Al Jardine and Brian Wilson (Credit: Mary Ann Jardine)
To Al Jardine, Brian Wilson wasn’t just a bandmate, he was one of the most important composers of the 20th century, a “genius” who “created a musical language.” In the days following Wilson’s death, the founding Beach Boy speaks with quiet gravity about his friend’s legacy and the profound impact Wilson had on The Beach Boys’ sound, and on Jardine’s own musical identity.
As he prepares to tour with the Pet Sounds Band, Jardine reflects with Jason Barnard on how the shows now carry a deeper emotional resonance. He shares thoughts on songwriting, his new EP Islands In The Sun, the dynamics within the group— including Mike Love, and why he still considers himself a graduate of the “Brian Wilson school of music.” In typically humble fashion, Jardine downplays his role. But as his stories and songs reveal, he was far more than a background presence in one of America’s greatest groups.
Al, we were due to speak last Wednesday about your tour with the Pet Sounds Band and then we heard the awful news. It gives extra poignance and meaning to those shows.
Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? I had expected Brian to join me at rehearsals in Los Angeles at the end of June. And I was hoping to come by and just talk about it and then he would enjoy seeing the guys, the Brian Band again. And unfortunately, it didn’t pan out that way. So I have mixed feelings about it. I guess we have to go through with it now and make it happen in his memory.
It’s going to be quite a moment with the fans. I guess it will be moving for you, Brian’s band, as well as the audience.
Yeah, I think so too. We’ll see how it goes. We’ll know on July 4th. We’ll see how it feels. And I’m sure by then a lot of it will be numbed up a little bit. We’re playing a casino of all things. For some reason, I accepted this date in Minneapolis and it happens to be a casino date. So normally one doesn’t do extraordinary things at a casino. Generally it’s meat and potatoes, as we call it, at these shows because then they want you to go back and gamble. So the real test will be when we play in the outdoor venue in Cohasset, near Boston. Cohasset is a little town with a festival setting. And we’ll see. By then we should be ready to go, I would think.
The material that I think you were planning to play also covered albums like The Beach Boys Love You which was one of Brian’s favourites. So it doesn’t sound like a meat and potato show in that you are also including tracks that people haven’t heard live for quite a while.
Yeah, there’s a lot of deep tracks, but it’ll be well balanced. There’ll be a little bit from different eras, and I think by then we should have it down pretty well. 15 Big Ones is one of those early hit albums. UMG is releasing a box set later in the year with Love You and 15 Big Ones and I think Adult Child it’s called. So there’s going to be quite a bit of interesting material on there.
Is that the period where you’ve got tracks like ‘Still I Dream Of It,’ which is a gorgeous track?
Yes, I’d love to do that one, but we’re not planning to at this time.
What about ‘Honkin’ Down the Highway?’
Ah, you hit the nail on the head. That’s my favorite from Love You. To be honest, it’s a silly thing to say probably, but of course, there’s other gems as well, but that is one of my favorites. And I’ve modified it to include a saxophone instrumental break at the end of the verse. And it’s going to be pretty nice, second verse, I think. It’s got a fellow named Richie Cannata, who plays in the Billy Joel Band, played the hits, and is playing the baritone sax in ‘Honkin’ Down the Highway.’
There’s quite a few fun tracks on there like ‘I Wanna Pick You Up.’
You call that a fun track?
Well, in a way, there’s a sort of childlike nature to it.
Well, yeah, that may be part of it. I think the boys are working on that. We’ll see if it’s in the set, but it’s certainly possible. ‘Roller Skating Child’ will be there for sure. That to me is a fun track. And ‘The Night Was So Young’, it’s another one of my favorites. And ‘I’ll Bet He’s Nice’, I like that one. And of course there’s, there’s ‘Airplane’, which I’m going to have one of the band members sing, and ‘Solar System,’ which I’ll take the lead on. Brian is up there sailing among the planets right now so he’ll appreciate it too.
Will you be featuring a number of songs, whether it’s in your solo career or the Beach Boys, that you’re particularly associated with, like ‘Lady Lynda’?
I’d like to, but it’s a little too complex, too much work. [laughs] All these songs have a lot of arrangement things to it. And I didn’t want to personalize it too much with my own stuff. But actually, that was one of Brian’s favorite songs, to be honest with you that I was able to work out and he loved that one, I probably should do it. Maybe next time around. But I’ll probably do a song for my new EP that’s just been released called ‘Islands In The Sun.’ So I’ll be doing that one.
Because there’s the title track, which is great.
Thanks. Yeah, title track. And there’s other things on there, right? Well, we’ll see. I don’t want to do too many new things because people really want to hear the deep cuts. There’s probably 40 albums worth of stuff up there that we have to do. So I can’t just do my own things. Although it is my show. It’s my tour, I can do whatever I want right? [laughs]
It must be an impossibility to choose a set list.
