Our guest is a living legend and a founding member of the band which has been called An American Musical Institution. The Beach Boys’ Mike Love has made music history as lead singer and co-author of many of the band’s top hits. The Beach Boys’ exquisite harmonies and unique sound have led writers to call them America’s first, best rock band.
Recognizing their incredible achievements, Mike, along with the other Beach Boys, were inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. Mike wrote the band’s first hit Surfin’ and along with his cousin, Brian Wilson, co-authored 11 of The Beach Boys’ top 10 hits during a five-year period, and also co-authored their number-one hit Kokomo in 1988. I want to break into song, but I won’t.
It was Mike’s idea for the band to do a free concert during Independence Day in 1980. After its initial controversy, this concert became an annual tradition. On July 4, 1985, The Beach Boys performed before a million people in Philadelphia, then flew to Washington, D.C., where they performed before 750,000-a feat recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Mike has been a major supporter of environmental causes for many years, and was among speakers at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and Earth Day 2000 on the Mall in Washington, D.C. He is the founder of The Love Foundation, which supports national, environmental and educational initiatives.
Mike has also studied personally with His Holiness, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and has practiced Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation Technique™ for more than 35 years. Mike, we are so honored to have you with us. Thank you for being here.
Chris Attwood: Mike, as you know, our focus in these interviews is on passion. Would you share how your passions, the things which are important to you, that mean the most to you in your life, have given rise to the saga of your life with The Beach Boys?
Mike Love: The one thing that was a common denominator in my family, growing up, particularly on my mother’s side of the family, which were the Wilsons-she was one of eight children who lived to maturity (actually nine, but one died in infancy), my grandmother Wilson had eight children who lived to maturity-and they were all musically inclined.
My mother, in her high school years, sang in a trio, a light opera, Madame Butterfly, and on the radio, which back then was like being in a music video-on the radio back in the late ’30s. Anyway, that was a common denominator.
The first time I, in fact, remember my cousin Brian singing was sitting on my Grandmother Wilson’s lap at a Christmas party. He sang Danny Boy and it was amazing, even back then at that age. His voice was just an amazing instrument and it charmed everybody.
Chris Attwood: How old was he then?
Mike Love: He was nine years old. This was at my family home, which was a beautiful home overlooking Los Angeles from the Baldwin Hills area, which was a beautiful area. It was a beautiful home with three stories, a subterranean garage, with a pool and everything. So I grew up in some very beautiful surroundings.
We had a grand piano, an organ and a harp in the living room. I have two sisters, Maureen and Marjorie, who play the harp, one of them professionally. We all took oil painting lessons, and particularly music lessons, so I’d say that between the Wilsons-whose father was an aspiring songwriter (my Uncle Murray), and my Aunt Audrey, who was a piano teacher-there was nothing but music around.
Our original passion was just to sing and create harmony. We liked the doo-wop songs of the mid to late ’50s and we really liked The Everly Brothers because they had a beautiful blend. The doo-wop songs had all that great harmony. So we took those influences… along with a group called The Four Freshmen, who did this very intricate, very complicated type of harmony, and they also had a great blend.
My cousin Brian literally fell in love with their style of music, so our music was driven by the desire and the passion to create that harmony together. It was a synthesis of those elements that I mentioned, along with the syncopation of Chuck Berry, I might add, which was great.
So, we then looked at our environment in Southern California, things we really felt strongly or passionate about-our beach life, our school life, the great cars of that era, the ’50s and the early ’60s-and that’s what we knew. That was our reality in Southern California, and we made up our songs.
Chris Attwood: You guys were really singing about your passions, about the things that you got the most fun from, right?
Mike Love: Precisely-the things that we were really attracted to, that really motivated us or excited us and so on-whether it be surfing or cars or girlfriends or Friday night football with Be True to Your School. But the underlying, driving force of it all-the passion, if you will-was definitely harmony, and that, I believe, distinguished The Beach Boys as a musical group from so many other groups.
