I have divided the interview up into three parts:
Al Jardine
Bruce Johnston
Carl Wilson and Mike Love
Mike Quigley: I was wondering what it is that has influenced your vocal style -- for example, on Little Deuce Coupe, there's an awful lot of really thick stuff, you know -- vocally ... like in the one about James Dean -- "A Young Man's Gone". I was wondering how did you get the style? Was it ... what groups influenced you mainly for that?Al Jardine: Mainly the Four Freshmen.
MQ: Who actually works on it? Is it ... does Brian do your arranging?
AJ: Uh, yeah.
MQ: And...
AJ: Brian arranges our vocals.
MQ: Yeah. And you just do it ... is it the five? Do you just stick with five or do you do any double-tracking or anything like that?
AJ: Yeah, we overdub -- you get a more thicker sound, a more vibrant sound. We like to overdub as much as we can, which means putting on our voices twice, or sometimes for kicks, maybe three times.
Jim Allan: You've used your voices on some of The Monkees' stuff too, haven't you?
[I can still see myself here rolling my eyes thinking "Oh, Jesus..."]
AJ: I beg your pardon?
JA: On some of the other groups, you have done some vocal work as well, some of the people in the group? I heard a rumour that some of the high parts on The Monkees' songs were done by some of The Beach Boys.
AJ: No...
MQ: It's not speeded up when you do high stuff, is it?
AJ: No...
MQ: What about the low notes? Does Mike do those mainly?
AJ: Yeah, Mike is our low note man. Sometimes I popped in for a low note. Once Mike was sick or something, so I did a thing, but Mike ... you know, just for kicks. It's fun sometimes switching parts, like singing out of your own range. It's fun to try something else. Like, you know we always make little cracks at each other about, you know ... "heavy low note man", you know, so you try to do somebody else's part in the group just to show him that he's not the only guy in the group that could do it, but it's a lot of fun, just...
MQ: I notice that from some of your ... you cut out things and throw them in the album at the last minute or something. You don't intend to put The Beatles on in your next album, do you? This "Back in the USSR" ... what do you think about that?
AJ: No, I have no plans for that at all.
MQ: Do you think they're spoofing you in that album?
AJ: Yeah, I think it's a very poor imitation.
MQ: Yeah, I would say so too. It doesn't sound like you.
AJ: I think as The Beatles, they sound fine. I don't know...
[Interruption of some kind.]
MQ: Yeah, I was wondering...
AJ: I'm sure they're not serious.
MQ: I was wondering ... your image has sort of switched. First you had surf music and then you went into hot rods, and then ... I really can't say ... Pet Sounds sort of stuff. Are you doing this to attract new fans or is it mainly an appeal to the older fans? You have ... like you've been going for seven years as you say, you have many old fans, as The Beatles have too. Who are you considering when you think of your image now? Is it both the old fans and the new fans that you're trying to appeal to?
AJ: Yeah. Also trying to get ... to stay current with the young people ... young fans, too. Like we're doing a song now ... it's very much like a surfing song. It's a lot of fun to sing, it's a lot of fun to listen to, it's got a good solid four-four beat to it, and it's got castanets in it and everything. It's gonna be a real happy song -- it might be our next single.
JA: You're pushing for a happy...
AJ: Yeah, happy-go-lucky, simple lyrics, nothing heavy, just fun, and I think that may be our next single.
MQ: One of my friends from England said when he was over here that what he thought was The Beach Boys' real contribution was a sort of positive music. You've never considered going on a negative trip like The Doors or something like that, have you?
AJ: No, that's terrible ... that's a downer.
MQ: Happy stuff is what you really dig?
AJ: Yeah.
MQ: I see.
JA: What about your tour with the Maharishi? It bombed in some places ... do you have any idea why?
AJ: I don't know. Nobody was ready for it.
JA: Are you still affiliated with him in some way?
AJ: Yeah.
JA: I see one of your songs from your released LP has got "Transcendental"... uh ...
AJ: "Meditation".
[Interruption.]
AJ: Yup, that's for a fact.
JA: Are you going to be doing any.
AJ: It's a song. It's done... I like it very much.
JA: I was meaning more or less not the song itself, but the thought behind the song. The Beatles have put the Maharishi down and I was wondering whether you people...
