Transcript
A (0:04)
Double Elvis. So I try to stay disciplined with work and I try to do my creative task, mainly the writing of the podcast in the morning hours. But you can't always control when inspiration is going to hit. So last night I'm up until about midnight researching and then I start writing, which I didn't want to do, but I had to go with it. I'm in the flow. I stay up way later than I want to. I still gotta get up early in the morning and I'm bone tired. Coffee isn't helping. So thankfully I've got my stash of five Hour Energy and they've got this new Confetti craze flavor that I love. It's fantastic. Tastes great. Tastes like a party in a bottle. Which when you're dragging in the morning, believe me, is much needed. Fantastic flavor with this new five Hour Energy Confetti. Great. It's just vanilla y buttery. That's my jam right there. One of the things I also like about five Hour Energy, the bottles. As you probably know, they're tiny and resealable. I can take em anywhere I want. So if I'm gonna hit a wall later in the day, I'm prepared. I just tap into my five Hour Energy stash and I am good to go. Wherever I go, this is a little party in a bottle. It's gonna pump you up. It's gonna get you rolling into your day, whether it's the morning, whether it's the afternoon, whether it's nighttime. Five hour energy confetti is available online. Head to www.fivehourenergy.com or Amazon to order yours today.
B (1:35)
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A (2:10)
Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a story about the quiet one, the genius in the bathrobe, the savant, the ghost. And it's a story about murder, about theft, about manipulation. It's a story about the cost of music and the way a sound can save a person and the way it can drown them, too. It's about the Beach Boys, yes, but it's also about the wave that never stops pulling. And this is a story about love and mercy and about family and the violent cracks that split these things apart. It's about the man who made Pet Sounds, and it's about the people who nearly destroyed him for it. People who medicated him, isolated him, rewrote his contracts, manipulated his mind and stole his future. It's about a murder that marked his descent, a theft that changed his legacy, and a manipulation so complete it turned a fragile artist into a legal hostage. It's a story about Beach Boy Brian Wilson, a man who made great music. Unlike that loop I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron called Pick and Cass Forever. I played you that loop because I. I can't afford the rights to Monday Monday by the Mamas and the Papas. And why would I play you that specific slice of your mother's Laurel Canyon cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on May 16, 1966. And that was the day Brian Wilson's Beach Boys released Pet Sounds and changed the course of pop music forever. On this episode, murder, theft, manipulation, Love and murder, Mercy and the broken beauty of Brian Wilson. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. The surfboard hit Brian Wilson's head so hard that it brought on total blackness. But when he opened his eyes under the wave, the salt brought a sharp sting. The pins and needles that bit at his hands and feet brought fear. And a voice in his head, not his own, told him it was going to be all right. He was young, not much older than 10, but he was physically strong. Soon he'd be a high school athlete. He'd survive this scary incident off the beach a couple miles from his family home in Hawthorne, California. But he'd never surf again. The hits kept on coming back in the Hawthorne home throughout Brian's childhood. Hits to the head, close fist hits to the face, to the stomach, so hard his knees buckled, and down he went. Above him, he heard his father's voice screaming at him. Whatever Brian had done, Murray Wilson believed it justified the beating. His sons, especially his oldest son. Brian, needed to be tough if Brian was going to survive in this world, if he was going to make something of himself like Murray had. And Brian Wilson was tough. Brian Wilson, the songwriter, producer, composer, singer and beach boy, passed away in 2025 at the age of 82, and much has been said and written about him. When it comes to 20th century musicians, Brian Wilson stands among a small group of giants. Paul McCartney, Miles Davis, George Gershwin. And the list pretty much ends there. In the first paragraph of Brian Wilson's Wikipedia entry, and in the first paragraph of his New York Times obituary, you'll see the word genius, which is entirely justified. But Brian Wilson was, of course, much more than that. He was, as the Times obit points out, damaged. He was mentally ill, he abused drugs, the kind of drugs that exacerbated his mental illness. He was also partially deaf. And creatively, he was as controlling as he was collaborative, as focused as he was untethered. He was a son, a brother, a cousin, a friend, a husband, an ex husband, a husband again, a father, a dad, both loving and unintentionally