Beach Boys fans will hear decades of timeless hits and vacation favorites when the legendary band, led by Mike Love, visits our area this season.
‘Tis the Season with The Beach Boys’ features the gently harmonizing pop-rock group backed by the Holiday Vibrations Orchestra.
Love and Bruce Johnston, who joined the Beach Boys in 1965, represent the vintage line-up, which is joined onstage by musical director Scott Totten, Brian Eichenberger, Christian Love, Tim Bonhomme, John Cowsill, Keith Hubacher and Randy Leago.
In 1961, Love formed The Beach Boys with his cousins, the Wilson brothers – Dennis, Carl and Brian – and the Wilsons’ friend Al Jardine, changing the musical and pop culture landscape in the process. There has been public bickering and litigation, with chief lyricist Brian Wilson and Jardine still touring together as a separate band, although the Beach Boys’ importance remains intact as a group that sold millions of records smashed California’s fun-in-das Image of the sun and promoted the concept of oldies radio and legacy bands whose members were still touring when they had aged into their 60’s, 70’s and now 80’s.
From his Lake Tahoe home, the 81-year-old singer-songwriter granted Love a phone interview to chat about the tour, which visited the Wind Creek Event Center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on November 30; the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh on December 2; Hard Rock Live at Etess Arena in Atlantic City, NJ on December 3; Carnegie Hall, New York on December 5th and The Paramount in Huntington, NY on December 6th.
Questions and Answers on Mike Love
What can fans expect from this show?
Love: We do all hits associated with The Beach Boys. You’ll hear everything from “Surfin’ Safari” to “Kokomo” and everything in between, like “Good Vibrations”. So all hits. But interspersed with all these hits are some Christmas carols.
One of these Christmas carols will be “Little Saint Nick”. What do you remember most from co-writing this Christmas classic?
In the beginning “Surfin’ Safari” was our single and the other side was “409” which was a car song. The same goes for “Surfin’ USA” and “Shut Down”, about a drag race. So we just thought, what about a hot red that’s a sled? So it’s a car song about Santa Claus on his hot rod sleigh.
On this tour you will be supported by the Holiday Vibrations Orchestra. What are they bringing to the stage?
On our original Christmas album, we made up about half of the songs. And then there was “White Christmas” and “Blue Christmas”. This album was made with an orchestra. So we’re replicating that by having an orchestra with us.
You were very early in releasing Christmas music. The Beach Boys’ first Christmas album was in 1964. Did that take a lot of courage because the Beach Boys were all about sun, surfing and cars?
No, it wasn’t much arm twisting because a lot of the Beach Boys’ singing was originally at Christmas parties. My mother had an organ and a harp in the living room – I have two sisters who play the harp. And we got together for Thanksgiving and Christmas and birthdays and it was always about music. We literally went singing around the neighborhood at Christmas time. My mother was one of eight children, so there were a lot of cousins, aunts and uncles and such. This together with family friends. It was natural for us because the family got together for Christmas. And it was always about music. And so it felt natural to do a Christmas album.
That was the first time you and the Wilsons sang together at those family gatherings, right?
That’s correct. When I first remember Brian’s name, he was a young guy, maybe 9 or 10 years old, singing “Danny Boy”.
Fast forward 65 to almost 70 years later, what do you find most satisfying about singing Christmas carols today?
It just reminds me of all those early days and what a great season it is with family reunions and the music of the season. To me, it’s like we’re reliving our old memories, but instead of singing carols in the neighborhood, we sing carols across the country.
Everyone who purchases a ticket for the show will receive a digital download of your single “Reaa for The Season”. What inspired this recording?
Well, Christmas is extremely commercialized. I think we would all agree on that. But Christmas has a spiritual and a religious component. It started long ago in a small town called Bethlehem. This song is a boogie-woogie reminder that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus. I just wanted to make that statement musical.
They’ll make your other classics that aren’t holidays. What hits can people look forward to?
“Surfin’ Safari”, “Surfin’ USA”, “I Get Around”, “Fun, Fun, Fun”, “Help me Rhonda”, “California Girls”, “Good Vibrations”, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice, ‘, ‘God Knows’, ‘Kokomo’ and a few others.
That’s quite a catalogue.
yes it’s great It’s a blessing to be able to sing these songs and people still love to hear them performed. And so are all generations. They let the old people come out with their children. And then her children’s children. So you have three generations of family members.
How do you sum up the massive influence of these Beach Boys songs? They helped define California culture.
I think the harmonies and positivity. Harmony in itself is positive and leaves a good feeling. You listen to a song with really nice harmonies, whether it’s the Beach Boys or someone else, it just creates a really nice feeling. John Stamos likes to say that it bypasses the mind to the heart. It’s heart music, he says. I think the themes of cars and surfing will stay with your school and things like that. “Good Vibrations” was our 1960s thing when it got a little psychedelic for people. That was our 1966 song that hit #1. And he got number 1 in England and we got voted best group with number 1 being the Beatles and we thought that was an amazing thing. I think our theme is a bit different. Somehow unique, at least in many songs.
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The Beach Boys have also made an impact with their legacy. There was a time when nobody thought that music groups would still tour in their 60’s, 70’s and now their 80’s. Feel represented something by showing how timeless this is and how you carry on?
We gained an enormous amount of fame and notoriety in the sixties. And I think that the sixties in general, not to knock other decades, had enormous wealth during this period. Not only the Beach Boys and the Beatles, but also the Rolling Stones and the Motown catalogue. Just an amazing amount of craftsmanship and fantastic records. The Temptations, The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder and The Supremes and Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson. I mean come on Dozens of great records were released, mostly in the 1960’s. I think we’ll go ahead and reinvent these songs 50-60 years later. You’re talking about The Greatest Generation in relation to WWII. Well I think the 60’s were the greatest generation musically. It’s fantastic to go out and see how many years later people who aren’t even born yet appreciate it.
You’ve done and seen it all. But if you could go back in time, would you change something big?
I would change the drug penetration and effects and trajectories in the Beach Boys and so many other people as well. I think some people are okay with doing different things that aren’t prescribed and they come out fine. It ruins other people. It really messes up their lives and their families. My cousin Dennis (Wilson) was hooked on drugs and alcohol. And he died in 1983. I think the impact of that really wasn’t good. And I would have preferred not to have to deal with it. But there were others who did, and it certainly didn’t help.
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Scott Tady is Entertainment Editor at The Beaver County Times and can be easily reached at [email protected].