Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin - Bruce Johnston

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

Bruce Johnston is a musician, singer, and songwriter, widely recognized for his influential role in the Beach Boys. Johnston began his musical career in high school, collaborating early-on with musicians including Eddie Cochran and Phil Spector. Joining the Beach Boys in 1965, Johnston was involved as a vocalist and keyboardist, and he continued to make occasional appearances on the Beach Boys albums from the mid-1970s until re-joining the band in 1978. With the group, Johnston co-produced several key albums, including L.A. (Light Album), and the follow-up LP, Keepin' the Summer Alive. Known for his harmony and production skills, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the group’s founding members. ------ Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: Vivo Barefoot http://vivobarefoot.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA25' ------ LMNT Electrolytes https://drinklmnt.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Athletic Nicotine https://www.athleticnicotine.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Squarespace https://squarespace.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Sign up to receive Tetragrammaton Transmissions https://www.tetragrammaton.com/join-newsletter

Tetragrammaton I was 21 or 22 when I got my second gold record when you were born in 63. Yeah, the second. What was the first? Did you ever hear, if you go back historically, there's probably no history, but it really is. I was in a band, Phil Spector joined the band, and Sandy Nelson was a guy a couple years ahead of me in high school and out, and he knew I could play, and so I would kind of be in his band.

You played piano. I played piano. Yeah. I along with a guy named Richie Podler, Richie Podler who eventually produced Cure Dark Knight. Mm-hmm. There was a Cozy Cole record called Topsy that was the top 10

in the like 58, 59. And so Sandy, whose name was Sam Nelson, he just got the idea, convinced this disc jockey, do you know who Art LeBeau was? Okay. Convinced Art LeBeau who had original sound records, he had had a hit with Press Snaps during Bongo Rock, Mike Dacey on guitar. And so Sam, Sandy Ellison talked Art LeBeau into a single, one-off, just not even an album. So we wrote this song kind of in the studio called Teen Beat, and it went to number four. Wow.

How old were you at that time? I was probably 17. 17. And Rishu Padmanabhan and I kind of wrote it, but Richard Potter and I were so young, we didn't know as writers how to really ask for writer's credit. I mean, that's high school. What did I know in high school? Yeah.

I want to actually listen to a little bit of it just because it's fun. There's different versions too, but the Sandy Nelson version is the first. That's the only, he re-recorded again because remember I said he got a singles deal. Yeah. Art LeBow didn't get an album deal. So he went over and got a little money from Imperial Records and re-recorded it and put

an album out and that's before Let There Be Drums, but this is the, this is significant to me because, because all of a sudden, even though Spector asked me to play piano on To Know Him Is To Love Him. Do you remember that song? Of course. He asked me to play piano on it, but I, I had a date, but I had a ride to her house. So I, I took that option. I do not regret it to this day. Yeah. So you didn't plan to know, to know him as love. I was supposed to, but I didn't go. I went out on this date with the girl, which I thought to this day,

it still was a better idea. Describe the world at that time. Describe Los Angeles in what year is this? 1956, 55? The whole 50s. I mean, it was Pat Boone's heaven. It was just Ozzie and Harriet. I mean, it was just.

Had rock and roll happened on any level yet or not really? It was, well, I went to this private school called Bellar Town and Country. Now it's called John Thomas Ty. It's a big deal and it's too expensive. And one of the guys that worked there, I did a lot of jobs and I was up there because I lived down the street.

So I walked there on Saturday and I ran into Talton, was his name, and he had a Chevy with a good speaker in it. And he said, you want to listen to some music, Bruce? Because he knew I was in the school music stuff. So he says, listen to this. So the station was called KGFJ that he got me to start listening to. And we're listening to KGFJ, then I hear a group called The Robins. They were in Stola, you know?

This affected me, all Beast Boys before I knew. One day while I was eating beans and smoking Joe's Cafe, blah, blah, by the way, the blah, blah, the guitar, Barney Kessel. Wow. Barney Kessel.J. O'Scafe, blah, blah. By the way, the blah, blah, the guitar, Barney Kessel. Wow. Barney Kessel. Wow. Playing that before he played

on the first hit Liberty Records ever had, and it was Julie London, Cry Me a River. So here I'm listening to pure rhythm and blues with Barney Kessel. And then the other white guys, Lieber and Seller writing it. Anyway, that's when I went, okay, I get it. I got it. It changed my life. Yeah. And did you like doo-wop in general?

Some of it was ignorant the wrong way. Some of the white guys didn't know how to do it. Dion knew how to do it. The black singers were cooler, to be honest with you. They sang it a lot better. But I loved doo-wop. Okay, I'll tell you my story. So, you know, I grew up west side of LA. My father's pretty successful guy in business and went to private schools. I listened to a lot of music and my parents, this is our new book just came out, our first book. The Beach Boys by the Beach Boys. So I listened to all kinds of music. My parents played music throughout the house, you know, 78 RPM. Was it really 78s in your home? Yeah.

We had a big house in Santa Monica, then bigger one in Malibu. And that had the 78 RPM. The LPs were just kind of starting to get recorded and released in, but we were still seven, eight. But I was listening to South Pacific. I was listening to all kinds of things, you know? So I was always around music. So that got me started. I heard a lot of Sinatra. Then I picked up again on Sinatra and we signed a capitol and Nelson Riddle started doing the arrangement. Uh-oh, I'm slow dancing in the 50s,

eventually Johnny Mathis, but in the still of the night by the five saddens that was recorded in their church basement in Connecticut someplace. And the doo-wops stuff is pretty cool. I'm listening to One Day on the Radio. This is, now we get up to 59. This made me go in the music business completely because I loved all this stuff.

I go to the Hollywood Bowl, you know, as a seven, eight, nine year old guy with a white dinner jacket and sit in the box. All that stuff, you know. When I heard the Flamingos recording of I'll Never Ask For You, I went, don't do it. I'm getting in the music business, I'll figure it out. And I was already, I already had a fingernail in.

So that's kind of between listening to Elvis, my two favorite singers are Little Richard and Frank Sinatra. So put everything I'm saying in a blender and that's what's sitting before you now. Yeah, both Little Richard and Frank Sinatra are unbelievable. And you know what's great with, and Rachel's too,

sometimes when they get a little intense in the singing, they were always too close to the mic and it would distort. You hear the distortion. I couldn't wait to hear that. Whack, you know? Yeah, the energy of it. So I've been hooked forever.

Also, I've been surfing since I lived in Malibu in like 1950, 51. Wow. You know, I'd go, I'd walk five houses up to the pier and they'd have the paddleboards that you paddle to the race with the cork in it to Catalina Island. Well, they were also surfing, I would say. They hadn't gotten into the smaller wood boards before the foam boards. So I surfed out of Zoom all the time, you know. Amazing.

I'm totally into it. I'm not a prude. I just skipped drugs, alcohol. I just skipped all that stuff, you know. So I'm sitting in front of you happily doing 150 to 180 concerts a year, happily going to the beach. I wish I would have worn a hat because I got some cancer in my ears. I had that taken off. So I've combined my sport, my music, and everything.

I hope people, when they read my story, will realize you can start here as a baby guy and be the me guy and not be retired. Just keep going. Well, you'd do it cause you love it clearly. Oh God. You know, I do it for free. Yeah. You know, you love it. Of course. It's not like I ever, they ever even say, well, come on down to my house. We'll make the strike. We'll pay. I don't care about that. I just wanted to do it. Yeah. It feels so good. It's thrilling. It is thrilling. And here I am, you know, I'm, I'm probably 20 years older than you, 21 years.

I'm still hooked. Yeah. I don't need drugs. It doesn't get old. I just need the music. You know, I don't write a lot, but when I write, home run. After the other 999 songs go in the wastebasket. Tell me about the world of surf music before the Beach Boys.

So the music for surfing, remember the woolen sack recorder, little recorder? Okay. You got to look it up. Fidelity was great. You could record on it. It was mono. It was like a portable recorder. A portable recorder.

