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https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6524001/brian-wilson-no-pier-pressure-album-love-and-mercy-biopic-exclusive-premiere

Such great quotes in this one:

"The title came from my daughter, but I soon saw it had more meaning than a simple pun. When I was told that this is my 11th solo studio album, I realized I had some serious things to say. Well, maybe “serious” is the wrong word. Maybe a better word is “healing.”
"Frightening voices -- auditory hallucinations -- have plagued you for much of your life. Is your need to harmonize a way to quiet those voices?"
"If you’re asking whether music is an escape, of course it is. We escape from what makes us feel bad by creating sounds that soothe our souls and make us feel good. In one of my new songs, “One Kind of Love,” I wrote, “Driftwood floating on the sea/Searching for the me, and all that I have known to be ... thank God you noticed me and brought back harmony to this lonely song.” The “you” isn’t any one person. It’s my fans. My harmonies -- all my diverse voices --are my way of including their voices. It’s a mystical connection between me and my fans."

Fascinating interview: Brian on a good day makes for a fine subject.

It really is:

Q. Are you singing to your brothers Carl and Dennis, both of whom have passed on? To your dad? Your mom? Your former bandmates?

A. I’m singing to everyone. I’m also singing -- and this may surprise you -- with a subliminal sense of sexual tension. I think that frustration, that pent-up passion, can be felt in a lot of my songs. Critics haven’t pointed that out but, then again, critics often don’t hear what the artist hears.

- please delete -

There is no way this interview is not substantially rewritten/ghosted/whatever you want to call it. I love the man to bits, but he simply doesn't talk like this.

To amplify: David Ritz is noted for writing "as told to" books by rock stars, so pretty much his entire career is based on prettying up things that rock stars say. It's frustrating, too, because I suspect that Brian actually said a lot of this in much rawer form -- particularly the sexual tension stuff -- and it would be fascinating to hear that in his real voice.

Weird too that though he seems to be pretty familiar with Brian and the BB's (notwithstanding an error here and there, such as saying in 2012 Brian hadn't toured with the band since 1965), yet wouldn't realize how much Brian's "voice" seems changed here.

I wouldn't be surprised,  but I've also seen a few interviews where he has...just when he's real comfortable.  (Guitar Center interview is a good example).

Sadly, I have to express the same suspicions. I'd love this to be an energised, engaged Brian but it doesn't read like any interview I've ever read of his since maybe the 70s when he seemed to open up a bit more.

Brian can be relaxed and engaged and forthcoming (that tour program interview conducted post-BWPS is a great example), but that doesn't mean he alters his basic syntax and vocabulary. He still puts sentences together in the same way, still has the same dry sense of humor, still sounds like himself -- only at greater length.

I was so glad you posted that the other week, Billy. It was mindblowing to see him so loose, comfortable, and open with a interviewer, even with that photographer blinding him with a flashbulb every 5 seconds.

It's fun to read this interview and try to figure out what Brian actually said.

I find it very, very strange that David Ritz would rewrite Brian's responses (as he's obviously done). Perhaps Brian or Melinda asked for it? That's really the only way I could condone it by any journalistic standards.

Brian's PR team are stepping up their game  :)

Interesting response to the Love & mercy question, I wonder if those are really his thoughts.

Thanks so much for this Ang.  I guess I don't find the interview as suspect as many of you. Was it edited?  I'd certainly think so.  It doesn't mean Brian didn't say these things.  

The sexual tension thing is nothing new for Brian to express.  He's been talking about that for decades and if memory serves, he's discussed it publicly. He used to use the analogy of a basketball player refraining from sex to build the tension to play his best game.  He saw creativity requiring the same thing.  Just another way of saying sexual tension.  Where else is he going to get those sexy bass lines?  In fact I remember some jokes about the athlete and sexual tension that were pretty funny from that time.  I remember one little riff with Tandyn Almer:  "And the crowd yelled, 'shoot, shoot!' and he dribbled all over the court."  He also has a remarkable ability to adapt his language to the person/audience, or quite simply, his own mood and what he wants to express.  

I could refer you to the interview link I posted yesterday - also provided by Ang - in the Twitter Q&A thread.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn9nLxUAAmI

I think if you watch this, it reminds you that he speaks different ways at different times to different people, but it's all him.

Then there was, "My attitude is that the life of a public figure is up for interpretation. I can’t -- and don’t want to -- control how people see me."  I think anyone who actually knows Brian also knows that he feels this way. At the same time he's so intent on expressing love, he has a certain detachment to how the public sees him.  How else would he have survived all of us and our endless projections about who and what he is?

