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The Joe Thomas Interview: On Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys Reunion, and That's Why God Made the Radio

http://rdd.me/33nbzunw (http://rdd.me/33nbzunw)

"I pointed out to him that when we worked together several years ago he had the genesis of some other Beach Boy songs that he had never really wanted to put on any of his solo records. That he had isolated specifically for the Beach Boys."

I had kind of suspected this. Argument enough against the folks who say "Most of this album comprises of songs Brian cut from a 'meh' solo album of his and hasn't revisited in 15 years - how good can this really be?"

good stuff here.

it's great to know that Brian is still really on the ball, he basically spearheaded the whole reunion, and he doesn't want the Beach Boys to end after this album. awesome that Capitol got behind the sessions like they did, and I'm glad Brian's got someone like Joe to bounce ideas off and record his every burp and thought in the studio. times is good.

Someone posted this in the new album info thread as well - just finished it; it's a great read covering many aspects of this collaboration and conveys the genuine commitment of the main players.

Great interview!  Gives us a lot more insight into the timeline for how the tour and album came to be.

Kind of glad they're allowing people to know who came up with what as far as the new songs. So often, they put a veil over this sort of thing as a means to maybe have people believe someone did more than they really did. It's nice to read what happened and how it happened.

Interesting that Joe credits Brian with the title/concept of "That's Why God Made the Radio" but in the Charlie Rose interview Brian credits Joe with it.

 :-D Yeah, Don't fight the inconsistencies, I say; they'll be coming thick and fast, the real story will get to us one day.

Mike Eder kindly posted a link to a cool Mike interview that doesn't totally align to Joe T's account.  But as per Eric and runners some good stuff and rarely aired.

Old mate Donny probably needs to re-tract some opinion.

Joe's story was a lot more intricate wasn't it?

Folks unhappy with the production aren't crediting Joe with being truthful.

I thought it was a weird question for Charlie Rose to ask: "Who came up with that?" It was as left field to me as pulling that Dennis "Smile makes Pet Sounds stink" quote completely out of context. And, of course, with Brian's replies on these type of questions, it's always a question of whether he's self-consciously letting the air out of his own myth (baggage) as the auteur of all (including the creative genesis) or he just remembers it differently.

PS. I still love playing the Q&A with Scott at the end of the TLOS DVD where Scott starts explaining "Forever She'll Be My Surfer Girl" and Brian's like "I thought it was just about how I love my wife and stuff...."

I have to say this is a fascinating read. If we take it at face value (which I'm inclined to do) it feels like the most honest account of how Brian approaches writing/recording these days, and leaves you feeling that  this new album may well be exactly where Brian's head is at if left to his own devices.

Which puts me in an uncomfortable position as, from the samples, I'd say I'm only into about half the album! That said, I love the first four or so tracks and the last 3 and the rest I can take or leave at this point, but I'll see if I feel the same way next week.

It really is great to read how apparently eager (and instrumental) Brian was in getting the band together. Especially how he'd earmarked and held on to songs especially for a group project - gives you a totally different perspective on his relationship with the other bandmembers, although makes you wonder why he's been so adamant on not reforming, and quite negative about the prospect in some interviews prior to the reunion announcements.

We just realised that Brian is who he is.. He plays us like fools.. He has been planning this for years..

This is my impression.

Brian has no compunction about lying when 1.) it suits his purposes, 2.) it shuts down an interviewer 3.) it amuses him.

Barely 10 percent of his interviews these days are worth anything. And even those contain big swaths of untruth.

Joe Thomas said in the article:

Three-record deal?!?  So TWGMTR, live CD, and follow-up?   :o

Oh yeah, it's gonna be a double lp!  First album is the mythical rock n roll album, album 2 is the finished Summer's Gone suite. :D :D :D ._.

Yes, all that time he kept saying he didn't want to reunite, etc, he'd been planning it, or thinking about it.
Who was it who said Brian is beyond us all and we'll never catch up?
He said he burned the Smile tapes too, and then had that moment of truthfulness on a chat (in 2000? 2002?) where he reassured the fans that he knew where the tapes were and that Smile would come out in time. So how long had he planned THAT? Who knows what's really going on in his head?

But why is there always that tantalizing carrot, just out of reach? Now we all have the Summer's Gone Suite to tie ourslves in knots over!

Where even Joe Thomas wishes it could be out in it's entirety. Well, why not? Sob.

Brian Wilson - "just don't know if I want to be around those guys, you know? They're crazy' ...


That's my favorite Brian lie.  He tries so hard, but his lies are kind of like a 5 year olds. 

Interviewer - I'm gonig to ask Brian about reuniting with the Beach Boys

Brian - OH NO!  What am I going to say??? They asked me about the Beach Boys, Gosh Darn they asked me about the Beach Boys again!  If they figure out my plan we'll lose money, it's supposed to be a secret!!!!

