The Smiley Smile Message Board

I've just found this story over at Warnakey's blog. Warnakey, hope you don't mind me reprinting it. I'd love to know what truth there is in this. As far as I knew, they never met. Didn't he say as much to Sean Lennon?

I was reading the blog Brian Wilsonite and laughed at this story that comes from groovyrick, who relays a story that Alice Cooper told him. Try to follow along:

I’ve seen Alice in concert a couple of times, and met him twice. The first time I met him, someone told him that I was a major Brian Wilson fan. Alice immediately smiled and stated that he was also a major fan, and a good friend of Brian’s. He also said that he had a GREAT Brian Wilson story to tell me.

From this point, I will let Alice tell the story:

“I was sitting backstage after the 1974 Grammys with Bernie Taupin (Elton John’s lyricist) and John Lennon. This was when Brian was really having some mental issues. During the course of the conversation, I kept seeing Brian out of the corner of my eye, just kind of staring at us from different angles. Finally, he came up to the table, bent down and whispered in my ear, ‘Hey Alice, introduce me to John Lennon.’ I couldn’t BELIEVE that these two men had never met! They were virtually neck and neck in the 60’s as the greatest bands on the planet, and I’m SURE they must have crossed paths at some point. But then I thought to myself, ‘Wow, if they REALLY have never met, I’m going to be the one to introduce them and become a part of rock history!’ So I merely said, ‘Brian Wilson, this is John Lennon. John Lennon, this is Brian Wilson.’ Lennon was very cordial and polite, saying things like, ‘Hello Brian, I’ve always wanted to meet you. I’ve always admired your work, and Paul and I considered Pet Sounds one of the best albums ever made.’ Brian thanked him and walked away, at which point Lennon went right back to his conversation like nothing had happened. About ten minutes later, Brian came by our table again, leaned down and whispered something to Bernie, and all of a sudden, Bernie was saying, ‘Brian Wilson, this is John Lennon. John Lennon, Brian Wilson.’ Lennon was just as cordial and polite as the first time, saying essentially the same thing about always wanting to meet him. As soon as Brian walked away, John looked at both of us and casually said in his typical Liverpudlian accent, ‘I’ve met him hundreds of times. He’s not well, you know.’”

Alice went on to say that he loves Brian, and later that night went with a group of people to Brian’s house and went into his studio to add and subtract instruments and passages from Beach Boys songs. I don’t know what was funnier to me…the punchline of the story, or listening to Alice Cooper try to talk like John Lennon.

I'm sure I read this on this board a few weeks ago.

I haven't heard that story before! I've read May Pang's book where she said that Brian and Lennon met briefly at a party, I think in 1974 when the two of them were out in L.A. Brian came up to John and asked him for some Reds and May commented that Brian obviously "wasn't well". And the story recounted by Mickey Dolenz, where Brian and John were at a party in Malibu and were standing silently next to one another staring out the window at the Pacific Ocean. And of course in 1964 where the two of them are talking with a radio DJ about haircuts (on Youtube).

Well according to Brian he never met John - YouTube search Brian Wilson John Lennon 70th Birthday...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNdy6NSEF5I

Definitely a new one for me.  Very interesting, thanks for posting!

I wonder what the conversation would have been like if those two had met in the mid 60s.

No matter what Brian says...he and Lennon met several times. Its a documented fact. Cooper's story is great...and revealing into the swiss cheese element of Brian's memory.

It's amazing he doesn't remember he met Lennon, Brian is something else

Given what we know about where Brian's state-of-mind was in 1974, it's not surprising to me that he doesn't remember much of it.

Hope the upcoming Brian movie, if set up with different sequences just like "i'm not there", has a sequence that addresses Brian's lost periods like the year of 1974 because they are interesting in their sheer sadness of Brian's fall into mental illness and heavy drug abuse.

To me, he sounds lucid and "with it" during the Jim Pewter interview in August, 1974. Possibly a little coked up, but pretty darn happy and talkative. Only thing he didn't want to talk about was the Smile era and he briefly left the studio.

it's be great if every era of brian's life has a scene where he meets john lennon again and again

i'll be pissed if they have some different guy representing brian like in i'm not there

Frankly, this one sounds a lot more like a Brian put-on story than a Brian memory-loss story.