AJ: Well, that's The Beatles again. That's their interpretation. We... It's in the eyes of the beholder, you know, I think, more or less. We have our opinion about things, and we don't associate with them in the least respect, musically or philosophically or ideologically. That's ... you know...
JA: Yeah.
MQ: Most of your songs seem to be about two minutes long, and you seem to have established pretty well the two-minute song as an art form. Like on The Beatles' new album, there's a lot of really short cuts as opposed to the long stuff. Have you ever thought of making a long album, long album in quotes. You know, like Sergeant Pepper has a lot of really long cuts, and people like The Doors are going into things for twelve, thirteen, fourteen minutes. Do you think you'll be doing this in the future?
AJ: Uh-uh... What I mean is, I couldn't answer that question 'cause I don't know. Whatever you feel at the time is what you do. It's a very now business ... it's right now. If you feel like doing fifty thousand minutes and so on, you do the ten-album folio and do it -- one song, if you want to. I don't think we'll do that much, of course, but we might. Whatever happens, happens.
JA: Do all of you decide together, or is one person spokesman for the group and says: "I think we should go here now. Like Brian does the arranging and producing -- does he have a lot...
AJ: Well, it's from one area to another. It just depends who has a good idea, you know. Bruce ... it could be myself or Brian ... it just floats, it happens ... it could go into action immediately.
JA: Why did Brian leave the group?
AJ: Did he leave?
JA: Well, is he still doing anything. Like I saw that promo thing...
AJ: No, that's an appearance group.
[Interruption by waiter.]
AJ: Salmon? Did you say salmon? Sounds groovy. It's my third dinner tonight. They keep feeding us, you know. Can't seem to turn it down. I love salmon. I'm a Northwesterner, and I'm sure it'll be great. Anyway...
JA: Does Brian appear on stage with you?
AJ: No, he hasn't for the last six years. I don't recall that ever being very much of a question.
JA: Well, I've never heard your show live. I just heard the LP.
AJ: Oh, you never saw ... well, I see. He never has appeared with us for the last five or six years.
JA: How long has Bruce been in the group?
AJ: Ah, going on four, I think. Glen Campbell was with us for a while.
JA: Why isn't the picture of Bruce on the LP covers then?
AJ: That's just a transition ... photo catalogue transition.
MQ: I think he was on Friends, wasn't it?
AJ: Yeah, but it's hard to keep photographs up to date. We had lots of catalogued photographs with Brian in them, and without Bruce. Sometimes Capitol Records will do something without thinking, and not being demeaning to Capitol, of course, they would just do something like they take the best picture in the catalogue. Once, I wasn't even on a cover ... and it just happened to be the best shot.
MQ: That was California Girls, wasn't it?
AJ: Yeah. I mean, those things happen.
MQ: You sort of put yourself on at times, you know, like on Shutdown, Volume 2, you have this little "Cassius" Love versus "Sonny" Wilson, or something. Do you ever consider any of your songs as put-ons? Like "Be True To Your School," for example. A lot of my friends don't really think you could be serious when you're recording that.
AJ: Yeah, well, it's ... that was a long time ago. That's more of a musical endeavour anyway. I don't know.
MQ: You mean you were concerned with harmonic stuff rather than the words.
AJ: Yeah, I mean that's a very important marriage. I think ... I didn't write that song, and so I don't know.
MQ: Well, in "Heroes and Villains," you get that effect really good -- you're not worried about the words any more. I think there's been several articles, one in the Evergreen Review about a couple of months ago. The guy said you're concerned just with the song now rather than the words.
AJ: No, that's not true either, but I guess some of the stuff you can do now, you know, you can ... it's just how you want to interpret it and how you write it. We might write in one context one moment and in another it might be in another context, but if it goes down and close to music and seems to make some kind of sense, then that's good.
JA: Do you think Bruce will get any writing with the group at all?
AJ: Yeah, Bruce wrote a tune on our last album -- "Near Far Away Places'' it's called. It's an instrumental and it's really beautiful. Bruce, did you write more than one tune on the album?
Bruce Johnston: One. One very straight, maybe bordering on square, but it really fits. It's really just kinda nice. There's always room for nice -- I mean there's a lotta nice very forward, radical, groovy, funky things, you know. This just fits. This wouldn't turn any nose up, you know. That would be digging only very heavy things that are big contributions. It's really groovy. It's a nice melody, the thing that I wrote. It's not important, you see. It's just something nice that'll sound groovy to you -- it's naive to me. I wrote all the arrangements, but the arrangements are naive, but they sound groovy. You know, if I wrote the arrangements two years from now, they would probably be a lot slicker. Nevertheless, I'm not putting my song and my arrangement down. I just know where I'm at. But it'll sound nice anyway with the stereo of our albums...
