YOU STILL BELIEVE IN ME
DAVID LEAF celebrates 40-odd years in Brian Wilson’s inner circle with a book reboot. “I felt like I was on a mission,” he tells DANNY ECCLESTON.
AMONG THE aspects of Omnibus’s upcoming update of David Leaf’s vintage Brian Wilson/Beach Boys biog likely to be embraced by readers, there’s this: unlike previous out-of-print editions, it won’t cost you an arm and a leg on Ebay.
“I was at a concert in New York,” recalls Leaf. “And this guy came up to me and said, ‘Mr Leaf, I just bought a copy of your book for $500.’ I said, ‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry.’”
In 1978, when the first edition of Leaf’s book emerged (as The Beach Boys And The California Myth) it was one of the first exposés of the true complexity of the group’s story: the abusiveness of the Wilson brothers’ father Murry; the mental struggles that prompted Brian’s retirement from touring at the dawn of ’65 and the abandonment of the Smile LP in 1967; the friction between visionary Brian and pragmatic Mike; the bickering over credit and credits.
When Leaf moved to California in 1975, a degree in journalism under his belt and Wilsonian harmonies buzzing in his head, his dream was to write a book about The Beach Boys, but the politics he found himself pitched into were unexpected. Meanwhile, the band he loved were languishing, both in terms of record sales and kudos.
“It was a calling,” says Leaf. “I felt like I was on a mission to tell Brian’s story, like I was gonna grab the world by the scruff of its neck and shake them: ‘Don’t you understand how important this guy is?’”
Leaf’s first encounter with his hero had an air of bizarre serendipity. A little over six months after he’d arrived in LA, he was playing basketball with a college friend at the YMCA in West Los Angeles. “And lo and behold, Mike Love’s brother Stan walks on the court and with him is Brian.” The quartet played two-on-two. In his book, Leaf memorably describes Wilson’s game as “all offence, no D”.
It was the beginning of unprecedented access to The Beach Boys’ circle. Yet Leaf’s proximity, and fandom, didn’t prevent him from grasping nettles and when his book came out it was not loved by all Beach Boys equally.
“Dennis Wilson called me at three o’clock in the morning,” Leaf recalls. “And he’s like, ‘Why did you write this?’ And, I said, ‘Well, you know, Dennis, ordinarily, I wouldn’t reveal my source. But in this case, I’ll make an exception. It was your mother.’ And he says, ‘Well, why do you believe her?’ And as soon as he said it, he realised the absurdity of it. We both burst into hysterics.”
A second edition, addressing Dennis Wilson’s tragic decline, emerged in 1985. The latest update affords an inside track on Brian’s slow rehabilitation from the 300-pound mess Leaf recalls visiting in Pacific Palisades in 1982. Eugene Landy, who saved Brian’s life at the expense of turning him into “a prisoner”. The Brian solo albums. The new care afforded the curation of The Beach Boys’ back catalogue in the ’90s, and Brian’s eventual return to the road with The Wondermints.
“Me and my late wife were like, Well, that’s the worst idea we’ve ever heard,” chuckles Leaf. “Let’s pause a moment to consider how wrong we were. Without Brian going back on tour, nothing that came afterwards could have happened: the Pet Sounds tours; Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE At The Royal Festival Hall; the All-Star Tribute To Brian Wilson at Radio City Music Hall…”
In 2022 many Beach Boys issues remain unresolved, but the reputation of Brian Wilson could hardly be in better shape. Leaf admits that in this he could hardly be regarded as impartial.
“The reason I focused the original book on Brian Wilson, the reason I called my fanzine Pet Sounds, the reason I will, at the drop of a hat, talk endlessly about the subject is because he is so important to the history of popular music. And I’m blessed that he’s my friend.”
“DENNIS WILSON CALLED ME AT THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING. AND HE’S LIKE, ‘WHY DID YOU WRITE THIS?’”
DAVID LEAF