Brian Wilson by Jeremy Gluck

Brian Wilson by Jeremy Gluck - "Y'know what I mean? I'm a crazy person, I'm really crazy. I dunno...."

Another piece we'd got lined up for the never to appear issue 7 of WANWTTS, and it's the second offering from our good friend Jeremy Gluck.

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 interview him - “without doubt the apex of my journalistic career” - spending several hours in his company. Some of the interview appeared in the Guardian (entitled “Good And Bad Vibrations”), some in Sounds, but there is a whole chunk that hasn't seen the light of day in the subsequent 23 years, until now.

                                           

Jeremy Gluck

Their lengthy dialogue provides plenty of evidence of Brian's confused state of mind and his then almost total dependence on Dr Eugene Landy. With the benefit of hindsight of course we now know that accusations against Landy of brainwashing, drugging and isolating his patient, then benefiting from an improper business relationship with him, ultimately cost Landy his professional license and reputation and in 1992 he was barred by court order from contacting Wilson. But all this was in the future.

The “Brian Wilson” album was critically well received but didn't sell in any great numbers, and a second Eugene Landy helmed album, “Sweet Insanity” was rejected in 1991 by Sire Records and was never released. It wasn't until 1995 that Brian got busy again with his non Beach Boys career.

Brian Wilson Interviewed By Jeremy Gluck

(Note: The content of this feature is based on the assumption that the reader is, like the author, a Brian Wilson devotee. It may read rather oddly in parts; I've included some material that is rather oblique, but gives an indication of Wilson's persona. Interviewing Wilson is an unusual challenge; bear with my self-indulgence.)

To his die-hard fans, Brian Wilson is indisputably the greatest “pop genius” of them all, and they are few. If you believe – as I do – that “Pet Sounds” is the greatest pop LP and that the Beach Boys are the summit of American pop (just as The Stooges are the summit of American punk), then you'll understand how exciting the prospect of actually meeting Wilson is.

Last October Wilson was in Ibiza to shoot a segment for a European satellite TV special. I missed the shoot, but was reliably informed later that he had difficulty facing the cameras and had been sick from nerves. Wilson has, after all, been diagnosed as “pathologically shy”.

I met Wilson the next day. His party- including Dr Landy, Landy's mother-in-law and his two personal assistants Chris and Kevin – occupied one wing of an exclusive private hotel in a small village about 15 miles north of Ibiza. When I arrived, in the mid-afternoon, Wilson was idly reclining on a couch. Kevin introduced me.

Wilson was cagey at the outset. He's fit, but also looks his age, 46. He extended his hand mechanically and asked me to “sit on my good side”. (Wilson has long suffered from a painful hearing loss in one ear). His eyes were a little narrowed and he was fairly still as we started; he stroked a cushion periodically, as a child would for comfort.

I asked Wilson several questions that weren't recorded; he affirmed that the “Smile” tapes would be remixed and released ASAP; he said that “Little Children” drew on “Da-Doo-Ron-Ron” for its structure and melody, beating on the cushion to show me how alike they are.

I began by asking Wilson about what he means by referring – as he does in Rolling Stone – to the “spirituality” of his music. His answer was off-centre but nonetheless interesting

BW - “You see: I've had a lot of practice, not just playing the piano. I've had practice interviewing and playing and a lot of practice with keyboards. I'm very familiar with what keys I need to play in and all that....now, instead of having to accept what you just did with a band in 3 hours, I can't see going back to the old way when this new way works so well. It's tempting to get a group spirit thing with a nice sound going in a studio, but it's so much better to do it the tried and proven (i.e. modern) method. (At this point Wilson explains laying down the tracks, making the appropriate sounds of the instruments). It's not that funny working this way, interpreting what I do, I look back and see what I'm doin', and I see what I'm trying to do and I think I'm doing really well at it. You don't have to think in terms of perfectionism; just do what you do and it's right, even when you don't think it's right, it's perfect.

JG - It's the creative mystery I suppose.

BW – Yes, yeah.

