The Beach Boys are one of the most fabled American bands; their sunshine songs defined 60s West Coast pop. But genius weighs heavily and their success came at a considerable cost. What started out as a dream come true ended up in drug-fuelled paranoia, successive lawsuits, and bitter acrimony.
In Disney+ ‘s new documentary, The Beach Boys , directors Frank Marshall (a Hollywood veteran behind 1990’s Arachnophobia , and 1995’s Congo ) and Thom Zimny (who has filmed numerous Bruce Springsteen live shows for TV), have gathered the living band members to recount how it all went so right before, perhaps inevitably, it all went so very wrong. The group was formed around three brothers: Brian , Dennis and Carl Wilson, teenagers who’d grown up in thrall to the rock ‘n’ roll of Chuck Berry and the vocal harmonising of The Four Freshmen. Enrolling friend Al Jardine and cousin Mike Love, they began in 1961.
Four years later, their hit single “California Girls” was not only one of the more simplistic pop songs of its era but also arguably the most sublime. The tunes they went on to write – “Good Vibrations”, “I Get Around”, “Don’t Worry Baby” – would make them globally famous, but the bigger they became, the more Brian retreated. He had long struggled with complex mental health issues, and found that the roar of the crowd only worsened his anxiety.
In 1964, Brian announced that he would no longer be touring, preferring the claustrophobia of the studio in.