Yeah. It was like the Ampik 601 that Jan Berry used for Jenny Lee. Did you ever hear that? Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba. Of course. Jenny Lee and Baby Talk. Okay, but it was- Did you go to school with him?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I lived down the street from Jan. Jan and Dean. It was Jan and Arnie because Dean went into the six months army and then came out. So Jan would come down to my house and play doo wop in the morning at 730. And my father would always throw him out of the house. Jan, please stop that racket. So he'd go up to the top of our driveway and we'd wait for the bus and he'd do my algebra homework on the, going to university high school. So yeah, we all knew each other and everything.

Okay, now back to surf music. The guys that started like Bruce Brown, for instance, those kinds of guys, eventually got very successful with surfing films. They would have their Wollensack recorder and this before surfing soundtracks, they make up their own soundtrack, but it was more like Chico Hamilton, West Coast Jazz, and they'd narrate the film as they'd play the music. The guys were really young guys. They'd probably never been exposed to jazz, but they dug the surf, and they'd get high school auditorium at night on a Friday or Saturday night. So they made their own soundtracks up, to your Saturday night. So they made their own soundtracks up.

But they were Pacific Coast jazz. But somehow, somewhere, some unintentional surf music snuck in. Walk, Don't Run by the Ventures. Ba-boo-doo-doom, boo-doo-bum, boo-doo-bee. Started sneaking into the soundtracks. When you heard Walk, Don't Run, was there already such a thing as surf music or no?

No, it was jazz. It was jazz. It was like a late fifties jazz, kind of, kind of cool jazz, cool jazz, maybe. So, but somehow that snuck in and the audience has just flipped out. All of a sudden it's something where they could pick up a guitar and play it. People would learn that stuff. And all of a sudden there's 20 surf bands, you know? And, and-

But it was inspired by the surf movies. Surf movies. That's amazing. You know? I didn't know that. You didn't know that? No. Oh.

That's great. I was asked to play in a session, with Sandy Nelson, and I played on it. And so I was in the band for one night. It turned out to be the first intentional surf recording ever made. Wow. It was called Moon Dog, D-A-W-G.

I wanna hear. I feel like I'm tutoring you. You are. That's why we're doing this. Moon Dog by the gamblers. Okay. Go look it up. And the backside was LSD that I don't know if that was for the drug or not, but, but it was released on Pacific Pacific jazz.

Right. I'm playing the high piano and doing the. Yeah. Okay. Let's listen to it. Cause this is the first commercial surf record ever made for surfing. I mean, it's 17 years old. I could tell you liked Mark Gidey Richard as well. He did... I've got vocals here.

You did the vocals? Yeah. A couple of good guys. Nick Bain produced it. Pretty thick. No. It's pretty good. Who's the first band that ever covered it?

The Beach Boys. The guys don't even know. I never told them I did that. Is that true? That's amazing. So you made this song. It was the first surf music. I showed up.

Yeah, you were part of it. Like Woody Allen. But that's just. You made this song. It was the first surf music. I showed up. Yeah, you were part of it. Like Woody Allen in the movie, Zellig. Yeah. He'd always show up and he'd be around, you know, famous people at the turn of the century. Remember that movie?

I love Woody Allen. OK, so I just showed up and they're making the, not my idea, they're making the, what would become the very first commercial and they're making the, not my idea, they're making the, what would become the very first commercial intended surf instrumental with voices. That's it. Amazing.

You found it right like that. That's amazing. It's so cool. Yeah, we could listen to everything. Yeah. The human foot is a true marvel of engineering. With 26 bones, 33 joints, and over 100 muscles and tendons, it's built for flexibility, balance, and natural movement.

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Natural movement for your feet, sustainable choices for our world. Learn more at vivobarefoot.com slash tetra and embrace your human nature. When did surf music first start having vocals? Because it was instrumental for a while. I heard you just here just now. I heard vocals. Thank you. Okay. What about lyrics? Okay. When did the lyrics come? I was taking my surfboard out of my car and I think I was, uh, you know who Paramahansa Yogananda is, right? Of course. Okay, well, his place down where No Fear is, down in San Diego.

Yeah. You know, so I was surfing there and- Self-realization fellowship. Right, self-realization ship, the one down in San Diego, not the one in Palisades. So I was down there and I don't know how I got the station on my radio. I was always messing around with radio because I was almost too far away to receive it because it was KFWB.

Do you know KFWB? No. Okay. Oh God. They played all the surf band stuff. It was KFWB, Channel 98, Color Radio. Okay. So, and then they had a KEWB and a K D W B, you know, one in Minneapolis

and one in San Francisco, but this station became the top 40 station in LA. Like something would be in New York city. And so they played all the hits and they, but they also played a Moondog and it was a hit on KFWB. Now the only place anyone's making surf music is here. But they also played a Moondog and it was a hit on KFWB. Now the only place anyone's making surf music is here. Oh, you're right. We're talking about a tiny underground scene of music. Yes? Absolutely.

Tiny underground scene of music. Now we're getting into the vocals. So this is in the more official story. By the time I was 21, I was working on staff as a producer at Columbia Records. Unbelievable. How did that happen? Terry Melcher just said, Hey, I'm getting this job. You want to do it with me? Okay, man. How do you know Terry?

I met him because I should have brought pajamas. You know, this is a lot of talking. So I met Terry because Jan and Arnie and were signed to Doris Day's record label, R1 Records by a guy named Joe, an English guy named Joe Lubin that claims he wrote, he's probably half right, Tutti Frutti. I doubt it, but I see it in print somehow. Maybe he's straight. I think they had to take Tutti Frutti's words and straighten

them out so they were acceptable in the air. Anyway, so I thought I should just go down to where R1 Records is. Oh, it's in Beverly Hills. And Terry was probably 15, 16, and working, you know, going to school, going to Beverly Hills High School, but also like my mom said, you have no character. I need you to just have a job after school. So the A's went to B's and the B's went to C's and I delivered liquor in the Palisades.

Terry's the same thing. He's always working in the Chevron gas station, two blocks from their office building on Cannon Boulevard with the label happening. So he's always hanging around because people bring him music. So that's how I met Terry. And we were instant friends, instant friends.

Anyway. You see us into music as you were? You know, when Terry got his job at Columbia Records, they just always door stays on, they gave him a job. Really? You mean the guy Terry got his job at Columbia Records, they just always door stay, Sunday gave him a job. Really? You mean the guy who produced turn, turn, turn and tambourine? Yeah, right.

Anyway, so we became really good friends and we didn't have recordings here. We just got together. He was a pretty good piano. He would, you know, do you know what a fake book is? Yeah. Okay. He was so tight with his mom, his mom. Awesome. He had a fake book and he'd sit at their piano and they'd just sing songs together and he'd play them. He'd play the chords. Amazing. Really cool. Yeah. By the way, was she cool? Did you meet her? She's so cool.

When Terry and I had our, our little jobs at Columbia Records, she said, you know, after you guys are off work, will you come over to my house? I want to play something. Okay. She's still signed to Columbia. She probably, she might've been 40. I'm not sure. Gorgeous. 59. She was- And huge movie star at this time. Number one box office draw in the world of female. Okay. So we go to her house and she said, I want to play some music for you. And she plays us some Motown, especially Hitchhike by Marvin Gaye.

And she says to us, this is the music that's going to take me out of the music business and off the radio. And it's really good boys. I just want you to know that. So probably when my, when my contract stuff, I'm not going to resign. Wow. Really great story. Amazing. No one knows this stuff. That's amazing. You know, and she was cool with it and she sounds like she respected the music. Well, you know, one of the reasons she's so cool with it, you've got to remember,

she started it as a big record star band, big band with Les Brown, you know, sentimental journey and all that stuff. And then started making movies, uh, with. Actors like Jack Carson. Anyway, so she flipped over to movies, you know, and all of a sudden here's your record income, here's your movie. You know, she was so successful and I think she wasn't so worried about Motown

ending her career because she hadn't even done a TV show yet and she was just a great hang. Yeah. A great hang. Great. Okay, now let's get back to the lyrics. Yeah. So here's the story, the way it's been told to me. Back in those days, Rick, people got married really. Okay, we're getting married. We're out of college. Dumb idea.