There are other groups that do harmonies, but we really focused on that and it became sort of our stock in trade.
Chris Attwood: Yes, it was your signature.
Mike Love: Exactly.
Chris Attwood: Would you tell us the story of how The Beach Boys came to be?
Mike Love: We were asked originally by a fellow who owned a recording studio to do a folk song. Of course, in the middle to late ’50s, there were groups like Peter, Paul & Mary and The Kingston Trio, and there were other older groups as well, that were folk singers and stuff. I think I bought a guitar because of The Kingston Trio, as I recall.
So, we liked folk music, but we weren’t folkies. We were more into the R&B, doo-wop Rock ‘n’ Roll, so when we were asked that, we said, Well, what we’d like to do is make up a song about what’s going on in Southern California, this phenomenon called surfing, because when I was in high school, if the surf was up, I would get together with a couple of friends and we would take a ride to the beach, and we might even accidentally leave school early that day!
We said there was this whole style of talking, style of dressing, lifestyle, natural sport of surfing, but nobody’s singing about it. So we came back to them about a week later with a song that my cousin Brian and I wrote together in very short order. It was called Surfin’. That was our first release.
We were calling ourselves The Pendletones. Pendleton Mills in Oregon makes a plaid wool shirt that the surfers used to wear over a t-shirt to keep warm in the early morning going down to the beach or late in the afternoon, when it gets kind of cool, so we’d wear our Pendletons.
We’d wear them to school and church-wherever we’d go! It was kind of a uniform; part of the ensemble of being a surfer, versus a ho-dad who would wear a leather jacket or something. They were more of the rebel without a cause type.
At any rate, a music promotion man named Russ Regan, who subsequently became the president of various record companies over the past 40 years, saw that our song was Surfin’ and said, How about The Beach Boys? We said, Well, that’s better than what we have, so we were actually given the name based on the subject matter of our first song.
Chris Attwood: Seems like it worked pretty well.
Mike Love: It stuck! The Beach Boys are known from South Africa and Australia to Norway and Japan, all over the place.
Chris Attwood: You are the Love man, so what are some thoughts about romance, love, passion and fulfillment-some things that can inspire our readers in the month of love?
Mike Love: There are all different types of love. I wrote a song in 1975 called Everyone’s In Love with You, and it was a song observing people around Maharishi who really admired and loved him. But the song could fit for Mother Teresa, Jesus or anybody who devotes their life to others out of love-whether it’s a cause or humanity.
It goes: Everyone’s in love with you, but you can’t fall in love with anyone. Everyone’s in love with you, though you can’t fall in love with only one. So many people have had their love affairs. They’ve had their loves to share like mine, but I tell you people, I’ve found something new-a love of a different kind.
There is that kind of love, and I’ve re-recorded that for a CD I’ve been working on over the last couple of years with Paul Fauerso, who is a teacher of TM and professor of music in Fairfield, Iowa at Maharishi University of Management. He’s not there anymore, but that’s how we met, through TM circles. Anyway, he produced this CD that’s going to be coming out, hopefully, in the spring.
There’s another song on there that has to do with love, but it’s about having a spiritual connection with somebody. It goes: Glow, crescent, glow, on that moon ship I want to go, billowing clouds like swollen sails, take me where there’s love like in fairy tales. If earthly love is to ever last, I know that I must find one to share reflections of a love that is divine. I know until I find her, I will seek her everywhere and Venus, it’s to you I sing my prayer. Glow, crescent, glow, on that moon ship I want to go, billowing clouds like swollen sails, take me where there’s love like in fairy tales.
Chris Attwood: That’s beautiful.
Mike Love: So yes, there’s male/female, boy/girl attraction, there’s romance and everything, but for it to ever last, meaning be everlasting, you have to find that spiritual connection with that other person. It can’t just be the mundane, it can’t be just the physical, although those are delightful and all that. So there is a different kind of love.
Then there is one called Unleash the Love, which is about being loving toward mankind and appreciating the differences in cultures and in people, rather than despising others for their differences, whether it be color, race or religion; so I’ve dealt with various types of love on this CD project.
