Brian Wilson
Photo: Neal Preston
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The Beach Boys: I Wanna Be Where The Boys Are
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 13 August 1977
"SOME KAHLUA, we need a coupla pitchers of milk..." "Send up a bottle of milk. O.K., cartons. Four cartons. And some honey. And a coffee. ...
Audio interviews
Dr. Eugene Landy on Brian Wilson (1988)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, 25 September 1988
The notorious Dr. Landy talks about his long association with Brian Wilson, going back to helping produce 15 Big Ones in 1976: his own background in the music business with Frankie Avalon and George Benson; becoming a psychologist; what was wrong with Wilson, and how he fixed him; the Capitol reissues of the Beach Boys' catalogue; his break with Wilson, and being called back by the band; dealing with Wilson's health issues; the complexities surrounding the production of Wilson's first solo record; the involvement of his wife Alexandra (who appears here), and his on-off relationship with the Beach Boys.
File format: mp3; file size: 83mb, interview length: 1h 26' 30" sound quality: ****
Interview by Steve Roeser, Rock's Backpages audio, 1 December 1995
The Great American songwriter/producer on his relationship with the Beach Boys; Orange Crate Art with Van Dyke Parks; L.A. pop radio in the early '60s and his love of Chuck Berry; the impact of the Beatles, and his relationship with his father.
File format: mp3; file size: 27.9mb, interview length: 30' 30" sound quality: ***
List of articles in the library
Some Producers' Hints From Beach Boy Brian
Interview by uncredited writer, KRLA Beat, 30 April 1966
FOR THE LAST few weeks, we have been speaking with various record producers exclusively in The BEAT in an effort to take The BEAT'S readers ...
Brian Wilson: "Toys Are Gonna Happen!"
Report and Interview by Jamie McCluskey III, KRLA Beat, 11 June 1966
WELL, BRIAN Wilson has discovered the wonderful world of toys. Yep — he has discovered a whole new world of things to get into and ...
? Time with Beach Boy Brian Wilson
Interview by Ann Moses, New Musical Express, 5 August 1966
THE Beach Boys — in demand for appearances all over the world — used to be one of the most difficult groups to track down. ...
A Hard Day's Surfin' Safari: When Brian Met Macca
Memoir by Derek Taylor, World Countdown News, 1967
When Beatles press officer Derek Taylor swapped Swinging Britain for LA's Sunset Strip in 1965, he played a pivotal part in bringing the worlds of ...
Beach Boy a Day: Brian — Loved or Loathed Genius
Profile by Tracy Thomas, New Musical Express, 28 January 1967
IF YOU should ever meet Brian Wilson, you would either take to him or despise him immediately. His continual drive for a new "kick" would ...
Report and Interview by Derek Grant, Melody Maker, 21 November 1970
"IT WAS A MISTAKE but I had to try it. After about half an hour I realised I couldn't go on. My ears hurt, I ...
Brian Wilson/The Beach Boys - A Celebration Of Wild Honey: a discussion with David Anderle
Book Excerpt by Paul Williams, Outlaw Blues, 1971
WHEN DAVID ANDERLE AND I BEGAN our discussion of Brian Wilson, we had just finished listening to Wild Honey (the Beach Boys, Capitol Records, November ...
The Beach Boys: A California Saga
Special Feature by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, 28 October 1971
Part One: Mr. Everything ...
The Beach Boys: A California Saga — Part Two: Tales of Hawthorne
Special Feature by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, 11 November 1971
There is the tale, told by an anonymous Beach Boy, about an outrageous instance of Brian Wilson's creative humor. Brian was about 18. The family ...
Brian Wilson: From Surf To Symphony
Profile by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 15 June 1974
BRIAN WILSON was 19 years old when, in 1961, the Beach Boys committed his first song, 'Surfin'', to tape. ...
Brian Wilson: The Last Beach Movie part 1
Retrospective and Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 21 June 1975
THE INCIDENT MUST HAVE occured a little over a year ago. Paul McCartney, complete with the inevitable Linda, had just flown into Los Angeles – ...
