Uncanny

IC WALES “Way back when there were two factions in The Beach Boys. One was those who took non-prescribed drugs, everything imaginable, and the other faction was those who didn’t. It literally got to the stage where we travelled on two separate planes because one was the smoking plane – where they didn’t just smoke cigars – and the other was Al (Jardine), Bruce (Johnson) and myself who got into meditation instead. If you didn’t want to get involved with drugs then you were an outsider and maybe I was just uncool to some people.”

“I went with Brian to deliver Pet Sounds to Capitol Records – I even named it Pet Sounds. It was Capitol that didn’t like the direction we had taken. They wanted us to do the surf stuff because it (Pet Sounds) was too advanced and they didn’t know what to do with it. But Brian did attract a lot of notoriety and people around him at that time put out a lot of nasty things about me.”

“Basically, back in the ‘60s, I co-wrote songs but was never credited for that and it gave the public the wrong impression. Brian and I wanted to settle it amicably but his people wouldn’t allow it, which meant my only recourse was through the courts, so I was cast as the bad guy when I was just trying to do what was right.”

“Brian has been composing and touring as a solo artist but he said to me in 2006 we should get together and write. So I know it’s in his mind and he wants to do it – and I think a lot of people would like to see that separation become a harmonic convergence – but I don’t know if the people around him feel the same. When it’s just Brian and I together writing we have a great time, we click like we did when we were kids. The rapport and the respect is there. He knows his strengths and I know mine and when we are allowed to combine them...”

“The thing about music is that there’s always a note to be sung and an instrument to be played. And as long as you do it beautifully then there’s no reason not to.”