Capitol to Release Brian Wilson's 'No Pier Pressure' April 7: press release

[BrianWilson2015]

BRIAN WILSON’S 11TH SOLO STUDIO ALBUM, TITLED ‘NO PIER PRESSURE,’
TO BE RELEASED APRIL 7 BY CAPITOL RECORDS

New Album Features Collaborations with Beach Boys Bandmates,
Kacey Musgraves, fun.’s Nate Ruess, She & Him’s Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward,
Peter Hollens, and Capital Cities’ Sebu Simonian


Hollywood, California – January 29, 2015 – He is one of popular music’s most deeply revered figures, a legendary writer, producer, arranger and performer of some of the most cherished music in pop music history. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to call Brian Wilson one of the most gifted and influential composers of the past 50 years. For the release of his 11th solo studio album, titled No Pier Pressure, Wilson has returned to Capitol Records, his original label home with The Beach Boys.  The album will be released April 7 in standard 13-track and deluxe 16-track editions, each available on CD and digitally, as well as a 16-track 2LP edition on 180-gram vinyl.

For the No Pier Pressure sessions, Brian Wilson reunited with longtime collaborator Joe Thomas, with whom he co-produced The Beach Boys’ No. 3 Billboard album That’s Why God Made The Radio for the iconic band’s 50th anniversary reunion in 2012.  In addition, Wilson was  joined at Hollywood’s Ocean Way Studios by talented musicians he personally invited to record with him, including his former Beach Boys bandmates Al Jardine, David Marks and Blondie Chaplin, as well as Kacey Musgraves, fun.’s Nate Ruess, She & Him’s Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward, Peter Hollens, Capital Cities’ Sebu Simonian, and trumpet master Mark Isham.  Wilson has also brought in session all-stars Don Was, Jim Keltner, Dean Parks, and Kenny Aronoff.  Members of Wilson’s longtime touring band, including Scott Bennett, Paul Mertens, Darian Sahanaja, and Probyn Gregory also participated in the sessions, along with Matt Jardine, son of Al Jardine, and former bandmate Jeffrey Foskett.

Wilson and Thomas began collaborating on the new songs during The Beach Boys’ whirlwind 50th anniversary activities throughout 2012, a banner year for the band which also included a GRAMMY® Award win for Brian for The Beach Boys’ long-awaited SMiLE Sessions release.  He told family, friends, and journalists around the world that he looked forward to returning to the studio when he got back home to California. 

Always most inspired when creativity is given time and space to freely flow, Wilson initially envisioned the sessions for his new album with The Beach Boys in mind, but that was not to be.  Wanting to find the right voices to complete his vision, Wilson saw an opportunity to finally become hip with his kids and recruited some amazing young vocalists who have been inspired by his music to do the job. 

Throughout his iconic career, Wilson has brought ingenious vision to his own compositions, as well as to those for which he has collaborated, weaving a lush, vibrant tapestry of intricately nuanced vocal harmonies and instrumental arrangements for himself, his bandmates and others.  For more than 50 years, fans have marveled at the sheer beauty of the music that springs forth from Wilson’s imagination into glorious song.

Camped out at Ocean Way, Wilson took a fluid, woodshedding approach to the recording process, deftly tailoring the vocal and instrumental parts and arrangements to each participant.  Wilson worked to hone the arrangements, often assembling pieces from various takes, a signature style of recording he has enjoyed since his earliest sessions with The Beach Boys.  In fact, several of the songs were written during the recording process.

Brian Wilson began his career as a teenaged founding member of The Beach Boys, who signed with Capitol Records in July 1962 and released their first album, Surfin’ Safari, that same year. The band’s initial surf-rock focus was soon broadened to include other themes, and 1966’s Pet Sounds is universally hailed as one of the greatest albums of all time.  Wilson’s innovative vocal and instrumental arrangements for major hits including “I Get Around,” “California Girls,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “God Only Knows,” and the No. 1 smash “Good Vibrations” made The Beach Boys America’s preeminent band of the 1960s. 

