{"id":439807,"date":"2026-05-22T09:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T09:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/439807\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T09:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T09:41:09","slug":"i-just-shut-up-and-didnt-talk-and-did-whatever-brian-told-me-to-do-bruce-johnston-and-the-surviving-beach-boys-talk-about-the-making-of-pet-sounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/439807\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI just shut up and didn\u2019t talk and did whatever Brian told me to do\u201d: Bruce Johnston and the surviving Beach Boys talk about the making of Pet Sounds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pet Sounds turned 60 this week and the three surviving Beach Boys from that era\u2019s lineup have been talking about the album that many consider the greatest of all time. <\/p>\n

Al Jardine, Mike Love and Bruce Johnston have given \u2013 interestingly, separate – interviews to Associated Press about Brian Wilson\u2019s masterpiece.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

By 1965, Brian Wilson had retired from playing live, and, whilst the rest of band were out touring, was laying down the instrumental tracks for Pet Sounds. They had little idea what was waiting for them on their return. \u201cIt was just another record,\u201d remembers Al Jardine. \u201cBrian was very excited to have us come home because he\u2019d been working on this new record.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Jardine recalls that the day after the group returned from Japan, he was summoned to the studio by Brian. \u201cHe says \u2018you gotta hear this stuff!\u2019 \u2018Ok, alright\u2019. And of course we were completely mystified because this was a whole new kind of msuic.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s more thoughtful, it\u2019s romantic, it\u2019s melancholy. It\u2019s all the things that the Beach Boys\u2026 well, we like romantic. But our songs are fun and joyous and happy and these songs were thoughtful and had some melancholy. But because we’re professional guys, the next day we were in the studio singing I Know There\u2019s An Answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Beach Boys reflect on 60 years of ‘Pet Sounds’ | AP interview – YouTube
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As we all know, it was Mike Love who was most resistant to the Beach Boys\u2019 turn into introspective territory. Diplomatically, Love doesn\u2019t mention that this time, though he does talk about the numerous vocal takes the older Wilson brother would make them all do. \u201cWe focused fiercely on the harmonies. My cousin Brian had us do one section of Wouldn\u2019t It Be Nice more than 25 times. I said \u2018Brian, that sounded great\u2019. He said: \u2018No, do it again\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started calling him \u2018Dog Ears\u2019 because dogs are said to hear ranges that are higher and lower than human beings. I also called him \u2018the Stalin of the studio\u2019 because he was like a dictator the way he was in the studio at that time. But it all worked out for the good.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Best of all is Bruce Johnston, who says: \u201cI just shut up and didn\u2019t talk and did whatever Brian told me to do. Because I knew this was the album. I was lucky enough to be included and knew this was the album of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

And when asked what he is most proud of, Johnston replies: \u201cI\u2019m most proud of Mike and Al and Bruce not succumbing to alcohol, smoke or drugs and clouding the judgement of what I\u2019m doing and being cool, clear and sharp to take the direction and hit the actual notes that Brian would assign us in Pet Sounds.\u201d So there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pet Sounds turned 60 this week and the three surviving Beach Boys from that era\u2019s lineup have been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-439807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}