Correct Debbie, he discussed sexual tension, and his sex life, quite freely in interviews in 1976.

As for the validity of the interview, the interviewer caught him on a good day/few hours/30 minutes. I've seen Brian do interviews where to call his replies monosyllabic would be a gross exaggeration, and I've seen him just let it flow so much it was a helluva job to shut him up. It's a combination of what he's being asked about, the way the questions are phrased, how he's feeling, how long 'til lunch, where the interview takes place and, for all I know, the phase of the moon. The interview may have been tarted up a tad - all print inquisitions are - but I doubt there was too much embroidery or pure invention. For one thing, his inconsistencies are consistent.

Andrew, thanks... I just edited and added, as actual wording came back to me from that time that I don't think was ever said publicly.  I fear the crowd is starved for a Brianism, so I thought I'd throw one in.

This crowd eagerly laps up the Brianisms... Thanks for the little tidbit, Debbie! It's interesting how we all have our conception of BW and how he's "supposed" to sound/act/etc. No wonder after all these years he's resigned to it and at peace with how the public see him.

Thanks Ontor - I love it when people say it better than I.

Sorry to say, but I agree with those who question if the answers are all Brian and may even be "ghost written". "Tarted up" I think is an understatement. I also strongly believe someone is sitting there with him during the Q&A sessions. But this interview, while a very good one, just doesn't sound like Brian even on his best day.

About this statement in the article:

"The seminal 1960s rock band that has sold more than 22.5 million albums and scored 54 hits on the Billboard Hot 100."

Wikipedia: "The Beach Boys have sold in excess of 100 million records worldwide."

As of 1970 (Sunflower) Beach Boys have sold 70 million records. Or was that 70 million dollars in sales?

I agree, especially with the Q&A sessions, at least after the one we got on this site.

Maybe the Wikipedia statement is referring to singles and albums while the article is just referring to albums.

I have no clue, obviously, what the raw audio of that interview may have sounded like before being written by the interviewer, but I want to emphasize how right AGD is with his statement I quoted above. While in college (journalism, which was also my degree), we spent quite a bit of time on that exact topic: recognizing that wholly unedited, verbatim spoken answers in written form are almost never useful, and discussing and debating how much editing was necessary and ethical. Verbatim transcriptions are not only hard to understand, but rarely flattering. In person, we give visual cues, facial and hand expressions, etc., that help communicate and even cover up our stutters, our ums and uhs, and even our shockingly regular nonsensical stops and starts to sentences. If you've ever transcribed someone speaking, you know how unreadable the results tend to be on their own.

(Most of my writing in those days was covering high school, college, and pro basketball. Let's just say I witnessed more than my share of subjects requiring substantial editing.)

One art within journalism is beyond bringing out and capturing the actual words and also editing them within the voice of the interviewee.

By the way, I enjoyed this piece. (The interview, that is, not my post.)

Just reading those snippets set off alarms but after reading the whole thing it does not sound out of bounds for Brian to me. It sounds a lot like the interviews Brian was giving in 1966 to me.

PS. where is the link to the Guitar Center interview please. I think I missed it.

It's certainly a strange little piece.  Brian DID talk like this, in my opinion, in the 60's and 70's.  If he once talked like that I suppose it's completely possible if the right shade hit him he might revert to that kind of prose.

I'm going to go with "The Jury's Out".

Those answers do NOT sound AT ALL like Brian Wilson.  Not on his best day.  Not in the 60's.  Not in the 70's.  Not under Landy.  Not at all.

Maybe you guys should handle all of his interviews.

That is the nicest interview Brian has given in a number of years. It sounds genuine to me.

Yeah, when he was interviewed while in his car in 1968 and on the Mike Douglas show in 1976.

Yes.  I just rewatched the Mike Douglas show and that's exactly what i'm talking about... he sounds very similar to how he sounds here.  Basically he's talking about ideas and aspirations instead of simply answering questions.  I'm sure people that know him personally have probably seen him talk like that often, even lately.

 :lol

Cool... a shout-out to the fans from BW.  8)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSy-p1Lejfw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSy-p1Lejfw)

And, a bonus:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72U7UL0Nky0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72U7UL0Nky0)

You said it, Andrew.  That was really quite something to hear from Brian.  Good stuff.

"...Bob Crewe, famous for his work with Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons...ho showed me how to utilize horns to sharpen and sculpt an overall sound."

