Brian Wilson

A Hard Day's Surfin' Safari: When Brian Met Macca

Memoir by Derek Taylor, World Countdown News, 1967

When Beatles press officer Derek Taylor swapped Swinging Britain for LA's Sunset Strip in 1965, he played a pivotal part in bringing the worlds of ...

The Beach Boys: I Wanna Be Where The Boys Are

Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, August 1977

"SOME KAHLUA, we need a coupla pitchers of milk..." "Send up a bottle of milk. O.K., cartons. Four cartons. And some honey. And a coffee. ...

Some Producers' Hints From Beach Boy Brian

Interview by uncredited writer, KRLA Beat, April 1966

FOR THE LAST few weeks, we have been speaking with various record producers exclusively in The BEAT in an effort to take The BEAT'S readers ...

Staying Home: Brian Wilson

Report and Interview by Derek Grant, Melody Maker, November 1970

"IT WAS A MISTAKE but I had to try it. After about half an hour I realised I couldn't go on. My ears hurt, I ...

Brian Wilson/The Beach Boys - A Celebration Of Wild Honey: a discussion with David Anderle

Book Excerpt by Paul Williams, Outlaw Blues, 1971

WHEN DAVID ANDERLE AND I BEGAN our discussion of Brian Wilson, we had just finished listening to Wild Honey (the Beach Boys, Capitol Records, November ...

Brian Wilson: From Surf To Symphony

Profile by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, June 1974

BRIAN WILSON was 19 years old when, in 1961, the Beach Boys committed his first song, 'Surfin'', to tape. ...

Brian Wilson: The Last Beach Movie part 1

Retrospective and Interview by Nick Kent, NME, June 1975

THE INCIDENT MUST HAVE occured a little over a year ago. Paul McCartney, complete with the inevitable Linda, had just flown into Los Angeles – ...

Brian Wilson: The Last Beach Movie part 2

Retrospective and Interview by Nick Kent, NME, June 1975

PET SOUNDS was about to be released when Derek Taylor was taken on The Beach Boys' pay-roll. 750 dollars for dealing with the group's publicity. ...

Brian Wilson: The Last Beach Movie part 3

Retrospective and Interview by Nick Kent, NME, July 1975

EARLY MARCH 1975: The clapper-board reads "The Last Beach Movie – The Brian Wilson Story" Take 96, and our camera zooms in on the exterior ...

Brian Wilson, part 1

Interview by Richard Cromelin, Sounds, July 1976

The Beach Boys' main man climbs out of the sandbox and explains how he got off the Endless Bummer. ...

Brian Wilson, part 2

Interview by Richard Cromelin, Sounds, August 1976

Pet Sounds & The California Consciousness ...

Brian Wilson: Surf's Up!

Interview by Richard Cromelin, Creem, October 1976

Brian Wilson Comes Back From Lunch ...

A Conversation With Brian Wilson

Interview by David Rensin, Oui, December 1976

The poet laureate of surf and sand talks about the tribulations of being a genius, his ongoing struggle with things chemical and his monumental plans ...

Brian Wilson: After The Sand Box

Report by Chris Salewicz, NME, December 1976

The zany, madcap world of Brian Wilson, episode 98 ...

Brian Wilson: Strange Bedfellow

Interview by Andy Gill, NME, August 1986

The Beach Boys are 25 years old and, to mark the occasion, that great white whale BRIAN WILSON has finally got up, cleaned up and ...

Brian Wilson: Good and Bad Vibrations

Interview by Jeremy Gluck, Guardian, The, 1988

Beach Boy Brian Wilson owes his survival to his doctor and a regime of psychotherapy, diet and exercise, he told Jeremy Gluck ...

What Was And What Might Have Been: A Lost Interview with Brian Wilson

Interview by Jeremy Gluck, unpublished, 1988

NOTE: It's 1988, Brian Wilson had just launched his solo career with the release of the eponymous Brian Wilson album, and Jeremy Gluck gets to ...

