"Brian, don't fuck with the formula!"
..................................Mike Love, 1966 (possibly paraphrased)"There are a few good 'psych' groups but too many never change from their first appearance. They don't develop."
..................................Mike Love, 1969"My darling uncle didn't die soon enough. But I didn't resent Murry anymore than I'd resent anyone who stole from his kids, beat them unnecessarily, intimidated them, and screwed them up emotionally."
..................................Mike Love, 1980"The problem with popularity is that if it gets too popular everybody leaves and goes somewhere else."
..................................Mike Love, 1975"I like to see a group or person entertain me...that's why I wear my gold lame jacket and turban. Even though Carl dresses pretty spiffy too, the rest of the group doesn't care so much. Of course, just because Al Jardine hasn't changed his underwear since the Japan tour in sixty-five--I mean you can't ask for everything."
..................................Mike Love"I am always thinking of those kinds of things when I am writing a lyric--same as I did with 'Kokomo', which was No. 1 in 1988, whereas Brian's solo album came out and didn't have one hit record on it."
..................................Mike Love, 1993"What holds us together as a team now is music...and greed."
..................................Mike Love"And one of the greatest things that interested me was that he (the Maharishi) said 'You don't have to give up your Rolls Royce...and forsake all your pursuits of material pleasures...to develop innerspiritual qualities'. That sounded real good to me."
..................................Mike Love, 1968"I think it's difficult to promote and be commercially successful with an album that's called 'Sweet Insanity'...I don't think that's very mainstream pop."
..................................Mike Love, 1993"I was in the oil business for a while--gas and oil, check the tires."
..................................Mike Love
"I can tell you the day the Beach Boys will no longer exist--never. We'll be on stage in wheelchairs."
..................................Dennis Wilson, 1977"Nothing will ever top the expression on Brian's face, ever... that was the all time moment."
..................................Dennis Wilson, on the first time
..................................they all heard "Surfin'" on the
..................................radio in Brian's car."Because of the attitude of a few mental dinosaurs intent on exploiting our initial success, Brian's huge talent has never been fully appreciated in America and the potential of the group has been stifled.... If the Beatles had suffered this kind of misrepresentation, they would have never got past singing 'Please Please Me' and 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' and leaping around in Beatle suits."
..................................Dennis Wilson, 1970"Brian Wilson is the Beach Boys. He is the band. We're his fucking messengers. He is all of it. Period. We're nothing. He's everything."
..................................Dennis Wilson"I made a dollar a day sweeping a laundry out. Then we made a record that was number two in Los Angeles. We got so excited hearing it on the radio that Carl threw up."
..................................Dennis Wilson"People always thought Brian was a good time guy until he started doing those heavy, searching songs on 'Pet Sounds' and all, but that stuff was closer to his own personality and perceptions. By the time people get close to an accurate picture of Brian Wilson--if ever-- he's gonna be far beyond them again, and I can dig his frustration."
..................................Dennis Wilson, 1976"Brian Wilson is not a good looking human being, yet his music is beautiful. Look at Nat King Cole--he looked like a real piece of shit but he had a beautiful voice. Look at Aretha Franklin--she would scare me in a dark room, yet her voice is fantastic. Roy Orbison too. The thing I listen too is the music."
..................................Dennis Wilson, 1976"We've done everything together. Shit, eat, fart, cry, laugh. Everything."
..................................Dennis Wilson"The Beach Boys are not a superstar group. The music is the superstar of the group."
..................................Dennis Wilson"I hope that the karma will fuck up Mike Love's meditation forever. That album is an embarrassment to my life. It should self-destruct."
..................................Dennis Wilson, 1979 on "M.I.U.""If there wasn't The Beach Boys and there wasn't music, I would not even talk to them. But through music I fell in love with my brothers."
..................................Dennis Wilson
"A voice or a song can be so comforting to someone who really needs it."
..................................Brian Wilson, 1990"Musically, I am The Beach Boys."
..................................Brian Wilson, 1988"I'm not a genius. I'm just a hard-working guy."
..................................Brian Wilson"People are part of my music. A lot of my songs are the result of emotional experiences, sadness, pain, joy, and exultation in nature and sunshine and so on...like 'California Girls' which was a hymn to youth."
..................................Brian Wilson, 1966"I've had emotional gangsters run my life for 20 years. I pray to God with all my heart and soul that it doesn't happen again." ..................................Brian Wilson, 1995
"I don't think I am a genius. I believe the word genius applies only to people who can do things that other people can't do. I can't do things others can't. I wasn't a genius in high school, and I'm not now."
..................................Brian Wilson"Being called a musical genius was a cross to bear. Genius is a big word. But if you have to live up to something, you might as well live up to that. God damn!"