I can't believe he said that, as I have been tripping on the Seasons since Christmas!

Definitely tinkered with by David Ritz (or somebody, anyway) in terms of wording...but the thoughts are recognizably Brian's.   He's offering some pretty substantial clues about his work here.  The emphasis he places on "It's A Blue World" over "Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring" is especially interesting - that recording does seem to have started him thinking about the kind of chords and voicings that would some day lead to Today and Pet Sounds.   

Fascinating - I don't recall ever hearing him namecheck - and specifically credit - Bob Crewe before as a primary influence on his understanding of horns in production.

Great interview!

In discussing how this writer might have altered Brian's words in order to make him seem more eloquent, posters in this thread are now reverse-engineering Brian's interview answers to better fit their conception of him as an addled half-wit incapable of articulating ideas verbally.

This tends to happen when fans turn their objects of fandom into cartoon characters.

Kinda like how my version of Mike Love drops references to his song titles every two sentences an-

Oh wait.

Love these last two posts!  :lol

But the idea of Brian as "an addled half-wit incapable of articulating ideas" has been fed to us repeatedly over the years. Making out someone is crazy as a means of controlling them or reducing their credibility can be quite effective. Watch the old 'Gaslight' films (the first is the best, though a tad melodramatic in parts...). I remember how Brian used to speak of 'mind gangsters' and this was taken by some as a sign of his paranoia. However people have upon occasion tried to steal his ideas. Not so paranoid when you think about it.

" I think it was the healing, cathartic music therapy"....

Oh, but did Brian actually say this? Well yeah! https://www.billboard.com/video/brian-wilson-the-billboard-shoot-6524084

Before the writer rejigged it Brian's answers were as follows;
Your fans may be surprised by the cover of No Pier Pressure. We’re at the beach, but there’s no sunshine, no surfers, no people whatsoever. Is this your way of rejecting pressure to replicate the lighthearted music associated with your early success?

"Yes"

In Love & Mercy, much of the action centers on your bouts with -depression. How did you react to the film?

"It scared me"

Couldn’t that same criticism about emotional heaviness be levied at your new record?

"I don't remember"

Are you singing to your brothers Carl and Dennis, both of whom have passed on? To your dad? Your mom? Your former bandmates?

"No"

When you listen to the album, do you find yourself drifting back to distant memories?

"Be My Baby"

How do you find the music business today?

"I like that new Doobie Brothers tune 'What a Fool Believes'"

Do you see loss as a major theme in your work?

"I don't know, I'll have to ask my wife"

Frightening voices -- auditory hallucinations -- have plagued you for much of your life. Is your need to harmonize a way to quiet those voices?

"Can we get Gene in here?"

What about the future? What’s next?

"I'm going to make a rock & roll album"

A poignant scene in Love & Mercy portrays you meeting Melinda, your future wife, and you’re unable to express your feelings. Instead, you write three words on a card: “Lonely, scared, frightened.” If you were handed a card today, what words would express your present state of mind?

"I like cheese pizza."

I'm sorry, i'll delete my opinion for you.  Carry on.

The printed answers do sound like his answers in that short interview clip on the page, so I don't have a reason to doubt Brian said them more or less like that. A little bit more mumbled maybe, but in content and tone like they are written.

In that same video, he answers one of the interview questions (about the L&M movie) with quite different words than the ones quoted in the accompanying text.

Agreed Ang - when a man speaks in metaphors on occasion - as artists will do, he's open to these accusations.  I remember in Psych 101 long ago when paranoia was neatly described as "delusions of grandeur and delusions of persecution."  Well, when a person is a public figure, there is the grandeur and the persecution, so is that delusional? 

And as someone who was around during the worst of times, the man was always articulate.  He was in horrible pain and self-doubt, but he was never the least bit addled, and he sure as hell wasn't in bed all the time.  The drug thing?  Only once when I was around did someone bring some, and Brian was the sane person in the room keeping it away from me.  It's amazing how these idiotic characterizations take hold.  Just because someone has memorized Nick Kent doesn't mean that they know anything about Brian, since he made 99% of his stuff up in whatever state of mind he wrote.  Yet people believe him over Brian, because they want to.  OOOHHH, the DARK SIDE!  Spare me...try OOHHHH, bullsh*t...

Didn't mean to single you out, Ron. I just thought your post was funny (and I see where you're coming from with it).

