The REAL reason Brian abandoned SMiLE?

[Justin]

I meant to post this some time ago...not sure how much potency it might have now while in the midst of everyone sifting through the SMiLE material during these next few days/weeks but thought maybe I'd post anyway for anyone who was taking a break from reviewing the SMiLE Sessions.

What struck me as interesting in these last few weeks upon reading the countless interviews Brian has done regarding TSS is his response to the question of "why did he abandon SMiLE?"  It seems he has consistently been answering with the response that drugs ruined him and Van Dyke's progress with the album.  And because of that, things were getting crazy and out of control so they decided to stop. 

But we all know that it was the group's resistance (led by Mike) that fueled much of Brian's unwillingness to continue on.  I mean, in the interviews on the BWPS DVD...Brian flat out says it...Mike Love was the reason he stopped recording SMiLE.  Throughout all the years previously, Brian was very clear to state that Mike's resistance with the material was what hurt Brian.  I'm not suggesting that drugs never had anything to do with it...but it was never really mentioned as THE reason...it was always Mike Love. 

Now, Brian publicly  blames drugs as the culprit.  But then the curve ball: Brian tells a slightly different reason in in the booklet included in The Smile Sessions.  In Brian's introduction letter in the booklet, he writes:

But just when we thought we were almost there, it all began to fall apart.  By 1966, I was used t working on my own in the studio.  I was used to everybody doing exactly what I told them to do.  But the resistance I was feeling to my vision...everything that was going on inside my head: the challenge of competing with the Beatles...pressure from the record company...it all became too much and I just couldn't deal with it all.  So I realized I had to stop.  SMiLE was killing me.  It might've killed The Beach Boys too if we had kept going.  So I ended it.

It would be fair to argue that this could be Brian's final say on the matter considering these words are printed in the booklet that is included in each and every copy of TSS.  Everyone will read this.  Everyone will have it in their hands.  It's interesting to note that he doesn't really blame the drugs...well explicitly at least.  He sort of alludes to it by saying "everything that was going on inside my head"  it's a phrase that is open for interpretation...could mean the drugs...it alludes to the mental breakdown.  It's up in the air; vague.

So what's the big deal?  I dunno, I just found it interesting.  In all the press and promotion for TSS, Brian fires off the drug response as the reason.  It was drugs...period.  But then he goes back to the "resistance" reasoning in the TSS booklet.  I personally think Brian (and management) wanted a more head turning story/soundbyte and went with the drug story for the press.  This of course, would put all the blame on drugs as the reason they stopped--and NOT on Mike Love or the rest of the group.  Afterall, here was Brian and The Beach Boys finally releasing the tapes...it'd be a clash if Brian publicly blamed The Beach Boys for ruining it.  I doubt Mike would've wanted that to be the focus of all the press either.  And so when all the press/promotion is done....Brian reveals in his personal letter in the TSS booklet that it was indeed the band resistance coupled with the other drama going on at the time.   I do wonder who coached Brian to go with the drug story for the press?  Melinda?  It would be no surprise to assume that Brian is probably fed lines or coached before he talks to the press.  I wonder who "directed" him to go with that story?

In the end, this is all probably nothing...but it still made me go "hmmmmmm."

[leoleoleoleo]

in my opinion what Brian says here is no different to the sorts of things he's said all along. The "resistance I was feeling to my vision" is perhaps a more diplomatic way of saying "the other beach boys didn't like it/get it", and "everything that was going on inside my head", a euphemistic way of saying "I was finding it hard to think straight because I had taken too many drugs."

[Andrew G. Doe]

Asking Brian for the reason why he shelved Smile is like waiting for a bus at Waterloo Station - if you don't like the current one, there'll be another, different one along soon.

[CarlTheVoice]

Were any of the BBs in favour of Smile at the time? Sorry for my lack of knowledge here!