Brian Wilson: Wouldn't It Be Nice - My Own Story

Book Review by Tom Hibbert, Q, August 1992

IT IS HARD TO IMAGINE Brian Wilson, inspired composer of surfing symphonies and divine pop, writing anything as tabloidesque as: "I was a zonked-out zombie, ...

Brian Wilson: Interview with Don Was

Interview by John Tobler, Record Hunter, August 1993

After 32 years together The Beach Boys are one of the longest-lived bands in rock. They've recently performed a string of stadium dates, and Capitol ...

Lost In Music: Brian Wilson

Interview by Bill Holdship, MOJO, August 1995

Some call him a tortured genius. Others say he’s just insane. Some claim he’s suffering through an extended hiatus between transcendent works. Others reckon he’s ...

'Brian Wilson is a Genius': The Birth of a Cult

Essay by Barney Hoskyns, Independent, The, September 1995

ONE OF THE key moments in I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times, record producer Don Was’s black-and-white film about Brian Wilson of the Beach ...

Brian Wilson And Van Dyke Parks: Orange Crate Art

Interview by Bill Holdship, MOJO, December 1995

BH: Was it hard getting Brian involved in the making of Orange Crate Art? ...

Discover Van Dyke Parks

Interview by Robin Platts, Goldmine, February 1996

AFTER 30 YEARS in the music business, Van Dyke Parks is not a household name. ...

Brian Wilson: The Story of Sweet Insanity

Retrospective by Bill Holdship, MOJO, September 1996

SOMEHOW – PRIMARILY BECAUSE I took the trouble to talk to Brian and his then ever-present psychotherapist-turned-manager and collaborator, Eugene Landy at a star-studded Hollywood ...

Brain Wilson: Endless Bummer

Profile and Interview by Paul Lester, Uncut, June 1998

"HI, I'M BRIAN WILSON." You do not expect this. You do not expect the head of America's most important ever rock band to have to ...

Brian Wilson: Let's Go Trippin!

Memoir by David Dalton, MOJO, June 1998

IT WAS JULY 1967, the Summer of Love, on Zuma Beach, California that I first met Brian Wilson. It was one of those loony episodes ...

Brian Wilson: The Last Brother

Interview by Erik Himmelsbach, Los Angeles Times, July 1998

ALL OF ST. CHARLES is racing to eat before the sunsets and the kids melt down. At 5:30 p.m. on a Saturday, a time when ...

Brian Wilson: Imagination (Giant)

Review by Barney Hoskyns, Spin, August 1998

IT IS HARD NOT TO harbour mixed feelings about Brian Wilson in the late '90s. While it’s great that he’s up and about (and not ...

Brian Wilson: And Your Dream Comes True

Live Review by Gary Pig Gold, inmusicwetrust.com, July 1999

Brian Wilson Live at the Beacon Theater, New York City, June 18, 1999 ...

Brian Wilson: "Help Me, Rhonda," Indeed!

Essay by David Dalton, Gadfly, 2000

HEY, ALL you surfin’ dudes and hardbody wahinis, check out this thing on TNT. It’s a tribute to the surf god, Brian Wilson! ...

Wondermints: Bali

Review by Max Bell, Uncut, October 2000

UK RELEASE at last for second LP from Brian Wilson's "backing band." ...

Brian Wilson: Sounds Unsilenced

Retrospective and Interview by Erik Himmelsbach, Revolver, Fall 2000

BRIAN WILSON made Paul McCartney cry. The cute Beatle readily admits that the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds has, on occasion, made him positively weepy. Sir ...

Brian Wilson: Reassessed

Essay by Ira Robbins, salon.com, April 2001

AT THE BRIAN WILSON tribute concert in New York in March, a short film explained that Wilson had lived his whole life in fear and ...

Brian Wilson: Royal Festival Hall, London

Live Review by Tim Clifford, Rock's Backpages, February 2002

NOT ONLY did my spine tingle during the third night of Brian Wilson's sell-out four-night stand in London, but I also cried with joy. The ...