Anyway, so Mike's married, has a little daughter, maybe two by then. And Dennis Wilson calls him up, Mike, you gotta come over to Brian's. Wow, what's up? And Mike says that, Mike is so funny. He said, those are the years that I was in the energy business, worked at a gas station. So I'm delivering liquor, you know, it doesn't matter whether my family had a lot of dough

or not, my parents were smart enough to kick our ass, all of us. So we're all going. Okay, so Dennis calls up Mike, come over to Brian's, you've got to come over to our house. They still live in home. Why? Well, I'm surfing, you know, in high school and I'm hearing instrumentals, surfing instrumentals

and let's write a song, song with words about surfing. So Mike goes over there, he comes up with- So it was Dennis' idea. Dennis' idea to get Mike and Brian together, cousins together. Yeah, but to write a song about surfing. Dennis, he's the pre-Edison, okay? Yeah, because he heard the instrumental surfing music or with the backup vocals.

No, he probably, I bet you he probably heard my gambler's record. You know, I, I really haven't officially told the band yet that I did that. Yeah. You've been, you've been in or associated with the band for 50 years. No longer than that. Since 1965. I see. As they say in New York.

Do they still refer to you as the new guy? Well, not only do they still refer to me as a new guy, are you Brian? Are you Mike? And I go, well, if I had a step stool, I could be. Yeah. Back to the lyrical. So Mike goes over, not repeating these four histories, I'm not a pardons. Mike goes over to the Wilson's house and they start writing a song.

And Brian was just so in love, of course, with the four freshmen that harmony. Oh, so anyway, they start writing surfing bomb, dip, dip, and surfing bomb dip dip. And somehow in the middle of all that, Dave Marx isn't in the band. He's like 12 years old in the neighborhood, but Al Jardine had gone to junior college, was in junior college with Brian. And the Wilsons left enough money for everyone to eat and whatever, the parents, Audrey and Murray, and they go to Mexico City on vacation. So the guys get together and they decide they want to record their song that Mike wrote and Brian. They were kind of running out of money.

So the guys needed to rent some amps and instruments. So Mrs. Jardine, Carl had a guitar, volunteered, she said, okay, come over to my house and audition for me. And so to get the money to go and record surfing on Candix Records. And here's the song that they auditioned with. Talk about starting musically

with the most difficult music you could ever do. So Brian taught Carl, Al, Mike, Brian, not Dennis, his four-part arrangements of the four freshmen singing Harsher Full of Spring acapella. Wow. I know. not Dennis. Here's four part arrangements of the four freshmen singing Harstuh full of spring acapella. Wow. I know. I told Mike, I said, you know, after Carl passed away and I had, I said, I started singing his part. I said, that's probably the hardest vocal part I ever had to learn. Cause there's who, I said, there's a story told of a very gentle boy and

the girl who bore is right. Okay. The reason I know it so well is I couldn't learn it. So I thought, okay, well, this is years later. I, whatever I was playing, I put it on repeat and went to sleep and woke up with it in my head. So I sleep learning Carl, he'd learn it in two seconds because he wanted to go play baseball.

So I'll keep Brian, okay. And then go out and play baseball. What's the first time you were ever in the room with the Beach Boys singing? How about a better question? What's the first time I ever heard the band record? Okay. Didn't involve me. Okay.

So this is around 64. Terry and I are still at Columbia Records. So it's just 64. You've already made a bunch of records. I already had my, my second goal by 64. Okay. 64, you know, um, and remember we're, we're talking right now about the lyrics. Okay.

Just don't lose sight of that. So the first time I ever heard the band record, I walked in with Terry and I, among those guys, I know where to be in the right place at the right time. I also know when to leave. I walked in and Mike could have been in his own mic, but I kind of recall that's Shia, how they

recall you. Yeah. So this is pretty cool. Now I'm not the tallest guy in the world. I walked in and let's pretend Mike's on his own mic, but I think he wasn't. So Dennis was even on this song. They're all recording around one mic.

The end of Mike was probably on the, on this mic. So Jardine is on a riser. Yeah, no, Mike was probably on the, on this Mike. So Jardine is on a riser. Yeah. To get all their mouths on the same line. Exactly. No, I'm not, you know, I'm not singing the band or anything. I'm just sitting there, Columbia records, copying all this, the surf and the car songs, you know, and that's was my, my second gold record was Hey Little Cobra. Okay. Oh, I love that song. Written by the girl and her brother who sang the lead

in a half hour on the record I was supposed to play the piano on for Phil to know him as to love him. Annette Kleinbart. Wow. Carol Connors, who wrote the Rocky thing. This is a lot of information. Unbelievable. Can you handle all this?

Unbelievable, yeah, I'm good. So here I am, you're me, you're over there, Terry and I, we walk in and Brian, on the other hand, he has this lower his height. I see. To get equal. I'm looking at this and I go, okay. And then I go, Wendy, Wendy went right wrong,

oh so wrong, we went together. I hear that, I thought perfect. So we stayed maybe half hour, if that. We were singing in the control room or in the room where they were singing? No, I wasn't, I'm no fool. I walked into the room. Yeah, so you're in the live room

and you're hearing them sing. You asked about hearing them live. Well, I'm saying I heard them live record. I had heard them live backstage in other earlier times, but not when I was- But you can't hear live always. And I imagine then there were no PAs or anything. No, you had to have an imaginary ear go around to the front of the stage.

So you could kind of hear what was going on. Okay. So that's the first time and fantastic song. Yeah. You know, so the voices, did it blow you away? They're like the blend. Did it? I was asked by the Bee Gees to produce them and I knew them really well. I was asked by the Bee Gees to produce them and I knew them really well. This is like 1972, three, four, around there.

I said, I know I could write a hit for you guys, but I'm the wrong guy. What do you mean? You need to get somebody who doesn't write a lot of groovy syrupy ballads. You guys need to step up your tempo. And that's right before all the disco disco. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Amazing. Okay. Okay. So there we are. That's the first time I heard the band sing live while they were recording. And, uh, the success lyrically, just locally of surfing, bomped it, did it, did it, you know, it just started exploding.

So Brian and Mike, the surf phase of the Beast Boys was it lasted at least 10 minutes. And it went girl surf, car school, it went on to all the activities, people, they were just slightly younger than the band, because they're kind of out of high school just about, you know, with those recordings. So what are you saying about? Well, what you know? What do you know? High school.

So that all happened. And so because of Dennis, lyrics began to arrive on the radio in the Beach Boys world. You know, and then people covered them and everything. And then they went into the other genres of, as I said, girls surf, cars, school. How many years of instrumental surf were there before that? Not many. Three, two?

I'm going to guess maybe three. Okay. You know, at the time, would you assume this is an instrumental form of music? Absolutely. It never occurred to me anybody would write words about surfing. Yeah. Why would you? Yeah, because it was already a popular genre.

All those shows all over Southern California were sold out in terms of showing the movie. These guys would four-wallet, they'd have the Woollensack recorder, and they'd have a mic and hey, you know, you know, and then everything was sold out every weekend. How many surfers were there at that point in time? Were there like millions of surfers?

Thousands. Would you know most people? Like if you went out surfing, you'd know mostly everybody. Oh, I'd know the stars. Yeah. And I was a wannabe that knew I never could, like Jack Benny and his violin. Yeah, but it was fun.

We're going back a hundred years now with Jack Benny and his violin. Yeah, but it was fun. We're going back 100 years now, Jack Benny's violin. But it was fun. And the girls were cute. And if we got cold, we'd just tear the wood off. A classic, we didn't know it was classic, 48 Ford Woody and burn it to get warm. Wow. And one of the great things about my job,

the job that I had in high school, I didn't like doing it, but I liked the results. The results were that every month I liberated, what's the cheapest vodka? I liberated from the liquor store and I would sell 10 of them. The 11th one, I would use it, you know, three or four Saturdays in a row just to sprinkle a little alcohol on the rubber tires that we'd set on fire so we'd get warm. And then the other bottle was used for dating purposes. I'm not even 18 years old. Amazing.