..................................Brian Wilson, 1988"The BB's are out. The BB's are being arseholes to me. So. I take the lesser of two evils; I'll work on myown, solo, before I work with a bunch of guys that don't give a shit about me...they just spit at me and kick me, no respect at all."
..................................Brian Wilson, 1995"You say how you feel, and songs don't lie. Songs are the most honest form of human expression there is--there's nothing that lies about a song."
..................................Brian Wilson"I approach my music-making as an art-form--something pure from the spirit to which I can add dynamics and marketable reality. Music is genuine and healthy and the stimulation I get from molding it and adding dynamics is like nothing else on earth."
..................................Brian Wilson, 1966"Some people might think that sex is the highest experience you can have. I tend to think that music is."
..................................Brian Wilson, 1988"The ocean scares me."
..................................Brian Wilson, 1976"Surfing music is dead. It was just a summer craze for kids on the beach. I'm finished with it."
..................................Brian Wilson"So it's 1976 and we're still riding on our past success. I mean I've gone on like that for I don't know how long."
..................................Brian Wilson, 1976"I hate those old falsettos, I really do, and it's embarrassing since I've grown up."
..................................Brian Wilson, 1976"Well, yeah, I've had obstacles in my life. And I have a name to live up to. That alone was a hardship for me, living up to my name. Goddamn was it hard."
..................................Brian Wilson, 1988"There's nothing greater than a girl.... Well a kid, your daughter, but that's a girl too."
..................................Brian Wilson, 1979"You're called a genius by people, and then your whole life you become the part." ..................................Brian Wilson, 1988
"I've never written one note or word of music simply because I think it will make money."
..................................Brian Wilson, 1965
"Subconsciously, I'm very religious."
..................................Carl Wilson"Every once in a while, an individual is born into the world whose whole being is music. I think Brian is one of those rare people."
..................................Carl Wilson, 1969"In Fort Worth, Texas there is a drug clinic which takes people off the streets and helps them get over bad LSD trips. They don't use any traditional medical treatment whatsoever. All they do is play the patient our 'Smiley Smile' album and apparently this acts as a soothing remedy which relaxes them and helps them to recover completely from their trip."
..................................Carl Wilson, 1970
"Brian is an anachronism in his own time. You accept him for what he is. If he says he's coming to the studio, you stop what you are doing and go, because when he does something, he does it for keeps. But today he's a short-distance runner. He's not running the 440 at this stage of his life. But he's a killer in the 100 yard dash."
..................................Al Jardine, 1978
"The public thinks of us as surfing Doris Days."
..................................Bruce Johnston"I'd swap a lot of the Beach Boys songs for just one 'Michelle.'"
..................................Bruce Johnston"I think when we finally heard 'Good Vibrations' edited, mixed, we thought we were gonna have the biggest hit in the world or the career was over."
..................................Bruce Johnston, 1966
"I have nothing but affection, admiration and regard for Brian. If he's not the greatest ever at what he does then maybe you can't pick a 'one greatest' in areas like this. Maybe you have to lump half a dozen or so together and say 'jump ball'!"
..................................Tony Asher"Brian and I are partners in life."
..................................Dr. Landy, 1988"I thought Brian was a perfect gentleman, apart from buttering his head and trying to put it between two slices of bread"
..................................Tom Petty, after eating with Brian."If there is one person I have to select as a living genius of pop music, I would choose Brian Wilson."
..................................George Martin (Beatles producer)"We were all so poor we'd just sit around singing and on occasion drink a brew; not the children, the adults. And then I bought a Hammond electric organ, on time, and we'd play duets, my wife and I. And then Brian would get in on the act and sing. All they ever heard was music in the house. And on occasion family arguments."
..................................Murry Wilson"But 'Pet Sounds' was not a big hit. That really hurt him badly, he couldn't understand it. It's like, why put your heart and soul into something?"
..................................Marilyn Wilson, 1966"People should never be allowed to say 'no' to Brian Wilson... cause if you just get behind him, or next to him, and go with him, it's gonna come out okay."
..................................David Anderle, 1968
"Music is Brian Wilson's best friend, lover, everything. On a one-to-one basis, it's the only thing that has never wronged him."
..................................Van Dyke Parks"We got along really well. I always appreciated his stuff. It always had that tongue-in-cheek humor. Brian had an odd little way of looking at life, differently than the average person did. And I appreciated that."
..................................Dean Torrence"In short, Brian Wilson lived in terror of public failure. A lot has been made of his drug use/abuse, which may indeed have had searing effects upon him. But it was the public failure of Heroes to to wow Capitol and thus wow the world that caused him to withdraw." ..................................Jack Reiley
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