Harvey Kubernik On His Friend Brian Wilson—"Pet Sounds" 60 Years On

Wilson fans will surely enjoy this inside look plus interviews

 "Brian put his heart in his music at a time with Pet Sounds when we were all using other muscles.

“In 1966 Lou Adler arrived in London with an acetate of Pet Sounds. He came to my house from the London Airport. I sat in smoke with Paul McCartney and that first listen changed our lives.

     “On the personal side it spoke for me when I was too busy to have a personal life. The sound and music, the words of Tony Asher blended into the melodic slices of Wilson, spoke of the pain and coming of age in a way that allowed all young ambitious dudes to let him speak for us whilst we hid whatever and hung tough. It was my ‘Primal Scream.’ It certainly got Paul McCartney to work on another level.

   “Brian Wilson's Pet Sounds changed my life for the better and travelling to the Hollywood Bowl in June 2000 was a privilege and a pilgrimage. For me it was like going to the Vatican and seeing the Pope. Pet Sounds changed the possibilities of pop music and the potential of what could be done in the long-play form.”---Andrew Loog Oldham

Pet Sounds: 60 Years On (©Harvey Kubernik 2026)

 I first encountered Brian Wilson in 1962 at Rancho Music record shop in Studio Village, Culver City California when the Beach Boys were doing an in-store appearance, autograph party and “playing live” to promote their new record Surfin’ U.S.A. I talked to Brian, clad in a blue Navy pea coat and white Levis, one afternoon in 1965 after junior high school. He introduced me to his wife Marilyn at Fisher’s Hamburgers inside the Town and Country Market in the Fairfax District. I was planning to attend Fairfax High School, and before she married Brian, Marilyn and her sisters Diane and Barbara Rovell graduated from the same institution. Our parents were both from Chicago.      

In mid-May 1966, I purchased my first copy of Pet Sounds at The Frigate record shop on 3rd street in Los Angeles. I went from there to a friend's parents' duplex on 4th St. We removed the Peter, Paul & Mary In Concert LP from his turntable and listened to the Capitol Records Duophonic (artificial stereo) album. I later learned that it was originally recorded and pressed in mono and that the Duophonic version was created at the label's mastering room, with added EQ and phasing.

One afternoon in late spring ’66 I chatted with Brian and Marshall Berle, the Beach Boys’ agent at The William Morris Agency at The Hollywood Ranch Market after I got a second copy of Pet Sounds. I asked Brian about the cover photo supposedly taken at The Zoo in Los Angeles. “That was a zoo in San Diego,” he revealed. Marshall Berle had gone to Fairfax High School with Phil Spector, and in 1962 signed the Beach Boys to The William Morris Agency following a performance at The Hollywood Palladium, where the band had been on a bill with Dick and Dee Dee.

“After meeting Brian’s parents Murry and Audree," Berle remembered in a 2014 conversation i had with him, "I had papers drawn up and we signed them for 3 years at a 10 per cent fee.”

“I went on the road and settled up at the box office at the shows. Murry was at my office all the time. At least 2 or 3 times a week about bookings. He was a total control freak. But I had no clue or idea of what the real idea was regarding his competitive relationship with Brian and what was going on", Berle recalled. 

“Dennis and I were buddies. We were two of a kind and liked to party. He’d come over to William Morris and pick me up with his brand-new Jaguar XKE. And we would drive to their shows, like San Jose in 1963.

“When I saw the Beach Boys in 1962, Brian was like the sex symbol in the early days. Girls would swoon when he hit high notes. Almost overnight they became so huge. I went on the road with them. From Pandora’s Box to the Hollywood Bowl in 1963. I booked a lot of dates with Fred Vail, even the live album they recorded in Sacramento. I was with them when they recorded a live show in a TV studio in Burbank, California inserted into the February 1964 Beatles live theater broadcast from Washington, D.C.”  

 In my ’66 encounter with Marshall and Brian I was sort of surprised when Brian said something about writing songs in an office he had in Hollywood on the corner of Sunset and Vine across from Wallichs Music City. It’s no wonder I would see him occasionally inside one of their record listening booths.  

Earlier this decade I interviewed songwriter/record producer Russ Titelman who was introduced to Brian in 1963.

