The first 7 albums were made in your first 2 years together. That is an absolute amazing statistic when you compare it to how bands record these days.

BRIAN WILSON: Yeah, I know isn’t that amazing how that happened. I wrote all the time. I was always in the studio. I was inspired the whole time.

PAUL CASHMERE: In between you managed to fit in touring and television appearances.

BRIAN WILSON: Yeah, we managed to get it all in. I was always working.

PAUL CASHMERE: The Brian Wilson albums come years apart now. Are you still writing?

BRIAN WILSON: I started writing about a month ago and I have 7 songs. I won’t be playing them on this tour but I will be putting them on an album probably around January or February of next year. I will be producing.

PAUL CASHMERE: You have had some incredible production values over the years. One of the techniques I loved was on ‘Love and Mercy’ and the choir in the background. There is no choir though is there Brian.

BRIAN WILSON: No. The backup voices are beautiful. They are all me. I liked the way it was. I liked the way we stacked my voice up 8 times in the sound to make like a Choir.

PAUL CASHMERE: Is that song in the set?

BRIAN WILSON: Yeah. My band members sing the background parts. They are great.

PAUL CASHMERE: How do you rank Phil Spector and how inspirational was he for the production values that you learnt.

BRIAN WILSON: He turned on the lights for me. He turned me on to records. He is my main hero of life.

PAUL CASHMERE: Your ‘Don’t Worry Baby’ was inspired by his ‘Be My Baby’ wasn’t it?

BRIAN WILSON: Right, right. I heard these voices. Ronnie Spector’s voice sounded so good, you know. I wanted to try and do something good like that.

PAUL CASHMERE: Going out as you did recently and performing the entire Pet Sounds album live, was that something you had to do as opposed to wanted to do? Was it something in your blood that you had to get out?

BRIAN WILSON: I needed to get it out of my blood on tape. I needed to get it on tape.

PAUL CASHMERE: Do you have plans for doing any of your other records as a complete piece like that?

BRIAN WILSON: Yeah, sure. I would like to do a version of Proud Mary. I want to do that one.

PAUL CASHMERE: How accurate is this chain of events. Rubber Soul inspired Pet Sounds, Pet Sounds inspired Sgt Pepper?

BRIAN WILSON: That is absolutely the truth, yeah. That happened. I was listening to Rubber Soul one night and I could not believe my ears. I loved those songs. They all went together like a nice little collection of songs. So I wrote an album of a collection of songs called Pet Sounds.

PAUL CASHMERE: And since then Paul McCartney has become a very good friend of yours.

BRIAN WILSON: Yeah, he’s my friend now.

PAUL CASHMERE: And on your Pet Sounds live album, you mention ‘God Only Knows’ being his favourite song.

BRIAN WILSON: Right, yeah.

PAUL CASHMERE: And you did the concert at Buckingham Palace recently with him.

BRIAN WILSON: Yeah, we did. We played for The Queen. It was a great honour for me. We met them after the concert.

PAUL CASHMERE: And who was your favourite performer on the concert that day?

BRIAN WILSON: Paul McCartney

PAUL CASHMERE: I was hoping you’d say Paul and not Ozzy Osbourne.

BRIAN WILSON: (laughs)

PAUL CASHMERE: Have you ever watched The Osbournes?

BRIAN WILSON: No I haven’t.

PAUL CASHMERE: On Pet Sounds you had a song title “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times”. That title must have a deeper meaning for you because years later you used it as the title of your documentary.

BRIAN WILSON: It was like a social statement, wasn’t it. My lyrical collaborator was the one who wrote the words. Don Was, my friend Don Was wanted the title. That was his idea.

PAUL CASHMERE: The first Beach Boys record was recorded in 1962. Why did it take you 26 years to make your first solo album?

BRIAN WILSON: Because I didn’t really want to separate from the Beach Boys, you know what I mean? I was originally prompted to do it by my manager and my wife, so I did it. I am very proud of that album. It is a great album.

PAUL CASHMERE: What do you perform from that album now as well as ‘Love and Mercy’?

BRIAN WILSON: We do ‘Let It Shine’.

PAUL CASHMERE: Last year you were honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammy’s. Want is the most prestigious award you have ever been given?

BRIAN WILSON: Songwriters Hall of Fame.

PAUL CASHMERE: Was that around the time you were touring with Paul Simon and as a tribute to you he sang ‘Surfer Girl’?

BRIAN WILSON: Right, right exactly. ‘Surfer Girl’ was the first song I ever wrote.

PAUL CASHMERE: How did it come about that day? Did you wake up that morning and just decide to write your first song?

BRIAN WILSON: I was humming a melody in my head in my car. I drove home and I finished the song on the piano.

PAUL CASHMERE: And you have been writing ever since.

BRIAN WILSON: Yeah

PAUL CASHMERE: I loved David Lee Roth’s version of ‘California Girls’. Did you?

BRIAN WILSON: I thought that was great too.

PAUL CASHMERE: And it is one of your favourite songs too, isn’t it?

BW. Yeah, it is my favourite Beach Boys song. It is fun. When the audience sing along it is fantastic, really great. ‘California Girls’ took about two days to write.

PAUL CASHMERE: That’s a long time for a song. A lot of artists say they write their biggest hits in 15 minutes.

BRIAN WILSON: ‘God Only Knows’ came in 20 minutes.

PAUL CASHMERE: And that is 20 minutes well spent Brian.

BRIAN WILSON: Yeah (laughs).

PAUL CASHMERE: Two of my favourite songs of yours are fairly obscure ones. It is good to see ‘Sail On Sailor’ is on the album you put together recently.

BRIAN WILSON: Yes it is, thank you very much.

PAUL CASHMERE: Another one I love is “Everyone’s In Love With You’.

BRIAN WILSON: Yeah, that’s a nice one isn’t it?

PAUL CASHMERE: It must be hard for you to put together a Setlist when you have so much to pool from.

BRIAN WILSON: Yeah we have to eliminate a lot of songs and settle for what we like. The show is 2 hours.

PAUL CASHMERE: We talked about Van Dyke Parks before and he was involved in the ‘Smile’ album. How good an album was ‘Smile’ in retrospect?

BRIAN WILSON: It wasn’t really appropriate music for us. It wasn’t the right kind of music.

PAUL CASHMERE: Are you disappointed that it has never been released?

BRIAN WILSON: No, not at all.

PAUL CASHMERE: Will it ever come out?

BRIAN WILSON: No

PAUL CASHMERE: Did it you ever sequence those songs?

BRIAN WILSON: No, we didn’t get that far.

PAUL CASHMERE: It is one of the great unreleased albums of all time, as you know.

BRIAN WILSON: Right.

PAUL CASHMERE: Another fact about Brian Wilson is that you were the Beach Boy who didn’t know how to surf.

BRIAN WILSON: Right, I never learned how to surf.

PAUL CASHMERE: Brian, you are coming to Australia. There are beaches everywhere. Is it too late to learn?

BRIAN WILSON: No, it is not too late but I’m just not interested in surfing.

PAUL CASHMERE: Well, we won’t be looking for you on Bondi Beach in Sydney when you get here. I look forward to the shows in a couple of weeks.

BRIAN WILSON: Thankyou so much.

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