1988 Bruce Interview

[HeyJude]

In looking up some old Bruce quotes for another thread, I ran across this random 1988 interview. I've probably read it in the past, but it's an interesting time capsule:

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2012/08/from-the-vault-bruce-johnston.html#

Two points that stuck out that I either hadn't heard or had forgotten:

Johnston: And we have just decided that we’re going to pick a song from Brian Wilson’s album and start singing it.

Nealon: Oh, that’s nice.

Bruce Johnston: We’ve stayed out of his promotion. But each guy in the band, except for Al Jardine, in the last 10, 11 years has had a solo album. Now it’s Brian’s turn. Without getting in the way of his promotion, we thought we’d toss one of his songs in the show. Just a nice tip of the hat.

Nealon: It got great reviews, too.

Johnston: On his album he’s got a really nice track that he multitracked his voice on called “One for the Boys.” So that’s his tip of the hat. So we thought we’d do it back.


So this sounds like they actually considered, in 1988, doing one of Brian's solo '88 songs *without* Brian. As far as I know, this never happened (though Brian did a few solo mini-sets within BB shows in 1989).

This comment concerning Dennis:

Professionally—and I miss him professionally—but the day of the press conference to respond to his death, that afternoon we went in and recorded because we knew he would do that. So we worked on I forget what the record was, but we went and recorded something.

Anyone have an idea what they recorded on that day? I'm not sure what day the press conference was. Was it on or after January 1st, 1984?  The first thing I recall that they are known to have recorded after Dennis's death was "Chasin' the Sky" in January 1984. The "East Meets West" session from December 1983 seemed to pre-date Dennis's death, though it's not impossible I suppose that they did more overdubs at a later date.

[Lonely Summer]

Interesting that they would consider doing one of Brian's solo songs, when he wasn't touring regularly with them. Carl doing a couple of his solo songs in the shows circa 1982-85 made sense, because Carl was always there. Did they ever do anything from Looking Back With Love in their shows?
The only footage i've ever seen from that press conference is in An American Band, Carl doing most of the talking, Brian looking uncomfortable and talking a little. Is there more footage somewhere else? Must have been hard for them being there,  especially Carl and Brian.

[c-man]

They did "Be My Baby" from Mike's solo LP a few times in early '82.

[c-man]

I would say that the session Bruce mentioned was most likely for "Chasin' The Sky". Somewhere I have a Variety article clipping from early January, which I believe was the first time I'd read of that song.

[HeyJude]

I would say that the session Bruce mentioned was most likely for "Chasin' The Sky". Somewhere I have a Variety article clipping from early January, which I believe was the first time I'd read of that song.

Seems the most likely candidate, outside of the possibility that they just recorded *something* of little consequence just to stay busy. By 1988, Bruce couldn't remember what song it was; which I suppose might mean "Chasin' the Sky" is more likely, as that song seemed to rarely come up in discussion with the BBs and probably wasn't very memorable to them.

I managed to find an article from Rolling Stone from June 1984 that pegs the press conference for January 9, 1984, which would seem to line up with a likely "Chasin' the Sky" session:

“We are not disbanding,” announced Carl Wilson at an L.A. press conference on Monday, January 9th, twelve days after Dennis Wilson’s death. “We are postponing currently scheduled dates during this period of mourning.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/dennis-wilson-the-beach-boy-who-went-overboard-43037/

[HeyJude]

Interesting that they would consider doing one of Brian's solo songs, when he wasn't touring regularly with them. Carl doing a couple of his solo songs in the shows circa 1982-85 made sense, because Carl was always there. Did they ever do anything from Looking Back With Love in their shows?
The only footage i've ever seen from that press conference is in An American Band, Carl doing most of the talking, Brian looking uncomfortable and talking a little. Is there more footage somewhere else? Must have been hard for them being there,  especially Carl and Brian.

I want to say I've seen at least tiny bits of other footage from that press conference, from various news reports (some may have appeared in that old MSNBC "Time & Again" Beach Boys episode that raided the NBC archives for BB footage). But yeah, I don't think any lengthy uncut footage of it has surfaced. It's all surely in the news vaults of one if not many news outlets.

[Ian]

Yes the conference was January 9-I mention in my book-the chapter on 1984

[HeyJude]

Yes the conference was January 9-I mention in my book-the chapter on 1984

Yep, I've reached for "In Concert" several times to look stuff up, but alas it's still packed away with most of my books.

I'd be curious to know how lengthy the press conference was.

That Rolling Stone article takes a relatively cynical view of the whole deal going on around that time, pointing out that while the band postponed the most immediate shows, they were back on the road very quickly.

[joe_blow]

I could be wrong, but I think in Timothy White's The Nearest Faraway Place it mentions something about the band getting together after either the press conference or funeral and shooting baskets or something.

[SMiLE Brian]

I want heyjude to interview Bruce!

[HeyJude]

I could be wrong, but I think in Timothy White's The Nearest Faraway Place it mentions something about the band getting together after either the press conference or funeral and shooting baskets or something.

I think that's mentioned in the "People Magazine" article, "Death of a Beach Boy."

https://people.com/archive/cover-story-death-of-a-beach-boy-vol-21-no-2/

I vaguely recall a debate breaking out a few years back over some of the details in that article, specifically the mention of Mike bringing champagne. Someone claimed Mike was asked about this (in the last several years) and said it never happened, and we were left comparing a 30-plus-year-old recollection of Mike to a relatively contemporary piece from a well-respected media outlet.

[HeyJude]

I want heyjude to interview Bruce!

Well, I know not to call him "BJ", that's for sure......