Brian Wilson on Pacific Ocean Blue

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

But he can give straight answers. It's just that, as you said in the sentence right before, he clearly didn't want to do that interview and staged it in a way to mislead the readers and to make himself seem insane.

[Pretty Funky]

Good post's about repetitive questions. Why the media requires a interview with older artists is beyond me. What more are they going to learn in a 10 minute slot that is not already known.

Leave the questions to the new artists that nobody knows yet.

[phirnis]

Or ask Brian Wilson some questions about taping the wind as a teenager.

[Magic Transistor Radio]

Maybe he's just messing with people, just for the fun of it. Who knows? The guy obviously doesn't like doing interviews even though he has to do them regularly. And he often gets questions that have been asked hundreds of times before. So I can imagine it's sometimes temting to make up stuff just to mess with people.

If people have been asking you stuff like "Do you think that Pet Sounds is your best album?" for 40+ years, you might say "Yeah, probably" the first 1,000 times, but I can imagine that you'd want to say something like "I don't know, I haven't heard it since it came out" the 1,001st time, "No, I'm embarrassed by that album" the 1,002nd time or "Mike actually wrote it, not me" the 1,003rd time...

My only problem with this is, I don't think he's been asked about POB nearly as much as other things. My guess is that the question of a BB reunion is what may have done it.

Pitchfork: When you guys are working in the studio, have you kept up with-- you know, studio technology is changing all the time, and you obviously have been working in the studio for many many, years, so I was curious about how it feels to you know, compared to--

BW: Many years ago? When I was with the Beach Boys, we were pretty fast, we worked pretty quickly. Now we go a little slower and take time, you know. Make sure the pitch is correct and the rhythm is right and everything, you know.

I also find this answer to be untrue. I would think that it would be the other way around! Especially from 65-67, Brian took loads of time to record songs!

[37!ws]

All I know is that I will never....EVER...believe for a second that Brian didn't listen to POB at least several times. Cases in point:
- "Rollin', rollin', rollin' on..."
- "They couldn't get to heaven in their car..."

[the captain]

BW: Many years ago? When I was with the Beach Boys, we were pretty fast, we worked pretty quickly. Now we go a little slower and take time, you know. Make sure the pitch is correct and the rhythm is right and everything, you know.

I also find this answer to be untrue. I would think that it would be the other way around! Especially from 65-67, Brian took loads of time to record songs!

I think that's both true and untrue. The whole business of making a record is undoubtedly slower now than it was then. In those days, Brian may have labored over studio sessions with people brought in to perform--no doubt about that. But on the other hand, everything else took a LOT less time. So now while he may not spend as much time actually recording musicians (or himself) performing, there is more planning involved and a ton more time on the back end. And "make sure the pitch is correct and the rhythm is right and everything" could easily mean the manipulation of recordings that is commonly done now as part of production and mixing, but wasn't a part of the process in a pre-digital world. They used to make several albums every year. Now one album a year is seen as virtually breakneck pace by pretty much anyone except Bob Pollard. That reference may be him thinking back to the difference between just having somebody hit "Record" and doing the real work of it all as opposed to how studios work now.

[MBE]

This is what Brian said about POB this past July, to Rolling Stone:

Brian Wilson was blown away by the final product. "I first heard Pacific Ocean Blue in my house at Pacific Palisades," he says. "I found it very warm and comforting music. His lyrics were very creative and his voice is very comforting."

He just wanted to make the interviewer go away.  I've never read a good interview with him with online-only media.  He usually gives at least pretty good interviews to mainstream press like RS or the LA Times.  I think he just can't be bothered with media people who work for things he's never heard of.

He was nice to me and I only work for myself. I think because I was a sincere fan he was warm to me. Maybe if it seems like someone is treating their time together like a job then he closes up. Frankly he's a puzzle isn't he?

[lance]

He is indeed--like most of the greatest. A more contradictory star I have seldom come across, other than maybe Dylan or Marlon Brando.

[MBE]

Yeah Dylan can seem so cool one second and like such a jerk the next. Witness the party scene in Don't Look Back.

[Aegir]

BW: Many years ago? When I was with the Beach Boys, we were pretty fast, we worked pretty quickly. Now we go a little slower and take time, you know. Make sure the pitch is correct and the rhythm is right and everything, you know.

I also find this answer to be untrue. I would think that it would be the other way around! Especially from 65-67, Brian took loads of time to record songs!

I think that's both true and untrue. The whole business of making a record is undoubtedly slower now than it was then. In those days, Brian may have labored over studio sessions with people brought in to perform--no doubt about that. But on the other hand, everything else took a LOT less time. So now while he may not spend as much time actually recording musicians (or himself) performing, there is more planning involved and a ton more time on the back end. And "make sure the pitch is correct and the rhythm is right and everything" could easily mean the manipulation of recordings that is commonly done now as part of production and mixing, but wasn't a part of the process in a pre-digital world. They used to make several albums every year. Now one album a year is seen as virtually breakneck pace by pretty much anyone except Bob Pollard. That reference may be him thinking back to the difference between just having somebody hit "Record" and doing the real work of it all as opposed to how studios work now.

Yeah, and back in the 60s Brian didn't need to digitally alter his pitch -- his voice was perfect!

[Smilin Ed H]

Myabe Brian should've told the reporter to f*ck off.  Maybe he should've told him his brother's a no talent.  Works for Noel Gallagher and Oasis sell by the shedload to all those gullible folk who've never heard Slade.

[Mr. Cohen]

Forget POB, I always wondered what he thought of the Doors. "Wild Honey" reminds of the Doors sound in ways (Morrison said he liked it, didn't he?), although placed firmly within the Beach Boys idiom,  and the whole Marcella/Beatrice from Baltimore/Burlesque thing in the early 70s also reminds me of the Doors RnB leanings. Plus, Brian and the Doors loved organs, and I'm not talking just about Morrison's crawling king snake.