[drbeachboy]

I am not sure what to believe anymore. Brian's reasons for shelving Smile change all the time. My thinking is that there was resistance on all sides, including inside Brian's head. After listening to Alan Boyd's interview on IconFetch, putting Smile together digitally was an awesome task, let alone trying to cut and splice tapes together. Recording modular was probably an easier task than trying to finalize it by piecing it all together. It seems he really had too much music to work with. It was probably frustrating second guessing yourself and changing pieces around over an over again. Also, probably frustrating to the band to sing their asses off and not hear it in fully conceptualized songs. Smile may have taken it's toll on everybody.

[Jaspy]

I don't think Brian ever abandoned SMiLE. The concept was changed and the record released as SMiLEY SMiLE.
I think there are many reasons. The problems with Capitol, Brian loosing interest, the departure of Van Dyke Parks, the group dynamics, etc, but first of all: Brian's visionary search for new sounds.
In December 1966, SMiLE would have been revolutionary, still in January 1967, but in May 1967, the time run out.
Around the time the "Love To Say Dada" sessions took place, "Sgt. Pepper" was premiered on radio and played to the press. Perhaps Brian heard it back then, thorugh Derek Taylor for example and that was the end. The Beatles already did it.
And the PARTY! album in 1965 was a huge success in many countries, one of the group's best selling records, so to record an unpolished album in a short period of time was a successful idea once before.

[Keri]

I'm currently reading Peter Carlin's Brian Wilson biography and although i knew Murray was a terrible father it is in my face again, I don't think it is any accident that Carl and Dennis (or Murry for that matter) died young, or that Brian had mental problems, Murry messed with them badly.

I am also reminded that Mike objected to Pet Sounds quiet strenuously according to Tony Asher and likewise SMiLE strenuously enough for Van Dyke to feel unwelcome and leave. This is a consistent story from many sources including Mike (although different emphasis). It has to be a factor.

Drugs, messed up childhood and continuing pressure from painful father, lots of business pressure and a lot of people relying upon him.

Finishing SMiLE was a very difficult thing to do, Mark Linnett has stressed this in recent interviews.

So having a very hard job to do quickly with Mike particularly giving him static when he needed support, ALL of these things ^^ are the reason.

[Keri]

Were any of the BBs in favour of Smile at the time? Sorry for my lack of knowledge here!

Good question, certainly many have said nice things about it. But did they actually say to Brian that they really liked it? or try to defend Van Dyke's lyrics to Mike? I don't know. I get the feeling there was some worry about their livelihoods.

[hypehat]

"The real reason Brian abandoned SMiLE?"


So he could devote more time to keeping the streets of Los Angeles safe from crime, of course.

[drbeachboy]

From all the interviews over the years, it seems all of the Beach Boys loved the music. Though, I think the fact that there was nothing commercial on it, concerned the band and justifiably so. Heroes and Villains Part One, had that been the single released was borderline commercial, at best. I don't believe Vega-Tables would have worked out well as a single, either. Back in 1966-1967 it was still a singles, hit driven business. This reason alone had to worry the band, especially Mike and may have caused tension within and with Capitol.

[John Stivaktas]

"The real reason Brian abandoned SMiLE?"


So he could devote more time to keeping the streets of Los Angeles safe from crime, of course.

Is that the reason I felt so safe when I was over there in April this year? 

[JMZ]

I had a mad, mad, mad conspiracy theory about the non-release of SMiLE:

1) Capitol is the label of the Beatles in the US
2) the Beatles was a bit more "hyp" in those days than the BBoys (just a little bit, but ...)
3) I swear I hear Paul McCartney apologize himself to Brian when he gets to hug him on the BWPS DVD.

And what if Capitol had scrapped the project because it would've been too much in concurrence with the upcoming Sgt. Pepper ? Brian Wilson, demoralized and vexed by his label preventing the release of his Big Masterpiece drowns into depression.

I know it sounds really silly, but we already seen cases of record companies signing bands that were too close to another they already had. They did that on purpose to shut them so they don't concurrence the first one. Pretty dumb, but it happened.

[John Stivaktas]

The title of this thread implies two things:

1) There is one true reason why SMiLE was left until now.

2) The previous reason given was false.

Peter Carlin recently stated in contrast to Brian's reason for shelving the project:

Regardless of how proud Wilson is to hear his masterpiece in one piece after all these years, he says he's glad he shelved it at the time.

