The Beach Boys were at a turning point in 1974. They had spent the previous six years in the commercial wilderness cranking out arty, clever albums, but there emerged a renewed interest in the surf/car sounds that first built their reputation. So this particular tour, presented in an often ragged video directed by band member Billy Hinsche as part of a film school project, is basically the last gasp of the more cerebral version of the Beach Boys.
Hinsche has spent his postgraduate days providing backup for the Beach Boys--an occasional member of the regular band followed by a spot as musical director for Al Jardine's Beach Boys offshoot. He's now pulled together 1974--On the Road With the Beach Boys from the raw tape, much of which features the Beach Boys and their backing band fooling around offstage. He's blended this with current interviews with some of the participants, shot in black&white in order to match the original footage.
Hinsche, 58, has been onstage since he was 13, when he was the one member of Dino, Desi & Billy without a famous relative. That changed when his sister married Carl Wilson, and he has been a member of the Beach Boys' extended family since. In the meantime, he's had a front row to all the band's highs and lows, legal squabbles and musical triumphs.
He spoke to us from his home in Nevada, where he teaches music in between calls to play with one old friend or another.
Sonic Boomers: How did this project happen?
Billy Hinsche: In 1974 I was working toward a degree at UCLA and it was a class project. I got a lot of film, put it away and forgot about it. Recently, I was looking through my garage and found the video reels and turned them into this movie. I tightened up a lot of the scenes that dragged on a bit, and edited it into the final product. In a lot of it I was just getting the feel of the camera, so it's pretty loose.
For my next project I'd like to do something about Carl. I have a lot of home movies, Super 8 stuff that doesn't have any sound, but it's in color. I'd like to pull that all together. I'd really like to share this; I think it would be a great project.
SB: How did people feel about being filmed back then?
BH: They loved it. The camera was like a magnet. People would run up and want to be filmed. It was a novelty. People in the midwest would see these guys from Hollywood, come up and say "hey, we want to be in your movie." It was all very innocent, not like some of the malicious stuff that goes on today.
SB: What was it like being in the Beach Boys in 1974?
BH: It was a great time. Rolling Stone had just named us band of the year. There was a lot of room to stretch out and take prolonged solos. It was a really interesting configuration, a very tight unit. It was different every night, depending on where we were playing. We had our "meat and potatoes" set, where we would do the surfing songs, or the longer set that had more of the later stuff.
SB: How was it different from how the band is today?
BH: I did see the band recently, and they sounded pretty good. I enjoyed the show. It has more to do with the songs themselves than who is in the band. The audience loved it, they don't care about the band's history or the politics. The music is still strong. I'm still friendly with most of the guys. And I've known (Mike Love's son and current band member) Christian Love all his life. He's a good kid, and has as much right to be onstage as anyone. He's family.
SB: If Al Jardine were to sing with the new band would it necessarily improve the sound?
BH: I think so. It would mean a lot for the fans because Al was was one of the main voices, and his voice is still in excellent shape. I can actually see both sides here. I understand why Al feels what he does, and I understand Mike too. But the good news is that everyone is talking to each other; they are more friendly and there has been a rapprochement. It may be time to make peace, considering that the 50th anniversary of when the band started is coming up. I'm not trying to tease you here, I don't have any inside information. I'm just saying that something could happen.
SB: What do you think when you listen to the Dino, Desi & Billy records?
BH: I don't listen to them very often. When I do, they sound good, they were a lot of fun. We had a good time recording them. We had a great band, the whole Wrecking Crew. Although we were shocked at first when we arrived at the studio we were surprised that we weren't going to be playing our own instruments. We didn't understand how this could happen. We had these teenage dreams that we could play our own instruments competently. We were wrong.
SB: But it's pretty raw, and sounds like you could be playing.
BH: They played like a trio, with three pieces. There were not a lot of keyboard fills in there, which would have suggested that it wasn't us. There was a lot of percussion, and drum fills everywhere. You would listen to the record and think "Hey, that Desi really can play the drums." It wasn't Desi. But the thing was, he really could play the drums. Dino, Desi & Billy aren't in the Rock Hall of Fame, and we never sold a million records. But we were on the Ed Sullivan Show, which was a big deal. There were some people who said we only were a success because of who our families were, that we had an instant success. But our first record, which we played on the Dean Martin Show, went nowhere. "I'm a Fool" sold a lot because it was a good record, You can't make people buy something they don't like.
We are like a lot of groups from that time that cannot reunite, since one of our members has died. But he didn't die of a drug overdose or in some other embarrassing way, he died defending his country. That was pretty strong, a good way to go.
SB: Your first album had three Dylan songs. How did that happen?
BH: The way we picked out the songs is that producer Lee Hazlewood would come in and give us all copies of Billboard and Cash Box charts. He'd tell us to pick out the songs we liked and we would learn to play them. It wasn't so much picking Dylan, it was picking the Byrds. We loved the Byrds. It was all connected. We'd go to Dino's house, and Terry Melcher was over there because he was seeing one of the Martin girls, and he'd bring Roger McGuinn, who was called 'Jim' back then. Roger and I have stayed in touch. He just sent me an e-mail, to join his Linkedin network.
SB: Did you ever meet Dylan?
BH: A couple of times, in passing. He was very quiet. One time I was walking into a club with Rodney Bingenheimer and Dylan was walking out. There's a picture of that.
SB: A picture of you and Dylan?
BH: No, I took the picture of Dylan and Rodney.
SB: Do you see a lot of the people you knew in the 1960s?
BH: I see a lot of people when they come to Las Vegas. There are a lot of survivors. Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan from the Turtles, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Peter Noone. We are all survivors, like if we were all in the same class together. We all had some great moments.
SB: You are one of the few people in your "class" to have gone to college, much less get a degree. What has that meant to you?
BH: It has really helped me in life. I know how to get a project done, which is something you learn from writing a term paper. I learned a lot about history, language, art and a lot of other subjects. Even though I never had an office job it made me a better person.
I had gotten an offer to join the Beach Boys as a full-time member in the late 1960s, which I accepted. But the manager of the band and my parents got together and decided that it would be better if I went to college. It was a shaky time for the Beach Boys, and the future of that job was uncertain. As it turned out I played with the band while I was in college, in the summertime.
But I was living at home, under my parents' roof. My parents had not attended college. My sister had married young, to Carl, and had not gotten her college degree. So it fell to me to bring one home for the family.
SB: How did people treat you, when you were in school?
BH: No one knew who I was. I hadn't been on TV for a few years and wasn't really recognizable. There were 20,000 kids there, and it was a big campus.
SB: What does it mean to have played in the Beach Boys?
BH: That you are pretty darn good at what you do, and that you must be doing something right to get an opportunity to play in one of the greatest bands ever. It's a credit to you that you were invited to participate, and that you made the cut. It also means that you can get the call to come back any time. I joke about this, but unless you've been fired and rehired, and fired and rehired, you really haven't been in the Beach Boys.
Hinsche is selling the DVD of from his http://www.billyhinsche.com website.
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