Brian Wilson has also achieved great solo success with 10 of his own albums released to date, including his acclaimed 2004 completion of an album he first began recording in the ‘60s, Brian Wilson Presents… SMiLE, which reached Billboard’s Top 20 and earned him his first GRAMMY® Award for a recording.  Wilson won his second GRAMMY Award® for producing The Beach Boys’ acclaimed 2011 release, The SMiLE Sessions.  Wilson has also performed major, sold-out SMiLE and Pet Sounds tours in recent years with his own band.  Wilson is a Kennedy Center Honors recipient, a Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee, and a UK Music Hall of Fame inductee.  As a member of The Beach Boys, Wilson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and honored with The Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement GRAMMY® Award in 2001.

www.brianwilson.com

BRIAN WILSON:  No Pier Pressure [CD, digital]

1. This Beautiful Day
2. Runaway Dancer [featuring Sebu Simonian]
3. What Ever Happened [featuring Al Jardine and David Marks]
4. On The Island [featuring She & Him]
5. Our Special Love [featuring Peter Hollens]
6. The Right Time [featuring Al Jardine and David Marks]
7. Guess You Had To Be There [featuring Kacey Musgraves]
8. Tell Me Why [featuring Al Jardine]
9. Sail Away [featuring Blondie Chaplin and Al Jardine]
10. One Kind Of Love
11. Saturday Night [featuring Nate Ruess]
12. The Last Song
13. Half Moon Bay

BRIAN WILSON:  No Pier Pressure (Deluxe Edition) [CD, digital]
(added tracks in bold)

1. This Beautiful Day
2. Runaway Dancer [featuring Sebu Simonian]
3. What Ever Happened [featuring Al Jardine and David Marks]
4. On The Island [featuring She & Him]
5. Our Special Love [featuring Peter Hollens]
6. The Right Time [featuring Al Jardine and David Marks]
7. Guess You Had To Be There [featuring Kacey Musgraves]
8. Don’t Worry
9. Somewhere Quiet
10. I’m Feeling Sad
11. Tell Me Why [featuring Al Jardine]
12. Sail Away [featuring Blondie Chaplin and Al Jardine]
13. One Kind Of Love
14. Saturday Night [featuring Nate Ruess]
15. The Last Song
16. Half Moon Bay

BRIAN WILSON:  No Pier Pressure [2LP 180g vinyl]

Side A
1. This Beautiful Day
2. Runaway Dancer [featuring Sebu Simonian]
3. What Ever Happened [featuring Al Jardine and David Marks]
4. On The Island [featuring She & Him]

Side B
1. Our Special Love [featuring Peter Hollens]
2. The Right Time [featuring Al Jardine and David Marks]
3. Guess You Had To Be There [featuring Kacey Musgraves]
4. Tell Me Why [featuring Al Jardine]

Side C
1. Sail Away [featuring Blondie Chaplin and Al Jardine]
2. One Kind Of Love
3. Saturday Night [featuring Nate Ruess]
4. The Last Song

Side D
1. Half Moon Bay
2. Don’t Worry
3. I’m Feeling Sad
4. Somewhere Quiet

[Radfahrer]

Hey, there's already a discussion about the news: http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,17691.msg496975.html#msg496975

I wish Brian would use the search function. It's always the same with him...

[Bittersweet-Sanity]

Cool beans. What'a great day of music April 7th will be;  I'm seeing Fleetwood Mac that nite. Will for sure pick up a copy of NPP beforehand.

[The LEGENDARY OSD]

 

[Matt Bielewicz]

Wow, that's odd. Ever since 'Southern California' came out on TLOS, I have envisaged part of it taking place at Half Moon Bay - a beach I particularly loved on one of my Pacific Coast Highway trips, as it seemed to me like almost the *archetypal* Southern California beach, the kind from which you could imagine countless teenagers and twenty-somethings launching their surfing adventures in the early 1960s. And now this album closes with a track called exactly that.