MQ: Are you actually ... I was reading in Eye Magazine that Brian, because of an ear impediment, can't produce in real stereo. Has that been fixed? Is his ear okay?
BJ: He can produce in stereo in our engineer's advice, you know. He just never had to produce in stereo. This isn't for the radio, is it?
[Interruption by waiter.]
BJ: Records ... a record just shouldn't be that important. I mean it shouldn't hang you up emotionally if your record fails. You shouldn't get into it that way. It's just nice if it all happens. I wonder if someone might read that and think, "Well, this guy's connected with a group that probably has enough investments or something to say that. It's not important because he has that security, but it really isn't.
MQ: Were you part of making Smiley Smile?
BJ: I've been part of everything since...
MQ: Since when? You've been singing with the group. Does Brian sing with the group?
BJ: Yeah, we all sing. Sometimes one of us might be missing because we might be away or something, but there's always four or five. I've been with the group since 1965. I will be beginning my fifth year on April ninth this year. I don't even know what you asked me. You didn't ask me anything. What am I talking about?
MQ: Oh, Al said something and he threw it over to you.
BJ: Oh.
MQ: Do you think The Beach Boys has the potential of becoming rather camp? You know -- people will not look upon you for The Beach Boys today, but it's a process -- you have to wait several years and then look back, which is what I do now, and why I really dig some of your early stuff.
BJ: Oh, yeah. Of course The Beach Boys will be camp. That's what's really kinda fun. It's funny -- we're kind of a ... now this is gonna sound ... you're probably gonna disagree ... we're really kind of an underground group that's way above ground because of some of the things that we try. Those people who associate our old big groovy hits with...
MQ: "Surfin' U.S.A."...
BJ: Yeah, plus "Good Vibrations." We try some really interesting things besides being outright commercial.
MQ: Which album would you recommend to listen to for these new sonic developments?
BJ: Maybe then they were, but now they're just kinda ... for a lot of them together, I'd say Smiley Smile, but more than that I'd say Pet Sounds.
MQ: Yeah, I think that's a really terrific album.
BJ: I think that's the best Beach Boy album.
MQ: It sorta sums up... I think if you'd quit right there, you'd have a perfect set, because it's almost the Sergeant Pepper of The Beach Boys.
BJ: I thought so too, yeah. We aren't competing with anyone, really, racing any other group to be innovators. We just do what we do. Some of our things come out just eucchh, but other things come out really groovy just doing it. We're just not in any kind of race...
MQ: Well, when you recorded "Heroes and Villains," how did you get all this fantastic harmonic texture. Did you keep playing the tapes and re-recording over top of them and this sort of stuff, or did you actually have it planned out in advance?
BJ: Oh, all these things are planned out in advance. You talk about our re-recording over the tapes, well, if you kept re-recording voices over the tapes, you...
[Interruption.]
BJ: Do you remember Les Paul and Mary Ford? Well, they recorded over their voices and made a lot of harmonics. We've recorded over our voices once and double the harmonies, make them thick. The Four Freshmen do that.
MQ: The Byrds do it a lot.
BJ: For their background. Yeah, I saw The Byrds ... one of my friends, Terry Melcher, used to produce The Byrds. Before I joined The Beach Boys, I was working at Columbia Records as a producer, and saw The Byrds come in and do their first overdub before Terry even met them. They were really groovy then. I really dig The Byrds. I think they are the most underrated -- in their original form -- pop group. I really do.
MQ: What's next? Al was telling us about this happy surfing song. Are you going back to surfing or something? Perhaps have a sort of Beach Boys revival and sing "Surfin'" again?
BJ: No, that's not where it's at. There's room for one record. There's a lot hipper and sophisticated and subtler ways of survival, if you're gonna get into that. We are a business, and you do a little of what you think's right, pay your bills, and attract ... a single record attracts attention to your concerts and your albums. For us ... you know, we're not The Beatles. We're The Beach Boys and I think we're not such a phenomena the way The Beatles are. We're just kinda surviving at a very comfortable level. Maybe someday there'll be a really forward good vibrations popping out of it. We're not trying to top ourselves with each record, obviously. Otherwise you wouldn't hear songs like "Bluebirds Over the Mountains" which isn't doing well, or "Do It Again", which did a million and a half world wide.
