Brian Wilson in His Room
The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson opens up prior to ushering in the 21st Century with a New Year’s Eve performance at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center on December 31, 2025
by Bondo Wyszpolski
Editor’s note: Brian Wilson rang in the new century on New Year’s eve, 1999, with a rare performance at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center in Redondo Beach. The show started at 10 p.m. Wilson was accompanied by a 17 piece band and performed for an hour-and-a-half. Then he took a 20-minute break before returning for the traditional countdown. He continued performing until 1 a.m. Tickets were $255, and included dinner.
One week prior to his Redondo performance, Easy Reader’s arts editor, Bondo Wyszpolski, interviewed Wilson at his Beverly Hills home.
The genius behind the behind the Beach Boys grew up in Hawthorne. He died Wednesday, June 11, at age 82. The following is excerpted from Wyszpolski’s December 1999 interview.
Wilson lives in a palatial home inside a gated community off Mulholland Drive in Beverly Hills, with a view that overlooks the San Fernando Valley. It’s a new house, which Wilson and his wife of about five years, Melinda, and their two young daughters, Daria and Delanie, recently moved into. Perhaps this explains the rather sterile environment — at least in the public spaces. The living room feels like a hotel lobby and even what we once would have called the TV room, where Wilson and I sat and talked, lacked any real warmth. On the other hand, his new family has apparently been an anchor of stability, even though bouts of depression still need to be factored in. Of course, whether Wilson is really serious about getting back on track is ultimately up to him alone; that’s going to be his decision. For right now I sense he’s enjoying being back in a rock and roll band and playing his old hits to an adoring crowd.
If Brian Wilson is a conundrum in the pop music world, he’s also a peculiar interview subject. Meeting him is, of course, an honor and a pleasure. But preparing to interview him is something else again. Not because he isn’t loquacious, we’ll get to that in a moment, but because it plunges the interviewer into the cold waters of his or her own memories. If you came of age in the 1960s it might have been possible to dodge, let’s say, “Fun, Fun, Fun” but not “God Only Knows,” to ignore Barbara Ann and Rhonda while falling in love with Wendy, to elude “Sloop John B” but not “Darlin'” or “Do It Again.” Reminiscing on one’s youth, inevitably a series of missed opportunities, is like walking through a minefield. Like I said, it’s a nice place to visit, but not one where you’d like to stay for very long.
There’s a banner over Brian Wilson’s head that says, ‘Burnt out by age 25,’ while another, smaller banner, proclaims his genius even now, more than 30 years later, and carries hope that the flame will again ignite. After all, if candles can be re-lit, why not talented songwriters?
The Beach Boys song he’s most proud of, Wilson says, is “California Girls.” It’s their anthem, he claims; it encapsulates who they were and what they stood for. An outside observer, however, might wonder if Wilson’s own anthem might not be closer to “In My Room” or “Caroline, No.”
Interviewing Brian Wilson, you might think you’re talking to a reluctant and awkward child. His replies tumble out, there’s a slight slur to his speech, and no expression to indicate whether your question has engaged him or pissed him off. Whether or not it would be easier to talk with him over the phone is not something I can say, because I insisted on a face-to-face encounter. On top of this, Wilson’s replies are firmly in the minimalist camp, as it were, “Yeah” and “I know” comprising about half of his replies. Well, it’s like playing the slots in Vegas: put in enough coins and eventually something comes out.
If there’s a quirkiness here, the sense of trying to get a social misfit to open up, it makes the dialogue more interesting at the same time that it makes it more exhausting. Wilson may give the impression of being a psychological, post-tumble Humpty Dumpty, but then again, social skills have never had anything to do with creative genius. Maybe it’s better that he’s anything but cheerful, witty and debonair, because those things are just fronts, anyway, and what has always counted (and it remains the bottom line) has been Wilson’s ability to punch out a golden melody and heavenly arrangements.
It went something like this:
The Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center is at the old Aviation High School.
“Will I be singing there on New Year’s Eve?”
Yes, you will. That’s the place you’ll be on New Year’s Eve.
“Okay.”
It’s kind of fitting that the last place you’ll be playing this century is back in the South Bay, not far from Hawthorne where you grew up.
“Right.”
Is the area still significant for you? I know your old house has been…
“…demolished in favor of a freeway project.”
Is your last show of the century going to be any different than your recent shows?
“No. We’ll just put a lot of love into it.” Pause. “The vocals are pretty strong.”
New Year’s Eve shows are always quite poignant anyway –
“I know.”
–and this one even more so.
“I know.”
You’re always apprehensive before going on stage.
“I know.”
Do you read your interviews, and the reviews of your shows?