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I mean, California wise. There's always a lot of little independent labels. Might have one hit wonders, you know. By the time the record labels figured out surfing, they'd have the astronauts, they'd have everybody that doesn't fit. They kind of ruined it quickly. Was there a Columbia Records office in LA? Oh, it used to be, you know, KNX was the radio station and they had radio studios.

And so they got converted into recording studios. And then in the balcony where they used to have audience in studio A for radio, they stored all the masters until somebody said, we don't need the outtakes or the multi-track takes, the four-track takes or the three tracks, eventually the eight. So they destroy them. Thank you.

All Terry did with the birds, they just have the masters. Wow. Yeah. So we have the majors. Everybody couldn't wait to get to Capitol Records for the next 50 years to use their echo chambers. Well, the echo chambers that they use for Sinatra, The old KHJ radio studio became capital records at the gates of Paramount Pictures. And Sinatra always had an audience. Probably people didn't know that.

200 people, if all his pals just... and he'd record. And they'd use the Echo over there for the albums that relaunched his career. Wow. And not the Echo that they... So in the studio, heunched his career. Wow. And not the echo that they- So in the studio, he always had an audience. Well, in the early days, I've got you in my skin in wee small hours of the morning, great stuff. Yeah.

You know, but yeah, he's drinking, but he's hanging out. You know, he was down to being $200,000 in back taxes, and he couldn't get anybody to sign him. And so Sam Weisbord, who was one of Al Jolson's agents, when he was a kid, you know, eventually became chairman of William Morris. And so no one would sign him. And somehow they called Capitol records.

They said, Frank Sinatra, are you serious? How soon can you be here? And he got a one album deal. And eventually he inherited Nelson Riddle from Nat King Cole. Wow. And then they started just recording at Capitol in the old KHA J-Building, the radio studio building.

Wow, I didn't know that. And back to that echo chamber thing. Everybody's in, when hiring the echo chamber for 50 or 60 years, and none of the magic magic was ever recorded there. At the Capitol building, it's not there. That wasn't there. Had no idea, amazing. Tell me the story of the rip not there. That wasn't there. Had no idea.

Amazing. Tell me the story of the ripcords. Ripcords, really cool story. So Terry couldn't get anybody to sign with him at Columbia because, oh, Doris Day, son of what does he know? Manages to take someplace else. So he went to one of the guys that worked for his mom and had the record label, not Joe Lubin. He signs these two guys and calls them the Ripcords. And he produces a song called Here I Stand.

Here I stand in a lonely room, right? Okay. And it kind of charts. And Terry says, hey, you know, Bruce, you know that thing I recorded? Yeah. They want to follow up. Do you want to work on it with me?

I said, okay. So we co-produced a song that got to 40 called Gone by the Ripcords. And then Terry said, I'll call David Kapilic who eventually managed Sly, Family Stones, and I'll just get you my job so we have it together at Columbia Records. And so we always would time our sessions so we could get to the luau in Beverly Hills, you know, that restaurant, the luau, and in time to order dinner, 830. Anyways, one day I said, we're going tonight? He said, yeah, but we're going to meet Annette Kleinbart, who was the lead singer in high school on the recording of To Know and Still Love Him. And she was there. She's still around. She's out of her mind in the best possible. She's so cool. Right. Anyway, you know, she, as I said, she wrote the Rocky theme. And so she's there with

her brother and they bring Hey Little Cobra, a lead sheet, you know? And so we made a lot of edits. We didn't rewrite the song. I mean, you know, this is their song. And we start recording it. And eventually we got a Irving Townsend who was VP of Columbia Recs to the West Coast. All these guys in New York guys, and they're wonderful guys. He just said, fellas, you you spent too much money. You have

to finish this by midnight tonight. So it's like two in the afternoon. So we are copying Beach Boys stuff. That was our current job. So we just say, you guys, we're doing it in style. We know you don't know to do, we're going to put a couple of voices on it for you. So we wound up singing without cell sync on three tracks. We had no cell sync. So we did about 10 over the... And we do Hey Little Cobra. Wow.

Terry sings the lead. Let's listen to it. Ripcord is Hey Little Cobra. That's just two voices, Terry and Bruce. Terry's singing to it. Ripcord's Hey Little Cobra. That's just two voices, Terry and Bruce. Terry's singing the lead. Okay, that's not... What do you think? It's fantastic. That's just us. It's fantastic. Free track, free track, free track, free track, free track, and then I said, Terry, I got

a great idea. We always dress pretty good actually, going to Columbia Records, you know, Slack, sometimes Seuss. So I had my coat off. Now this studio, you could eat off the floor and it was huge and Guy named Chappie he was the head engineer of Columbia Records in the East Coast he came out as Unbelievable engineer. So I said I want to add something. Okay, I have the guy set the mic up and I found a trash can this this tall, rubber made, you know?

And I put it over me with the microphone here. Like a giant hat. Yep. But down my shoulders. Yep. And I went, shut them down. Wow. Shut them down.

Shut them down. It's like echo. You know, I like Pee Wee Herman trying to sing bass, you know. So no, no, just, it's just reverb. Like if someone sings in your ear, you hear it. He freaks out. I said, wow, this is perfect. I shut him down.

Spring little go, we're getting ready to shut them down. So while I'm doing it, some of the coffee that's turned syrupy is dripping on my shoulder. I'm going, oh shit. Anyway, so those are the stories that probably aren't interesting, but- That's fantastic. It's fantastic. All right. So they send the record out, immediately starts getting plays, immediately.

And so I said, you know, Terry, uh, those guys didn't send the record. Maybe we should put our names on it. Oh no, I don't want to do that. So he wound up on my behalf, giving away any artist royalty on it. And it sold over a million copies. Amazing. You know, now that's the first production that I have a gold record for officially. So cool. It's funny to ask you about the Beach Boys as if it's outside of you, but I'm going to...

That's perfect. I'm the perfect guy to talk to. Because I can be, I'm in both places. Okay. Well, the Beach Boys, a great live band. You should hear it now, even without Carl and Al. It's kind of like Doc Severins says, was he a great live band? Yes, all the arrangements, every note that we sing is written down. We could send it to schools.

Yeah, shows were short then, yes, in the early days? Songs were short. Yeah. You know, but as far as the parts changing, Yeah, shows were short then, yes, in the early days? Songs were short. But as far as the parts changing, none of the parts didn't change. How did it work out that you were chosen to go to London to play Pet Sounds for the Beatles? Well, there's this friend of mine, Zellick, I'm not shy. I know where to place myself. We're talking about now May of 1966. Pet Sounds is released in America in mono, but unfortunately for Sinatra and the Beach Boys

and other artists, Naki and Cole, they invented something called duo phonic, which just delayed one of the sides so they could sell it compatible with stereo recordings. Wow. So anything duo phonic just treat it like it's radioactive. That's unbelievable. So I didn't know about that. Duo phonic.

Yeah. So, um, I was so interested in everything. I had to know everything, you know, so I followed everything. And I had heard that people like Keith Moon, who wanted to be in Jan and Dean or the Beach Boys, you know, people in England were following us. Okay. So the first year I was in the band, I made three albums and toured. Now that's probably a lot, but not when you're 21, 22 years old. That's nothing. Okay, sure. And Chase Girls. Perfect. God, what a great job to have.

Three albums in the first year. First year. And I, I didn't start recording until those albums until like May of 65. Brian had already recorded the tracks for summer days, until those albums till like May of 65. Brian had already recorded the tracks for summer days, summer nights that had California girls in it. Okay. Unbelievable. And then somehow Capitol wanted something. So we slid in a,

it's an accidental unplugged album called the party album. And in that album. That has Barbara Ann. Barbara Ann by accident. I love party album. And in that album, that has Barbara Ann. Barbara Ann by accident. I loved that album. Al Corey was like running the branch. Eventually he was president of RSO, Bee Gees. He was running the branch of Capitol in Boston, New England area. I knew Al Corey.

And Al was. What a wonderful guy. Amazing guy. And he just for the hell of it, he just sent out some acetates. You know what an acetate is, right? To radio stations, they started playing Barbara Ann. So they did an edit and that Barbara Ann

has probably bought Fred Fassard who wrote the words of music. Four white guys called the Regents from New Jersey, probably bought him many houses. Wow. How did you guys hear Barbara Ann? Because it was a hit by the Regents before there was a Beach Boys. Okay. It's a pretty good record.

