Pre-Publication Interview with David Leaf

SMiLE: The Rise, Fall & Resurrection of Brian Wilson by David Leaf

 

Size & Scope

 

PHIL >>> David, when your book arrived in the mail, I was surprised to see the size and scope of your work. Is this a chronological history? A comprehensive study of the music and the production process? Will it give us a glimpse into what was happening to Brian Wilson as he wrote and recorded the unfinished "teenage symphony to God" for the Beach Boys ?

 

DAVID >>>   The book is indeed chronological, an oral history of the first SMiLE era told by those who were there, and the reconstruction and triumphant presentation of the music in London in 2004, again, through the voices of the participants, observers, and fans who saw the world premiere on February 20, 2004. Most of all, the book is designed to be a celebration of the indisputable fact that the work that Brian and Van Dyke did was more than worth the wait, that indeed Brian and his band delivered “the holy grail” of rock, the “teenage symphony to God” that he had promised back in 1966.  In putting the book together, I wanted to present the story so that it would make sense to the reader, regardless of whether they were big fans or had ever heard of SMiLE or never even heard the music of SMiLE.

 Music & the Message

 

PHIL >>> SMiLE has become a larger-than-life story, which I am certain you delve into on each page. But SMiLE is also a record album. Songs. Songs with messages. Songs with voices and instruments. How do the songs fit into the story you tell?

 

DAVID >>> The songs fit into the story in many ways, but most vitally, the fact that Brian and Van Dyke wrote a group of songs that were unlike anything Brian had ever done before, unlike anything a rock or pop group had ever done. Van Dyke, I think, is the primary voice in the book explaining the songs, although Brian has a lot to say too.  As does Durrie Parks, Van Dyke’s first wife who watched much of the creative process unfold.  Hearing how it was all created, fell apart, and then reconstructed is a good way to describe it, I think.

 

 

Interview & Individuals 

 

PHIL >>> As I leafed (no pun intended!) through the pages, it was apparent you conducted many interviews and quoted many eyewitnesses to the SMiLE sessions and the decision-making process...

 

DAVID >>> This book, I believe, is primarily told by eyewitnesses. For this book, I conducted 25 new interviews in 2023/2024, including all of the living members of the Brian Wilson band.  There were dozens of interviews done when I made Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson & The Story of SMiLE. Many of those people, like Carl Wilson’s first wife Annie, didn’t make it into the film at all. And what they had to say, I believe, is important in contextualizing the first SMiLE era. There were also a few quotes from interviews I did back in 1978 for The Beach Boys and the California Myth that made it into this book because the people (e.g. engineer Chuck Britz and publicist Derek Taylor) are deceased.  

Most significantly, as the book offered a much larger canvas in terms of space, there is so much more of Van Dyke Parks and Brian and Darian Sahanaja and the band in the book.  My goal was that the quotes come from interviews I had done.  As Nelson Bragg notes, “The book makes Beautiful Dreamer seem like the Cliff Notes version of the story.” Of course, not everybody was available for an interview, primarily the Beach Boys, who, as I was told by their manager, couldn’t do interviews for the book because of The Beach Boys by The Beach Boys that Genesis released last year.  So I had to use quotes from “the boys” from other places.

 

Labor of Love

 PHIL >>> Knowing how you have become a trusted friend of Brian Wilson, I get the impression the research and writing of this new book has been a labor of love; a gift to Beach Boys fans, but also a very special, personal, gift to Brian Wilson himself…

DAVID >>> It is indeed a “labor of love” for me and it is a gift for all of us who worship at the Church of Brian Wilson. I can’t wait to give Brian a copy, because I think it’ll make him smile, but I doubt he will read it, as he lived it. He knows what he did, what it did to him, and how much 2004 meant to him and changed his life, making him happier and artistically ambitious again.

 

 

Exciting Expedition

 

PHIL >>> What should we expect from all the stories and circumstances you have laid out in the book? What will it be like to go with you on the journey that produced another "essential reading" for Brian Wilson and Beach Boys fans?

 

DAVID >>> I think the book is as deep a dive into the story of SMiLE as has been done, especially when it comes to 2003/2004, as I was privileged to have gone on the journey with Brian and everybody else while we were making Beautiful Dreamer. So I was there. The book, I think, is intense, dense, and emotionally difficult at times when Brian is collapsing in 1967 and in 2003/2004, when he’s facing the challenges.  

My job was to organize the stories from those who were there, to contextualize it for the reader. I actually didn’t “write” the book in a formal sense; I think only 25% of it is my words.  But I believe the reader will come away having gone on many SMiLE journeys, especially as the book concludes with a SMiLE anthology of a dozen essays from those for whom SMiLE is very important, and (spoiler alert) in the case of the concluding piece, life-saving.  Clearly, this book was something I took on as a mission, the same way I did all those years ago when I moved to California with the ultimate goal of somehow helping Brian finish SMiLE.

 

To Preorder SMiLE: The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of Brian Wilson

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/4fI5kmg

Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/49czwn1

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