The Smiley Smile Message Board

December's Mojo (Zep on the cover) features a brief Brian interview as part of the regular feature All back to my place Fave album, first album bought, fave Saturday night record... most interesting, he says he's "currently grooving" to The Rolling Stones, and HE STILL WANTS TO MAKE THAT ROCK AND ROLL ALBUM: "I've been wanting to make a rock'n'roll album for years and years. I have some ideas, so hopefully I'll be able to do that one next."

There's also a gorgeous picture of him, from some years ago I'd guess, I had never seen it before.

I wish that the powers that be would just let him make his "rock and roll" album. It would be one of the great tragedies of the man's life if he never got to do it.

I would imagine that the only entity stopping Brian from doing this is Brian himself. Now, if it is something that he actually really wants to do, I would hope that Melinda and those who are there supporting Brian would encourage him to start hitting the studio to record some covers.

What kills me about this project is that Brian has Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin at his disposal. Al is probably the only person from the 60s heyday that still has the pipes that mostly resemble the sound of his youth. Blondie brings so much power with that guitar - I can see him playing on a track or two of heavier songs on the album. And not to mention that Brian has an assembled group of incredibly talented musicians who all work fluidly together. If this is a project that Brian wants to tackle, there's no time like the present.

If Brian doesn't actually want to record this thing then I wish he'd stop teasing us with it! I recently dug up his "Listen To Me" Buddy Holly cover after forgetting about it for a couple years, and man is it good. No doubt he'd knock this record out of the park!

Pretty sure they tried, pre-pandemic. Band was there, everyone was ready.

BW wasn’t up for it.

Agreed, I don't think there's a "powers that be" that are stopping Brian from doing such an album.

He's got a epic musical support system to do all sorts of projects. He's got his backing band, plus Al and Matt, and Blondie. Granted, Al himself needs a kick to get his own projects going.

These projects do need a Joe Thomas-type to make it happen I think, whether that means the *actual* Joe Thomas or someone like that. They've got to be someone Brian likes, and someone who can both musically and organizationally clap their hands and say "Okay, this is what we're gonna do." If they have some financial backing as Thomas has often brought to the table, even better.

Aside from all of this, I'd wager between what we know about and what we don't know about, he probably has enough tracks in the can recorded during his "solo years" that they could package up such an album with minimal to moderate work to finish it out. If "Some Sweet Day" is the type of thing they're willing to put out, then he's got dozens more of that type of stuff.

It's just always seemed like a project he's actually been bursting with excitement about every time he's mentioned it over the years and years (and years). But I understand that he may really want to but just doesn't feel it in the moment every time the band is ready to go.

I’ve always thought it’s his stock answer in interviews to move them along or end them.

What’s your next project?
I want to do a R&R album....Next!

It’s been the same for what, 15 years? In that time, with many albums and projects and a band at his disposal it’s never happened. Don’t think it has ever been tbh.

We want Pleasure Island!

The real rockers in the band were Carl and Dennis.
I can't imagine Brian, especially nearing 80, suddenly coming out with an album of uptempo rock and roll songs.

Brian's on record stating that he's always abhorred the question of what his next project will be.

One of Brian's most recent original releases was 'Run James Run', which I would absolutely consider an uptempo rock-n'-roll song (especially that jangly Byrds-esque intro). My memory is kinda hazy on this project - but isn't his rock-n'-roll album supposed to be a slew of covers from the late 50s and early 60s? I don't see this as unrealistic considering his recent Buddy Holly cover, and many of his covers for the Disney album had quite a good rock-n'-roll feel to them.

I thought the plan was half covers, half originals.

That definitely sounds right. Yeah, I don't have much hope for the album anymore, but at least it keeps our imaginations going about what could be :)

No, all covers. That's what Brian said as recently as in "Long promised Road".
I tried to come up with some reasonable songs he probably would record in this thread. (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,20516.msg514931.html#msg514931) As others have pointed out, there's also "Honeycomb" that Brian even performed on stage and would fit the idea.

Thanks, Rocker! Man, 2015 ??? Coming up on seven years ago - and Brian's been talking about this album for way, way longer than that.

Yep yep. Here are live versions of Honeycomb and I'm Broke from a 2015 rehearsal. Both are rough/under-rehearsed, but definitely fun in that late 50s-early 60s vein and utilize Blondie and Al nicely. You can imagine what songs like these might sound like with some more polish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQWi6jzK220

He probably should've made this album in the late 90s/early 2000s. I think Brian made two records with the band that may come close, each in its own way, to what he might have in mind when he mentions the rock & roll album: Wild Honey and 15 Big Ones. He also said many times that "Marcella" is one of his favorite songs.

Agreed.  And even then I would have been skeptical of such a release.  Now that he's less than a year shy of turning 80 and doesn't seem to be in particular good shape, I'm even more skeptical he'll ever record this type of album.  If anything maybe this is just his "go-to" response he uses in interviews when he doesn't have anything suitable to talk about.