Brian Wilson: The Last Beach Movie part 2
Retrospective and Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 28 June 1975
PET SOUNDS was about to be released when Derek Taylor was taken on The Beach Boys' pay-roll. 750 dollars for dealing with the group's publicity. ...
Brian Wilson: The Last Beach Movie part 3
Retrospective and Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 12 July 1975
EARLY MARCH 1975: The clapper-board reads "The Last Beach Movie – The Brian Wilson Story" Take 96, and our camera zooms in on the exterior ...
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Sounds, 31 July 1976
The Beach Boys' main man climbs out of the sandbox and explains how he got off the Endless Bummer. ...
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Sounds, 7 August 1976
Pet Sounds & The California Consciousness ...
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Creem, October 1976
Brian Wilson Comes Back From Lunch ...
A Conversation With Brian Wilson
Interview by David Rensin, Oui, December 1976
The poet laureate of surf and sand talks about the tribulations of being a genius, his ongoing struggle with things chemical and his monumental plans ...
Brian Wilson: After The Sand Box
Report by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 25 December 1976
The zany, madcap world of Brian Wilson, episode 98 ...
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 27 February 1977
AMID CONTINUING speculation in rock circles over Brian Wilson's future productivity, the new The Beach Boys Love You album arrives with solid evidence that his ...
David Leaf: The Beach Boys and the California Myth (Grossett & Dunlap, 192 pp., illus, $7.95 paper)
Book Review by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 29 October 1978
Beach Boys' Brian — A Classic American Tragedy ...
Brian Wilson: Strange Bedfellow
Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 2 August 1986
The Beach Boys are 25 years old and, to mark the occasion, that great white whale BRIAN WILSON has finally got up, cleaned up and ...
Brian Wilson: Good and Bad Vibrations
Interview by Jeremy Gluck, The Guardian, 1988
Beach Boy Brian Wilson owes his survival to his doctor and a regime of psychotherapy, diet and exercise, he told Jeremy Gluck. ...
What Was And What Might Have Been: A Lost Interview with Brian Wilson
Interview by Jeremy Gluck, unpublished, 1988
NOTE: It's 1988, Brian Wilson had just launched his solo career with the release of the eponymous Brian Wilson album, and Jeremy Gluck gets to ...
Brian Wilson: Brian Wilson (Sire/Reprise 25669-1 LP/Cass/CD)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, August 1988
Eccentric: Summer's here and the time is right... for a Brian Wilson Christmas album? ...
Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 11 August 1988
The troubled pop genius who made the Beach Boys great has finally released his first solo album. Is Wilson really back? ...
Report by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 18 May 1989
Brian Wilson's therapist agrees to ethics-charge settlement ...
Wilson Phillips: Have you finished in there?
Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Q, July 1992
Meet Wilson Phillips: born to the Californian rock aristocracy, raised amid craziness and emotional undernourishment, writing sad songs to parents who were never "there for ...
Brian Wilson: Wouldn't It Be Nice - My Own Story
Book Review by Tom Hibbert, Q, August 1992
IT IS HARD TO IMAGINE Brian Wilson, inspired composer of surfing symphonies and divine pop, writing anything as tabloidesque as: "I was a zonked-out zombie, ...
Brian Wilson: Interview with Don Was
Interview by John Tobler, Record Hunter, August 1993
After 32 years together The Beach Boys are one of the longest-lived bands in rock. They've recently performed a string of stadium dates, and Capitol ...
Interview by Bill Holdship, MOJO, August 1995
Some call him a tortured genius. Others say he’s just insane. Some claim he’s suffering through an extended hiatus between transcendent works. Others reckon he’s ...
'Brian Wilson is a Genius': The Birth of a Cult
Essay by Barney Hoskyns, The Independent, 1 September 1995
ONE OF THE key moments in I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times, record producer Don Was’s black-and-white film about Brian Wilson of the Beach ...