"I knew that it was too early to do that," Wilson says. "It was too far ahead of its time. There was no way we could release that back then."

Carlin, who has done his share of research into "Smile," dismisses Wilson's story on what happened as a line he started feeding journalists around the time his solo version of the album hit the streets.

"That's bulls--t," Carlin says. "Being ahead of his time is exactly what they were looking for. Here's the thing. Brian was sinking deeper into his emotional travails. And to some extent -- by my estimation, at any rate -- you can track how screwy the rest of his life was becoming by how beautiful his music was becoming, because I think music was kind of his last bastion, the last thing he could really control. And when you get to 'Pet Sounds' and he takes this kind of quantum leap in his orchestrations and the ambition of what he's trying to do, that kind of announces that he's really beginning to lose his bearings in his real life."

I think that's a good gauge as to what is the underlying reason as in reality there were a variety of reasons.

 

[c-man]

"The real reason Brian abandoned SMiLE?"


So he could devote more time to keeping the streets of Los Angeles safe from crime, of course.

Is that the reason I felt so safe when I was over there in April this year? 

You felt safe there 'cause Phil Spector was safely behind bars.   

[The Demon]

The quote from the Smile booklet seems pretty accurate.  There's no one specific reason, just several converging issues.  "Performance anxiety" seems to be the phrase that would best sum up the issue (remember how he said he decided he didn't need to compete anymore?).  Any pressures he was feeling at the time were seen through the lens of Murray's child abuse.  Being beaten and emotionally criticized--constantly pushed to compete and achieve perfection--is obviously going to really f*** with you.  That's why there's no Smile: a dad who doesn't see you as human and a mom who just stands by.  The rest of the band, the Beatles, Capitol, etc. are just secondary, superficial issues.

[Cam Mott]

So the Boys were doing everything he told them, the resistance was in his head, the reasons were internal not external. Sounds right. I'm not sure I buy that pressure from the label, he seems to have more or less thumbed his nose at the label and he had the label on the ropes legally at the time.

To me the only legitimate reasons are those he gave closest to the event: his feeling the lyrics too arty, music too elaborate/old fashion, wanted different mood and approach influenced by his choice to use a limited studio arrangement.

[guitarfool2002]

Much like Brian's own thoughts on the topic change and vary through the years, the more layers you can peel back on the big picture, the more events and influences will reveal themselves as "reasons". I prefer and weigh more heavily interviews of the people who were actually there and involved directly, taking into account their own personal views and possible biases.

Having said that, looking at interviews from the people involved, consider these points within the "big picture":

- Murry Wilson and Brian Wilson had a major falling out sometime at the end of 1966, falling somewhere after "Inside Pop" had come to film Brian and prior to work in January 1967. The reasons are not exactly clear, but one aspect of it was Murry feeling that Good Vibrations was not a good idea, and that it would alienate the group's fan base with the new sounds. Immediately after the new year of 1967, Brian works primarily on Heroes And Villains, adding section after section in a burst of recording.

Brian's studio work is dominated by Heroes And Villains through January, into February, and also into March 1967. The overwhelming majority of sessions are Heroes related, and Brian records fragment after fragment rather then a full song.

Compare that to his work from fall 1966 into the Christmas season: This period is an incredibly productive run of a lot of what was to be a Smile album minus Heroes. Brian was setting up Brother, getting into film, making appearances, hanging with his Los Angeles clan, riding on a #1 hit single...it was one of the most fascinating and productive runs of creativity and production the man had in his entire career, one that any artist would envy (especially those who will hear the results on Smile Sessions this week).

So what happened around Christmas 1966? Did anything happen at all to change the course and focus of Brian's creativity? Was it really something Murry said or something which came from their falling out, or was it the shift in focus from creating Smile as a whole to getting caught up in making the perfect modular single which would top Good Vibrations?

Brian said in the 90's that you couldn't top Good Vibrations, which is very revealing in hindsight but probably not something that would be a positive thought as you labor over constructing a masterpiece to top all previous masterpieces in early 1967.