You know how SMiLE-O-Philes like to point out that after SMiLE's non-show in 1967, the next few Beach Boys albums all ended with, or at least *featured*, reworkings of SMiLE material? Smiley Smile has Whistle In, which was part of Do You Like Worms, Wild Honey has 'Mama Says', part of Vega-Tables at one point. Friends has that bit of CIFOTM in the middle of Little Bird, and 20/20 has the Workshop percussion on the end of Do It Again, and finishes with Our Prayer and Cabinessence. And then Sunflower finishes with Cool, Cool Water, derived from All Day and ILTSDD, and Surf's Up ends with the title track.

Well the last few original BW-helmed albums have had Pacific Coast Highway-themed tracks to close with. TLOS, as mentioned, has Southern California, which mentions Highway 1 by name. That's Why God Made The Radio had, well, Pacific Coast Highway itself, as part of the concluding suite. And now we have Half Moon Bay...

The old dude is STILL giving me interesting things to think about, even at the ripe old age of 72...

[Rich Panteluk]

Thanks for coming by and letting us know Brian!  I have preordered all three formats of No Pier Pressure (I'm weird like that).  Excited to hear it in all of it's glory!

[rab2591]

This is fantastic news!!

If the Peter Hollen's track was any indication of the production quality for the rest of the album, I think we're in for a real kickass record!!

[TV Forces]

Thanks for coming by and letting us know Brian!  I have preordered all three formats of No Pier Pressure (I'm weird like that).  Excited to hear it in all of it's glory!

From where?
Why would anyone pre-order mp3s? 
Why would anyone BUY mp3s when you have the CD you can make them from effortlessly?

[Michael Edward Osbourne]

Excellent news!!! I can't wait for April!!!

[Debbie Keil-Leavitt]

You expressed my sentiments perfectly, OSD!

[Shady]

I can't wait.

Lana Del Ray didn't make the cut 

[rattfink]

I can't wait.

Lana Del Ray didn't make the cut 

Neither did Jeff Beck.

[Steve Latshaw]

Neither did Run James Run, apparently.

[Manfred]

It´s a pity that Jeff Beck didn´t make it. Danny Boy was very nice............

[buddhahat]

Wow - great news! Very excited about this.

[The Cincinnati Kid]

Can't wait for this!!!  Just a little over two months away.  Of course the three songs I was most looking forward to - Summer Means New Love, Run James Run, and Last Song (sung by LDR) - didn't make the cut.  Oh well, I'm just glad we finally got a release date for this, and it's sooner than I expected.

I wonder if Whatever Happened has to do with the BBs.  I'm Feeling Sad sounds interesting as well.

[ontor pertawst]

They probably just gave Summer Means New Love a new title.

Maybe they can stick Run, James Run on some charity compilation or something... some Jardine eco-cause!

Great news tho, interesting track listing. I would've dropped Our Special Love unless its a totally different mix.

[alf wiedersehen]

Pretty sure the SMNL remake is called "Somewhere Quiet". It's on the deluxe version.

[John Manning]

I usually avoid speculation but it has to be noted that the last side of the 2lp set appears to be Brian, no guests/collaborators.

[Micha]

I can't wait.

Lana Del Ray didn't make the cut 

Unless they just forgot to mention her in the press release.

[ontor pertawst]

Ah well, it'll be bootlegged a thousand times anyway. All those Capitol employees with sticky fingers!

 I'm just glad we can hear BW's version!

Oh, and John... Half Moon Bay is the Isham collaboration track with a lengthy solo. Heard it at the Vegas show!

[joshferrell]

I wonder if....
8. Don’t Worry
9. Somewhere Quiet
10. I’m Feeling Sad
...is the rest of the suite from TWGMTR...

[Justin]

I am officially pumped for this release.  Can't wait!

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Happy Danny Boy is not on there, but confused if LDR is on there or not. Hopefully it's just an oversight.

[phirnis]

I like Lana Del Rey and was looking forward to her appearance on this.