It’s really daunting, I tell you. I’m starting to wonder if I can even do it now, but I guess I have to.
‘My Plane Leaves Tomorrow’ is from Islands In The Sun. Can you tell me about the writing of it as well as getting Neil Young involved?
Yeah, it was conceived as a folk song originally, it comes from a folk tradition here. And I was gonna just re-record it as a folk song titled, ‘All Of My Sorrows’ in the American folk tradition. But I don’t know what happened, I just started thinking about the Iran thing, literally, seriously. The politics of going to war in the Middle East.
That’s very prescient.
It’s really, I know, it’s bizarre. And then one thing led to another, and I had some lyrical ideas, and I said, “Hey, Neil, could you possibly sing these answers, these responses to the situation? I haven’t got the verses yet, but they’re not finished.” So I asked him to sing this particular, these four or five answers. And to the problem, and he was great. It was during the recording of my Postcard From California album, it just finished, and we were just wrapping up, and I said, “Well, heck, the microphones are still up. Maybe, you know, maybe we could try it out.” And he did a great job. It felt right that if I’m going off, I don’t want to say au revoir, not goodbye, because I want to come home from that experience.
Can I ask you about ‘Don’t Fight the Sea,’ which is also from A Postcard From California because that’s the track that I love the most. I think it might date back from the mid 70s.
That dates back, that’s for sure. Oh yeah, my friend in Canada, Terry Jacks, initially recorded it as a single recording for the Canadian public. And I heard it. We were friends, we go way back to his number one hit.
Is that ‘Seasons in the Sun?’
You got it. That’s it. I said, Terry, “This song is beautiful. It could be a Beach Boys song. Can I have a go at it with the guys?” So he said “Sure.” I changed a couple of the lyrics, I Americanized them that way. [laughs] And, he was just thrilled with it. He still thinks it’s a number one hit. All over the world. And I said, “Well, I’ll do what I can.” He said, “Can’t you release it again?” He calls me like, every few months. And he asked me if I could please re-release it. But I don’t know, I don’t even know how to go about doing that, or how that would be accomplished. Well, UMG would have to agree, obviously, the label. But it’s one of those few songs that the Beach Boys recorded, but it came out of my [album]. It’s not a Beach Boys song.
And I thought Brian would sound wonderful on it. And of course, he does. I mean, he gives us so much. And Carl, he’s on the bridge. And it’s just a beautiful composition. Really, everyone just made it. I think, yeah, a perfect Beach Boys song. But it wasn’t meant to be. There are so many other… the politics of recording kind of creep into it. And we kept hiring new producers. And they had their songs they wanted to do. And so it never materialized. But I’m glad you like it.
What about ‘Crumple Car’ from your latest EP? Because I think that’s another song that dates back to the 1970s.
That goes back to the 70s too. I love that little thing. It’s something that my guitarist, Eddie Carter, a Beach Boy guitarist for many years, suggested that we record at my new studio here. I built a new studio. And I thought, okay, and sure enough, the darn thing came alive. In the movie, it was kind of what they call a bonus track. It really wasn’t complete. And I thought, well, I’ll do the same thing I do with ‘All My Sorrows.’ I’ll just add a chorus, and a little bridge and a chorus. And boy, to me it sounds like one of those traditional American folk songs like ‘Puff The Magic Dragon,’ that kind of has that kind of drama and an ecologically sensitive lyric also. But I’m glad you like it because I think it’s really charming. And that’s me whistling, by the way.
Oh, is it?
I’m the happy whistler. [laughs]
There does seem to be that thread through your music whether it’s your solo work or in the Beach Boys of introducing those folk influences. For example, ‘Sloop John B’ but there are many others.
Jeez, Brian, ‘Sloop John B’, what a brilliant production. Yeah, that was my idea too. When we first started the band, I told Brian that I wanted to record that. But we got sidetracked onto the surfing genre. But we eventually got it done, fortunately. But yeah, I love folk music. The Beatles remind me of English folk songs, their music.
‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’ by John Lennon.
Oh, god, yeah! Well, it’s just a style. It’s the style of the minor modal. I call it style because the guys are famous for singing a certain intrinsic style of a very British thing. Yeah, I can’t explain it, but universally accepted, obviously. And the Beach Boys had that same kind of universal sound. Brian invented a form of folk music, I think. Surfing music is really folk music about the people, who love their cars and their surfboards and things like that.
And whether it’s ‘Sloop John B,’ or maybe ‘At My Window’ from Sunflower.
That’s pretty one. Yeah, I love that one. That’s a beauty. Yeah, that was my influence, I guess, on the band and on Brian. Brian’s a composer. I’m just a songwriter. [laughs] Obviously, he was a brilliant composer.
He would work with you to take some of those folk songs and create magic.