“I read ’em, yeah.”
You do read them?
“Yeah… I just get a kick out of reading them.”
In the Seventies, someone who was visiting me from the East Coast announced that “People in Southern California talk the way the Beach Boys used to sing.”
Silence.
Just 10 minutes before I drove up, K-RTH played “In My Room.”
“They did? I’ll be darned. That’s good.”
Do you ever compare your songs to paintings, or do you get inspiration from other forms of art?
“To be very blunt with you, Phil Spector is my inspiration to make records.”
Pretty much the sole inspiration?
“Right.”
Do you think, as we get older, that we stay tethered to the past, to our adolescence or our teen years, and that however old we become we continue to relate more strongly to certain points in our past?
“I tend to look back a lot, yeah.”
Certainly the music we grew up with in high school and all that…
“I turn back to that music a lot; I listen to K-RTH as much as I can.”
You’ve gone back to touring, maybe in a way to show that you can still do it, too.
“That I still have it in me? Of course I do. It’s just locked up inside of me.”
That’s what I mean, to unlock it a little bit easier.
“Well, I’ve been an egomaniac over the years. Egomania is the disease of the ’90s, and I’ve turned into an egomaniac. And it was in my own self. I try to be cool with other people, but within myself I’m pretty gangbusters about my voice.”
Within ourselves we have to be harsh critics.
“Yeah.”
Some of the reviews of your recent shows pointed out that you hit some notes that were off, but I think it adds to it, to the sense of the moment.
“It’s real.”
It’s real. We don’t go to a live performance to hear everything just as it is on the record. And there’s a risk, too, of wrong notes and other blunders.”
“I know.”
Recently you haven’t been writing too much, or at least not this last year.
“I don’t know what happened; my well ran dry. I have writer’s block, I guess. I just can’t seem to get a song written.”
Well, if somebody gave you a commission, would that make a difference? If I said, Brian, I need a song by Wednesday…
“I can’t do it; I can’t work against that kind of clock.”
I mention this because a journalist with a deadline has to work through it. So I’m wondering if taking a journalistic approach could make a difference.
No response.
Along that thought, have you ever scored a movie?
“No, I never did. I was asked a couple of times [but] I turned it down because it would take me too long to do it. I didn’t go to school to write orchestra-based stuff.”
But you’ve written all kinds of music; you could do it.
“I’m not interested in doing any movies, and it’s not my cup of tea.”
You may not be writing much at the moment, but you do want to do a record with more of a punchier, rockier sound, isn’t that right?
“I’m gonna try to put more punch to it and a little more… a little faster music. It goes fast but not too fast. But then you get into the music quickly by tapping your toe… toe-tapper music.”
Have you written anything for this yet?
“Andy [producer Andy Paley] and I have written quite a few things.”
I hope it picks up and goes.
“Thank you very much.”
You were inspired by the Beatles’ Rubber Soul and by what was coming out at that time. Apparently you’re still inspired by Paul McCartney; he recently released Run Devil Run and now you’re planning an album that rocks a little harder. It occurs to me that although you’ve had some notable collaborators, maybe you need someone to write against rather than with. Perhaps a sort of gentle competition.
“Something that can be born out of that, you mean?”
Yeah.
“I can agree with you. I think that Andy comes closest, is the closest person to that kind of idea.”
You remember the Traveling Wilburys – Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne. They collaborated, and everyone came out on top, especially Orbison. Have you ever thought about getting together with like-minded musicians, those with a track record? Do you think Paul McCartney might be interested, with other people, to do something like that?
“He might, yeah, he’s a nice chap.”
Several years ago he and Elvis Costello wrote a few songs together and it benefited both of them. After all, the whole thing’s about passion, about getting the energy going; and I felt that with the Traveling Wilburys.
“Well, I might try, yeah, I might try that.”
I know you’ve worked with Don Was. I’ve been riveted by the documentary he made about you, I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times. What’s your impression of it?
“It was quite interesting, wasn’t it?”
Yeah. Very interesting.
“I thought Don Was did a great job producing it, and I had fun making it. It was a good exposé of me, it was a good way to present me.”
Now, when kids come to you, and they ask for advice for starting up a band or becoming a musician, do you chase them away or do you advise them accordingly?
“I advise as they look. Whatever you do, make sure you follow through with it; don’t quit in the middle of a project. That’s very valuable advice, because sometimes people quit [when they’re not] getting anywhere. But follow through all the way until you get to your goal.”
Any parting words for the century, for your upcoming show?
“I just hope that people realize that love is still one of the great answers of life, and that our music is love; my music has a lot of love in it. And I promise to bring a lot of love to all of you, through my music.” ER