- Then...post Heroes...Spring 1967...work shifts to Vegetables, mentioned as a potential single as well. Session after session devoted to Vegetables, March into early April '67. Sounds like the same pattern as January into February...pour all efforts into one song and possible single, building it from fragments into "test edits", then into a final mix that would be on par with his 1966 modular masterpiece. However, Van Dyke Parks had either left the project or had become less and less directly involved with the project, depending on whose account you'd find. The creative force that was Wilson-Parks...was Wilson and, who else? I'd submit Brian had no one he'd take musical advice from to rein in his ideas of changing and remaking songs and ideas to the point of tinkering them to oblivion.

And what, then, falls smack-dab in the middle of this? The lawsuit with Capitol hits its peak. A distraction, no doubt, but a necessary one if Brian and the BB's want to see it through and have the freedom to set up Brother. Then once Brother is set up on paper, what do they do with Brother? They'd need to get the ball rolling on all the projects Brian and the guys were planning in fall '66, the films, the outside productions, the comedy, etc. Oh, but there's still the album Smile to finish, and the modular singles which Brian still was not happy with and was still tinkering with and remaking. And Capitol, perhaps, wasn't there with a big budget for all of the studio time since Brian had taken them to court and the BB's contract with them was in jeopardy.

Heavy stuff, all in the span of 6 months or so. And that doesn't even begin to touch on the personal, day-to-day issues we know little or nothing about which happened at this same time, and which no one can claim to have their finger on the pulse of those personal events except those who were there.

[Jon Stebbins]

Were any of the BBs in favour of Smile at the time? Sorry for my lack of knowledge here!

Dennis was very vocal in his support for Smile in the press at the time. Van Dyke told me Dennis was very supportive of Brian's creative direction during that time, and wasn't shy about letting the others know they should be allowing Brian to do his thing without second guessing. You might also note that Dennis took a lot of the Smile vibe and sprinkled it in his own songs/productions, Little Bird, Be With Me, Steamboat, Time, Love Remember Me etc... Dennis loved Smile.

[adamghost]

I think, and I base this partly on personal experience as well as having watched the BBs' story, Brian's statement is probably about dead-on, insofar as the simplest reason for the collapse of SMiLE is at a certain point he realized the whole thing had gotten away from him, it had gone from -- as Carlin said -- his last bastion of sanity to the biggest threat to it.  

Again speaking from personal experience, it's really easy to get involved in a project and throw yourself into it, then as events transpire and things play out, you realize that finishing the thing is going to be a monumental pain in the ass, way more than you had originally bargained for.  Likewise when you're in the studio...layering tracks is fun, but then comes the point when you have to put it all together.  That's work.

Now, think about this:  the modular way of recording was new to Brian.  He'd only really done it once, with "Good Vibrations," and that took six months.  Before that, everything he did was done more or less live in the studio.  Once you had a take, and put on vocals, it was basically done.  Wasn't it said at some point that PET SOUNDS was dubbed down in one day?  I don't know if that's true or not, but regardless, I don't know that Brian ever spent a ton of time on a mix.  He got the thing together live, and once it was balanced, there you go.

So now look at SMiLE:  Brian's had a great time amassing all these tracks, but now putting them all together, editing the tracks into some semblance of order, as Boyd and others have said, is a daunting task for even an experienced engineer.  But with one exception, Brian has never done this kind of thing before nor had manifested the patience to do it.  Even in the case of "Good Vibrations", he had almost bailed on it before Denny Hutton offered to buy the track.

So if you want the simplest explanation for the collapse of SMiLE, it's this:  it's a lot more fun to record a bunch of tracks than it is to corral them into an edited final mix, and the more crap you record, the more onerous that task becomes.  Now then add in all the ancillary stuff:  drugs, resistance from the band, the label, etc.  Very easy to see why you'd get to a certain point and say "screw this."  It's not fun anymore.  It's this giant albatross.  You literally will go 'round the bend if you try to get this thing done.  I know I would have, and I don't have a fraction of Brian's issues.