Chris Attwood: Do you know when that’s coming out?
Mike Love: I’m hoping that it comes out in the spring. I know there’s one song that was slated for that album that’s going to come out by Father’s Day. Hallmark is going to do an issue of a bunch of Beach Boys’ songs plus one from me called Cool Head and Warm Heart, which is an expression that Maharishi made about 10 years ago.
I was at a TM gathering in Vlodrop, Holland, and I remember him saying, You need a cool head and a warm heart, and I said, Wow, that’s cool, so I made up a little song that says You need a cool head and a warm heart to get you through the day without coming apart. You need a cool head and a warm heart and that’s how every day should start. So there’s another situation there.
My new CD has a lot of philosophy on there, meaning philosophical point of view, not overbearingly I hope, but just little hints. Maybe it’s don’t get stressed out, especially when there are things you can do nothing about. The nature of life is to be always changing and what you need when things start to rearrangin’ is a cool head and warm heart.
That is going to come out on that CD that Hallmark is coming out with. They’re planning a huge campaign and they’re going to have it out in the stores apparently for Father’s Day, so I’m hoping that concurrent with that, I can get my CD out as well.
Chris Attwood: Listening to you, Mike, and as I think back to your hits in the ’60s and then the music you’re writing now, it really appears that the way in which you have expressed the knowledge you have gained about life and living-at various phases in that life, from the young adolescent up to the more mature adult-has been through your songs.
You actually could say you’re a modern bard in that way; using your songs to communicate knowledge. It seems like that is one of your passions, isn’t it?
Mike Love: Absolutely. I’ve always been fond of literature, for instance. I once wrote a poem that takes 12 minutes to read-it’s in iambic heptameter-and it’s quite a fantastic poem. In fact, I’m going to make part of it into a song. I used to do really well in school-not well in math and sciences-but extremely well in literature, history and languages.
Whatever hemisphere of the brain that’s coming from, that part of my brain was developed. It was more fun for me. I really got into the language and literature-literally old English literature. Language and words were my passion, and understanding the origin of those words, how Latin influenced so many languages, how Greek played a part in it and how Sanskrit plays a part in all of it.
I’m fascinated by all of that and my passion was always poetry and literature. There are little poems that we made up: Fun, fun, fun, ’til her daddy takes the T-Bird away. That was influenced by Chuck Berry’s style of writing. Well, she got her daddy’s car and she cruised to the hamburger stand now. It’s not rocket science, but it’s fun and it relates to a lot of people.
That’s another thing. I’ve always felt like if you’re going to be esoteric, that’s okay if you’re introducing some concept, but let’s have it connect with people intellectually, emotionally or both, hopefully. Let’s not make it just for the time period that we’re dealing in now; let’s make it be more universal.
That thought was always present in my mind. I probably didn’t achieve it in every single song, but it’s there in a lot of them, like Good Vibrations; California Girls; Fun, Fun, Fun and Surfin’ U.S.A. If everybody had an ocean across the U.S.A…. Who doesn’t like to go to the beach? Maybe if you don’t surf, you go fishing.
Chris Attwood: From the beginning, your music touched deep chords in people. That’s one of the reasons why it was so popular. Even though the words themselves may have been dealing with light things, you guys have been touted for the incredible harmony you did, the incredible things you have done and continue to do with sound.
This is why I say you’re a study in contrasts. Many people may not be so familiar with the spiritual aspect of your background. You have talked about it a few times. I know you and The Beach Boys met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the late ’60s.
Mike Love: In December of ’67, we were initiated in Paris-most of us.
Chris Attwood: I understand you continue to practice transcendental meditation, is that true?
Mike Love: Oh yes.
Chris Attwood: What drew you to this spiritual master, and why are you so passionate about meditation?
Mike Love: First of all, I used to read philosophy, history and literature, but a lot of poetry is quite spiritual. Philosophy, where there’s Zoroastrianism or Hindu or Buddhist philosophy, Christianity, Judaism-all those isms and philosophies-I was very fascinated by and read them.
