The Beach Boys by The Beach Boys features new text drawn from extensive interviews with Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine and Bruce Johnston exclusively for this edition, and archive text from band members Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson. You can get it here from Genesis Publications.
The band members describe their story from the beginning: signing their first recording contract with Capitol Records and creating some of the most flawless, sun-soaked singles of all time – ‘Surfer Girl’ / ‘Little Deuce Coupe’, ‘I Get Around’ / ‘Don’t Worry Baby’ and ‘California Girls’ / ‘Let Him Run Wild’, to name a few – as well as sharing their memories of making revered albums such as Pet Sounds, and fan-favourites Wild Honey, Friends, Sunflower and Holland. The story follows their journey around the world, from school fundraisers to global tours and landmark shows such as Prague when, in 1969, they were the first Western band to visit Czechoslovakia, and New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1972. Throughout, the band reflects on the making of the songs.
Joining them are a host of contributors who have been involved with or inspired by the band’s music, including Peter Blake, Lindsey Buckingham, Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, Ray Davies, Bob Dylan, Def Leppard, the Flaming Lips, Bobby Gillespie, David Lee Roth, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Jim Kerr, Roger McGuinn, Graham Nash, Jimmy Page, Carly Simon, Pete Townshend, Rufus Wainwright, Thom Yorke, and many more yet to be announced.
With unlimited access to the Capitol Records archive, the Beach Boys band archive and their personal archives, The Beach Boys by The Beach Boys has been carefully curated from these unique sources to create an exciting visual journey, combining never-before-seen negatives with iconic images.
Outtakes from legendary album sessions are featured, such as Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) and Pet Sounds, as well as behind-the-scenes recording photographs from Smile, 20/20 and more. An abundance of live shots includes the band’s first European tour and rehearsals for the first live performance of ‘Good Vibrations’, which Brian Wilson travelled over 2,000 miles to oversee.
These photographs are accompanied by ephemera from across the years, including tape boxes, tour posters and programmes, handwritten notes and lyrics, newspaper clippings, album advertisements, chord sheets and studio documents – all of which assist in illustrating their remarkable story.
The Beach Boys manage to defy decade, genre and form. They cannot be limited to songs about surfing, girls, California, or hot rods. Everything strove to go beyond – perhaps key to the Beach Boys’ durability; their ability to go further, to keep going until they reached a place that had not previously been reached in rock and pop music. The band’s longevity, experimentation and continuation of influence are without equal.
One of the most critically acclaimed, commercially successful and influential bands of all time, the band are embedded within the cultural landscape of America and loved throughout the world. The Beach Boys spearheaded numerous genres, helped to legitimise popular music, and have had the most Billboard Top 40 hits from any US band (thirty-seven), and today their music continues to be revisited, reassessed, and reimagined.