The more I've thought about it, the more I'm starting to think you're right.  He probably thought it was funny making all these big-name people introduce him to John. Maybe he wanted to see how many of them he could get to do it before they caught on.  Mental illness or not, it certainly sounds like something Brian would do.

I agree. If this actually happened, it sounds like a put on.

I think the greatest Brian put on of all is that every time he does anything stupid, weird, or inappropriate, the majority of his hardcore fans say its gotta be a put on. Therefore Brian has eternal carte blanche. Brian is so out of step, he's ten steps ahead of everybody...that's why he rarely acts normal... crafty devil. Its actually a chapter in my new book. I think its a fascinating phenomena.

Given that Vince was somewhat partial to the bottle, I'd have to question his date recall, as in early 1974, Brian hadn't had a home studio for something like two years.

It's the ultimate "get out of jail" card - "hey, it's just Brian, y'know".

that's what's weird about him. There was another thread about this a few months ago, a more recent interview where he said he had never met John, and there was at least one story posted in the thread about the two of them having dropped acid together. How can he maintain that they never met? I can understand he was really loaded, and maybe forgot about a time here or there, but it seems like he's been keeping up this story for years.
There's just something about his sense of humor. He can really make you laugh and cry at the same time, if you catch my drift.

I think it's hard to know what's a put-on and what's not. Which book was it that told the story of Brian painting his face green for the visit from the label rep and later admitting that he "just wanted to see what would happen"? Or the grave-digging story? And then there are stories about his behavior turning on a dime, depending on who is in the room.  But then, obviously his odd behavior is not always a put-on. Experts have concluded that he's mentally ill, he has auditory hallucinations, etc, and that --as well as drugs and/or medication--would lead to odd behavior.

You've got to love the man's trademark put-ons. Come to think of it, this guy is making entire crowds of grown-up men and women sing nursery rhyme. It doesn't get much better than that.

why can't it be both mental illness and a put on

Back when I had a subscription to Rock's Backpages, I must've read every Brian Wilson interview they had. And I distinctly remember him saying that he considered himself "a practical joke machine" when he's on coke (he gave some crazy interviews when he first went under Landy's care). He also specifically mentioned purposefully confusing the hell out of Van Dyke all the time with his behavior when he was sped up. Brian was and is mad, but there was always a method behind it, as crazy as that method was.

People talk about Brian being mentally ill. I wonder if he was mentally ill before taking drugs. I know Dennis took a lot of drugs but always seemed mentally stable. But I think the drugs can have awful effects on some like Brian, Syd Barret, Rocky Erickson, etc. Brian seemed very stable before 1967. Outside of a nervous brake down, he seemed mentally strong. And he had good and bad days until the 80s. But now he doesn't ever seem to be completely there.

I don't know that you can call anyone who has a nervous breakdown at 22 years old "mentally strong."  It's all been discussed ad nauseam here in the past, but it has always seemed to me that drugs exacerbated issues that were already present within Brian.  He'd always been pretty good at keeping them below the surface (using his music to express his inner turmoil), but as the drug experimentation got worse, everything was brought out into the open for the first time.  Obviously there were other factors, but it isn't as black and white as "drugs made a happy and healthy Brian mentally ill."

I've always been a little bit confused as to what a nervous breakdown entails. I know Brian apparently had a panic attack on an airplane, but is that a nervous breakdown? Was there more to it, or was that it? (And I don't mean to minimize a panic attack. I've had them , and they are very scary.) But I do agree, Chris, that the seeds of mental instability were probably planted in Brian early on and just exacerbated by drugs. And then on top of it, he's a practical joker with an odd sense of humor.

Our bodies are made of chemistry and taking certain mind altering substances can have a profound long term effect on that chemistry on some individuals. I think Brian ,Syd Barret etc were a couple examples of that.I remember in an interview hearing Brian talk about the LSD shattering his mind and I often wonder what could have been for Brian had he avoided the drugs.

Speed would create more paranoia then LSD..

I agree, because it didn't have the same effect on Dennis. Nor David Crosby, David Marks, Robin Williams (well), etc. I mean they may have had depression issues, but not mental issues.