You glean information from where it comes and it’s wonderful stuff. I felt badly that, even though there are these various saints and great traditions that expounded these great, virtuous things, humanity couldn’t live in harmony together. The history of humanity is the history of war.
So when Maharishi talked about for the forest to be green, every tree must be green, and talked about how there is a way in which the world could evolve, do better and become more prosperous and more peaceful and happier and healthier-all those things have a tremendous amount of appeal.
When I first learned him, the very first lesson where we were initiated and taught the technique-we were in Paris in December of 1967, doing a UNICEF show. We were there along with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Victor Borge, the Turkish Ballet and the Russian Red Army Choir.
It was Paris, so there were a lot of French entertainers and a huge orchestra. A curtain opened up and there was George Harrison on one side of Maharishi and John Lennon-they were both there because Maharishi was lecturing in Paris at the time, so we were invited to meet with Maharishi and he offered to teach us TM, which we did.
That very first meditation, I remember being more relaxed than I ever could remember being, and there are reasons for that. I was also thinking, Hey, if this is so relaxing and if everybody could do it, then the world would be entirely changed, and I still believe that.
That’s my direct experience, and my first thought was, This is so simple to do that anyone can do it, and if everyone did it, the world would be a completely different place. Starting with that initial response to learning the technique, two months later, I was in India at the invitation of Maharishi.
I was there with The Beatles and that was a lot of fun. I talked to Paul McCartney quite a bit. We lived in the same little block of rooms in this little compound there, and we had some very interesting talks. George Harrison and I both had our birthdays that year-he in late February, me in mid March.
I wrote a song that’s reminiscent of that time. It’s called Pisces Brothers because we’re both Pisces. It’s a beautiful song about the sweetness of being in that environment at that time.
Chris Attwood: In another area of your life, you have been passionate about the environment. You have been a big supporter of environmental causes over the years. What has made the environment such an important issue to you?
Mike Love: Well, I mean, this is our home-planet Earth-for a time, anyway. Bruce Johnston, who took Brian’s place in 1965, has been with us for the most part, except for a couple years, he’s been with us ever since-he got me involved with the Surfrider Foundation, which is quite a large environmental group that tries to maintain the quality of the water and watches out for what’s going into the water upstream and the conditions around our coast and all over the place.
We’re members of that and have raised some money for them from time to time. We have done a few songs, like Summer in Paradise, way back when our master plan was having fun, fun, fun as America’s band… came out rocking with Rhonda and Barbara Ann, singin’ of surf and sand.
That song, Summer in Paradise, deals with things like deforestation and the ravaging of the earth by the commercial interests that are out there. I think things like organic agriculture and Ayurvedic, healthful things… I’m a big fan of Ayurvedic medicines or health regimens, particularly Maharishi Ayurved.
That’s how I came to know about that, and this is from ancient Indian times. The doctors from India have this knowledge of herbs and various treatments that are so helpful and so incredibly great, and have nothing to do with animal testing, nothing to do with pharmaceuticals and everything, and everything to do with strengthening the immune system, making the person healthy at whatever age, sex ,and level of life.
Its’ brilliant and so comprehensive. That’s all from the environment, all in harmony with the environment when you’re growing things organically. You’re not spraying things, you’re not irradiating things, you’re not poisoning yourselves through the food you’re eating, like in so many places in the world these days.
So I’m very much in favor of promoting any alternative to anything to do with the type of agriculture that leads people right down the road to cancer, heart disease and diabetes, or whatever it may be. My hope is that these types of things get more promoted and I’m happy to help promote them to the degree that I can.
Chris Attwood: Mike, what single idea would you like to leave us with?
Mike Love: I have a song on my CD called Unleash the Love. Unleash the love and do it with dedication. Unleash the love and set it free. Unleash the love and spread it through every nation, for the greatest power on Earth lies in the heart of you and me. So I think unleash the love is a good thought.
