October 29, 2004 -- Review Journal
Paul McCartney, pick up the phone!
Having fulfilled one dream project by finishing the legendary "Smile" album this year, Brian Wilson says his wish list now includes an album with Paul McCartney, his friendly rival from the days the Beach Boys and Beatles jockeyed for chart position.
"I would like to do a rock 'n' roll album with Paul McCartney and me and my band," says the 62-year-old pop legend, who plays Boulder Station on Saturday. "We've been trying to get in touch with him but he won't call me back. I keep waiting for him to call back, and he never calls back."
The two did collaborate on a song called "A Friend Like You" on Wilson's previous album, "Gettin' In Over My Head." Moreover, Wilson confirms that on the original "Smile" sessions, McCartney dropped by the studio long enough to "munch on a piece of celery" in the recording of the song now called "Vega-Tables."
"We just did that for a joke," he says.
Wilson and a 19-piece band will perform the Beach Boys album that achieved cult status in the years since it was shelved in 1967, with much of it refashioned and released as "Smiley Smile." The best-known songs, "Heroes and Villains" and "Good Vibrations," bookend the new, reconstructed album.
As the young genius who drove the Beach Boys -- "Gershwin and Bach are both very big inspirations," he says -- Wilson seemed to be in a neck-and-neck race with the Beatles to break down the limitations of '60s pop, embracing the twin freedoms of the long-playing album and the psychedelic movement.
While the Beatles triumphed with "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," the 24-year-old Wilson suffered a breakdown while recording "Smile."
The rest became one of rock's most luridly awful sagas: Wilson's dropping out of society, battling mental illness and later the controversial therapist who treated him.
But he started performing again in 1999 and now says, "I'm getting back into the swing of things, you know? I love performing onstage and I like playing with my band, and I'm having a good time."
On the phone at least, the once-reclusive performer still isn't prone to expand at length on questions. He speaks in short, declarative sentences. "You will love the sound of it. You will love it. Love the sound of it!" he says, talking about the large band, including strings and horns, that bring "Smile" to life.
But Wilson gives a hearty laugh when asked if he'd heard any of the bootlegs that have attempted to reconstruct the album over the years. "No, I never heard about that stuff. You're kidding me!"
For a work that in large part consists of trippy song fragments careening from one to the other, the biggest irony of "Smile" is that it was revived onstage.
"We took it to London, England, and we got a standing ovation six nights in a row, which turned us on to want to record it. We took a whole month to record it," Wilson says. "It got us well in touch with it. It got us to practice a lot, got it down to where we couldn't forget one note of it."
"It was my wife's idea," he says of spouse Melinda, who has helped guide his career revival. "She and my manager and my publicity agent all said, 'Brian, we think the world is ready for "Smile." ' And the rest is history."
Wilson had been touring with keyboardist Darian Sahanaja and other members of the Wondermints. Sahanaja organized all the existing fragments of the original recordings to help Wilson reconstruct them. The ensemble spent a month at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, the same studio where the original recordings were done.
Wilson got back in touch with original lyricist Van Dyke Parks, "and he came over and helped me write some songs for the third movement. Now we have a whole rock opera."
In interviews with the Review-Journal in 1999 and 2001, Wilson complained of being stymied by writer's block.
"That's over with now," he says. "I made up my mind to write some songs. Apparently I did because I've written 30 songs in the past month. 30 songs! Can you believe that? And you know what, not one of those songs would I throw away. I would not throw away one song. That's how cool they are."
So if McCartney would just call back. Or if Phil Spector weren't at the center of a murder trial. "I don't know if (Spector) can get out of jail," Wilson says, but "to work with him in the studio (would be) almost like a dream come true to me."
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Oct-29-Fri-2004/weekly/25092601.html