    “I met Brian around the Screen Gems publishing office, because Brian knew Lou Adler and used to visit him all the time at the office in Hollywood on Sunset and Vine.  Leiber and Stoller’s Trio Music were also in the same building.  Brian had a large office with a piano. I saw him a lot. By hanging out at the Screen Gems office, Brian and David Gates would come in. I met Barry [Mann] and Cynthia [Weil] there. I wrote ‘Sherry She Needs Me,’ and ‘Guess I’m Dumb,’ with Brian that was recorded by Glen Campbell for Capitol Records.

    “I watched Brian Wilson write ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ but the lyric at the time was ‘Run, Run, Run.’ It had different lyrics to it. My first impression of Brian was that he was a genius. 

    “I went to the recording session of ‘Guess I’m Dumb.’ I went to a couple of things that Brian worked on. I played a screwdriver and banged on a mike boom on ‘She Knows Me Too Well.’ I went to that session. Dennis was playing drums. It was another one of those things where there you are in the midst of this thing and you’re just a part of it. And at the time Brian was at the height of his powers, and, you know, Phil in a way, too. But it was before the Wall of Sound when I was doing stuff. I was there when they were just these small beautiful little records that only had a few instruments and his vision, I guess. His creativity and understanding of what made an arrangement work was something that in a way that I guess was passed on to me.  You’re there and you see how it is done. So, you kind of take it in.”

There are many records in Brian Wilson’s catalogue that were important events in my life. I had a special friendship with Brian.

    Starting in 1969, I probably had between twenty and thirty lunches or dinners with Brian, often with poet/songwriter Stephen John Kalinich, who in 1967 was the first songwriter signed to Brother Records. Kalinich co-wrote songs on the Friends album with Dennis, Carl and Brian Wilson, including “Little Bird” and “Be Still”. Stephen reminded me in a March of 2026 conversation of numerous eateries where I joined him and Brian, that even with my excellent memory, I had forgotten about.  Various pizza joints, steak houses, the chocolate milk shakes at Stan’s Drive-In coffee shop and the trays of French fries at Tiny Naylor’s with carhop service so we could eat in Brian’s white Mercedes-Benz. In the mid-seventies Brian would pick up Kalinich at his apartment in Brentwood, write songs, go get something to eat, and a couple of times they’d invite me to join them at the Delores Drive-In on Wilshire Blvd.  More French fries. More acne.   

My most vivid lunches with Stephen and Brian were at Warren Stagg’s H.E.L.P (Health, Education, Love and Peace) restaurant in 1969-1971. H.E.L.P. was a popular organic-vegetarian restaurant located in Los Angeles on 3rd St. by Fairfax Ave.

   “At the H.E.L.P. restaurant, Brian, Mike and I loved the seaweed salads and boysenberry shakes,” Kalinich recalled. “Mike suggested the somewhat comical concept of Rent-A-Poet for me to help expose his lyrics and my poetry around town. Mike was extremely kind to me. He took me all around Beverly Hills, introducing me to people like his tailor and Sky Saxon of the Seeds, when I was working at a flower shop in Brentwood. Mike also offered me the usage of his car at the time, a Rolls Royce if I needed it. It felt like I was in a surreal dream. Carl produced my first record ‘Leaves of Grass’ at Studio B at Capitol Records in Hollywood.”         

 At H.E.L.P. Brian and I would devour carob cookies and date nut with cream cheese strawberry sandwiches.  H.E.L.P. also had an on-site bakery, and a book store that sold crystals and candles. Henry Diltz, Liberty Records A&R man Dan Bourgoise, Del Shannon, Miles Davis and Phil Ochs frequented the restaurant. Health advocate Gypsy Boots was a fixture along with photographer Heather Harris, actor/musician Bill Mumy, and writer/musician Marina Muhlfriedel (now Marina del Rey of Vivabeat), who loved the sauteed veggies on brown rice with extra garlic, bancha tea, and banana bread. Future Richard Pryor record producer Robert Marchese helped make the fresh juices on the premises. 

   Members of the Byrds would land at H.E.L.P.  I spoke with Roger McGuinn, the former Jim McGuinn. In 1967 he changed his first name to Roger around the same time musician/photographer Tad Diltz became Henry Diltz. They both had become involved with Subud, a spiritual practice in quieting the mind that was a movement in the 1920s from Indonesia.

