Pet Sounds turned 60 this week and the three surviving Beach Boys from that era’s lineup have been talking about the album that many consider the greatest of all time.
Al Jardine, Mike Love and Bruce Johnston have given – interestingly, separate - interviews to Associated Press about Brian Wilson’s masterpiece.
By 1965, Brian Wilson had retired from playing live, and, whilst the rest of band were out touring, was laying down the instrumental tracks for Pet Sounds. They had little idea what was waiting for them on their return. “It was just another record,” remembers Al Jardine. “Brian was very excited to have us come home because he’d been working on this new record.”
Jardine recalls that the day after the group returned from Japan, he was summoned to the studio by Brian. “He says ‘you gotta hear this stuff!’ ‘Ok, alright’. And of course we were completely mystified because this was a whole new kind of msuic.
"It’s more thoughtful, it’s romantic, it’s melancholy. It’s all the things that the Beach Boys… well, we like romantic. But our songs are fun and joyous and happy and these songs were thoughtful and had some melancholy. But because we're professional guys, the next day we were in the studio singing I Know There’s An Answer.”
As we all know, it was Mike Love who was most resistant to the Beach Boys’ turn into introspective territory. Diplomatically, Love doesn’t mention that this time, though he does talk about the numerous vocal takes the older Wilson brother would make them all do. “We focused fiercely on the harmonies. My cousin Brian had us do one section of Wouldn’t It Be Nice more than 25 times. I said ‘Brian, that sounded great’. He said: ‘No, do it again’.
“I started calling him ‘Dog Ears’ because dogs are said to hear ranges that are higher and lower than human beings. I also called him ‘the Stalin of the studio’ because he was like a dictator the way he was in the studio at that time. But it all worked out for the good.”
Best of all is Bruce Johnston, who says: “I just shut up and didn’t talk and did whatever Brian told me to do. Because I knew this was the album. I was lucky enough to be included and knew this was the album of my life.”
And when asked what he is most proud of, Johnston replies: “I’m most proud of Mike and Al and Bruce not succumbing to alcohol, smoke or drugs and clouding the judgement of what I’m doing and being cool, clear and sharp to take the direction and hit the actual notes that Brian would assign us in Pet Sounds.” So there.