Just trying to point out that Brian is capable of an articulate sentence and can use words of more than one syllable. It is more than a little disrespectful to consider him inarticulate. When Brian is in the right mood and with the right interviewer he can be extremely interesting.

Exactly. A lot of this is due to the media's focus on the hardships in Brian's life (which is admittedly also a key part of his narrative whenever he sells a record).

I have never -- never -- intended to say that Brian cannot express himself. Just listen to the interview segments on the BW88 reissue. Just find any number of interviews available online.

But I do commit journalism from time to time, and I am not a fan of wholesale rewriting of interviews. "Editing and condensation," yes. There are several such Brian interviews out there, where it's clear that his responses have been stitched together with the followup questions omitted. And depending on the venue, I have no problem with that. It's still basically using the subject's words.

A circumstance like this, though, rubs me the wrong way. I acknowledge that it doesn't bother everyone else. And I don't think anything about the sentiments or ideas expressed seems false or out of place. The piece clearly has its roots in a real interview, and likely one in which Brian was quite forthcoming.

But you can watch the video on the Billboard site of him answering a question about the movie.

Here's the verbatim transcript from the video:

"Some of it I thought was done really great. Some of it, I think they played the dark side of my life a little too heavy. On the dark side on my life. They learned from various different people about my life and production and music. They learned about that, so they portrayed me very well."

If I were wrangling that for a printed Q & A, I might have rendered it like this (again, with a note that it was edited):

"Some of it was done really great. Some of it, they played the dark side of my life a little too heavy. They learned from various people about my life and production and music, so they portrayed me very well."

Now, here's how Billboard's written answer -- from what seems like the same part of the interview -- reads:

"I thought it dwelled too long in the darkness. Overall I liked the movie, especially those scenes when I was creating in the studio. I’m endorsing it, but, to be honest, I thought it was heavier than it needed to be."

The sentiments are identical, and some of the word choices are similar. But there's nothing inarticulate about Brian's responses in the video. If anything, the way he speaks, giving special emphasis to the oh-so-60s term "heavy," communicates a great deal about the project and his reaction.

I'm not speaking for Ang and I don't know if you were referring to my post as well, but you never struck me as a culprit of those who deem Brian inarticulate.  But those ghosts are ever present here and occasionally rear their ugly heads. 

Yes - rewrites for the sake of being concise can change the flavor of an interview and hopefully aren't overdone in a piece.  It's a fine line, agreed.  I spent 25 years of my life summarizing events and conversations between people, so I get your drift.  I think our point is that it's a "we don't know" situation, and Brian's style of speech varies.  Most of us do that to some degree in different environments.  Brian happens to be masterful when it comes to this.

Where does it say the print interview is quoting from the video interview or that they are one and the same or even by the same journalist? I'm not seeing it.

So Brian gave two separate interviews on identical subjects to the same magazine, Billboard, which then ran them both as part of the same package?

I mean, I guess it's possible, but it seems unlikely to me.

I suppose someone should ask RS but one interview for print and one for video doesn't seem impossible or even unlikely. I'm just saying some people are only presuming they are the same and comparing them as if they are as if it is evidence.

Why in the worls would anyone ask RS about a Billboard interview? 
Think it's time for your nap Cam

To ask them to ask Billboard of course, silly. Who needs a nap now?

If you really think RS would get out of their own puke to ask Billboard about their BW interview, you need more than a nap

This is how it is written:

RITZ: In Love & Mercy, much of the action centers on your bouts with -depression. How did you react to the film?
WILSON: I thought it dwelled too long in the darkness. Overall I liked the movie, especially those scenes when I was creating in the studio. I’m endorsing it, but, to be honest, I thought it was heavier than it needed to be. On the other hand, I didn’t get involved with the script. That was left to my wife [Melinda Ledbetter, whom he married in 1995]. My attitude is that the life of a public figure is up for interpretation. I can’t -- and don’t want to -- control how people see me.

It should be assumed that this exchange is what actually transpired:

RITZ: In Love & Mercy, much of the action centers on your bouts with -depression. How did you react to the film?
WILSON:I thought it dwelled too long in the darkness. Overall I liked the movie, especially those scenes when I was creating in the studio. I thought it was heavier than it needed to be.
RITZ: Do you endorse it?
WILSON: Yeah.
RITZ: How involved were you with the script?
WILSON: I wasn't. That was left to my wife.
RITZ: Because it's difficult to control how audiences see you, do you think the life of a public figure should be up for interpretation?
WILSON: Yeah.