Al Jardine & The Pet Sounds Band To Return To Australia To Celebrate The Music Of Brian Wilson And The Beach Boys

Beach Boys founding member Al Jardine and The Pet Sounds Band (featuring Brian Wilson’s acclaimed touring musicians) will be performing the big ones from the classic Beach Boys catalogue including California Girls, Help Me Rhonda, Wouldn’t It Be Nice, and Heroes And Villains, plus eleven songs from the Love You album and never-before-performed-live rarities from 15 Big Ones and the M.I.U. Album.

The eleven piece Pet Sounds Band features music director Darian Sahanaja plus most of the band members that toured with Brian Wilson on the Pet Sounds fiftieth Anniversary Tour. The band also features Matt Jardine, who has performed with The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson for decades and has received rave reviews for his youthful Brian Wilson-like vocals on classics such as Good Vibrations, God Only Knows, Don’t Worry Baby and Surf’s Up. This heartfelt tribute to the genius of his friend, the legendary Brian Wilson, is truly a show not to be missed! Other big hits to be played at concerts include I Get Around, Sloop John B, Surfin’ USA, and Fun, Fun, Fun.

After moving to Hawthorne, California, in the mid-1950s, Al met Brian, Carl, Dennis Wilson and Mike Love to form The Beach Boys in 1961. As guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter, he sang lead on the #1 hits Help Me, Rhonda, and Cottonfields as well as album tracks including I Know There’s An Answer, and Peggy Sue. Al was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, and in 2001, he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award Grammy.

Beyond the classics, the setlist includes deep cuts from The Beach Boys’ 1970s albums including radio singles and fan favorites.” Al has even expanded the fifty eight-second Ding Dang with new verses. Delivering an experience that carries on in the tradition of Brian Wilson’s Pet Sounds shows and The Beach Boys‘ fun fun fun spirit, these concerts promise an essential musical journey for fans seeking to experience the full spectrum of The Beach Boys‘ artistry, from radio favourites to hidden gems – a concert experience not to be missed. The legendary Al Jardine talks to Hi Fi Way about the tour

The affinity with Australia and Al Jardine continues next month. Are you looking forward to this really big run of shows?
Yeah, it’s gonna be a big one, huh?

For those contemplating is the tour more of a celebration of The Beach Boys and the music of Brian Wilson?
Of course, well, without Brian, there would be no music. So, yeah, we have to say that it is a tribute to Brian, and also the sixtieth anniversary of Pet Sounds and the fiftieth anniversary of The Beach Boys Love You. So we’re doing a smattering of both albums and of course, all the hits and the wonderful music that we did in the 60s. So it’s got a lot of variety in it, and it’s going be a great show.

Sixty years of Pet Sounds is an incredible, when you take a moment to reflect on that particular album, what does it mean to you when you look back on it today?
Well, I mean, it’s a lot of hard work that went into it. It was a labour of love, you know? It required a great deal of patience and hard work, and I think it paid off in the long run. It was a tough sell for Capitol, because they couldn’t really get their mind around it. Their artistic people weren’t very creative at the time, and so they decided to release a Best of the Beach Boys album right on top of Pet Sounds, and curtailed it, they didn’t promote after that. So, it took a while for it to catch on, and about thirty years. It’s been a long process, but it’s been well worth waiting for.

Seeing those songs take shape in the studio at the time, did you ever even think then that it would be such an influential and significant album when you look at the history of music?
Oh, not at all. We were touring, The Beach Boys were touring constantly, so when we came home from Japan that year, we went right into the studio and didn’t really think much about the consequences, but you can’t ever tell how something will be received when you’re in the creative mode. You simply do your work, you put in the work and hopefully it pays off. But we had no idea it would be rediscovered. It’s really being rediscovered every decade that we celebrate it. There’s a whole new generation of listeners that seem to come on board, so its accumulative effect has been amazing.

