Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
BEACH BOY WHO GREW UP
his dr ink and dr ugs destroy As Mike Love watched salvation an unlikely source of bandmates, he found
They were first cousins with a shared love of music. Then they went on to become two members of The Beach Boys, one of the world’s most iconic bands, before their lives went off in wildly different directions.
A day after Brian Wilson, who has been beset by health problems after a lifetime of drug and alcohol addiction, cancelled a tour because he was feeling ‘mentally insecure’, Mike Love called me from the health farm where he’d been on a starvation diet of juices ahead of his own tour, which will see him performing at the Royal Albert Hall and the Cornbury Festival. He feels strong, his voice is good and he’s lost almost a stone in under a week. Not bad for a 78-year-old.
‘My inspiration is Tony Bennett, who’s in his 90s and still sounds fantastic,’ says Mike. ‘ If you’re healthy and if people want to hear you perform, there is no reason to retire. At some point we will all go to the big retirement home in the sky, but in the meantime, I’m still having a good time doing what I do.’
Back in the 60s, when The Beach Boys ( Brian and his brothers Dennis and Carl, their cousin Mike and Brian’s friend Al Jardine) were vying with The Beatles to be the biggest band in the world, Brian chose drugs and alcohol to cope with fame, while Mike, inspired by the Fab Four, chose meditation. On a trip to India in 1968, Mike and The Beatles learned transcendental meditation under the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Mike was particularly close to George Harrison, who became as inspired by the technique – in which practitioners spend 20 minutes silently thinking twice a day – as he was.
‘George and I are both Pisces and we both loved meditation,’ he recalls. ‘I wrote a song about George called Pisces Brothers. He was much more down to earth than anyone else; when it came to the hullabaloo of fame, he couldn’t care less about it.
‘When people were saying Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was the best thing ever, he would say, “Well, it’s just another album.” I loved his attitude and his humour. There was a lot of mutual admiration and competition between our bands. We played Paul and John our Pet Sounds album before it came out and then they got busy with Sgt Pepper. That, in turn, inspired Good Vibrations.’
Mike credits meditation with saving his life when addictions were destroying those around him.
‘It absolutely saved me,’ he says. ‘ There are
many ways to relax. Alcohol, marijuana, other drugs, but they all have side effects. I knew quite a few people who went in that direction. But if you learn transcendental meditation you’re already relaxed. It leads you to make better choices.
‘It was heartbreaking to see my own family members destroying themselves through drink and drugs. Not only Brian – his brother Dennis drowned in 1983 with an excess of drugs in his system.’
Mike and Brian, 76, are the only surviving related original band members. Carl, the youngest of the Wilson boys ( Brian is the oldest), died in 1998 from lung cancer, aged 51. ‘I miss playing with them so much,’ admits Mike. ‘The last time I performed with Brian was on our anniversary tour in 2012. We met up a year ago. He said, “Mike, I love you. I love your rock ’n’ roll.’ I said, “Brian, I love you too.”’
Mike’s mother Emily was the sister of Murry Wilson, father of Brian, Dennis and Carl. Music was always part of family gettogethers. ‘ The first thing I remember about Brian is him sitting on my grandmother’s lap singing Danny Boy,’ Mike says.
‘At Christmas we’d sing carols and then Brian and I would sing Everly Brothers songs and doo-wop.’
The four were joined by Al Jardine and formed The Pendletones and then The Beach Boys, managed by Murry. Their jaunty tunes celebrated the surfing lifestyle and became known as the ‘California Sound’. Mike wrote many of the band’s biggest songs with Brian – including California Girls, I Get Around and Wouldn’t It Be Nice – but was only credited when he took Brian’s publishing company to court in 1994. Murry had deliberately only credited his son for the music.
‘It was his dad who took my name off,’ recalls Mike. ‘Brian was in no fit state to conduct his business so was under the guardianship of an attorney. Brian said, “Mike wrote those songs,” and he wanted to settle but he wasn’t allowed to by his guardian. There were 35 songs I got the credit back on, but there were other songs I still didn’t get my name on. It was never about Brian and Mike; it was his attorney versus mine.’
Mike retains control of The Beach Boys’ name and now performs with Bruce Johnston, who joined the band in 1965, partly to fill in when Brian was unwell. Mike has long hoped to appear at Glastonbury with Brian, but admits that wish seems further away than ever. ‘I’d love to do Glastonbury with Brian but I’m not sure he’d be able to,’ he says. ‘It would be lovely to be on stage together again.’
Mike Love and The Beach Boys will play Cornbury Festival on 7 July. Tickets via cornburyfestival.com.