Found this a little while ago
http://davidcalves.com/tag/carl-wilson/Here's the interesting part :
I was surprised and disappointed that Brian Wilson wasn’t with them. A second drummer had joined them on the road, Rickie Fataar. They did a great job though. They played both their new and old songs. I had never been to a concert as great as that concert.
Later, backstage, I met one of the sound guys and he invited us to the Beach Boys party at the Springfield-Holyoke Holiday Inn, Holyoke, MA. What a break! Now I get to meet, talk with, drink with my long time heroes.
We got to the Inn and entered the convention room where the party was already in progress. None of the guys had arrived yet. Mainly groupies, sound guys, and a few associates were already there with wine, drinks, and snacks. Everything flowed freely and generously there. I don’t remember paying for anything. Most likely the record company picked up the tab.
When the guys got there, Carl Wilson entered. He wore an open flannel shirt and jeans. He sat at a table behind me. I couldn’t believe it. These guys practically lived in my room–“In My Room.” That song spoke for me. It was as though they knew me or something. The guys who knew me and helped me through many of my problems with girls and at school. The guys who went to the beach with me every summer, who knew the salt and sea air, who knew the smell of French fries and hot dogs were right here with me now. What could I say to them that wouldn’t sound stupid. Hey, I really identified with the stuff in ‘All Summer Long?’
I turned to Carl. “Great concert tonight. The sound was excellent!” We struck up a conversation. We talked together about the road and other hazards. He seemed a little tired, perhaps road-weary, but other than that pretty opened and interested talking. Then it happened. I don’t think he knew what he was about to unleash in my life.
He asked me the strangest question. I later remembered that Plato had said the unexamined life wasn’t worth living. My life was pretty much unexamined up until this night with Carl Wilson. But it was this question and his response to my answer would several months later be used of God to bring me to Himself.
“What’s your dream? What plans do you have for your life?” asked Carl.
I couldn’t believe my ears. What an out of place question in the middle of a party, of all places. I wasn’t in the “profound” mood either. Besides, I didn’t much ask myself such questions. They usually got me depressed.
On top of that . . . I had no clue. “I want to be like you guys,” I heard myself say. “I sing in a band and we hope to get on the road and cut an album.” You would have thought I had told him that Audrey wore combat boots. He laid into me.
“Are you crazy?” He shook his head in disbelief, turned to more fully face me, then riveted his eyes on mine. “Maybe you want to be like him,” he said as he pointed at a dilapidated Dennis Wilson, crumpled on the floor with his back up against the wall, his head tilted to the side, eyes rolled back. He was totally out of it with one attractive girl on each side of him pawing him in his oblivion. One of the girls shoving her shoulder up under his head to later claim that a Beach Boy had slept the night on that shoulder.
Just then, Mike Love shoved the double doors open and burst in. He wore green satin pants and a matching shirt with a yellow star on it. He had a striking blonde girl on one arm and a to-die-for red-head on the other. He announced in a tone full of himself, “I’m here.” He scanned the scene for response.
Carl could see that I was in shock. He said, “Or maybe you want to be like that asshole.” He pointed to Mike.
I said lamely, “Nah . . . I just want to make it like you guys. And have all the friends and people that love you.”
He shook his head and squinted, and fired at me, “You’re an asshole!”
You think these people are our friends? Man . . . I could go to bed with any one of these chicks tonight but never know whether she did it because I was a Beach Boy or because I’m Carl Wilson. I don’t ever know whether I’m valued as Carl or as a Beach Boy. That’s what you want?”
Then he turned away from me and got up.
I don’t know where he went because I had turned back to the people at my table who were all watching me. Fortunately, I was too drunk and high to know how to respond. I sat stunned.
His cousin, Al Jardine, who had apparently overheard the conversation came and sat next to me. He broke my stupor. He said something like, Hey man . . . don’t worry about him. He doesn’t really mean it. He’s just really bummed out about being on the road. He won’t get to be with his family this Christmas and he’s worried about Dennis and his brother Brian. He’s home in bed.
I didn’t understand what was going on in their lives at that point in their history. Frankly, I was one of those people who saw them as The Beach Boys, not as Carl, Dennis, Al, Brian, Mike, but as a phenomenon and as the group that expressed what I felt in music. If any one of them felt used, rejected frightened, I don’t think I ever gave that a thought. Later I would find out, through documentaries, that Brian had had a breakdown and was literally in bed, clinically depressed perhaps. That they had a falling out with their father who had been their producer early on. And that Dennis was keeping company with Charles Manson and family.
All of the guys wondered about their futures, cared about what was happening to their family and each other and were trying the best to cope with all the “stuff” of their public and private lives, while people like me made them money but didn’t have the humanity to see them as brothers, fathers, husbands, or guys who–like the rest of us–needed love and real people in their lives.
“Yeah . . . OK, thanks,” I said, but didn’t mean it because Carl’s words had cut deeply into my fantasy of who The Beach Boys were. My idols had, in one stroke, in three minutes of conversation incinerated and blown away.
Al spoke again, “Hey . . . sorry. We really do appreciate you and thanks for buying our records and diggin’ our music.” I looked at him. His smile was warm. He placed his hand on my shoulder. “Have another beer. Enjoy yourself.” Honestly, up until that evening, Al was the one I liked least of all the guys. I thought his talent fell short of Brian, Carl, and Mike. He was just kind of . . . there. Then I realized he was one of the nicest of the guys. I felt like he considered it a privilege to be in the band and never fell into believing his own press.
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