Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys [Archive]

Brichard

07-01-2001, 01:29 PM

This was in our newspaper "The Indianapolis Star" today...

Brian's back...again

Brian Wilson on:

His next studio project: We're hoping to get back into the studio sometime in October. We're getting some songs together.

His favorite Beach Boys song: California Girls. It's the Beach Boys' anthem.

His favorite non-Beach Boys song: Be My Baby, The Ronettes (1963).

His reaction to Barenaked Ladies' Brian Wilson, which pokes fun at Wilson for having a sandbox built in his den and for his lengthy stays in bed: We do a live version of it. It was my wife's idea.

Former Beach Boys leader happy, healthy and touring with Paul Simon

Brian Wilson lives.

How ironic is that?

Twenty years ago, the mastermind behind one of America's most successful groups, the Beach Boys, was a lifeless, bloated, drug-infested, mentally distraught, 300-pound mess, stumbling down the same path as Elvis.

"There was a time when I thought my life was over," confessed Wilson, who today weighs in at less than 200 pounds and jogs a couple of miles a day. "I wasn't sure I'd make it through. It was pretty scary."

Cancel Wilson's reservation for a room in Rock 'n' Roll Heaven. Not only is he still with us, his career is thriving.

"I feel great,' he said by telephone last month before launching a 28-city summer tour with Paul Simon that will roll into Verizon Wireless Music Center on Wednesday. "Thanks to my wife (Melinda, since 1995), I have more of a life now.

"I have a new wife and two beautiful kids (daughters Daria and Delanie). I'm writing songs. It was a good idea to start up again. It was her idea."

In the 1960s, the Wilson-led Beach Boys were America's most successful male group with 26 Top 40 singles.

Thirty years later, the 58-year-old Wilson has caught a new wave of critical, professional and commercial respect. The swell began in 1998 with the release of Imagination, an optimistic recording that showed Wilson's writing and vocal skills were still there -- though obviously not where they had been three decades ago, thanks to years of substance abuse and smoking cigarettes.

Then came last year's critically acclaimed Pet Sounds Symphony Tour, in which Wilson and supporting vocalists and musicians performed Wilson's masterful Pet Sounds album nearly note for note.

In February, the Beach Boys received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammy Awards.

Coinciding with this summer tour is a double-CD for Oglio Records, Live at the Roxy, recorded at the storied Hollywood nightclub, plus the retrospective Hawthorne, Ca -- Birthplace of a Musical Legend, a 57-track anthology of rarities and outtakes from the vaults of Capitol Records.

Then on Wednesday, approximately the same time he'll walk on stage to open for Simon here, Wilson will be the man of the hour in A Tribute to Brian Wilson on cable's TNT. Paul Simon, Elton John, Vince Gill, Billy Joel and others sing Wilson tunes like Don't Worry Baby (Joel), Warmth of the Sun (Gill) and God Only Knows (John). Wilson himself sings Do It Again, Caroline No, Love and Mercy and Lay Down Burden, a song he dedicates to his late brother and Beach Boy Carl Wilson, who died of cancer in 1998.

"It was great," Wilson said of the tribute, filmed last winter at Radio City Music Hall. "It was one of the best times of my life."

Simon, who sings Surfer Girl on the show, came up with the idea for the East Coast-meets-West Coast tour with Wilson.

"About a week after Paul played the tribute show, his manager called and asked if I'd like to tour with him like he did with Dylan," said Wilson, referring to the tour which played at Verizon (then Deer Creek Music Center) in 1999. "I said, 'I'd love to.' I'm excited about it.'"

And what does Wilson think of this sudden surge of adulation?

"I love it. I hope it goes on forever."

After two well-publicized and unsuccessful "Brian's Back" campaigns in 1976 and 1983, longtime Wilson fans are hoping so, too.

Wilson has battled professional pressure, internal disagreements, psychological problems, marital woes and drug and alcohol abuse for more than two decades.

In the book Heroes & Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys, author Steven Gaines recounts the famous "sandbox" incident, in which Wilson had a giant sandbox built in his den. With tons of sand beneath his feet, Wilson sat at a grand piano and composed his music.

Gaines, who gathered information from family members, friends and the Beach Boys themselves for the book, also described the day the suicidal Wilson dug a grave in his back yard and contemplated jumping off the roof and into it. His reasoning was that "killing himself was the best way to kill off the Beach Boys, the monster he had created, and the unrelenting symbol of the demands and pressures weighing on him." Wilson was such a recluse at this point that he often slept in the small chauffeur's quarters at the back of the house.

By 1975, Wilson had ballooned to 240 pounds, rarely shaved or showered and spent most of his time in bed. He seldom went out in public and when he did, he sometimes wore just a bathrobe and pajamas. His preferred drug was cocaine, but he occasionally experimented with heroin.

Friends and family described him as paranoid and catatonic.

At one point, Wilson confessed: "I was in such a hole that, I swear to God, every living second of my life was just a disastrous calamity."

By 1983, Wilson had a 55-inch waistline, weighed 320 pounds and was suffering severe lung damage from smoking and liver damage from the drugs and alcohol.

That's when psychiatrist Dr. Eugene Landy put Wilson under his pricey, round-the-clock supervision. Wilson gave up drugs, cigarettes and coffee and trimmed off 135 pounds. After controlling Wilson's life through most of the '80s, Landy lost his license following an investigation into allegations of overprescribed medication. Yet despite the controversy, Carl Wilson said in a 1983 interview with The Indianapolis News that Landy "probably saved Brian's life."

Wilson says writing, singing and touring "have given me new life. It makes sense now."

Wilson is touring with a 10-piece band and the four-member vocal group the Wondermints, mostly the same ensemble that supported him on the Pet Sounds Symphonic Tour.

Cited as "The Greatest Album of All Time" by New Musical Express, 1966's Pet Sounds became a soundtrack for many teens of the times, who were questioning their place in the world and dealing with the confusing issues and responsibilities of impending adulthood. It was rock's first true concept album and the inspiration for the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, according to Paul McCartney.

"At the time, I didn't know what it would become," Wilson said of the masterpiece. "A lot of love went into making it and I'm glad people got that out of it.

"Some people are finally catching up to all the good vibes in it."

Wilson says his 75-minute set with Simon includes only two songs from Pet Sounds -- God Only Knows and Wouldn't It Be Nice, a double-sided single hit for the Beach Boys in the summer of '66.

In shows so far on the tour, the sets have included a pair of rare Wilson numbers, Heroes and Villains and Surf's Up, the latter a breathtaking ballad that actually has nothing to do with surfing.

Other songs included Surfer Girl, In My Room, Sail On Sailor, California Girls, I Get Around and Good Vibrations.

Meanwhile, Mike Love, who co-wrote many of the group's hits with Wilson, is touring with Bruce Johnston, a member since 1965, and other players as the Beach Boys. Approaching 40 years since the band's first single, Surfin,' Love has been quoted as saying he and Wilson are talking about a reunion album and tour.

Wilson, who has been at odds with Love for years, says that won't happen.

"I don't ever intend to work with him again,' he says. "I have no interest in that at all. I don't talk to Mike Love at all.

"Ever since Carl died, the Beach Boys have never been the same.'