Yeah, he created magic, alright. He could take a song and make it his own, or write his own song with original… He invented a new language, I call it a musical language. And I’m not quite as brilliant. [laughs] I don’t have those kinds of talents, but I could take a good song and make it better.
Did you think that he brought the best out of your vocals, whether it’s ‘Help Me Rhonda’ or ‘I Know There’s An Answer?’ Did he have a way of working with you to develop your vocal style?
Oh, yeah, sure. He was a great teacher. He was really our vocal coach. He would recommend a certain inflection, a certain style of singing. There are many ways to interpret. But it was something that came natural to him. And the rest of us, we had to more or less learn as we went along. So yeah, he was terrific in that regard.
Pet Sounds is an album that in the UK took off and immediately resonated here. What was your perspective at the time of that record? Is it different now to what it was then?
Yeah, I’ve grown to really appreciate the hard work we did. To us, it was really a day at the office. To be honest with you, it doesn’t sound very romantic, I know, but we were constantly touring and we had to, he’d come up with an idea. We’d go out and tour and he’d come back with a finished album. So we’d have to learn all the parts and sing everything. It was a big deal. I mean his vision was gigantic, really, when you think about it. But he needed his instruments and we were his vocal instruments. He’d hear all the parts in his head and then we had to learn them. So, yeah, it was big time. But now when I hear the vocals back on the 40th anniversary [box set], the engineers stripped off the tracks and you can hear the vocals all by themselves. Have you ever heard that particular version?
I have. It’s some of the best vocals I’ve ever heard.
Yes, you know what I’m talking about. They’re almost too good. They’re almost too perfect. But we didn’t doctor them up at all. That’s just how they were. No tune correcting. There was nothing like that in those days. So yeah, it’s really remarkable. But we spent months on it. So it should be perfect.
What was your perspective on the late 1960s and into the 70s? That was a period where yourself, Dennis, Carl, Bruce, contributed increasingly to the music and there’s been box sets recently, the Sunflower Surf’s Up era.
Yeah, we were learning how to produce, write and produce, and arrange our own music. By then, Brian had pretty much receded into the background, he pretty much spent his energy and needed to rest. So the rest of us were able to then fill the void and begin to write and produce our own music in the name of the Beach Boys. It was a good growth period for us personally and professionally. When you’re around someone of Brian’s genius, it’s bound to rub off. And it did rub off, and rubbed off on all of us. I’d never be able to produce ‘Don’t Fight The Sea’ if I hadn’t been a protege of the Brian Wilson school of music. [laughs] That’s got all the right parts in it. But those are really things I learned from Brian.
Who had the initial idea for ‘Don’t Go Near The Water’, was it you or Mike?
That was me. Mike always takes credit for everything. First you have to have the musical bed, the framework for it. And then Mike’s good at coming along and doing some lyrics. That’s basically how it works. So, sorry, Mike, but. I mean, not sorry, what am I saying? That’s exactly the right… how it happened. And that’s where it was with Brian. He would have these incredible musical things. And then we would come along and finish it off, produce the lyrics or whatever. But yeah, ‘Don’t Go Near The Water.’ [recites lyrics] Don’t you think it’s bad? Anyway, there was a lot of soap, suds and phosphates. That’s what it was. I’m pretty keen on stuff like that. And I’ll say, well, we have got to be careful about that and get the phosphates out of our soap, our detergents. Because it foams up in the rivers and wherever, we call it gray water. And, sure enough, I was quoted in Time Magazine, they quoted my chorus, it goes “Toothpaste and soap will make the oceans a bubble bath,” that part. “So let’s avoid an ecological aftermath.” Yeah, that’s it.
You were ahead of your time.
It’s funny, isn’t it? But Mike will take credit for it. [laughs again, then mimics Mike:] “I wrote every single word in that song!”
So with the Pet Sounds Band, I’ve just heard the news that you’re also due to go over to Australia. Have you been down under much?
Yeah, about once every decade we’ve been down. It’s a long trip, oh my god! But yeah, we had an offer to come down there but not one single offer has come in from the UK which I find unusual. I was really hoping to go to the UK first and then maybe a little bit of Europe. But I don’t know, maybe next year, possibly. But we got this offer and so we accepted it, early October. I think they have my ‘Islands In The Sun’ as a lead-off track from the EP that just came out, as we’re going to be doing it there. I hadn’t planned on doing it. But, I probably should do at least one of the songs. It’s been overshadowed by Brian’s passing, so I haven’t even really given it much thought.
I’ve just got one final question for you Al. Where did you see your position in the Beach Boys?
Pretty diminutive, not much. I was a good student of the Brian Wilson school of music. Very good student, I must say. I’d say a graduate student. [laughs]
I think you graduated with honors, Al. You’ve been very humble and modest given your work. Thank you so much for your time.
You’re very welcome. Thanks a lot.
Further information
Al Jardine – Islands In The Sun EP
Al Jardine and the Pet Sounds Band tour dates
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