Yeah. I only know the Beach Boys version. Oh, you'd love it. Let's play it. I love it. Anything you want to listen to, I'm down. All right. Okay. That's enough. So we sound just like them. Yeah.

Let's see it. Isn't that cool? Okay, that's enough. So we sound just like them? Yeah. Let's see it. Isn't that cool? Beach Boys? That's mine. Who's singing the lead? Brian Wilson and Dean Torrance. Really? That's Brian and Dean? Yeah.

Singing the lead together. Falsetto. Dueling falsettos. The whole song. You'll hear it right now. I think our record's better. I love that record. Isn't that good? I love that record. Okay, so we had two weeks off. And you know, it's not that I wasn't one of the Beast Boys.

I just wasn't, but I was in the band recording. Why would any of the band think, oh, well, Brian will be on the road soon. Right. So I was just there. So you were sitting in for Brian for the last 50 some odd years. Yeah. No, yeah. Since 65. Okay. So, yeah, since 65.

Okay, so, and that's cool. So Derek Taylor was our publicist. Now there's a guy people think is wacky and crazy and he's dead now. Kim Foley, have you ever heard of him? Of course. He's one of my great friends. I hate it when I read negative stuff.

He's so smart. His father was one of those B-movie 40 guys with the double breasted suit gangster guy. And then when he got older and lost her teeth, he was one of like Gabby Hayes guy on Petticoat Johnson. So Kim finally was living in England and Derek and I, uh, we're talking, he says, capital breakfast, it's really sped sounds. Now it was going to be released soon in England, you know, and Derek was already the Beatles, Beatles guy. And that was our guy.

I see. Eventually he went back and he was, uh, Apple, the Apple guy. And he got, he moved to California, California, went crazy. It's a Apple guy. And he got one. So he moved to California. He moved to California and went crazy. He's a smart guy. Had five kids. Went back to run Apple Corps in 68 and took one of those big Tahitian Hawaiian chairs, like a throne from the Luau restaurant in Beverly Hills for his office. Right.

Right there. So we're talking, I said, Derek, could you give me some ideas what I could do in England? So he writes several pages explaining England and London. And he says, you know what you should do? You know, Kim Fowler's over there said, I know that. He said, I'll pick the hotel. Why don't you go there and, and, and spend seven or eight days there and use the weekdays and just do some interviews. There's probably some interest in the beach boys. That's how it came apart.

So I wound up doing about 15 interviews a day. You know, and as popular as the beach boys were here, they were both popular and seemingly more culturally significant there. Well, yeah, America. America, they got hot water, got showers in the bathroom, everything. Yeah. So people were really interested. So the album wasn't out. But Capitol Records, probably pre-release maybe, I think the international guys were a lot hipper at what to do than the American guys, I really do. Why do I say that?

In the seventh week of the release of Pet Sounds, Capitol decided to release the Best of the Beach Boys album, volume one, seven weeks in. It's insane. It sounds like the Capitol was against you guys. They were getting against us because all they wanted was the girls surf cars. They just wanted more. All they wanted was summer. And said they get, I know perfectly well, I'm not where I should be. Do you still believe in me?

I want to grow. They get that instead of, you know, and so, you know, we're in the rip in the black, so they're not losing money, but they don't want to lose any more money in the future. So they put the best up. By the way, if you were a bottom line guy, that was probably a very smart move for a long time because it's almost up to four million albums. As far as our career and growth, Pet Sounds, that was the album. There it was. Week number seven, the very best of the Beach Boys. All promotion off of Pet Sounds. So I'm over there, 15 interviews a day.

Keith Moon starts hanging out with me because he wants to be one of the Beach Boys. And this is my generation, right? So he's hanging out with me. And every day he brings about five uppers over. You're talking to a guy who just doesn't do any of it. So every day he'd bring the speed over and I, Oh, thanks man. Open your door. Every day. Thanks man. Thanks man. You know, I probably had 30 uppers by the time it was Saturday in my drawer. We were pink. He was taking me every day.

Anyway, so he said, what are you doing? I don't know. I'm finished now. You know, we did 15 interviews. He said, I got a TV show. You want to be on it? Sure. What's it called?

He says, it's called Ready, Steady, Go. So he takes me over to Ready, Steady, Go. We do a walk on and Benny King's on it. It's so cool. And we just hang out every night. So I get back to the hotel on Friday night after dinner with Keith Moon and Kim's there. He said, he's in the lobby. He said, oh man, I'm glad you're back.

Why? John and Paul are waiting for you and you're sweet. They want to hear pet sounds. Mono. I had a record player. So they listened to it two times. They couldn't have been any cooler. And they were dressed in Edwardian suits. And one came in the rolls. I remember Paul gave his number and it started with the prefix Escher. Right. And they were playing blackjack with two fans, two girl fans, you know, they've gotten off after work and found out I was there.

And it was really cool. So innocent, let's say, God, except for the fact that Mary Anne Faithfull got rolled up in a rug, you know, when there was a raid on the house and they took her out. Wow. They took her out. They took her out of it. Wow. She lives. Okay, so anyway, here's how the Beatles saved the Beast boys.

They didn't know it, first of all. They freaked out. All they could talk about was Pets House and God only knows. And EMI totally got with it all over Europe and they released it, bang! You know? And Stoop John B, two days after I left, it was number eight, it was next week that I left, it was number five.

So The Beatles inadvertently really saved the day. Like when you go bowling and it bowls down the gutter and you get the bowl again, you got a spare, they gave us a spare on Pet Sounds. Otherwise, that probably would have been gone as an album. Wow. In a world of artificial highs and harsh stimulants, there is something different, something clean, something precise. Athletic nicotine, not the primitive products found behind convenience store counters.

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pursuing their vision athletic nicotine offers the lift you've been looking for learn more at athletic nicotine comm slash Tetra and experience next level performance with athletic nicotine warning this product contains nicotine nicotine is an addictive chemical. Were you there for the recording of God Only Knows? I was dating this girl and I called Terry up and I called her, this is a girl Terry, and I said, do you mind if on the way to dinner if if we stop in Hollywood, we want to, you know, I just got back from Japan and Carl said, you got to come to these sessions.

Brian's the tracks he's making this before it was called pet sounds. And I walked in with Terry on our way to go to Beverly Hills to go to the Lou out for dinner. I walk in and Brian's recording, God only knows I'm listening. Oh, wait a minute. This is really cool. Because Brian starts with the first verse with the five on the bottom. So there's do, do, do, do, do, usually goes da, do, do, do, do, do, I may not always love you. OK, the bass note starts with a five and went, what? And there's like a few string players over in the corner.

In those days, Rick, we had this thing, wonderful thing called leakage. Now we were up to four track by the way. And we had leakage, you know, and Hal Blaine would be the guy who'd run all the sessions. Terry and I stayed for about an hour and I got it. And I thought, always know when it's time to leave. Carl was in the booth with Brian.

Brian's best friend was Carl. So I went to dinner and okay, this is before Pet Sounds released recording this stuff. So Brian just assigned this note after note, part after part after part. We just sometimes like, I just wasn't made for these times. We had everybody, including me, we had had Dennis,

we had six vocal parts. And if you listened, I just wasn't made for these times. Part of it's in Spanish. Wow. In Spanish, in the chorus. So we make this beautiful album and Brian and I had a sing-off though. I don't know if you remember on Slept John B, which wasn't its destiny at that point to go on Pet Sounds.

It should have gone on the California girls album called Summer Days and Summer Nights. So it was just sitting there, Capitol said, we don't hear any hits, we don't think. Wouldn't it be nice, God only knows. So okay, sure, nice. So they talked Brian in the pudding sloops on B, which has nothing to do with pet sounds. And that's a beautiful recording. Everybody treasures it and loves it. And so during the recording of that, I talked Brian into writing a higher vocal note and he couldn't reach it.

Like Brian, here it should be, he said, I can't sing that high. Why don't you do it? Me? Yeah. So that's the only time I interfered, but it's just a technicality because it wasn't destined to be as it, as, uh, as I later found out I was wrong on, uh, pet sounds. It wasn't done in the spirit of pet sounds. Tell me the story of the studio session for Barbara Ann.

