Sydney Calls Brian Wilson 1974 (audio)

[seltaeb1012002]

Radio interview from late 1974

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntO75t_B05I

[Wrightfan]

It's weird knowing that his voice (which still sounds "Brian-y") belonged to how the man looked in the picture at the time.

Very surreal

[Lowbacca]

It's weird knowing that his voice (which still sounds "Brian-y") belonged to how the man looked in the picture at the time.

Very surreal

Definitely, yeah.
Apart from his youthful voice it's also pleasant to hear him being excited about the interview and very lucid and open about what's going on with him and the BBs. He's oftentimes portrayed as being totally beyond the realms of reality by 1974, which simply isn't true.


A few interesting aspects:

- "It's OK" and "Child of Winter" are mentioned as being worked on (plus Brian quoting lyrics to "Child of Winter")
- Brian looking back at early BBs material via Endless Summer
- Brian on "Surfin' Safari", about surfing spots: "I remember I surfed every spot there and I wrote a song about the spots I surfed, about the different places that I've gone." - Huh?  

[letsmakeit31]

Thanks for this. I've been wanting this interview ever since I heard it on the "Life of Brian" set of CD'S.

[BergenWhitesMoustache]

He's oftentimes portrayed as being totally beyond the realms of reality by 1974, which simply isn't true.

Dude, he's talking about how hearing surfin safari and other oldies on the radio makes him feel like he's high up in space, circling the earth! 

[Sheriff John Stone]

Wow, thanks for post that link. If anything, it does help to pinpoint more accurately when Brian's voice (and mental state?) really worsened to the panic stage. 1975. And, not earlier, though without living with him we can't tell for sure how bad his illness and addiction had become.

[Amy B.]

I found this interview very sad. It sounds like the guy just called him out of the blue and Brian really had very little to talk about in terms of new ideas but really wanted to please the interviewer. "I haven't really be doing any new music at all."
"What was the last recording you worked on with the Beach Boys?" "A couple of songs we did as an experiment. I can't remember...I can't remember." Maybe he just didn't want to talk about it.
"Oh, come on, come on..." He works so hard to try to remember the names of the songs.
Then he starts the BS about surfing all over the place. 
And then he freely states that the songs he's working on are not as grand as the old stuff. Honest to a fault. The DJ sounds disappointed in him.

[Lowbacca]

I found this interview very sad. It sounds like the guy just called him out of the blue and Brian really had very little to talk about in terms of new ideas but really wanted to please the interviewer. "I haven't really be doing any new music at all."
"What was the last recording you worked on with the Beach Boys?" "A couple of songs we did as an experiment. I can't remember...I can't remember." Maybe he just didn't want to talk about it.
"Oh, come on, come on..." He works so hard to try to remember the names of the songs.
Then he starts the BS about surfing all over the place. 
And then he freely states that the songs he's working on are not as grand as the old stuff. Honest to a fault. The DJ sounds disappointed in him.

I think he meant "grand" in terms of scope, not in terms of quality. See Love You. 

[c-man]

1) The tape may be running at a slightly faster speed, thereby making Brian sound a bit more "Brian-y" than he actually was at that time...although the gruffness & hoarseness, the wheezing & coughing evident on the 1976 in-studio runthrough of "I'm Bugged At My Old Man" definitely is absent.
2) He's at least a little beyond the realm of reality here...honestly, he sounds very scattered, as he jumps from saying he's been "doing very little music at all in the last couple of months...not writing or performing", not having written anything at all lately, then says he plans to in the next couple of months, then "I do have a couple tunes for your audience that I feel have merit, I don't have any specific, anything I can tell you title-wise, I can only say we do have one called 'It's OK", and the only other song he could think of that they're working on at the time, but he can't remember ANYTHING about it until someone hands him a piece of paper, after which he remembers it's the Christmas song (really?  it's that hard to remember the titles of the only two songs you've done recently, songs you yourself have written?)..and like when he talks about all that surfing he'd done in his younger days (really?), and when he talks about the "other various forms of responsibilities" that he's "holding down" currently...really?  Brian had "responsibilities" in 1974?  Really?

[Sheriff John Stone]

Yeah, scattered is a good description. As far as the answers are concerned, Brian was/is always that way - i.e. talking about things he did in the past and/or things he is going to do in the future that you just know aren't true. You just wanna go, "Huh?"

But, what I find interesting about some of these interviews from the early/mid 70's is how Brian was rambling and somewhat of a chatterbox once you got him going. Today, he seems reluctant to say ANYTHING and doesn't appear to have many thoughts on his mind at all.

[Amy B.]

Yeah, scattered is a good description. As far as the answers are concerned, Brian was/is always that way - i.e. talking about things he did in the past and/or things he is going to do in the future that you just know aren't true. You just wanna go, "Huh?"

But, what I find interesting about some of these interviews from the early/mid 70's is how Brian was rambling and somewhat of a chatterbox once you got him going. Today, he seems reluctant to say ANYTHING and doesn't appear to have many thoughts on his mind at all.

Pills back then got him going. Psychotropic drugs now keep him quiet. Speculation on my part.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

^Wasn't pills...it was coke.

