Interview with author of "The Beach Boys: America's Band

Pray For Surf ~ Johnny, please introduce yourself 

JOHNNY ~ I'm British, was a music journalist and now write books about music and popular culture.

Pray For Surf ~ What circumstances led you to write a book about the Beach Boys?

JOHNNY ~ I was asked by the British packagers of the book, Essential Works, for who I've previously written books on the history of Disco and The Art of the LP.

Pray For Surf ~ identify your audience(s); who are you trying to reach or influence?

JOHNNY ~ Not trying to influence anyone; the book's aimed at the casual Beach Boys fan who likes photographic books – there's nothing in it that superfans won't know or have seen before (although there are a few things that they'll spot as mistakes, I'm sorry to say).

Pray For Surf ~Your  book is a creative combination of history, discography, and photography. What does that tell us about how you approached telling the Beach Boys story?

JOHNNY ~ Everything you need to know!

Pray For Surf ~How is  America's Band viewed differently in Britain than the United States (take us through different periods of time if/as opinion shifted)?

JOHNNY ~ The UK seems to have always viewed the BBs as a surf band and representative of American culture, specifically of West Coast/SoCal culture, which was the stuff that dreams (and Hollywood) were made of back in the early 1960s. America likewise discovered the surf and custom car culture through the Beach Boys, but didn't view it as being as unattainable perhaps whereas the cold, clammy, Brits did. Brits fetishised the band as a particular kind of unique entertainment in the way that they did wrestlers, perhaps, or American comedians like Jack Benny and Western stars like John Wayne: real but unreal and great fun because of that. 

There's little doubt that after 1966 and Good Vibrations in the UK the BBs were always known for the pre-Smile music, and it's only ever been their Greatest Hits compilations that sold well. In the US the band were afforded more consideration for their albums after the rise of pop music magazines like Rolling Stone and Creem—not that they were ever critically acclaimed for much especially Surf's Up or Holland, of course. But in the UK the post-PS albums meant little and sold less than Greatest Hits and Endless Summer ever did.

It was the Brits, and in 1976 the NME particularly, who began the great re-appreciation of Pet Sounds as a 'great, concept' album I think. Since then a score of BB fans who also happen to be writers have repositioned it as a concept album (it isn't, as Brian has always said) and as something new and unique–but rarely if ever mentioning Brian's reasons for dong what he did with it, which was to out-Spector Phil. I think we Brits 'got' that faster and appreciate it more than US-based critics for whom PS is their Sgt Pepper moment. 

But there's no doubt that for every BB fan the live shows—for which they have to thank Mike Love, without whom the band would have ceased to exist in 1967—and the greatest pre-1970 hits are what have sustained their interest in the band.

Pray For Surf ~ You book takes us on an album-by-album excursion. 

What is the most misunderstood album released by the boys? ... 

JOHNNY ~ See above answer - Pet Sounds. I'd love to have heard the Ronettes singing vocals on the album

Historically, most important? ... 

JOHNNY ~ At the moment it's Pet Sounds and Smile, but that might change as critics rediscover another album that's 'misunderstood' or 'forgotten' – I've recently noticed nonsense being written about The Beach Boys Love You being a groundbreaking work of Krautrock significance, for instance (it isn't)

Most embarrassing? ... 

JOHNNY ~ Not counting Mike Love's solo album (Looking Back With Love) with its execrable version of Be My Baby produced by Brian? Has to be Summer In Paradise (there's a reason it's long been deleted)

Best album to discover the band? ... 

JOHNNY ~ Hawthorn CA

Any other "most" or "best" category? ... 

JOHNNY ~ Best post-1970 album Carl & The Passions So Tough; Best change of direction album: Wild Honey

Pray For Surf ~ What was the most surprising piece of history your research revealed? 

JOHNNY ~ That Mike Love attempted to trademark 'America's Band' and failed.

               

Pray For Surf ~ You analyze their single releases but (one of my favorites) Little Girl I Once Knew was missing. What was your reasoning ... And please give us your exclusive analysis here

JOHNNY ~ There was not enough room in the book to include analysis of every BB single, so we had to go with the hits and the important singles. Little Girl was their worst-selling A side in four years, and came in the middle of a run of great hits. In that year of 1965 they'd scored with Do You Wanna Dance (#12), Help Me Rhonda (#1) and California Girls (#3) before Little Girl, which only made #20, and was immediately followed by Barbara Ann (#2) and then in 1966 they had Sloop John B (#3), Wouldn't It Be Nice (#8) and Good Vibrations (#1).

Rather than my analysis of Little Girl I Once Knew, have Brian's, from 1995: "It was a fine song, except the intro is the only good part of it, and the rest didn't sound so good. I thought the song in itself sucked. I didn't like the harmonies, I thought they were sour and off-key."

Pray For Surf ~ Thank you Johnny ... What did I miss that would help us better understand your book (or point of view)?

JOHNNY ~ Only that if people really want to understand what Brian was doing all that time he was in the studio in the mid-1960s, believe him when he said that he was trying to emulate Phil Spector. So many so-called Beach Boys experts patronise Brian by insisting that their theories about his work are more important and meaningful than anything he has said —especially when it disagrees with what they want to hear. 

The 1976 NME re-appreciation of Pet Sounds begins by pointing out that we can't listen to anything by the Beach Boys now without hearing and viewing it through the lens of his tragedy; that tragedy (his mental illness) seems to be reason for others to ignore statements made by him about his work. Go back to the source and read contemporary interviews with Brian about his work.

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