One more thing:  Jack Rieley in one of his interviews advanced an intriguing theory about SMiLE's collapse that, on reflection, rings true to me:  that Brian realized the album was never going to get the same kind of promo push that Capitol was giving the Beatles, and so the album was never going to get a fair shake in his mind.  And I think that would have been a very legitimate concern.  Again partly speaking from personal experience, if you're going to go through all that hassle to finish the thing, and then the release gets fumbled in the end, why the heck bother?

It all makes sense to me once you think through the process and what would have had to have been done to finish the album.

[Andrew G. Doe]

I had a mad, mad, mad conspiracy theory about the non-release of SMiLE:

1) Capitol is the label of the Beatles in the US
2) the Beatles was a bit more "hyp" in those days than the BBoys (just a little bit, but ...)
3) I swear I hear Paul McCartney apologize himself to Brian when he gets to hug him on the BWPS DVD.

And what if Capitol had scrapped the project because it would've been too much in concurrence with the upcoming Sgt. Pepper ? Brian Wilson, demoralized and vexed by his label preventing the release of his Big Masterpiece drowns into depression.

I know it sounds really silly, but we already seen cases of record companies signing bands that were too close to another they already had. They did that on purpose to shut them so they don't concurrence the first one. Pretty dumb, but it happened.

Just one tiny problem with that notion - Capitol didn't prevent the release of Smile. It was Brian who told them he was shelving it.

[Justin]

Nice responses by everyone...great reads!

It's true that Brian has switched up the reasons over the years...never settling on one reason.  The only consistent story we've heard (as told by others and Brian) was that it was the band's resistance to his vision that prompted him to stop.  Frankly, any other reason Brian has given--up to and  including the new "drug reason" he's given lately---has all been BS, in my book.  

Regardless of how proud Wilson is to hear his masterpiece in one piece after all these years, he says he's glad he shelved it at the time.

"I knew that it was too early to do that," Wilson says. "It was too far ahead of its time. There was no way we could release that back then."

Carlin, who has done his share of research into "Smile," dismisses Wilson's story on what happened as a line he started feeding journalists around the time his solo version of the album hit the streets.

"That's bulls--t," Carlin says. "Being ahead of his time is exactly what they were looking for. Here's the thing. Brian was sinking deeper into his emotional travails. And to some extent -- by my estimation, at any rate -- you can track how screwy the rest of his life was becoming by how beautiful his music was becoming, because I think music was kind of his last bastion, the last thing he could really control. And when you get to 'Pet Sounds' and he takes this kind of quantum leap in his orchestrations and the ambition of what he's trying to do, that kind of announces that he's really beginning to lose his bearings in his real life.

That quote from Brian is defintely BS as Carlin says. "Too early to do that?"  Yeah, right!   It was clear that Brian was hungry for making something completely ahead of its time so for him to pull the brakes on it because it was TOO out there?  Doubt it. Who knows why Brian said this...maybe to deter any follow up questions and to avoid revisiting the real drama that occured which was everyone abandoning his vision.  

I doubt Brian is well enough to be able to settle one just one answer today.  There are several reasons looming in his head but I don't think we'll ever get just one answer.  Like I said earlier, I thought the chapter was closed when Brian flat out stated that "Mike Love was the reason he stopped SMiLE" on the BWPS DVD.  I thought, well, that's it.  Brian's finally come to terms with it.  And the fact that he very lightly goes back to that reasoning in his statement in the TSS booklet...I think this is as closest as we'll get to Brian's final answer.

[Justin]

Were any of the BBs in favour of Smile at the time? Sorry for my lack of knowledge here!

"It makes 'Pet Sounds stink, that's how good it is" - Dennis Wilson, during the SMiLE sessions.

[Mahalo]

 

[SloopJohnB]

I had a mad, mad, mad conspiracy theory about the non-release of SMiLE:

1) Capitol is the label of the Beatles in the US
2) the Beatles was a bit more "hyp" in those days than the BBoys (just a little bit, but ...)
3) I swear I hear Paul McCartney apologize himself to Brian when he gets to hug him on the BWPS DVD.

