The Beach Boys perform at The Cotillion Ballroom on Wednesday, July 17.
The legendary band is celebrating 40 years since the release of its compilation album "Endless Summer," which focuses on the group's hits between 1962 and 1965. The multimillion-selling release has become a touchstone for old and new fans, and co-founder Mike Love says that audiences can expect to hear a healthy dose of tunes from that release as well as other longtime favorites.
Love formed the band with his cousins Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson as well as friend Al Jardine in 1961, making The Beach Boys one of the longest-running bands of the rock 'n' roll era. The group's history is at the heart of the eponymous Disney+ documentary and a new limited edition book which, in both cases, some consider long overdue.
Those who know the band's story know that there have been conflicts and tragedies along the way but, Love says, in the end, the music that he, his cousins, friends and other bandmates have made is what ultimately matters and what will endure.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
You have family roots in the state of Kansas. Your family was in Hutchinson before moving to California.
My mom was born in Hutchinson. My grandmother had nine kids. One of them died in infancy, but eight lived to maturity. My mom was kind of in the middle. She and her older siblings, as well as well as a younger one, came to California when [my mom] was about five years old. They didn't have any money. This is the Dust Bowl days; before the Great Depression. They didn't have any money, but what they did have was music. They loved singing together. My mom sang light opera when she was in high school. My uncles sang in a quartet, and it was a big deal because they sang on the radio! [Laughs.]
[Laughs.]
And here a generation later their kids are making music about the California environment. Beaches. How do you get to the beach? A car. We were inspired by our environment and sang about it.
Were the hardships that your parents faced in some ways inspirational to you as young men?
What was inspiring was that even though they came from next to no money, they had music. Harmonizing together. My cousin Brian and I would get together for special occasions — birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. It was always about music. I grew up in a home with a grand piano and an organ and a harp. The musical ability of the Wilson side and the hard work of my father and his father, who came from rural Louisiana, gave rise to the Beach Boys' success.
I wanted to talk about the Disney+ documentary. There have been numerous music documentaries over the years and I remember thinking, "OK, where's the one on The Beach Boys?"
Irving Azoff's company, Iconic, took over a significant amount of our label, Brother Records. They not only got the documentary done but were behind the book "The Beach Boys by The Beach Boys" from Genesis Publications. Last year, there was a program ["A Grammy Salute to The Beach Boys"] on CBS where there were 20 different acts doing 20 different Beach Boys' songs. That was enormously successful as well. All of these things are being done by Iconic with our participation, of course. But they have really made a difference. If we were left to our own devices I'm not sure we would have gotten as much done as has been done in the last couple of years.
There's one thing in the documentary that was really touching to me. There's a scene where you're talking about how you and Brian have had differences and that you wanted to tell him that you loved him. I thought that and then the meeting at the end of the film were so wonderful because I thought about conflicts in my own life and thought, "Maybe at the end of the day, those [differences] aren't that important." It's really the love that you have for other people that you have to express and really cherish.
That's right. In the music business, people choose their favorites. Some people say, "Well, John Lennon was The Beatles." Other people think George Harrison was the greatest. Of course, Paul McCartney is one of the most prolific guys in the world. It's not about the individuals in the group. It's about the totality of the group. Everybody played their part. Everybody had their strengths. Everybody contributed their strengths. The life lesson for The Beach Boys is that harmony dissolves negativity and resolves so many [conflicts].
In fact, in our concerts we see it. There are people who are religious, agnostic, atheistic, different sects, different religions, or no religions, and yet they're all unified in celebrating life through the music. That is a life lesson, I think, that harmonies bring unity and dispel negativity.
And there's that generational thing with your music. My older brother turned me onto The Beach Boys and then I was able to get my nieces and nephews into that music.
Exactly. We see as many as four generations coming to our shows. We'll have a great-grandparent who is eighty-something or 90, then their children — young couples who are coming out, and then their children. Every place we go maybe won't have that spread. If we were in Hutchinson, maybe entire families would come out. Some of them would be [our] distant cousins! But we find that there are a tremendous amount of teenagers and younger [kids] enjoying our music.
Your son has been touring with the band.
My son Christian has an album out, "Only Alibies," and he does a song just after "Surfer Girl." He does "God Only Knows" beautifully. He has a similar timbre to my cousin Carl. He was a fantastic singer. He sang lead "Good Vibrations" and "Darlin'," which we love, doing and he did the bridge part on "Kokomo." Christian sings those now.
This goes back to what we were talking about at the start — that sense of music being something your family had. In my life, if I have music to listen to or a song to sing, I never have to be lonely and I also feel like it keeps me young.
Absolutely. This is like time travel. John Stamos comes with us to many of the shows. He loves playing drums. He says our music bypasses the brain and goes straight to the heart. He says that if you're 10 and you go to one of our concerts, you're going to leave as a teenager. If you're a 90-year-old you'll leave the concert as a teenager. [Laughs.]
These songs have an element of immortality to them. We don't, but the songs do! I'm 83 years old and I'm still enjoying singing those songs in their original keys. The energy and the positivity in these songs is palpable. The audiences really respond to the warmth of the harmonies and the positivity. It's just really an uplifting thing to see the audience's response. I've always liked the live music thing more than the studio. The studio's necessary and it's great and you can do a fantastic recording in there but to see the effect of the music when it's performed live for people. That's always been my favorite thing.