Well, the Barbara Ann studios, just the Barbara Ann studio. One night we had all the girlfriends, wives would have come over and, and make it sound like a party and we had potato chips, crunch, crunch, crunch, yeah. But we inadvertently had made an unplugged album. I even played bass on a lot of it, lucky me. The day I officially got in the music business, for real, was my first demo. I saved up enough money to hire what would be in the future

of the bar brands to do, using the engineer that became Brian's engineer, Chuck Britz. When I made this demo, I was in love with my voice and it so sucked, the song was terrible. And I sidebar to the sidebar. And I took the demo to Specialty Records because I love Little Richard. And I played it for their A&R guy there and he had, you know, pocket pen protector or whatever it is and sourced these shirts. He listened to it and he said, you know, this is not what we're

looking for right now, but Bruce, if you really get excited about something, could you come back and play it for us? Who's A in our man? Sonny Bono. Wow. That's unbelievable. Is that not a cool story? So cool. Okay. So back to the first day in the Barber Ann studio, in the music business, you know, I was playing in high school. And this is pre-Sunny and Cher? Oh yeah, this is Sunny, but that was his job. He was an A&R guy. He wasn't down at Cosmo Studio, where he should have been in New Orleans with Earl Palmer on drums playing a ghost foot pedal

and Richard singing, you know, it was owned by Art Wu and it was up on the, just beyond where the crescendo was towards Hollywood, about four or five doors, especially records office, then the studio, but they didn't cut any hits there. They cut it in New Orleans at Cosmos. It's still there. Okay. So the first day I'm in, I'm making my demo of this horrible song. There's a guy, black guy dressed pretty cool actually. And I, and I saw him drive in and a four door 1956,

like a Coupe de Ville four door, no such thing. Well, I don't know what they got some kind of a Fleetwood. It was great. Had a diamond pinky ring and a white tie and a white shirt. And he owned this thing that we all listened to. We listened to Huggy Boy on the radio here from the widest guy ever down the middle of Watts broadcasting from Dolphins of Hollywood. You can look them on a John Dolphin. He had record labels. He had everything. And I had the chancellor's daughter of UCLA, my friend girl from high school,

Barbara Allen. Remember that? So he said, here's my card. Why don't you bring your acetate down when you're finished? So we went down there and the door was locked and there was a black guy, Percy Anderson Ivy, he was muttering and pissed off. He was like, ah, no, he's in here, you know, just all the Southern dialect, white guys never heard before. I went, woo. He said, John, you owe me money.

It was like watching a video of Stagger Lee. And I goes, no, I don't. And so the next thing I see in here is that guy shoots him five times in front of me when I'm 17. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Shoots dolphins. Kills him.

Kills him. And he falls on the heater and turns the heater on. It smells like crap in there. And so one of the guys in my band who is now or first chair flautist with the LA Philharmonic. He's in high school with me, played tenor sax and he gets grazed by a bullet. Everyone else runs out except me. So I stay there and I see dolphins foaming in the mouth dead, you know, 17 years old. Wait a minute. foaming in the mouth dead, you know, 17 years old. Wait a minute.

No, I'm 15 years old. Excuse me. Wow. I'm 15. This is February 1st, 1958. Wow. I'm still 15 years old. Okay.

Okay. So you just watched a guy get murdered in front of you. No. On your first day in the music business. First day in the music business. Because of Barbara Ann's chancellor, Raymond Allen of UCLA, we kept about 99% of it out of the paper. We put it on, you know, over there in the ocean.

So nothing. So it didn't come out. Just totally buried. So that was my very first day in the music business. That day you knew this is for me. No, it took two more years. And then in that time period, I was in Sandy Ellison's little band and Spectre was in it. And I listened to his chorus.

I went, Oh my God. What was he like? Same age? You were same age? No, he's probably a year, two years older. He's very eccentric. Same school or a different school? Like Herbie, Herver Alpert and those guys,

they went to, and that Kleinberg, they went to Fairfax. And he was just eccentric. And the title of his song, To Know Him Is To Love Him, that's the epitaph on his father's gravestone. You know, that's how he got that. Okay, so that's how I got my start. And then I, working up to Beach Boys, our band that we put together took the place

of the house band for Art LeBeau, because they had shows at Long Beach Municipal Auditorium, they had shows at Pasadena Civic and El Monte Legion Stadium. You had to tell me about Art LeBeau too. Well, Art LeBeau, he was just a great promoter. You know, he promoted himself right into being one of the writers of the song I wrote.

As was what was happening in those days. Oh, of course. That's not an unusual story. Right, so Larry Nectel was a keyboard player and Mike Probrowning was a drummer and they got hired to join Dwayne Eddie's band. So Larry, who became one of the members of Bred and also got a Grammy for arranging with Jimmy Haskell, Bridge Over Troubled Water, that's him playing the piano. Amazing.

First half was art. So everybody does something. If you hang around long enough, something groovy happens. Yeah. So we get in this band, Spectre's gone. He's, he actually has moved to New York, you know, for a few months and under the wing of Lieber and Stoller, who are LA guys that went to LA City College, you know, and they're the guys who wrote Smokey Joe's Cafe long before the two Robins went to New York and became the Coasters.

They wrote for Elvis as well. Well, they wrote, Loving You. I will spend my whole life through. They also wrote for Big Mama Thornton. Wow. It recorded this with Johnny Otis, like around 52, 51. That was her original recording. And she, when she met these two white Jewish guys, uh,

Lieber and Stoller with the song, she almost, she almost beat them up. She's about six feet out. You get out and Johnny Otis says, now mama, mama, you got to listen to this. Mama could settle down. You know, all that stuff's going on. Johnny Osas is on TV, by the way, local TV for two years. So I see James Brown and 57, 58 on his TV show, you know, like first round of hits. Please, please, please. And was that another mind blowing?

Like James Brown must've been insane. The first time you saw it. Well, I saw the first time I saw him live was 61 at the Paramount theater with an 18 piece big band and he would play organ in it and do all kinds of things and his steps and he had his valet and he throw it off and run back out. And, uh, free high school girls called the Bluebells were his background group. Patty LaBelle and the Bluebells. Wow. Unbelievable. I had the curiosity you had as a young guy for what was going on. I was everywhere. I was in Watts. I was again, whiter than Pat Boone, but it was safe then. No one gave me any crap. So all this stuff's going on around me, you know? And somehow I'm learning how to surf and I'm going to the surf

movies and I'm listening to Richard, I'm listening to Sinatra. All this cool stuff's happening, you know, just influencing me. I would say, I only have eyes for you. As I said earlier, that's like the verses are in doo-wop and the choruses are, but I only have you. I made you this one. Thighs for you, doo-dee-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo. I thought, okay. Let's listen to it. We got to listen to it. Okay. We got to listen to it. have you made you this advice for you do do do do do do what you want okay let's listen to it we gotta listen to it okay listen to it

my I can't see anyone but you Here comes the major seventh. And he's falsetto in this record, by the way. That's ju-wop slow dancing. The moon may be high behind But I can't see a thing in the sky Falsetto like Brian's. Recorded track and everything in three hours and voices. New York. You are here, and so am I. Maybe millions of people don't mind, but they all disappear. Check the falsetto come now. for you. Chibap, Chibap. Ooh. Chibap, Chibap.

Chibap, Chibap. Chibap, Chibap. Isn't that a piece of work? It's unbelievable. It's like a symphony to me. Yeah, fantastic. What do you think that the Chibap, Chibap vocals, do you think that that was because

they didn't have horns? So it was like doing a horn part? No, no, no, no, no, no. What do you think it was? It almost sounds like do what you want or shuvap shuvap. You know, it's just what they did. Uh, Terry Johnson, who's still around. If you ever see a picture of the coasters, he's the guy with the Les Paul guitar.

He did, he did that whole arrangement and they just went in and recorded it three hours, front to back and the mix. Bang. But that's very elegant. I could play, have you play part of a song that kind of kept me in the music business. Okay, just play a little piece of I'm Not In Love by Ten C.C.

