Interview: Brian Wilson

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

Today, in The Wall Street Journal, I interview Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys for the Arena section on his new album, No Pier Pressure (go here). In an age when there's so much negative, melancholy music long on thumping beats and electronic gimmickry but short on hummable melodies, Brian's new album is particularly refreshing. As I write in my article, summer never ended for Brian. And that's a good thing.

To me, Brian is July and August, and hot asphalt and flip-flops and feet hanging out the window of a moving car and boardwalk food and long sunsets and the sound of fun and the feeling of love. All of those images and feelings are baked into his music. They're in those harmonies influenced by the Four Freshmen merged with the rhythm of revving car engines, Chuck Berry's guitar and the outdoors. Even if you've never been to Southern California, the spirit of that region is part of the America's DNA thanks in great measure to Brian's music.

This is Brian of Pet Sounds, of California Girls, I Get Around, Help Me Rhonda, Shut Down, Don't Worry Baby and Girls on the Beach. He wrote most of the music for four hit albums before the Beatles even bought their plane tickets to New York. He was the West Coast's Bob Dylan. Different values and issues, but poetic just the same and both on parallel tracks to win over American youth. Before Brian, there was Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and then nothing. It was all slowing down by 1962 when Brian and the Beach Boys turned suntan lotion into an intoxicant and glamorized surfing, though the band spent most of their time in a swimming pool.

So it was great to catch up with Brian by phone, talk about music and the biopic, Love & Mercy, that's coming in June. I saw a screening a few weeks ago. I last interviewed Brian at home in Los Angeles in 2012, when Smile came out. I would have liked to have done this most recent interview at his home again, since Brian is much more engaging in person. But I was in Milan. The phone wasn't ideal but it was fine. I think my favorite exchange came when I told him that I thought No Pier Pressure was an unintended concept album. He said, "How so?" I said it seemed like all of the songs were tied to his impression of a perfect summer weekend, from a lazy Saturday sunrise to a romantic Sunday evening fire on the beach. He laughed. "I think you're right," he said. "Perfect days."

Here's Somewhere Quiet from No Pier Pressure (Capitol), which comes out on Tuesday...

Somewhere Quiet

Here's the trailer to Love & Mercy, due out June 6, which doesn't provide nearly enough of the movie's novel approach or the tough subject-matter...

Also in the WSJ today, my interview with social critic and humorist Fran Lebowitz for the Mansion section's "House Call" column on growing up in Morristown, N.J., in the 1950s (go here). Fran had me in stitches during our entire time together on the phone. Fran has this way of combining social commentary with humor that is both brilliant and hysterically funny. After our chat, it was easy to see why she's in such demand at dinner parties. Fran can run the table. She's queen of the sit-down comedians. [Photo above of Fran Lebowitz at the Strand bookstore in Manhattan by Jason Frank Rothenberg for The Wall Street Journal]

Earlier this week, I reviewed the new Matthew Weiner's Mad Men exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, for the Arts in Review page of Personal Journal (go here). I love the TV series, which resumes on Sunday, but I was a bit disappointed that the exhibit didn't do a better job of pulling together its many different parts with a smart narrative. [Photo above of Christina Hendricks as Joan Holloway in Mad Men]

And finally, for the "Playlist" column in the Review section this weekend, I interview novelist Richard Price (above) on James Brown's Night Train and why he couldn't let go of his girlfriend's hand as he stood watching Brown transfixed during a matinee showing of the T.A.M.I. Show in 1964 (go here).

Used with permission by Marc Myers