Brian Wilson And Van Dyke Parks: Orange Crate Art
Interview by Bill Holdship, MOJO, December 1995
BH: Was it hard getting Brian involved in the making of Orange Crate Art? ...
Interview by Robin Platts, Goldmine, 2 February 1996
AFTER 30 YEARS in the music business, Van Dyke Parks is not a household name. ...
Brian Wilson: The Story of Sweet Insanity
Retrospective by Bill Holdship, MOJO, September 1996
SOMEHOW – PRIMARILY BECAUSE I took the trouble to talk to Brian and his then ever-present psychotherapist-turned-manager and collaborator, Eugene Landy at a star-studded Hollywood ...
Pop, In The Name Of Love: Grace of My Heart
Report and Interview by David Kamp, Vanity Fair, October 1996
The soundtrack for Grace Of My Heart, Allison Anders's film a clef about the early-1960s blossoming of artists such as Burt Bacharach, Carole King, and ...
Profile and Interview by Paul Lester, Uncut, June 1998
"HI, I'M BRIAN WILSON." You do not expect this. You do not expect the head of America's most important ever rock band to have to ...
Brian Wilson: Let's Go Trippin!
Memoir by David Dalton, MOJO, June 1998
IT WAS JULY 1967, the Summer of Love, on Zuma Beach, California that I first met Brian Wilson. It was one of those loony episodes ...
Brian Wilson: The Last Brother
Interview by Erik Himmelsbach, Los Angeles Times, 12 July 1998
ALL OF ST. CHARLES is racing to eat before the sunsets and the kids melt down. At 5:30 p.m. on a Saturday, a time when ...
Brian Wilson: Imagination (Giant)
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Spin, August 1998
IT IS HARD NOT TO harbour mixed feelings about Brian Wilson in the late '90s. While it’s great that he’s up and about (and not ...
Brian Wilson: And Your Dream Comes True
Live Review by Gary Pig Gold, In Music We Trust, July 1999
Brian Wilson Live at the Beacon Theater, New York City, June 18, 1999 ...
Phil Spector and Brian Wilson: The Nutty Producers
Retrospective by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 16 December 1999
Without Phil Spector and Brian Wilson, the 60s would have sounded very different, says Sean O'Hagan. ...
Brian Wilson: "Help Me, Rhonda," Indeed!
Essay by David Dalton, Gadfly, 2000
HEY, ALL you surfin’ dudes and hardbody wahinis, check out this thing on TNT. It’s a tribute to the surf god, Brian Wilson! ...
The Beach Boys: An American Family: Heroes and Villains
Report and Interview by Bill Holdship, LA New Times, 4 June 2000
Brian Wilson's back, recording a live album at the Roxy this week and preparing for a summer tour with symphony orchestras throughout the U.S. So ...
Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, September 2000
IS THERE any point in anyone trying to recast the lassitudinous spacesail of Tim Buckley? As a singer, Buckley belongs to the Eternal(s), so aren't ...
Review by Max Bell, Uncut, October 2000
UK RELEASE at last for second LP from Brian Wilson's "backing band." ...
Brian Wilson: Sounds Unsilenced
Retrospective and Interview by Erik Himmelsbach, Revolver, Fall 2000
BRIAN WILSON made Paul McCartney cry. The cute Beatle readily admits that the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds has, on occasion, made him positively weepy. Sir ...
Brian Wilson, Card-carrying Genius
Essay by Ira Robbins, salon.com, 10 April 2001
After a life custom-made for cable catharsis, the force behind the Beach Boys is now being honored even for things he didn't do. Does that ...
Essay by Ira Robbins, salon.com, 10 April 2001
AT THE BRIAN WILSON tribute concert in New York in March, a short film explained that Wilson had lived his whole life in fear and ...
Brian Wilson: 'Help Me, Rhonda' indeed!
Comment by David Dalton, Gadfly, 9 July 2001
HEY, ALL YOU surfin' dudes and hardbody wahinis, check out this thing on TNT. It's a tribute to the surf god, Brian Wilson! An American ...