MQ: To switch to another track completely ... what do you think about these people who don't dig The Beach Boys (now I know that's going to put you in a certain frame). I mean they don't dig The Beach Boys because you're only considering the happy stuff. Frank Zappa, for example, puts you on in a couple of spots. Of course, he doesn't take into consideration the happy stuff, he just takes the negative side. Do you think there's a happy medium you can strike in music between negativism like The Doors, which is in a way healthy, because it helps you see the opposite, and the happiness which The Beach Boys have? Do you think that a happy medium can be realized between them?
BJ: Well, a lot of our concerts do okay, and I know we still get royalty checks which still isn't that important, but again, I have to just say that we're making our records. We're just doing our thing and why should everybody dig us? Everybody can dig The Beatles, but why should everybody dig us? You know, The Beach Boys' image is kinda like a group Doris Day, you know what I mean? A lot of people stopped digging The Beach Boys, you know, and in their minds that image is probably still that Doris Day image and I think a lot of kids are going away from all that "clean" thing because that's where their parents are at, and they're trying to get into another thing and they don't like groups that represent that "clean" thing as much as other groups, which is OK because it's just another form of growing up.
MQ: Who's Roger Christian?
BJ: Roger Christian is a disk jockey that at the time his words were sufficient for some of Brian's melodies, but now I'm sure that some of those groovy melodies ... I'm sure that "Don't Worry, Baby" could be rewritten. The words are so trite now, but that was where it was at for about five minutes.
MQ: What about this "Frosty the Snowman" that's on your volume three of your Greatest Hits?
BJ: That's in a Christmas album.
MQ: Is it sold out or something now?
BJ: I don't know. Oh sure, it is ... every Christmas I see The Beach Boys Christmas Album.
MQ: There was one fellow in the group on the first three or four records, and then he left...
BJ: David Marks.
MQ: David Marks? Who was he?
BJ: He's ... Al Jardine was the orig... Al, Carl, Dennis ... wait. Carl, Dennis and Brian are brothers, and Mike Love's a cousin. And Al Jardine was also one of the original members. After the first hit, or two, he left the group to go back to school because he wasn't sure and I don't blame him that a group's gonna have a successful business-like affair making surfing records. You know, they're all young. Then Dave was the next-door neighbour to Dennis and Carl and Brian, and he came in the group for a while. Then Brian stopped touring. The group started getting bigger and bigger, so Al started replacing Brian on the road, and then finally there was a big flare-up with Dave Marks and he left the group. Brian came back in on the road and Al stayed, but Al's the original member of the group. You know, Glen Campbell sang with the group right before I joined the group.
MQ: Is he on any of the records?
BJ: No, no, he's not. Let's see ... Brian didn't tour for a while so we replaced him with Glen Campbell and then they replaced me ... I mean they replaced Brian with me because Glen was starting on his own thing, and then ... Glen's played a lot of guitar on our records, and Glen ... Brian produced Glen Campbell on a song called "Guess I'm Dumb" -- really good. It should have been in Pet Sounds. You know, I'm sure you probably wouldn't be able to get it, but it's so heavy, so far ahead ... wow ... you know, Glen's a good singer and he had trouble singing this song. That was put out three years ago and it was a bomb. It was a lovely, lovely record.
MQ: I was just asking Al ... uh ... what the hell was it now ... oh, yeah, the songs ... do you think that any of your songs are put-ons. For example, "Be True To My School". I mean, when my friends hear it, they say, "Aw, they couldn't be serious when they were singing it."
BJ: That was five years ago. That was ... a lot of people ... that's where they were at. That was a year ahead ... and a year and a half before it all started changing, you know. People started, luckily, getting freer. I really dig the scene that's happening now, I really do, because there might be a lot of bad things going on, but if out of all of those bad things ten per cent of the groovy part of it stays, wow ... you can't beat that.
[Pause in taping.]
BJ: And really ... don't record this...
MQ: OK.
[Pause in taping.]
MQ: That little bit you said about the taunts...
BJ: Oh, yeah. The taunts that kids might give a group like us ... maybe even The Association ... you know ... they're pretty clean.
MQ: Yeah, but I don't really dig them -- they don't seem to have any group personality.
