{"id":495662,"date":"2026-03-26T03:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T03:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/495662\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T03:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T03:05:08","slug":"beach-boys-replace-bruce-johnston-with-instagram-singer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/495662\/","title":{"rendered":"Beach Boys replace Bruce Johnston with Instagram singer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, Beach Boys<\/a> keyboardist and bassist Bruce Johnston announced he was leaving the band after six decades in the job.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s time for part three of my lengthy musical career!” said Johnston. “I can write songs forever and wait until you hear what\u2019s coming! As my major talent beyond singing is songwriting, now is the time to get serious again.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Beach Boys wasted no time in confirming a replacement for Johnston, and it was someone they found via Instagram. The new man is Chris Cron, the former frontman with Orange County rockers M\u00eal\u00e9e, who disbanded in 2012 after recording three albums.<\/p>\n

Article continues below <\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

In 2023, struggling to attract online attention, Cron made a video entitled How To Sound Like The Beach Boys, in which he put together the multi-part harmony vocals for the classic Would It Be Nice, and uploaded it to Instagram<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no followers, and I wasn\u2019t trying to become an influencer or whatever,\u201d Cron tells Rolling Stone<\/a>. \u201cI was just throwing stuff at the wall to see what stuck. I was like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ve got all these tracks for Wouldn\u2019t It Be Nice. Maybe I throw up a stupid video about how to sound like the Beach Boys.'”<\/p>\n

The video was eventually watched nearly two million times, and found its way to the Beach Boys’ musical director Brian Eichenberger and to Jeff Celentano, a member of Beach Boys’ guitarist Al Jardine\u2019s solo backing band, who invited Cron to join him in a tribute act touring the classic Pet Sounds<\/a> album.<\/p>\n

“I bought a bass and learned how to play,” says Cron. “I played bass on demos before, but that was simple punk-rock things. Learning all the Carol Kaye parts took me a month or so, and the first few shows were a little rocky for me. I eventually got it down and just memorised everything.”<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

As Pet Sounds Live continued to perform, Cron and Eichenberger stayed in touch, and eventually, Eichenberger called with the offer to join the real thing.<\/p>\n

“He said, \u2018Bruce is retiring,'” says Cron, “And we need someone to fill his spot. Are you interested?\u2019 The offer didn\u2019t even make sense to me.<\/p>\n

“People say, \u2018You\u2019re in the Beach Boys!\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018Well, I\u2019m a touring member of the current thing right now, so I guess so.\u2019 I don\u2019t know what to think. It\u2019s just fun. This was never on my bingo card.”<\/p>\n

This isn’t the first time the Beach Boys have done this sort of thing. In 1978, English singer\/songwriter Adrian Baker released a Stars On 45-style medley of Beach Boys songs called Beach Boy Gold under the name Gidea Park. Three years later, it was a hit in the UK, and Baker was invited to join the Beach Boys’ touring band, a position he held until 2004.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this month, Beach Boys keyboardist and bassist Bruce Johnston announced he was leaving the band after six…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-495662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}