Brian Wilson: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Tim Clifford, Rock's Backpages, February 2002
NOT ONLY did my spine tingle during the third night of Brian Wilson's sell-out four-night stand in London, but I also cried with joy. The ...
Brian Wilson: Unfinished Symphony
Retrospective and Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, February 2002
While his bandmates toured the surfin' hits around the world, Brian Wilson was holed up in Hollywood creating an ambitious symphonic paean to God and ...
Brian Wilson: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 2002
Brian Wilson and 10-piece band perform, from start to finish, the album that topped MOJO's 100 Greatest Albums Of All Time poll, plus career-encompassing opening ...
Brian Wilson: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Paul Lester, Uncut, April 2002
IT'S PRETTY impressive for a 60-year-old who's spent most of the past three decades in rock's twilight zone. A three-hour show comprising hits, album cuts ...
Epiphany At Zuma Beach Or Brian Wilson Hallucinates Me
Memoir by David Dalton, Gadfly, May 2002
AFTER PET SOUNDS Brian Wilson became the mad genius of the Beach Boys, a prodigy who had miraculously emerged out of the surf and car ...
Brian Wilson — Grin and bear it
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, The Guardian, 23 January 2004
WHEN BRIAN WILSON had his nervous breakdown in the 1960s, he was working on a concept album called Smile. His fellow Beach Boys dismissed it ...
Brian Wilson Presents Smile: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 21 February 2004
HE MAY HAVE taken more drugs than anyone else in the 1960s, but Brian Wilson is still a handsome man. At his best, grooving away ...
Brian Wilson: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Simon Price, Independent on Sunday, 22 February 2004
"YOU GUYS IN the audience have better cameras and recording gear than the people doing it officially," jokes Jeffrey Foskett, Brian Wilson's corpulent and genial ...
Brian Wilson: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Richard Williams, The Guardian, 23 February 2004
SO HOW GOOD, finally, is Smile, the great lost song cycle that Brian Wilson kept the world waiting 37 years to hear? The only possible ...
Brian Wilson Smiles Again: Live at the Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, March 2004
WE STILL HAVE so much invested in the idea of Brian Wilson’s genius. Three decades since he last wrote a genuinely great song, we continue ...
Brian Wilson: Smile? Don't mind if I do…
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 2004
It was due in January 1967. But the Beach Boys' Smile LP was shelved when its creator Brian Wilson refused to finish it. Now he ...
Brian Wilson at the Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, April 2004
THE UBERFANS WITH medicated stares, the reverent fans who applaud Van Dyke Parks to his seat, the Smile scholars who have flown in from another ...
Hello Goodbye: Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 2004
Hello: September 1961 ...
Brian Wilson: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Paul Lester, Uncut, May 2004
Heaven-sent innovation from the legendary Beach Boy, plus supporting cast ...
Brian Wilson: Gettin' in Over My Head
Report by Gene Sculatti, ICE, June 2004
WITH A RESILIENCE REMINISCENT of that battery-powered bunny or California's governor in his biggest pre-politics role, Brian Wilson is back – again. Fresh on the ...
Review by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 19 September 2004
The piano in the sand pit, the orchestra decked out in fireman's helmets, the kilos of grade A hashish, the master tapes that were destroyed, ...
SMiLE: How We Created Pop's Lost Legend
Retrospective and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 23 September 2004
For decades, Beach Boy Brian Wilson's unreleased album SMiLE has been shrouded in myth. Now, at last, the songs can be heard on a CD ...
SMiLE When Your Heart Is Breaking: Brian Wilson
Interview by Roy Trakin, Hits, October 2004
"Come about hard and joinThe young and often spring you gaveI heard the wordWonderful thingA children's song" ('Surf’s Up') ...
Brian Wilson: Brian Wilson Presents Smile (Nonesuch CD)
Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, October 2004
Three and a half decades after it was abandoned, leaving its creator in a state of nervous collapse, Brian Wilson's troubled masterpiece has finally been ...