JG – What are you favourite Beach Boys songs?

BW - “Good Vibrations”, “California Girls”....”Do It Again”...

(Midway through the next set of questions – not included here as used elsewhere - Wilson suddenly stops and says “Wait, I've got a stomach ache” and tilts his head back, raises two fingers and apparently concentrates. A moment later his eyes open and he says “OK”, smiling. Not for the first or last time in this lengthy interview, I'm startled and incredulous that I'm actually with Wilson and that he's so....weird.)

JG - “Brian Wilson” seems to represent an “act of faith” in yourself and the business and your own creative process. You'd have to have a lot of faith of a kind to make the music you have.

                          

"Brian Wilson" Album 1988

BW – Yeah. I keep referring back to the bigger picture; learning to get an overall feeling for something is very important in life for me. The business I'm in calls for a lot of overview...I have risen to a personal gift that I can understand other people liking, but not ridiculing me for it. I'm not in business for someone to tell me that I'm just a fuckin' bastard - as a matter of fact I would take a punch at someone who did – I wouldn't start a fight, but I would take a punch. And I don't like people telling me I'm all fucked up and I don't really know what's going down in the world – to heck with that! But I will say this; I do love people. And my music through the years was a great deal of hell for me, to get into those songs out to the public and it was a great deal of discomfort to go through. I had to hang on like all hell for a few years there.

But lemme tell you; no pain, no gain. When you're doing it you don't want someone to remind you that there's no pain,no gain....but later on, after I'm through doing my pain and I'm actively productive again, then I'll be glad to sit down and think yeah, right, I did have to go through that to rise to this sort of personal power.

For that reason alone there are people that wouldn't buy Beach Boys records because they don't think the Beach Boys stand for anything that's happening now. I can't argue with the fact that someone might get punched in the nose (? - JG)....if somebody punched me in the nose and broke it, it would anger me to all hell. I might slow down for a month or two and not wanna do anything, or just call people bastards or whatever; that's just going on inside my head – what's going on outside my head is a lot of people saying “C'mon Brian, let's get a hit record, you can do it” and there's people saying “Fuck you Brian Wilson, you aint happening, it aint you, it's not your scene”. I've gotta contend with that all the time, y'know?

When I went into the studio with Steve Levine, he started cryin' because Al Jardine told him he was a washed-up little punk...I felt terrible. I said “Is there anything I can do to make it better?” He said, “No, Jardine has destroyed me!”. Finally, an hour later, he walked back in, Al apologised, Steve stopped crying – it was unbelievable. But noting's so bad that you're not going to go back into the studio and work...and he got in there and got a couple of good songs on there and everything was cool – except for that fuckin' Al Jardine screwing him up!

See, Al was feeling bad that day. Al feels bad sometimes, feels like life is a rip-off and he doesn't get to sing enough leads on the Beach Boys records. So you can imagine how much the guy has built up inside of him; so he lashed out at Steve Levine.

JG – With a gift like yours you can also frighten people, make them jealous, so they want to et back at you.

BW – That's happened to me! What happened was some of the guys work for – (laughs) excuse me, some of the guys who work for me and Gene (Dr Gene Landy, Wilson's manager/doctor/guru) – I got into a bag where I exercised quite a bit of creativity with people and it backfired. It was more difficult to be with somebody. I said what the hell is happening here I have set myself up to be somebody whose attitude to life – which was so precious to me, that I was a genius – what is this shit? Ah, it was nothin', it was just that I should've been all my life but wasn't....all my life I was missing a screw in my head 'cause I wasn't eating healthily. So the people around me were saying, Brian, don't eat steak and sugar....until I was converted to being a good healthy food eater. I couldn't handle where I was at that time – I went berserk and hid in my bedroom...there's a lot of personal questions I can't answer, that I can't go too deeply into what occurred in my life about....I can't do it, it's hell for me to have to go from the healthy foods to all the stuff I deal with, with my friends, the people I live with. It's too difficult. So I steer clear of it – that's how I do it.

Landy and Wilson