unloving. He was also a forever child who, like a kid, found it difficult to rein in his impulses. And that childlike quality persisted throughout his life. And it was, in my opinion, part of what contributed to his genius. That ability to see around creative corners other musical geniuses hadn't yet approached, and other so called professionals were too grown up to even notice. That childlike quality helped Brian Wilson create America's band, the Beach Boys. With his family, his two little brothers and his cousin Mike, as well as a couple of kids from the neighborhood, all under the guidance of his domineering father and loving mother, the Beach Boys gave the world. I'll repeat that, the Beach Boys gave the world a glimpse at what the best of America could be, son. Surf, young love, fast cars and all the rest. And then Brian Wilson reached deep down inside of himself and largely of his own creative volition, gave the music world the greatest pop record of all time up to that point, Pet Sounds later on in life, it was also that same childlike quality that somehow, perhaps ironically, helped Brian reemerge from his madness as not only a survivor, but to regain his position in pop music as a unique voice capable of penning one of the most poignant and inspiring pop songs that ever heard, Love and Mercy. And then becoming the literal embodiment of what that song offered to the world. To do all that, however, Brian Wilson had to endure three devastating crimes. Murder, theft and manipulation. Brian Wilson's life, to put it mildly, was an incredible life. And this is an incredibly brief look at his story. Chapter one. Love. Families are built on love. And families, as we all know, are messy. By now we've learned that there are different ways of building a family. Families in the past, back in the 1940s and 1950s worked that different. I have two young kids and I was a kid back in the 80s and the 90s. So I try to raise my kids with some of the same Gen X independence and grit that I grew up with, but it's very difficult. The world is a different place. During summers when I was my 11 year old son's age, I left the house in the morning on my Mongoose BMX mostly without a plan. Maybe came home for lunch if I wasn't scarfing down food at my friend's house and otherwise didn't return until the street lights came on. Nowadays, my son leaves the house to walk the dog for 20 minutes with an apple watch on his wrist, which I can track on my phone. And he walks to the edge of the neighborhood and back again on time, thank God, because if he doesn't, my mind starts imagining kidnapping and child trafficking rings and worse. God forbid he should go into a friend's house without checking with me first. And visiting a friend's home means my wife and I will be googling his friend's parents like amateur detectives to make sure they're not lunatics. Like I said, it's a different world and my kid's a different kid. But back in the 50s, it was a little closer to what it was like when I was a kid. In the 80s, families had more of an open door policy in their neighborhoods and kids came and went with less oversight. That was America. And that was the America in which Brian Wilson formed the Beach Boys with his little brother Dennis and his youngest brother Carl, and their cousin from the neighborhood, Mike Love, and their buddy from school, Al Jardine. When the band took off, in large part due to the Wilson boys dad Murray, helping steer them toward a recording contract while they were still in their teens. And when the band started to tour, Al quit the group to get his college degree. It was a sensible thing to do, what with. With rock and roll not being anybody's idea of a stable career choice. And when Al quit, Carl's buddy from across the street, David Marks, took his place. And there were no auditions. It was that simple. After the band took off, after they'd spent 1964 jockeying with the Beatles at the top of the charts with incredible singles like I Get around and Fun, Fun, Fun, A year in which the Beach Boys would release four full length albums. Problems when all the pressure caught up with Brian Wilson and brought for the first time his mental illness to the forefront of the band. After he suffered a massive anxiety attack on an airplane flight. Brian simply decided that he wouldn't tour anymore. He was quickly replaced by a friend, a burgeoning singer songwriter named Glen Campbell. And when Glen's own solo career took off, requiring him to leave the Beach Boys, the Wilsons and the their cousin Mike turned to their buddy Bruce Johnston to replace Glenn as Brian's replacement on the road. Shortly after, David Marks quit. But that was no sweat. By then, Al Jardine was ready to rejoin. It sounds complicated, but it wasn't the Beach Boys. Their revolving personnel door reminds me of a neighborhood pickup game of football. Oh, Stax has to go home early for dinner, but the game's not over. No sweatshirt. Go knock on Mike's door and get him to come out and replace Stacks. Wait a minute. Barney has to leave too. Grab Seth from over