Everybody recorded every note they could record on a separate track and they... All the voices are mixed this way. Great song too, you know the song? Just listen to it. Recorded at Orange Studios in Manchester, England. So there's a song there being sung, besides all that stuff. Just a little more. Written by Graham Gould. I'd like to see you. The whole thing's hurt. You know, I had listened to the whole thing.

I just wanted you to see what I did. That's amazing. That kind of kept me going. Yeah. I like the songs. I'm on the freeway in my Porsche because I could afford it. I'm listening to the songs. I'm on the freeway in my Porsche, because I could afford it. I'm listening to the radio.

I hear, Joy to the world, Joy to the... Okay, cute song. And then I hear, I believe in music magic. And then I hear, Oh, girl, lobo. I want you to want me.

And I'm thinking to myself, I can't spell it, but I think it's happening, epiphany. And I go, I should write a song about where music comes from. Great. I always like startling words, like I've done a lot of Elton John's recording. I was like working with Elton because Bernie's lyrics are just so whacked out and wonderful.

So I always think, well, you gotta have a really interesting first line. So I went intro. I've been alive forever. And I wrote the very first line. So I went intro, I've been alive forever and I wrote the very first song. Now, if you can't catch him with that, you might as well not finish the song. It's a good, it's a good opening line. It's kind of like pretend I'm interviewing God. Yeah. And I go, so God tell me about yourself. Well, okay. Uh, I've been alive forever. I wrote the very first song, put the words and melodies together. I'm music. And I write, so God, tell me about yourself. Well, okay.

I've been alive forever. I've been alive forever with the very first song, put the words and melodies together, I'm music, and I write the songs. Hey. Yeah. Yeah. It's ultimately a devotional song.

Kind of. It is. You just told me the story and I'm telling you, you might not know it. It's a devotional song. It is, but I kind of never told Barry what it was really about. I said, well, it's just about the spirit of music, Barry,

because I know he would have loved it. And finally, after he waited a year before he called Clive back, when I was at Columbia Records, Clive was one of the guys I worked with in the business department. Wow. So when he called Clive back, he says, okay, even though I think people are

going to think I'm conceited, I get it, I hear it. He put about 85 key changes and he put every trick he knew and it actually worked. And then three years ago, he called me up and said, I want you to listen to my live version. So he had a live version with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, at some venue that had 18,000 people in England. And it would shock you if you think the record was good. It's just all over. It's all over. It's called Live in London.

Let's listen to it. OK. Let's listen to it. That's it. We need to hear them sing it. Them sing it. Then I'll tell you the arrangement story. I've been alive forever And I wrote the very first song

I put the words and the melodies together I am music and I write the songs I write the songs that make the whole world sing I write the songs of love and special things I write the songs that make the young girls cry I write the songs, I write the songs My home lies deep within you And I've got my own place in your soul Now when I look out through your eyes

I'm young again even though I'm very Come on, sing this one with us! Come on, let me hear you, ready? I write songs that make me feel whole Eighteen thousand people are living I write the songs that make me feel whole Straight, nice I write the songs that make me young

I write the songs, great, great All my music makes you dance And gives you the spirit to take a chance And I wrote some rock and roll So you can move Music fills your heart Well that's a real fine place to start It's for me, it's's for me it's for you it's for you it's for me it's a worldwide symphony

I write the songs that make the whole world sing I write the songs of love and special things I write the songs that make the young girls cry I write the songs, I write the songs I write the songs that make the whole world sing I write the songs that love is special made I write the songs that make the young girls cry I write the songs, I write the songs Listen to the music, I am music I write the songs It's a good music

I am music And I write the songs And I write the songs And I write the song Yeah! So when I called Barry back I said, Barry, where did you get that arrangement? He said, are you kidding? Really Bruce? It's your arrangement. I said, how could it be my arrangement?

He said, you know, the recording you made with I write the songs with David Cassidy, it was top 10, top 11 something in England. He said, I just copied that arrangement. Oh, cause I did the arrangement. I said, okay, cool. No wonder it sounded good. Tell me about the intro to the song. Intro?

The chords before it goes into the ballad. I call that the doorbell. It's the signature of the song. No, I just get your let's you know, we're here. Pay attention to my song on the radio. That's why that's there. And then after that intro, then there's the, uh, engaging lyrics. I've been alive forever.

Here, I'll turn your piano and I'll pay. I'll play you something. I just wrote for Barry, not a new song. I wrote him a new intro. Okay. Ready? Yeah. You might like this. So it goes. Now the melody is, the chorus is, right? So beautiful. I'm going to name some names, tell me stories about the people. Tony Asher. He's the sweetest, nicest guy. He was a copywriter at an advertising agency.

Somehow he met Brian and they were talking about writing. These boys were in Japan for two or three weeks. And so Tony and Brian started writing Pet Sounds. Is Mike capable, Mike Love capable of writing pet sounds? Absolutely. Did you ever hear Mike's song called the warmth of the sun? Yeah, that's Mike's song. He wrote the words. I love that song. Thank you.

That's one of my favorite, one of my favorite, that's my favorite Beast Boy song ever written. Well, that's the one for this. we got to listen to one for the sun. Oh man. Come on. That's the best recording and the best song they ever wrote together. That's why I knew he was right for bad sounds. He's very hurt by that, by the way. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, that grows into day

The sun set at night for I live in this way For I am the warmth of the sun Within me at night She left me one day I cried when she said I don't feel the same way Still I am the warmth of the sun Within me tonight She's got her arms and through them I breathe Just like she's still there The way that I feel

My love like the warm of the sun It won't ever die I believe it. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. That's it. Breathtaking. Somehow, Brian would talk to Carl every night in Japan and tell him what he was doing, but it was, he was doing what he usually do with Mike, but with Tony and he's just working with Tony.

What do I think of Tony? Yeah. Who do I think it should have been? Because I'm kind of loyal to the to Lenin McCartney or Rogers and Hammerstein, you know. Mike and Brian. So much of today's life happens on the web. Squarespace is your home base for building your dream presence in an online world. Designing a website is easy, using one of Squarespace's best-in-class templates. With the built-in style kit, you can change fonts, imagery, margins, and menus, so your design will be perfectly tailored to your needs. Discover unbreakable creativity with Fluid Engine, a highly intuitive drag and drop editor.

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and get started today. What are the inner band politics like and how they changed over the years? That's just like these leaves blowing. They just change. They just happen. Nobody does anything mean spirited. You know, I just think Mike, never knowing that that was on the horizon. Brian should have offered it to his cousin first, just of the strength of warmth of the sun. Everything's perfect. Did you know Gary Usher? Very well.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you know Gary Usher? Very well. He was kind of like a, a threat to Murray Wilson in terms of his writing and everything. And he was a real ambitious guy that, you know, as ambitious as the dad was. So that got in the way. What do I think? I mean, he's a great guy. How could I not like someone who wrote in my room? What a great song. Great song. Brian and Gary. Great song. You know, so he was an A&R guy. He was, he was there.

He worked on staff at Capitol. He did everything. He was a good survivor and he died way too young. Jack Nietzsche. Jack is fantastic. Fantastic arrangement. Every place, Everything he did. Did you ever get to work with him?

Not really. I spent a lot of time with him. More because of his wife. She's a singer. She's so cool. And she said, Terry Bruce, you've got to come here tonight. You're in Laurel Canyon someplace. And she said, You've got to listen to this guy's songs.

Freewheeling album, Bob Dylan. Wow. And Gracia was, she said, this guy's gonna change the way people write songs. And she was so right. Yeah, amazing. And that was Jack, me and his wife. Probably nobody knows she did that.

Amazing. To a lot of us. Van Dyke Parks. He's not someone to dislike. He's too sweet. He's like Kirk Beatriz, too nice. But I know that he admitted to Mike Love with some of his lyrics, he didn't know what they mean,

but they sound great. Okay. You know, what can I say? He's a very clever guy. But I think, I really think he took Brian off the path. I say myself, Sagittarius, my world fell down. Well, I actually walked out of the session. Gary Usher produced it. We did it at Columbia records, Glenn Campbell sang on it.

