Creating ‘SOUNDS’
Musical legend Brian Wilson is the architect of many pop music classics
Talking to Brian Wilson is like taking a left turn on a red light, halting and short, with none of the glorious lyricism of some of the most lush harmonies in pop music.
The sonorous architect of “Pet Sounds,” “Good Vibrations” and ultimate pusher of sonic boundaries will perform at Albuquerque’s Kiva Auditorium on Thursday, May 18. Wilson will play the entirety of “Pet Sounds” and some Beach Boys’ classics with his bandmates Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin.
Calling from a date in Houston, Wilson said touring with five-years’ sobriety and his well-documented mental illness (biopolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder) in treatment is much easier compared to the early days with his old band.
“I’ve been sober now for five years,” he said. “It’s much easier to sing because I’m not slurring around because of the alcohol.
“It’s a lot more fun for me because the musicians are very good,” he added. “They’re able to do it just like the record.”
Wilson wrote about a life pockmarked by abuse, retreat, mental illness and substance abuse in his 2016 autobiography “I Am Brian Wilson” with journalist Ben Greenman. He long battled the effects of abuse at the hands of his tyrannical father, his psychotherapist and the demonic voices in his head. Like most great artists, he can’t really explain his sonic gifts to civilians.
Part of that hesitancy is rooted in the deafness in one ear that came from his father’s fist. His old doctor Eugene Landy, now dead, kept him a virtual prisoner in his own home, even cajoling him to change his will, leaving Landy as the beneficiary.
But Wilson says he’s at peace with past carnage.
“I already forgave them,” he said. “I don’t even think about it anymore.”
He has called the creation of “Pet Sounds,” his 1966 masterpiece often lauded as the top pop album of all time, one of the highest moments of his life.
“‘Good Vibrations’ felt really good to do,” he continued. “The boys all said, ‘Brian, this is going to be a number one record. I said, ‘Guys, I agree with you.”
Wilson said he wrote arguably his most famous song in sections. It all started when he was smoking pot at the piano. He recorded the verses at Gold Star Recording Studios,
the middle section at Sunset Sound and the vocals at RCA Victor. The recording spanned 80 hours of tape and cost $50,000, an astronomical sum at the time. He called it his “teenaged symphony to God.”
“I knew it was going to be a hit because of the vocal arrangements,” he said. “I wouldn’t change one thing because it was perfect.”
That his current band can duplicate the music note-for-note fills his voice with a sense of wonder.
Wilson says he prefers to write with collaborators (they’ve ranged from Tony Asher to Van Dyke Parks) because writing by himself is too lonely.
Looking back, he says he would change one vocal: his own on “Let Him Run Wild” (1965) because it was “kind of off-key.”
He hasn’t written much lately; he has 15 days left on his current tour. “The Last Performances” in the tour’s title may be a bit of a tease.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I think we’ll probably keep doing it.”
He wants to record a tribute album to his rock ’n’ roll heroes: Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Buddy Holly. Berry’s recent death was especially crushing.
“I was really shocked when I heard about that,” he said. “I was really sad. I learned rock ’n’ roll music from him.”
He doesn’t listen to any current music, preferring his old favorites: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, “groups like that.”
And after all these years, he still gets stage fright.
“Oh yeah, I get scared before every single concert,” he said. “I sit in a chair and I meditate and I say, ‘Brian, go and do a good concert.’ ”
Wilson is the author of more than two dozen Top 40 hits. He has received the Kennedy Center Honors, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and won two Grammy Awards for solo albums.