BJ: No, they don't, but they make groovy records. But, you know again, getting back to what a group like ours might represent -- the cleanliness thing. A lot of kids are always rebelling against their parents and I'm sure, connecting us to that "clean" thing they might want to put us down. You know ... like "Hendrix ... wow ... heavy!" and he is heavy, very heavy, and so are a lot of the other groups. I never could get into The Chambers Brothers. They make good records, but I never could get behind it.
[Pause in taping.]
MQ: Carl? My name is Mike Quigley, and I'm writing an article on the cultural significance of The Beach Boys for the University of B.C. paper which has about twenty thousand readers, and in working on this thing, I was wondering what about the influences for your group. Al said The Four Freshmen. Are there any other groups at all?
Carl Wilson: What?
MQ: One of the originals...
CW: Oh, yeah, you know ... well, I ... what do you mean ... original what?
MQ: You know, one of the original brothers.
CW: The original...
MQ: A couple of guys have dropped out so far, haven't they?
CW: Yeah, yeah ... oh, oh, no ... everybody's cool.
Mike Love: It's shit, though.
CW: It's the same group that always was, except for Bruce who takes ... well, of course, you see ... Bruce has been recording also, so I guess you could say he's in the group also.
MQ: What about the influences except The Four Freshmen. Any other groups?
CW: No. No other groups. No. I was influenced personally by Chuck Berry, you know ... his guitar .. boogie-woogie.
ML: We were all influenced by Chuck Berry's sentence for being ... you know ... crossing the state line with an underage chick. It influenced us a lot too.
MQ: I see.
ML: Good. Mostly ... not culturally. However, in other ways...
MQ: Yeah, like "Surfin' U.S.A." is a Berry hit.
ML: What's your name?
MQ: Mike Quigley. I'm from the University of British Columbia.
ML: Hi, there. I'm Mike.
MQ: Mike Love.
ML: Yeah.
CW: Yeah, anyway ... so that's our main influence. I guess we're influenced by life, you know, and just everything as far as the music goes. You get inspiration from anything ... there've been inspirations just from cans and bottles and jars, and just everything ... people. Those are the influences for songs.
MQ: So what's in store for you now after Friends? Have you got another album coming out soon?
CW: Yeah, we have an album called 20/20 coming out, and it'll be out any second. [Reaching into the air] Ah, here it is. No, it'll be out... like next week. Will it be out next week, Mike?
ML: Well, I would say that if it isn't out by next week, it'll either be out earlier than next week or in the very near future, but not wishing to seem ambiguous, I would give it a date somewhere between the ... whatever it is now and about the first of February.
CW: Yeah, I would say that.
ML: Thought I'd take a little of the suspense out of it. Did I hear you say something about the cultural significance.
CW: Yeah, I...
MQ: Yeah, believe it or not.
ML: Aren't you trying to read something into this whole thing?
MQ: I don't know ... do you think I am?
ML: Probably.
MQ: You mean you don't consider yourself that seriously? Considering all the guys that are listening to you now. You've been here for seven years or so, haven't you?
ML: We consider ourselves very seriously, but I think that the erstwhile critics get into it a little too much for their own good. I think they overdo it a little bit. Like in finding hidden meanings...
MQ: No, I don't mean that. I don't mean your song content. I mean, just the fact that you've existed and influenced all these kids, like the last seven years you've been around. The Beatles have been around for five years, isn't it? And Elvis Presley's been around for God knows how many years. There's very few groups that seem to last and have this continuing influence. The Beach Boys is one of them.
ML: I guess it's greed.
MQ: Yeah.
ML: No.
CW: No, really, I guess our influence was just the good-time music, that's all. You know ... having fun, wouldn't you say?
ML: Yes ... we've never really been that much of a ... what do you call it ... a protest ...
MQ: Negative ... like The Doors and that...
ML: Yeah, well, not that, but we have mostly concentrated on the more fun-type elements that you can work with. You can do one or the other, or go both ways, but we always, more or less...
MQ: Do you think any of your songs are put-ons? "Be True To Your School", for example?
ML: Yeah, well maybe it would be a put-on if we did it now.
MQ: But back then it was real?
ML: It was ... it was reminiscingly real. We were maybe a couple of years removed from that actual feeling, but ... writing in that sort of...