The legacy that album built, amongst all other Beach Boys albums, does that continually blow you away? Like you said, each decade there’s a new legion of fans discovering the music. You’ve got to be feeling pretty proud that the music continues to stand the test of time?
Yeah, I think it’s a testament to the composition, and Brian’s compositional skills. We didn’t appreciate it enough, I don’t think. We had to educate the public, musically, and lyrically, we changed. We kept changing every era, The Beach Boys went through several eras, there was the surf, the cars and the girls, and then we got kind of compositional, late 60s, Pet Sounds. 70s, The Beach Boys Love You. We basically toured all throughout the 80s and 90s, and celebrated all that music. So it was a cumulative effect, you know? Now I’m doing it with the Pet Sounds Band. I’m still Al Jardine but very into the Beach Boys, but I don’t tour with Mike Love anymore. But I have Brian Wilson’s hand‑picked musicians. Brian gave me his blessing to take the band out and play the music that he loved the most, which is called The Beach Boys Love You and that in particular, it’s really a personal musical autobiography of his. And so we reintroduced it. Let’s put it that way. This year, we re-introduced The Beach Boys Love You and now we have Pet Sounds to celebrate, so we have two amazing albums to perform.

Wow, it’s going to be incredible. What was it about the musical chemistry with Brian that just made it work so well?
Well, he always knew what he wanted, which is nice, because it makes it easy for us, we singers and musicians. It was a lot of fun recording the music. It was hard work to admit, especially with Pet Sounds and Smile, those two projects were quite demanding. We recorded both of those projects pretty much at the same time. And so we were up twenty four hours a day, you know, recording, playing, singing, and touring. It got pretty busy during the last part of the century. Anyway, it all paid off, and we’re going to come down and share it with everybody, we’ll be, of course, doing all the hits as well. So we’re going to have quite a musical entourage for everyone.

Do you enjoy playing them live just as much now as you did back in the heyday?
Yeah, well, I’ve got a better band now. This band here that I’m working with now is… as I said, Brian’s handpicked folks that we toured with in the early 2000s. Brian and I toured together with my son, Matthew, all the way up until 2022. Matt is my Brian Wilson singer. He has that high, that beautiful falsetto voice. I do the leads, along with several of the fellas in the band. Darian, my musical director, arranges the music. We have the full spectrum of musicians and vocalists to interpret the music, I think, even better than at the time we recorded them, to be honest with you. This is a very, very good band, and the Beach Boys band that normally comes to Australia will not be doing these particular albums, I don’t think.

Are there any plans to commemorate the occasion with a live recording, whether that’s CD, vinyl, or a DVD?
I’ve already got The Beach Boys Love You album already recorded live at the United Theatre in Los Angeles, so that’s all ready to go for Record Store Day. Which is on our calendar for November 27.

What do you think people still misunderstand about Brian as a creator and as a person? He’s always such an intriguing character.
He’s a quirky, wonderful, funny, intelligent man, and a good friend. We went to high school together, went to college together. He dropped out, I kept going for a while, and then I said, Brian, why did you drop out? He says, oh, I already knew it all. Okay. I can’t argue with that.

No, you can’t! When you look at the journey of the Beach Boys, there’s just such an incredible back catalogue there. What are some of the moments that always stand out strongly for yourself that you think, yeah, that was a really good time?
Oh, when we came to Australia back in, 64, or was it 66? The first time we played the Opera House, as I recall. I remember that. Brian and I sat on the hill, up on a hill in Sydney, and commiserated with one another that we could really have done a better job on California Girls. But it’s too late to re‑record it because we felt we rushed vocals rushed. There’s a term in music, when you… when you’re singing a background part, you try not to rush things. Well, we were so excited, we sang on top of the notes instead of behind them, let’s put it that way. But that’s the moment I remember overlooking Sydney Harbour.

Are there any other little gems in the back catalogue or in the archives that you’ve just discovered recently that haven’t been unearthed, or is there still a whole lot of treasure there to still be discovered?
Well, there’s an album. There’s a box set that just came out with some unreleased material that we may be doing. We’re still discovering a lot of it and trying to get it rehearsed before we get down there. But yeah, there’ll be a couple of surprises.

After touring Australia so many times now, what do you look forward to most about returning to Australia?
I think just enjoying the crowds there, and enjoying the audience’s reception, enjoying their enjoyment. That’s always the best part, is playing these songs, because they become new all over again if the crowd is having a good time, that’s what we’re looking forward to. It’s going to be a remarkable tour, it’s very well planned, I think. We should be okay after the jet lag settles in. I’m looking forward to the Opera House, of course, but the entire tour is going to be great. Thebarton Theatre is going to be great and I look forward to coming your way and giving everybody a great concert.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Al Jardine on the following dates, tickets from DRW Entertainment…