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Enduring harmonies Is there a better job, at 60 years old, than being a Beach Boy?
Fun, fun, fun keeps
The Beach Boys' enduring harmonies
the Beach Boys ever young
New Year's Eve happenings
Heads up on holiday hoopla
By Tim Ryan
tryan@starbulletin.comNot the Waikiki kind, mind you -- we know that's good -- but the music kind.
The Beach Boys, featuring 6-decades-old Mike Love and Bruce Johnston, are still riding a 40-year-old wave of a career, though fans these days are more likely to drive Volvos than woodies.
The group, including drummer Mike Kowalski and David Marks, returns to Honolulu New Year's Eve to rock in 2003 at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.
"I have theeee best life," singer and keyboardist Johnston says on a long-distance cell-phone call while driving his Mercedes SUV from the Hammond's Reef surf break in Santa Barbara, Calif., to his nearby Montecito home across from Oprah Winfrey's 40-acre estate.
And on the days when the Hammond's surf isn't going off, Johnston may take his new yellow Humvee down to Serena Beach, where he walks through buddy Kevin Costner's property to reach the waves.
"All of us, the two Mikes and David, know how lucky we are, not only to still be doing this, but enjoying it," Johnson said. "What more can you ask for?"
Several hundred miles north in another telephone interview, Love, the band's notable lead singer, laughs when he hears that Johnston is surfing on a day when he's snowed in at his Lake Tahoe home.
"I used to live down there, but gave up warm sand and traffic for snow and mountains," says Love, who also owns a home near Hana on Maui. "We haven't had a summer off in, what, 40 years? But that's the business of itinerant musicians. We're way too far down the road to get real jobs, so we're confined to singing for our supper."
And apparently far from it being a last supper.
The group still performs about 30 concerts a year, many of them convention gigs for Fortune 500 corporations. But, make no mistake, Love and Johnston don't have to work.
"Brian (Wilson) and I do get a lot from royalties -- remember that the Beatles, Beach Boys and Supremes are the top three groups on oldies radio -- but we still have kids and grandkids going to college," Love says. "Then there's taxes."
The outspoken Johnston is more direct: "There is so much money this band makes, even if we're asleep."
SO WHO are these now-Beach Men?
The California band in the early '60s sang about surfing, cars, young love and loneliness. The group included brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine. Love sang most of the leads, while Brian led on some vocals.
Dennis Wilson, the only member of the group who surfed, thought that surfing would be a good subject for a song and suggested it to Brian, who then wrote "Surfin'" and then, with Mike, "Surfin' Safari." In 1962, "Surfin'" hit the national pop charts, reaching No. 75.
On the first New Year's Eve the group performed as the Beach Boys in Long Beach Municipal Stadium, they were paid the grand total of $300.
"Surfin' Safari" marked the beginning of the unique sound the group would become known for, a new style of rock 'n' roll with Chuck Berry rhythms and Four Freshman harmonies.
The group's other hits have included "Surfer Girl," "Little Deuce Coupe," "Be True to Your School," "In My Room," "Fun, Fun, Fun," "I Get Around," "When I Grow Up," "California Girls," "Good Vibrations," "Do You Wanna Dance," "Help Me Rhonda" and "Kokomo."
During their first major U.S. tour in 1964, on a flight from Houston to Los Angeles, Brian had a nervous breakdown and stopped touring with the band. Guitarist-singer Glen Campbell performed for him on the road, with Johnston replacing him in 1965.
Where: Coral Ballroom, Hilton Hawaiian Village The Beach Boys
When: 9 p.m. Tuesday, New Year's Eve; opening entertainment from 9 to 10:15 p.m. and The Beach Boys 10:45 p.m to 12:15 a.m.
Tickets: $85, $100 and $130
Call: 947-7877
Note: Ticket price includes one special New Year's Eve drink in a commemorative/ souvenir glass, party favors, service charge and tax"Luckiest day of my life," Johnston says.
IN THE den of his 3,500-square-foot ranch style home, Johnston has dozens of gold and platinum records, awards and proclamations.
"I don't want this to sound weird, but really, what more can we do?" he said. "I'm happy with the songs we sing, happy with our shows, happy about our past, happy with my contribution to the music business. We will never consider trying to reinvent ourselves."
Johnston is also a respected vocal arranger and composer in his own right. His "I Write the Songs," recorded by Barry Manilow, has sold some 20 million copies. He arranged the vocal on Elton John's hit song "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me," as well as lending background vocals on Pink Floyd's 1979 "The Wall."
"My greatest wealth is the roots I have in the music business," Johnston said.
Both Love and Johnston agree that an obvious key to the group's ongoing popularity is their harmonies.
"The roots of our music is in doo-wop, modern jazz and harmony," Love says. "Harmony is a team effort -- in a way, the glue that keeps the group together.
"Concert audiences still have certain expectations for us, so we play what people want to hear, but we also play things pleasing to us; fortunately the two are about the same."
The success now allows Love and Johnston freedom to move into other musical areas.
"I've really decided that for the rest of my life, I'm going to give 90 percent of my attention to songwriting and the rest to producing things I really want to do," Johnston said.
His dream Beach Boy project would be an album of solo tracks.
"That's so insane, but I want to let each guy give the album two tracks of anything he wants to record," Johnston says. "Let's have people hear our guys unencumbered from the rest of us."
Love would like to collect 25 to 40 of the group's most popular songs from their world concerts for a Beach Boys Top 40 album -- the only roadblock being that a beach boy-like lifestyle has pretty much set in with the remaining Beach Boys.
The group's ability to make bucks "is not unlike a handle of a slot machine getting stuck and the machine keeps spitting out silver dollars," Johnston says, laughing.
"That, uh, success, brings with it a lot of attorneys to help each artist keep track of what's going on; that brings a lot of discussions. That means far too many opinions by some people who should be back on the lot selling cars. So any major changes within our little system requires a lot of ground to navigate," Johnston says.
Besides adopting a healthy lifestyle decades ago, Love has some simple day-to-day requirements: avoid places where traffic is inherent.
"I learned to meditate in 1967 and haven't stopped," he said. "Dennis, Carl, Brian, Bruce, David, Mike and me used to meditate together. It creates a lot of coherence and health benefits."
Love periodically does various purification sessions which, he says, either reverse or slow the aging process.
"A recent extensive health exam showed that while I'm 60 chronologically, I'm in my 30s biologically," he said. "I plan on being a Beach Boy for a very long time."
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