"I just don't know if I want to be around those guys, you know? They're crazy' ...

ZANY I TELLS YA!!!

This is what makes me just love the guy.  There is a method to his madness and is extremely unmovable otherwise.

I'm trying to remember the reaction on the board when we read that interview. Probably sadness, or maybe blaming Melinda for influencing Brian.
So wait... does this mean Norbit isn't really Brian's favorite movie????  ;D

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,13143.0.html (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,13143.0.html)


plus, the author of the article posted some infos in that link

This interview finally clarifies something I've always wondered about - the genesis of Lay Down Burden, and whether it was written before or after Carl died.  It always seemed like for every time someone said the song was written before Carl died, with the intention of his involvement, there was someone else (or the same person, potentially, in Brian's case) saying it was written after he died.  Now we know that Lay Down Burden was written after Carl died, as a tribute to him/ a way to respond to his passing, but that Spring Vacation had been written before Carl died, with the title Lay Down Burden and the intention of Carl singing.   Which is not at all the resolution to that discrepancy I expected, but it's nice to know. 

Hate to be a downer, but if I sit and really think it out, I can very much hear Carl singing the chorus of "Spring Vacation" and several parts of other songs in my head. Shit hurts, man :(

I like how even though Mr. Thomas contradicts pretty much everything everyone has said about anything, people still believe without a shadow of a doubt his testimonial picture of Brian Wilson as a brilliant sociopath that's spent the last twenty-five years pretending to be consistently crazy and burned out for fun.
 
And maybe all this time, he thought Be My Baby was a shitty record. Sure had us fooled.

"He was talking about the fact he believed that the toilets flushed the opposite way than they did here above, in the northern hemisphere. And he wanted to know if I had any info on whether that was true or not."  ;D
Brian obviously saw that episode of The Simpsons !

Otherwise, a very revealing interview...

I like the fact that Mike had to go to the office and meditate to come up with

Spring Vacation
Good Vibrations
Summer Weather
Were back together

Wonder how deep he had to go to find those spiritual gems?*

*not Mike bashing - just funny

Hey, did you hear? Bruce LEARNED SO MUCH about songwriting from MIKE (and Brian).

It makes me think of David Lynch's TM-y creativity book. Well, mostly the audiobook. DIVE DEEP, MIKE! DIVE REAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL DEEP!

If you put it into a much larger perspective, Brian's humor has been about the set-up and put-on since he was in school. Take it to the absolute extreme where there are groups of fans analyzing and forming entire theories based solely on one sentence spoken and forgotten decades ago, and a lot of fun could be had if that's your kind of humor. Or as someone said, a lot of inane or silly questions from journalists could be side-stepped by saying things like "I burned the tapes" or whatever. He's a hard guy to read, that Brian. We have to think that's how he wants it.

Exactly, he's been playing us for fifty years!   ;)

I guess the put on was that Brian told Joe Thomas "Hey, just wait and see what happens if I give Mike the title Spring Vacation."

It very well could have been.  There's really not much explanation for it, it's completely possible that Brian gave that song to Mike intentionally to get it out of Mike's system. 

What if Brian when tripped on acid he became convinced he was a glass of orange juice? And this whole time he's been a glass of orange juice pretending to be Brian Wilson?

Most of what 'everyone has said about anything" has been a game-of-whispers repetition of alluded-to half-anecdotes and innuendo, with people interpreting whatever fragments they get however they damn well please.

Over the years people here have proved that anything can be spun.  Video footage of Brian being happy and engaged in the studio?  Obviously faked -- not merely restaging the way things actually were for the camera, but faked.  Reports of Brian being heavily engaged in the Gershwin album?  Well, they would say that, wouldn't they.  "Southern California"?  Must be totally written by Scott Bennett and put out under Brian's name (clue: no).  Jeff Foskett saying "Some days I don't know if Brian knows how to tie his shoes, other days he's really on the ball"?  Somehow only the first half gets heard.

If you want a story that has been consistent over the years?  It's this:  Brian has good days and bad days.  Lately, it seems like his good days have been pretty damn good indeed.

Quite frankly, once we knew that Brian had been deliberately and consistently lying in interviews about the reunion, the image of him as this unthinking zombie-shell became a bit harder to sustain...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

http://youtu.be/TuujTYHCmgs (http://youtu.be/TuujTYHCmgs)

I think that my be why Brian's stock response to the question "what come next" is the old line about the rock 'n roll record.

There IS no rock 'n roll record. But it shuts up interviewers and keeps the fans happy. Then Brian can actually go away and do whatever it is he wants to do. Which probably isn't a whole record of rock 'n roll.