The Legend of Smile

Retrospective and Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, February 2002

"Smile is the name of the new Beach Boys album which will be released in January 1967, and with a happy album cover, the really ...

Brian Wilson: Royal Festival Hall, London

Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 2002

Brian Wilson and 10-piece band perform, from start to finish, the album that topped MOJO's 100 Greatest Albums Of All Time poll, plus career-encompassing opening ...

Brian Wilson: Royal Festival Hall, London

Live Review by Paul Lester, Uncut, April 2002

IT'S PRETTY impressive for a 60-year-old who's spent most of the past three decades in rock's twilight zone. A three-hour show comprising hits, album cuts ...

Epiphany At Zuma Beach Or Brian Wilson Hallucinates Me

Memoir by David Dalton, Gadfly, May 2002

AFTER PET SOUNDS Brian Wilson became the mad genius of the Beach Boys, a prodigy who had miraculously emerged out of the surf and car ...

Brian Wilson Smiles Again: Live at the Royal Festival Hall, London

Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, March 2004

WE STILL HAVE so much invested in the idea of Brian Wilson’s genius. Three decades since he last wrote a genuinely great song, we continue ...

Brian Wilson at the Royal Festival Hall, London

Live Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, April 2004

THE UBERFANS WITH medicated stares, the reverent fans who applaud Van Dyke Parks to his seat, the Smile scholars who have flown in from another ...

Brian Wilson: Gettin' in Over My Head

Report by Gene Sculatti, ICE, June 2004

WITH A RESILIENCE REMINISCENT of that battery-powered bunny or California's governor in his biggest pre-politics role, Brian Wilson is back – again. Fresh on the ...

Brian Wilson: Smile

Review by Sean O'Hagan, Observer, The, September 2004

The piano in the sand pit, the orchestra decked out in fireman's helmets, the kilos of grade A hashish, the master tapes that were destroyed, ...

SMiLE When Your Heart Is Breaking: Brian Wilson

Interview by Roy Trakin, Hits, October 2004

"Come about hard and joinThe young and often spring you gaveI heard the wordWonderful thingA children's song" ('Surf’s Up') ...

Brian Wilson - Beach Boy, Pop Visionary, Wounded Soul

Profile and Interview by Mick Brown, GQ, November 2004

IN THE LATE SIXTIES, Brian Wilson used to practice Transcendental Meditation. There, in the purple and gold silk Arabian tent that he had installed in ...

An Interview With Dominic Priore part II: Good Things Come To Those Who SmiLE

Interview by Gary Pig Gold, fufkin.com, September 2005

Gary Pig Gold climbs into the Virtual Sandbox ...

Perfect Harmony: Pet Sounds 40th Anniversary Show Celebrates Brian Wilson's Pop Legacy

Live Review by Kirk Silsbee, LA CityBeat, November 2006

OUT OF CURIOSITY and love of a good story, I've had a longstanding parlor question for jazz-minded friends on the far side of 60. What ...

The Beach Boys: The Making of Pet Sounds

Retrospective and Interview by Bill Holdship, MOJO, January 2007

BACKSTAGE AT UCLA's Royce Hall a joyous sound suddenly erupts from behind a closed door, which one assumes leads to Brian Wilson's dressing room judging ...

The SMiLE You Send Out Returns to You: The Story of Brian Wilson's Great Lost Masterpiece

Retrospective by Tim Meade, Rock's Backpages, October 2011

WE ALL KNOW THE STORY of the Beach Boys' SMiLE. After Pet Sounds, Brian set out to make a "teenage symphony to God" that ...

Brian Wilson and SMiLE

Retrospective and Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Rock's Backpages, October 2011

NOTE: A small portion of this interview appeared in the 2011 MOJO '60s issue. ...

Brian Wilson: The Strife Of Brian

Profile and Interview by Ian Gittins, Man About Town, Spring 2011

IN THE 1991 Steve Martin movie L.A. Story, which dates from the days when he was still spasmodically funny, Martin played Harris K. Telemacher, a ...