The Legacy of Brian Wilson and the Enduring Spirit of The Beach Boys
Somewhere on the Californian coast, the light is golden. The waves are flawless. Teenagers cruise a world made just for them in fabulous cars, radios tuned to perfect harmony forever. This image, though idyllic, is more than just a snapshot of a bygone era. It’s a dream, one that has been etched into the fabric of American culture by The Beach Boys.
Brian Wilson, the visionary behind this sound, left us last June, but his legacy continues to resonate. Al Jardine, co-founder of The Beach Boys and one of the last still singing, reflects on the spiritual depth of Wilson’s music. “I think it came from a spiritual level. I really think there’s another universe that he happened to tap into,” he says. “Universal consciousness, call it. And I believe it just decided, ‘You are my chosen vehicle for putting this music out there’.”
The “we” in this story is more complicated than the harmony. While Mike Love continues to tour with The Beach Boys, Jardine has reassembled the musicians who backed Wilson in his later years: The Pet Sounds Band. These are handpicked fellas and ladies from the Brian Wilson band, and they have been on hiatus since the pandemic. Now, they’re rarin’ to go. “We are all anxious to get the music out there again, especially in these hard times. And since his passing, of course, we’re dedicating the tour to Brian Wilson.”
Jardine had hoped, as recently as 12 months ago, that Wilson would join them. The two remained close, but Jardine acknowledges that Wilson was struggling with mental illness and the effects of COVID-19. “But we understood that he was suffering from some mental illness situations and COVID so …” His sadness is fresh, and heavy. “That didn’t happen. So we pay tribute.”
“He was a remarkable visionary. He really was. He basically invented a form of modern music, really, when you think about it. And there will never be anyone like him. He was an original, and we all owe him a great debt.”
Al Jardine was always the outsider in this story: an import from Lima, Ohio, and The Beach Boys’ only non-family member. Back in 1961, he was the rural folkie who turned up to El Camino College with Kingston Trio records under his arm. “It was my idea to get the group going. I was the catalyst. They were all enjoying their family singalongs, but I pushed Brian into it, and he’ll tell you that.” Another sad beat. “Well, he would have told you that. And then we gelled real quickly because I was a real harmony guy.”
One of Jardine’s best-known Beach Boys moments was his own suggestion. A Bahamian folk song he’d learned from those records, Sloop John B, became one of the centrepieces of Pet Sounds: the pop masterpiece that, as everyone who’s ever heard of the ’60s knows, still makes Paul McCartney cry.
That instinct to look past the Californian sheen for something older, stranger, and more elemental has been Jardine’s distinction. It shows up in the landscapes he writes about, and in the environmental streak that runs through later Beach Boys work. “Southern California culture isn’t very interesting, to be honest with you. I mean, in my view it’s a pretty flat area of the world. But … San Francisco Bay area, Monterey … that really gave me insight to write a few songs.”
His 2010 album A Postcard from California is “my musical statement,” he says. “The landscape, a little Spanish history, everything.” With flamenco flourishes, Looking Down the Coast (“a terrible title”, he says, chuckling) flashes back to the 1500s. Don’t Fight the Sea is an environmental plea for “keeping the ocean clean and wonderful.” “I mean, when you go to Alaska, you’ll see that the glaciers are melting right in front of you. It’s really scary. The polar bear hasn’t got anywhere to go any more. You start thinking about these things, and then you start writing about them.”
As much as The Beach Boys’ music holds fast to that blissful, unified American dream, the reality is also vividly reflected in the division between Mike Love’s Beach Boys and what is now Jardine’s Band. The long tale is too tangled to unpack here, but fans know about the ideological gulf between Love’s party band – which in 2020 played a Trump fundraiser disowned by Wilson and Jardine – and the otherworldly inspirations that drove the composer to mental breakdown and, ultimately, the concert halls of the 21st century.
Since his death, the 12-piece Pet Sounds Orchestra has been pursuing the latter tangents ever deeper. “Of course, the hits and the standards will be the primary focus,” Jardine says, but the new show also features a swath of Wilson’s 1977 outlier The Beach Boys Love You, much of which has rarely been performed live. “Brian’s music never grows old, it just goes through reinterpretations, and I think this is the best one of all of them. These guys are so sharp and so dedicated. Note for note, they’re the best musicians we have.”
Jardine’s loyalty to his old mentor is fulsome and touching. “He had no grudges, no axes to grind. He was only interested in sharing what he could, what he enjoyed, and that was music. He was a massively talented composer, arranger, that just happened to sing like an angel. I mean, how many people like that are there in the world?”
We only needed one, as it turns out. The rest is diligent maintenance. “I imagine there will always be a band out there playing the music, a vocal ensemble. I would imagine my son, Matt Jardine, and Mike’s son, Christian Love, those two will maybe get together. They’re good friends. I’ll bet they could pull it off. And then their kids … that’s very possible.”
Nor is he too worried about the country they’ll be living in. “It’s a pretty unusual climate,” he concedes in his polite way, “but we’ve been through worse. I mean, there was a time called the McCarthy era. Truman was president, and McCarthy was hunting down communists. That ruined people, and that’s what Trump is doing. Same thing. He wants to be king. But somehow we managed to get through the McCarthy stuff. So hopefully, we’ll outlive this character.”
“I think Brian’s music helps to calm things down a little. It’s a good thing that the people can still come and hear the music. I think that’s healthy for the country. Even Mike’s band, you know, it’s a good band. There’s nothing wrong with it,” he says.
“Music is the star of the show, I’ve always said. We’re just the messengers.”
Al Jardine and The Pet Sounds Band play Sydney Opera House on June 23 and Hamer Hall Melbourne on June 28.