And what if Capitol had scrapped the project because it would've been too much in concurrence with the upcoming Sgt. Pepper ? Brian Wilson, demoralized and vexed by his label preventing the release of his Big Masterpiece drowns into depression.

I know it sounds really silly, but we already seen cases of record companies signing bands that were too close to another they already had. They did that on purpose to shut them so they don't concurrence the first one. Pretty dumb, but it happened.

Just one tiny problem with that notion - Capitol didn't prevent the release of Smile. It was Brian who told them he was shelving it.

I think JMZ meant to say "Capitol would have prevented a successful release of Smile". Apparently, as Adam was saying, Jack Rieley shared that opinion, and in my view he may be spot-on:

One more thing:  Jack Rieley in one of his interviews advanced an intriguing theory about SMiLE's collapse that, on reflection, rings true to me:  that Brian realized the album was never going to get the same kind of promo push that Capitol was giving the Beatles, and so the album was never going to get a fair shake in his mind.  And I think that would have been a very legitimate concern.  Again partly speaking from personal experience, if you're going to go through all that hassle to finish the thing, and then the release gets fumbled in the end, why the heck bother?

It all makes sense to me once you think through the process and what would have had to have been done to finish the album.

[Justin]

I think, and I base this partly on personal experience as well as having watched the BBs' story, Brian's statement is probably about dead-on, insofar as the simplest reason for the collapse of SMiLE is at a certain point he realized the whole thing had gotten away from him, it had gone from -- as Carlin said -- his last bastion of sanity to the biggest threat to it.  

Again speaking from personal experience, it's really easy to get involved in a project and throw yourself into it, then as events transpire and things play out, you realize that finishing the thing is going to be a monumental pain in the ass, way more than you had originally bargained for.  Likewise when you're in the studio...layering tracks is fun, but then comes the point when you have to put it all together.  That's work.

Now, think about this:  the modular way of recording was new to Brian.  He'd only really done it once, with "Good Vibrations," and that took six months.  Before that, everything he did was done more or less live in the studio.  Once you had a take, and put on vocals, it was basically done.  Wasn't it said at some point that PET SOUNDS was dubbed down in one day?  I don't know if that's true or not, but regardless, I don't know that Brian ever spent a ton of time on a mix.  He got the thing together live, and once it was balanced, there you go.

So now look at SMiLE:  Brian's had a great time amassing all these tracks, but now putting them all together, editing the tracks into some semblance of order, as Boyd and others have said, is a daunting task for even an experienced engineer.  But with one exception, Brian has never done this kind of thing before nor had manifested the patience to do it.  Even in the case of "Good Vibrations", he had almost bailed on it before Denny Hutton offered to buy the track.

So if you want the simplest explanation for the collapse of SMiLE, it's this:  it's a lot more fun to record a bunch of tracks than it is to corral them into an edited final mix, and the more crap you record, the more onerous that task becomes.  Now then add in all the ancillary stuff:  drugs, resistance from the band, the label, etc.  Very easy to see why you'd get to a certain point and say "screw this."  It's not fun anymore.  It's this giant albatross.  You literally will go 'round the bend if you try to get this thing done.  I know I would have, and I don't have a fraction of Brian's issues.

One more thing:  Jack Rieley in one of his interviews advanced an intriguing theory about SMiLE's collapse that, on reflection, rings true to me:  that Brian realized the album was never going to get the same kind of promo push that Capitol was giving the Beatles, and so the album was never going to get a fair shake in his mind.  And I think that would have been a very legitimate concern.  Again partly speaking from personal experience, if you're going to go through all that hassle to finish the thing, and then the release gets fumbled in the end, why the heck bother?

It all makes sense to me once you think through the process and what would have had to have been done to finish the album.

Great post!  Thanks for this.  I didn't take into consideration how turned off Brian had gotten during the process.  This is sort of the missing peice of the puzzle because he's always made it seem like he was constantly moving forward while EVERYONE around him (the band, the label etc) were all slowing him down.  If indeed Brian was facing difficulties trying to complete it and was looking to bail as he did with Good Vibrations---it all makes sense why things fell apart the way they did.