I love this .....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/aug/24/popandrockBrian Wilson, musician, 66, London
Interview John Hind
The Observer,
Sunday August 24 2008
The big disappointment I feel about my life is that I didn't have more wisdom when it came to taking drugs. Drugs laid me out for years.
Applause sounds good. You start to believe people really like your stuff when they give you a 10-minute standing ovation. I don't know when it would get boring - maybe after half an hour.
When I was eight I used to copy Rosemary Clooney singing, 'The evening breeze caressed the trees tenderly, the trembling trees embraced the breeze tenderly.'
A beautiful horn is my favourite sound in the world. If I could play a saxophone, that's what I'd be doing. But I can't play a saxophone.
When I was 16, I had a Woolensack tape recorder and I taped the wind. I lost it and those tapes. I don't know where the hell they are.
I sit down on stage because I feel more comfortable sitting. I move my hands around to try and look alive. I'm looking at the front row and I'm looking up in the air, but I can't see without my glasses and I don't remember any faces.
Big Brian isn't scared of anybody and Little Brian is scared of everybody.
Only my left ear works properly, the right is deaf. So I've never heard music in stereo, or both sides of the audience together. It's kind of depressing, but it's all right. One advantage is I can lie on my left side in bed and not be bothered. I like peace and quiet very much. I really do.
I sang 'Deck the Halls' for hundreds of children with Xeroderma pigmentosum [hypersensitivity to sunlight] at Disney one night. That was kinda scary.
Every night now I say this: 'The night was quiet and nature was resting and I was at peace.' And then I can sleep. I made it up myself. Isn't that great? Saying it now my eyes feel a little tired.
First thing in the morning, at seven, I wash my face. I have my breakfast - an egg and Kellogg's cornflakes with skimmed milk and Sweet'N'Low - and I try to get on with it. I work in my armchair with a leg rest and I have my synthesiser on my lap. I'm a morning person, creatively. I have auditory hallucinations, I hear voices saying derogatory things, like I'm terrible and I'm going to die, and they're usually worse in the afternoon.
Making music is like brain surgery - very sensitive, very delicate. Genius is the ability to make something very complex seem very simple.
First love is the moment you can't repeat, but you'll always own it.
If we'd been called the Peach Boys, I don't think it would have made much difference to our success. We were going to be the Pendletones, after a sweater everyone was wearing, or the Beach Bums. A group's name is not very important. For one year [1969] I owned a health food shop I called the Radiant Radish. I spent too much money on produce, there wasn't much money coming in and we went bankrupt. But that was a great name.
When I hear really fabulous music by somebody else, I can feel as small as the dot in the 'i' in nit.
The gentlest person I know is my friend Mark, who designs covers. I like hanging with him, he talks nice to me and sometimes I'll need him to rub my neck.
I used to run laps around the park, now I walk laps. Exercise is my hobby.
It will only take a slight little idea, a starting melody, to make my whole day.
· Brian Wilson's latest album, Lucky Old Sun, is released on 1 September