Review by Mark Paytress, MOJO, October 2004
It was expected to surpass Sgt. Pepper as the greatest album of all time. But was the reconstruction of the fable worth the 37-year wait? ...
Brian Wilson - Beach Boy, Pop Visionary, Wounded Soul
Profile and Interview by Mick Brown, GQ, November 2004
IN THE LATE SIXTIES, Brian Wilson used to practice Transcendental Meditation. There, in the purple and gold silk Arabian tent that he had installed in ...
Report and Interview by Greg Phillips, Australian Musician, March 2005
SHORT MUSIC HISTORY LESSON #1 ...
Domenic Priore: Smile – The Story Of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece
Book Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, June 2005
THE STORY OF SMILE has been hauled up into the light and examined more closely since Brian Wilson's shock announcement, in 2003, of his intention ...
An Interview With Dominic Priore part II: Good Things Come To Those Who SMiLE
Interview by Gary Pig Gold, fufkin.com, September 2005
Gary Pig Gold climbs into the Virtual Sandbox ...
Brian Wilson: Adelphi Theatre, London
Live Review by Ian Watson, Yahoo! Music, November 2006
YOU KNOW YOU'RE going to cry at a Brian Wilson concert, it's just a matter of when. Sometime during the last-ever UK rendition of Pet ...
Perfect Harmony: Pet Sounds 40th Anniversary Show Celebrates Brian Wilson's Pop Legacy
Live Review by Kirk Silsbee, LA CityBeat, 9 November 2006
OUT OF CURIOSITY and love of a good story, I've had a longstanding parlor question for jazz-minded friends on the far side of 60. What ...
The Beach Boys: The Making of Pet Sounds
Retrospective and Interview by Bill Holdship, MOJO, January 2007
BACKSTAGE AT UCLA's Royce Hall a joyous sound suddenly erupts from behind a closed door, which one assumes leads to Brian Wilson's dressing room judging ...
Brian Wilson: That Lucky Old Sun
Review by David Quantick, Uncut, September 2008
Brian's back! Again! A Californian song-cycle — Van Dyke Parks contributes words. ...
Report by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 26 October 2008
Van Morrison's revival of Astral Weeks is the latest example of yesterday's cult LPs being turned into today's sell-out concerts. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Rock's Backpages, October 2011
NOTE: A small portion of this interview appeared in the 2011 MOJO '60s issue. ...
The SMiLE You Send Out Returns to You: The Story of Brian Wilson's Great Lost Masterpiece
Retrospective by Tim Meade, Rock's Backpages, October 2011
WE ALL KNOW THE STORY of the Beach Boys' SMiLE. After Pet Sounds, Brian set out to make a "teenage symphony to God" that ...
Brian Wilson: The Strife Of Brian
Profile and Interview by Ian Gittins, Man About Town, Spring 2011
IN THE 1991 Steve Martin movie L.A. Story, which dates from the days when he was still spasmodically funny, Martin played Harris K. Telemacher, a ...
Brian Wilson and Jeff Beck On Tour: Where Cars Meet Guitars
Report and Interview by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 30 September 2013
ON PAPER, it seems like at odd pairing for a joint tour: Brian Wilson, Head Beach Boy and pop-music chronicler of sunny California life, with ...
Brian Wilson: No Pier Pressure (Capitol)
Review by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, May 2015
THE NEWS THAT Brian Wilson was working with Frank Ocean, She & Him and Lana Del Rey on his latest album was met with derision ...
Brian Wilson with Ben Greenman: I Am Brian Wilson – A Memoir (Da Capo)
Book Review by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Chronicle, 7 October 2016
FOR MOST of his life, Brian Wilson has heard voices in his head. They might be the sweet harmonies of his bandmates in the Beach ...
see also Beach Boys, The
see also Van Dyke Parks
see also Wondermints
see also Wilson Phillips
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