on the other side of the park and let's keep playing. There were no egos, no hurt feelings. Just boys being boys. Just Beach Boys. The Brothers Wilson and their cousin Mike loved the music they were making with the Beach Boys. And they loved the music they'd grown up on. The Four Freshmen, the Everly Brothers, the Ronettes, the Ventures Link Ray. And they loved channeling that music into a vision of America that they were almost solely responsible for exporting across the world. But despite the subject matter of so many of their songs, the Beach Boys did not love to surf. With the exception of Dennis Wilson, the Beach Boys, they spent little time at the beach. We covered this in our previous two Beach Boys episodes, which you can revisit if you like. But the point here is that the Beach Boys from their earliest days were less of a band and more of an idea. An idea of what America could be. And that came from their love of what their lives and family had been up to that point. The same love drove the band's one for all and all for one approach to making music. At home, in the studio and on the road. It didn't really matter who was in the Beach Boys at the time, as long as the train kept on chugging. The band. Mike, Dennis, Carl, Al and Bruce toured incessantly to sell the songs that Brian stayed home to write. Eventually, Brian would begin recording on his own with an incredible group of LA studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew, who worked with superstars ranging from Frank Sinatra to Elvis Presley. The idea was that the boys in the band, upon returning to la, would help Brian finish the songs by laying down their patented tight knit voice vocal harmonies. By 1966, the result was to Paul McCartney anyway, undeniable. Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys 1966 album was a masterpiece. Brian created a Technicolor version of what his hero, the producer Phil Spector, had established before. Pet Sounds took Phil's layered wall of sound technique and raced it towards the Summer of Love in a way that no one at the time thought was possible. Few Paul McCartney aside, even understood it. And even some of the Beach Boys themselves were skeptical. Notably Mike Love, who lobbied for a return to what had always worked for the group, songs about Sun, Girls and fast cars. Over the years, Mike Love has become known as the Pet Sounds boogeyman. But that's not quite fair. Pet Sounds was a commercial flop. Partly anyone got it at the time? Be honest, when you first heard Pet Sounds, did you love it? Did you really? I didn't. I didn't pay attention to it. I didn't pay attention to whatever Pet Sound single I heard first as a kid. But I did pay attention to Barbara Ann and Help Me Rhonda. Like I said, I was just a little kid after all. Not sophisticated enough to understand the genius of Pet Sounds. And that's pretty much what the world was like, with few exceptions in 1966. Not sophisticated enough to understand Brian Wilson's genius just yet. He was breaking the mold with Pet Sounds. There was no comparison, no roadmap. I don't blame Mike Love, whatever his ignorance or lack of understanding was for Pet Sounds. The dude wrote the lyrics to Good Vibrations, so he gets a pass. But Brian Wilson's genius wouldn't let him off the hook. Fragile as he was increasingly running off the rails with LSD and marijuana and alcohol, all of which were echoing the literal voices in his head. With dread, Brian was unable to complete the Beach Boys next record, Smile. And from there he was in and out of the band for a string of records. Smiley Smile, Wild Honey and Friends. And this period of the Beach Boys had some incredible moments. Like the aforementioned Good Vibrations single in Heroes and Villains from Smiley Smile, the title track from Wild Honey, and Little Bird from Friends among them. But these moments were mostly about a group trying to find their place in a culture that had left them where it thought the Beach Boys belonged in the past. By 1969, Brian Wilson was back underwater. Figuratively, yes, but sinking nonetheless. Smacked down by endless waves of addiction, self doubt and growing mental illness. He was down under the surface, his chest filled with dread. He couldn't breathe, never mind create. And by the end of the decade, the love that Brian Wilson had used to fuel the Beach Boys rise. The love for his family, for his brothers, for rock and roll, for an idealized version of the America he was lucky enough to grow up in. His love of Phil Spector, for the Four Freshmen, the Everlys Gershwin, his love of harmony so tight they made Lennon and McCartney burn with jealousy of melodies nobody but he was able to hear, of sounds and arrangements that made Bach's ghosts smile. All that love by 1969 was being drowned out. It was no match for the drugs and alcohol and the growing mental illness. By the end of the decade, a darkness like the dead of the ocean had consumed Brian Wilson just as it had the rest of 60s culture. And for America, all that love had curdled into something worse than hate.