And, uh, some of the people singing on with me were singing flat and I couldn't get them to sing on really on key to my standard. So I sang it and just left and people love it. And I listened to it and something just says, this is wrong. Wow. The pitch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The pitch.

You have perfect pitch. Luckily I don't. You don't want perfect pitch, but you can hear, you can hear what it's. That pitch. Perfect pitch is something that, uh, for people who listen to radio stations that sped their records up so they could get them over faster to sell more time. Yeah. And so you'd hear stuff and you'd go, Oh, yeah. Lou Adler.

Lou. I think Lou was born cool. Yeah. As he got older and older and older, he got above the 100% mark for being cool without trying. He's great. Now he's 90 years old. I saw a picture of him someplace with Herbie. Herb Albert and Lou were partners and they managed

Jan and Dean. And when they broke up, Lou took the management and right thing to do. What do you think Herb took? The Ampex 601-. The tape machine? Yeah, the tape machine. And went down, I'm told, to Mexico, to where they had the bullfights and recorded all the, oh, lays. And then he had a studio in his garage and started and recorded Lonely Bull. Worked out okay. When I was at Columbia Records, Sherry Moss in 63 used to come to my office working for a publisher and play me songs.

Amazing. And Herbie and I, it's not that I didn't have any money. Doesn't matter when you're young. I mean, is there money? Who, what? I don't know, girls say. I used to do a few sessions with him and we got $10 a song. I'd play keyboard.

He'd play trumpet and like Sunset Sound or one of those studios. It's great. Amazing. Who were the sleepwalkers? It might have been me. I don't know. I think Kim Foley named whatever I was doing as the sleepwalkers. That's all I know. And was there a band before that, the Barons? Oh, that was Jan Berry and Dean Torrance's Hi-Wai, like YMCA, Hi-Wai club name of their rough and tough guys club at University High School called the Barrens. Jackets, everything. The Tiers was Girls Club, Nancy Sinatra's club. Wow. Cool. Mike Curb. Fantastic guy. Just a real straight Presbyterian kind of businessman. Loved music, but had to put a lot of stuff together. And now he still has the biggest in America independent label in a curb records in, uh, tons of

hits in Nashville. Great guy. Great guy. Are the beach boys the longest existing band in history? Maybe still living ish. Yeah. I mean, stones were after. Yeah, that's good.

Most people don't realize that stones were after. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I want to read you something. Okay. A friend of mine was, one of the biggest stations in America was WMMS in Cleveland. Bruce Springsteen would be at the Coliseum, the Beach Boys would be at Blossom,

Laura Branigan would be at, we'd all be sold Beach Boys would be at Blossom, Laura Branigan would be at Seoul, we'd all be sold out in the same night promoted by the same station. That's how big they were. So Walter Taburski sends me this. He says, thanks Bruce. I'll always be grateful to you for your long time support, encouragement and guidance during my hazy, crazy radio days. Walter, he's a programmer, program director. I wrote Walter a letter. I think I was writing myself. I went, Walter, we all grow in our careers as we age. And my personal focus is to continue reaching out to humanity via songs I write to share how I view life and hopefully my messages will resonate with other agreeable souls. I am always a positive person and I hope my songs

reflect that. Walter, no retirement for me even if I'm on my back, I'll use sign language if that's what it takes to deliver my message of hope, love, romance, loyalty, keeping the world's environmental issues center stage if corrections are needed, parentheses. I use, among the founders, I use the Surf Rider Foundation to deal with all the ocean pollution problems plaguing the planet and a jillion other thoughts I have about living. Just saying, Bruce. Beautiful. I just kind of sent that to him plaguing the planet. And a Jillian other thoughts I have about living. Just saying, Bruce. Beautiful. I just kind of sent that to him out of the blue.

Beautiful. Tell me the story of surf riders. Ha, it's really cool. There's a lot of guys that got famous in surfing in those days. So I know all these guys and they said, you know, we're working on what? Like we want to call this thing, the Surf Rider Foundation.

Let me be part of it. I'm sure you're in. So in 84, we wound up having the Surf Rider Foundation or surfrider.org. And so you go to the beach and a little kid's there and he's looking at a Coke can and we say, well, if you don't dispose of this properly and we'll show you how to do it. It'll be there 350 years. And we go through the plaster, we do that.

So, I don't know, we had us, we were kind of the members. Anyway, guess how many members, nonprofit, we have? We have 200 chapters and a million members. Wow. Surfwriter.org. Wow. Wow. Surfwriter.org. Wow. So I heard a story that when Richard Branson started his new label V2, there was a rumor

that he was going to sign the Beach Boys. And there was an idea to like get back to the creative. Okay. So we had the most amazing deal with Branson. And we would be the first artists. Yeah. Long time. So everyone was for it, except Brian's wife.

And he said, great idea, we should do it. But first Brian has to have a solo album or we're not signing. Deal's gone. Wow. Not that everybody needed money, but there's plenty of advance and budget. Yeah, but it also seemed like a creative breath of new life

from someone who wanted something great from the Beach boys instead of what your experience with capital exactly right. But I don't want to, she just passed away in the last two or three months, but, uh, she just said, Oh, sure. Great idea. But we have, but first Brian has to have his own album. And, uh, if he said, okay, of course we'll make him, here's the budget for Brian's album. Uh, at first we have to do the beach for us. She said, no, it has to be Brian.

Goodbye. Bang gone. Tell me about Brian. Would you say you know him well? I don't think so. I observed him well. That's all I can tell you. When you read our book, you'll learn more about the band

as I learn more about the band. I read all the rough drafts and everything. It's totally written from Beach Boys. It's not Ghost Riders or anything. Things unfiled at Carl because he's not alive. You know, Brian kind of got captured by a lot of people, you know, probably thinking, how we can work with them. This is really great. I remember kind of later in the pet sound sessions, people say after 8.30 we start bringing pills and things, you know, with the sales thing on Brian day, this is going to really

give you more depth to your creative activity. Just all the wrong people brought all the wrong stuff. So did I know Brian? I knew Brian more like the sun coming out in Great Britain because it's so cloudy. You get glimpses of the sun. One fun glimpse. We did the Beach Boys 50th anniversary And we were at one of those TV shows that just sell clothing, sell TV, sell everything. Right. And I think we sold like that night, we sold 30,000 albums just by going out and playing a song. That's pretty good. And while Brian was sitting around, we're just kind of talking with him. He's going to be OK. And he said. I had a couple of top five records that year. What year?

Oh, in in sixty four and into sixty five. You know, I said a number one record here. He started going over all his hits, just talking to us. I thought, is this guy waking up being healthy? He's just was talking to us. I thought, is this guy waking up, being healthy? He's just, was talking about it. It's so cool. And that's probably the last time he was really Brian. I don't know what his demons were or are. I don't know how much his medication helped him or preserved him or harmed him. As a songwriter, looking at Brian's songs, how would you say his songwriting changed from the earliest days?

I think the Beast Boys ended on that level with Brian maybe stepped out, but stepping back in with the recording of till I die. Have you ever heard that? Okay. Play it right now. I think that's the last Brian Wilson, brilliant thing. And he happened to write the lyrics. The last time he wrote the lyrics was surf for girl. And then Mike wrote everything else till I die on the surf stuff. The album is so revealing.

It's fantastic. Listen to his harmony. We're singing harmony. How deep is the ocean? How deep is the ocean? I lost my way I'm a rock in a landslide Rolling over the mountainside How deep is the valley? How deep is the valley? It kills my soul Hey, hey, hey

I'm a leaf on a windy day Pretty soon I'll be blown away How long will the wind blow? How long will the wind blow? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Until I die, these things I'll be. What do you think? Heavy. That's the last time I heard Brian be a real Brian. He wrote the words too? Wow.

All the words. Heavy. You know? Heavy song. I wanted to give him some kind of a psychological PhD for that one. Beautiful. some kind of a psychological PhD for that one. That's just put us insides on the table and just sang about them.

This inside thoughts. Very beautiful. That's just me talking. Anything is me. I don't speak for the band. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, of course. On the inside, outside, USA.

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