I think others in Brian's camp have said that Brian's big wish is to record a rock 'n roll record. So if it's a lie, it's one that (a) Brian's camp believes or (b) it's a lie they go along with for the hell of it.

Songs like 'Goin' Home', 'Morning Beat', the arrangements on 'We Belong Together', 'You've Got A Friend In Me' really tell me that Brian loves rock n roll and that he wants to record more of it.

And seriously, most BW fans probably don't want a whole album of Spector influenced, heavy moog, heavy guitar songs - so why he'd say that to keep the fans happy is beyond me.

I'd love to hear a BW album like that! Actually, if there is another Beach Boys' album, with Mike Love and David Marks on board, I'd like nothing more than that.

Agreed. I would LOVE that.

That's the Beach Boys album I'd want.  I mean, really, I'll be thrilled if they release anything new at any point, but I'd love to hear them do the "rock and roll" album.

Oh no doubt! Me too! (Did you see my post in the demands for the next Beach Boys album??? I want every song with moog synths and crazy chords haha)

I'm saying that you're average Beach Boys/Brian Wilson fan is not looking for that. They love songs like 'I Get Around' and 'California Girls' - Brian knows that most Beach Boys fans have never heard of 'Love You' - So when Brian says he wants to record a whole heavy RnR album I really doubt he's trying to please the majority of his fanbase.

You wouldn't consider I Get Around Spector-esque Rock & Roll?

I think you're missing my point ::)

Care to explain rather than "rolling your eyes?"

According to Joe Thomas, Brian Wilson wrote those words, not Mike Love.  Joe said in an interview that Brian wrote the chorus and Mike wrote the verses part of that song.  Since Brian is in charge of music and Mike is not, I assume Joe was referring to the lyrics.  Brian also came up with the phrase "easy money," which was the first set of words he had to go with "Spring Vacation," the title of which Brian also thought up.  Although I'm not sure why it would take a meditation session to come up with Mike's verse lyrics, either, which aren't much better. 

I was more or less referring to the Wall of Sound.

We're all expecting 'Pleasure Island' to sound like 'Love You' or 'BW88' (moog-drenched, wall of sound, rock songs) - it probably won't have any songs that sound like the beloved classics (I Get Around, California Girls) which are most popular among Brian's/Beach Boys fan base. Thus it doesn't make sense that Brian would be touting 'Pleasure Island' to please the majority of the fan base.

Joe Thomas: "And within five minutes, Mike had written “Spring vacation, good vibrations, summer weather, we’re back together.” It was like, “Wow. Five minutes.” "

http://andrewromano.tumblr.com/joethomasbeachboys (http://andrewromano.tumblr.com/joethomasbeachboys)

Joe said Brian wrote the chorus and Mike wrote the verse somewhere else.  Maybe he did mean the music part and not the lyrics, or at least the melody.  He also said Mike came up with a bass melody part of another song.

I'm not expecting it to sound like 'Love You' or 'BW88.' I have no idea what Brian intends to do on his next album, but I don't hear "Spector Rock & Roll" and think of 'Love You' immediately.

Also, while The Beach Boys doing a 'Love You'-esque record wouldn't appease fans, a Brian Wilson solo 'Love You' type record likely would. I see The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson fans as having different expectations and different tastes.

That's why I included moog synth in my list of expectations:


Sorry you missed that lol.

As for your second point, fair enough.

I didn't miss it, I just don't think 'moog synth' when I think of Spector Rock & Roll.

Good lord.

I was saying that Pleasure Island will probably sound like a combination of moog synths and spector rock and roll. I never said that Spector rock and roll sounds anything like moog music.

...I think you're getting your quotes confused; the song where Brian did the chorus words was "Isn't It Time".  Joe's "Spring Vacation" story was about Mike going out of the room for five minutes and coming back with the chorus!

Cheers,
Jon Blum

I think Brian wrote the: Easy money ain't life funny what's it to ya hallelujah part.

Could be that I got the song stories confused.  Brian did write the framework for the the chorus lyrics for "Spring Vacation," including making all the chorus lyric lines four syllables each to fit the short melody.  No wonder Mike wrote the chorus in five minutes or less and it's particularly simple and dumb.  The "good vibrations" part is especially cringe-y but when Brian called it "Spring Vacation" it sort of invited that as a rhyme.  What I can't figure out is why Joe Thomas said Spring Vacation was the original version of Lay Down Burden.  I haven't heard that other song in a long time but they're nothing alike.

There was an interview where it was stated the 'easy money/ain't live funny/hey what's it to you/hallelujah' was Brian's lyric.

edit

Lance beat me to it

KittyKat- Thomas said "Spring Vacation' was originally named 'Lay down Your Burden', and Carl was supposed to sing on it. When he died, they used that title (slightly changed) for a new song.

Oh, I thought it was the same song or something.  My bad.    ;D