MQ: Yeah, well, if you did it today it would be like Frank Zappa or something ... putting people down. I think he's already put you on ... on what the hell was it? He was doing "Louie Louie" like you did the duh-duh-duh.
ML: Yeah, well, Richard Berry did that before we did it, and Richard Berry wrote it. Frank Zappa's a very hep cat and everything ... what would you call him? But he's clever...
CW: I would say Frank ... he is...
ML: Heavy.
CW: Heavy? Well, I don't know. He's funny.
MQ: Do you get along with him?
CW: I don't know him.
ML: I'll tell you something, though. If Frank and The Beach Boys got together and did a Super Session album, it would be a gas.
MQ: I hear his new album's called Ruben and the Jets.
CW: Yeah, Cruising with Ruben and the Jets. I think that's really out of sight, man.
ML: If he keep comin' up with titles like that, he's gonna have friends for life from The Beach Boy organization.
CW: You know, we think those type of things are humorous. Ruben and the Jets...
ML: They're somewhat esoteric, but Frank knows what they mean.
CW: That's out of sight, man.
MQ: I think he's doing another one called No Commercial Potential.
ML: He's got no commercial appeal, so you notice he keeps making albums. I think he sells several albums -- internationally, too. He's big in Poland.
CW: We all have a good time, don't we? That's the group thing... Like there's something for everybody.
MQ: If I want any information about you, the history of the group, should I get in touch with the fan club or something? Is there another address?
CW: Oh, ask me.
MQ: Ask you ... oh, hell ... I wouldn't ... just a sec, I've gotta flip this thing.
[Pause in taping while I struggled to remove the tape. Carl finally pointed out that I had to push the tape deck lever off, not just the remote control switch on the mike in order to flip the tape over.]
MQ: You must be quite busy going around the world and doing various tours all over the place. How many times have you been round the world? Got any idea?
CW: Oh, I'd say about ... travelling internationally ... four or five times, beside other side trips, you know ... as a group ... we've been around the States ... you know...
MQ: Quite a lot.
CW: Yeah.
MQ: I was asking Bruce, I think ... most of your songs seem to be about two minutes long. Do you ever intend doing anything long, like The Doors are doing pretty long stuff and The Cream ... I mean not doing it on stage, for example, but recording it. And putting it on an album.
CW: Yeah, sure. Like we're done things that've gone on a lot longer, for ten or fifteen minutes, you know, but like you have to cut 'em down. We've gone into three, four minute records, but not...
MQ: I think "Heroes and Villains" is your longest...
CW: Yeah. It was much longer, really ... it was about seven, eight minutes.
MQ: What about Pet Sounds? Was that a very complicated album to produce? And work out? It seems to me one of your best...
CW: Well, if flowed. It came right out ... it just came out. It was the most fun album to do, I'd say, and we worked the hardest on it.
MQ: Were you considering making that your last album?
CW: Uh ... I don't know ... why?
MQ: Well, I was just wondering, because if it was, if it had been your last album, it would've really finished up a terrific cycle. Do you have any plans...
CW: It was the end of a cycle...
MQ: Yeah, just like the Eye Magazine article said...
CW: What did it say?
MQ: They were talking about all the albums up to Pet Sounds ... they were one thing, and then you sort of switched ... and went into the good feeling, good vibrations stuff which is kinda cool.
CW: Yeah, well, we did what we could do, you know. That's all there was to it, really. Nothing else...
MQ: Were you one of the first groups to start actually surfin' music?
CW: Yeah?
MQ: You were the first?
CW: Yeah, I believe so...
MQ: There was nobody before you? Who came up with this idea?
CW: Uh ... we did.
MQ: You mean you were just sitting ... did you live around the beach or something?
CW: Yeah, right ... right next to the coast. Dennis I think had the ... I think Dennis was the one that said it.
MQ: Your father was working with you. What was he doing on the first albums? Producing or something? Managing?
CW: Yeah, he was our manager. He helped to mix ... studio sessions ... doing that.
MQ: Well, how did Brian become a producer? Did he ... had he just been fooling around in the studio or something? With the musicians and...
CW: Well, he always was the producer.
MQ: Well, the first three albums were produced by somebody else, weren't they?
CW: Well, they said they were produced by somebody else, but he just sat in the booth and said "OK ... Take one, take two, take three..." He didn't do shit except say that. Brian really produced records from the beginning.
MQ: Well, I think that's about enough...
CW: Oh, OK. Good.