[Lowbacca]

1) The tape may be running at a slightly faster speed, thereby making Brian sound a bit more "Brian-y" than he actually was at that time...although the gruffness & hoarseness, the wheezing & coughing evident on the 1976 in-studio runthrough of "I'm Bugged At My Old Man" definitely is absent.
2) He's at least a little beyond the realm of reality here...honestly, he sounds very scattered, as he jumps from saying he's been "doing very little music at all in the last couple of months...not writing or performing", not having written anything at all lately, then says he plans to in the next couple of months, then "I do have a couple tunes for your audience that I feel have merit, I don't have any specific, anything I can tell you title-wise, I can only say we do have one called 'It's OK", and the only other song he could think of that they're working on at the time, but he can't remember ANYTHING about it until someone hands him a piece of paper, after which he remembers it's the Christmas song (really?  it's that hard to remember the titles of the only two songs you've done recently, songs you yourself have written?)..and like when he talks about all that surfing he'd done in his younger days (really?), and when he talks about the "other various forms of responsibilities" that he's "holding down" currently...really?  Brian had "responsibilities" in 1974?  Really?

If you would call me out of the blue and ask me about my current work for a piece on national radio I'd be 'scattered', too. Worse, even.  
I wouldn't read too much into it.

[Amy B.]

^Wasn't pills...it was coke.

Oh. Clearly I have my Brian Wilson drug timeline messed up. I thought the 70s was when Brian went around asking people if they had pills. But coke would make him talkative too! Remember Mike Douglas? "I don't do drugs anymore, because they left my mind shattered" and blah blah blah blah blah forever, as if he can't stop talking? By the way, he meditates, and his mantra is...

[clinikillz]

Cool interview, but the audio quality is really bad. Noise reduction is very apparent and the added reverberation effects are annoying. I think the audio is sped up, too.

[seltaeb1012002]

Cool interview, but the audio quality is really bad. Noise reduction is very apparent and the added reverberation effects are annoying. I think the audio is sped up, too.

Reverb must be on the original. The original was floating in a massive sea of hiss. Trust me, this is the easiest way to hear the very poor quality audio.

[clinikillz]

Cool interview, but the audio quality is really bad. Noise reduction is very apparent and the added reverberation effects are annoying. I think the audio is sped up, too.

Reverb must be on the original. The original was floating in a massive sea of hiss. Trust me, this is the easiest way to hear the very poor quality audio.

Since I haven't heard the original, I'll take your word for it. Sorry for the unjust criticism, and thanks for the upload.

[halblaineisgood]

Brian sounds like he's doing laps around the pool. Were cordless phones around then?

[MBE]

Brian isn't at his worst here but there is a decline happening. After Murry died he wasn't the same and you can already hear that here. Even the Pete Fornatelle interview from a year before is more lucid, and the little audio we have on Brian in the sixties and early seventies is also more together. I don't think the talkativeness is all cocaine. Before he was on the stuff he could be quite loquacious in his early interviews. Derek Taylor once called Brian an excellent conversationalist at least when Brian was in the mood.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

The talkativeness wasn't from the cocaine, but the scattershot, half-rambling half-zoned out patter certainly was.

Still  beats his current interviews!

[MBE]

The talkativeness wasn't from the cocaine, but the scattershot, half-rambling half-zoned out patter certainly was.

Still  beats his current interviews!

Correct and correct

[rn57]

I guess that's Marilyn talking to the overseas operator at the beginning. I wonder how often she picked up the phone in those days and found people asking for an interview with Brian...or dogged fanboys (or even fangirls) who had somehow gotten his number. (But then again, those folk would have had tape recorders at the ready and the results would be all over Youtube...and since no particular examples have turned up, I have to figure that didn't happen much.)

[Jay]

I've never heard this before, so thanks a bunch for the upload!  It's interesting to hear Brian's voice sounding almost like the old Brian. Although, to me he sounds ever so slightly hoarse, and maybe a little out of breath. He does indeed sound quite "scatterbrained". As c-man mentioned, the memory loss caonserning songs that he had just worked on is interesting. Brian claims to not remember songs the group had recently worked on in the Les Chan tape, too. Is it a side effect of drugs? Or an indication of just how uninterested he had become in working with the group? Maybe it was just an easy way of him to get out of having to give out any information.

[letsmakeit31]

Sorry if this has been answered before, but the photo used in the video of Brian in the pool holding up a gold disc.
Looking a ghostly pale white with extra long finger nails too. Do we know when it was taken?,
I would of said late 74 cause Brian is holding up the gold disc for Endless Summer (I think??).
Sadly one of the most depressing & slightly scary photo of Brian ever IMHO.

[Jim V.]

I've never heard this before, so thanks a bunch for the upload!  It's interesting to hear Brian's voice sounding almost like the old Brian. Although, to me he sounds ever so slightly hoarse, and maybe a little out of breath. He does indeed sound quite "scatterbrained". As c-man mentioned, the memory loss caonserning songs that he had just worked on is interesting. Brian claims to not remember songs the group had recently worked on in the Les Chan tape, too. Is it a side effect of drugs? Or an indication of just how uninterested he had become in working with the group? Maybe it was just an easy way of him to get out of having to give out any information.

When you are talking about the "Les Chan" tape, do you mean that 1981 (or whatever) thing? I'm pretty sure he mentions "Sweetie" and "Stevie" and even sings a bit of each. So I wouldn't say he forget anything on that one.

In this '74 interview though, about the "experiment" thing, depending on when the interview took place, he's probably talking about "Good Timin'", which I'm pretty sure was worked on earlier in '74 and maybe "California Feelin'", or even "Ding Dang", besides "Child Of Winter" and "It's OK', which were mentioned.