   “There was a Subud house in downtown Los Angeles on Hope Street. The Beach Boys used to hang out there,” emphasized McGuinn. “I remember that. Then, Brian Wilson formed his own chapter at his house during his ‘sandbox phase.’”

   In 1967 Brian wrote “Vegetables” and during 1969-1971 operated a health food shop, The Radiant Radish on Melrose Ave. Brian was an active co-owner of the store and would stock shelves with organic produce and work behind the cash register.

Mike Love turned to Transcendental Meditation in the late 1960s to strengthen his own inner harmony. Mike studied with TM’s most famous practitioner at the time, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, at his ashram in India along with the Beatles, Paul Horn, Mia Farrow and her younger sister Prudence (the inspiration for the Beatles song “Dear Prudence”), and Donovan. 

“It’s a personal growth program,” Love told me in a 1974 interview conducted for Melody Maker. “Transcendental meditation has been very helpful in unfolding our individual capacity for creativity. We met the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in December 1967 when we did a United Nations show in Paris.”

“Mike was deep into Transcendental Meditation. The group wanted me as the opening act doing poetry. They bought me a new wardrobe at the Sy Devore shop but promoters didn’t want a spoken word artist on the bill. They did a few concerts and the tour was cancelled. The Beach Boys then went on a 1968 tour of the South with Buffalo Springfield and the Strawberry Alarm Clock. In  

On the Brian Wilson 2004 album Getting In Over My Head, one tune, "A Friend Like You," a duet between Brian and Paul McCartney, is a Wilson and Kalinich composition. For Record Store Day 2014, the Light in the Attic label issued the Wilson/Kalinich LP A World Of Peace Must Come, that had been recorded in August and September of 1969. The tapes were promptly lost, not to be heard again until 2008. Following the CD-only reissue in 2008, it was the first time this timeless snapshot of an era was available on vinyl.  

The Stephen Kalinich, Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson song “Rainbows”, originally found on Dennis's 1977 solo album Pacific Ocean Blue is included in the soundtrack to the new science fiction drama "Project Hail Mary", starring Ryan Gosling that globally earned an estimated $140.9 million dollars in its opening weekend.

After Kalinich and I left Brian Wilson’s funeral and memorial in June 2025, I asked Stephen about Pet Sounds. He emailed me:

    “A remarkable thing about Pet Sounds is the music, the complex path work layered sections woven together in sound. It is from the streets of Hawthorne by a bunch of young men who rose up and would influence the world and capture the Spirit of a time with a spiritual Quest in sound.

  “It was a retail reality and took us into a dark and sometimes glorious something exciting new world of happy voices as well as abrasive sound bites. An album about being born and arriving. It is a genuine work and irony that it was written or co-written by someone whose soul was at times torn.  Beethoven of the new age who was bestowed with gifts that he did not fully understand.

 “I love the window, the door he opened into the soul and it is like  Dark Night of the soul ....however it's only something that could occur in the late sixties in Southern California between materialism and poverty... a musical experience that would be created in the soul of some young man from Hawthorne who had transcended time and country and tapped into the infinite quilt of the many leveled universe... like Quantum Physics of sound waves stretching out from place in time to a Forever echo.” 

 In 1977 Brian told me in an interview for Melody Maker, “I don’t carry a notebook or use a tape player. I like to tell a story in the songs with as few words as possible. I sort of tend to write what I’ve been through and look inside myself. Some of the songs are messages.”

“Phil Spector is my hero,” exclaimed Brian in one of our dialogues during ‘77. “He gave rock ‘n’ roll just what it needed at the time and obviously influenced us a lot. His productions…they’re so large and emotional…Powerful…the Christmas album is still one of my favorites. We’ve done a lot of Phil’s songs: ‘I Can Hear Music,’ ‘Just Once in My Life,’ ‘There’s No Other Like My Baby,’ ‘Chapel of Love’…  I used to go to his sessions and watch him record. I learned a lot…”    

“I’ve always been flattered that Brian continues to say nice things about me and keeps recording my songs,” remarked Spector in my 1977 interview with him. “Brian is a very sweet guy and a nice human being. I’m glad he’s coming out of his shell. I think he got caught in a trap with ‘Good Vibrations.’ I think he got condemned more than condoned.    

“He became a prisoner instead of a poet. He had the plaudits, the accolades, and touched the masses. I know music is a very important thing to him, besides a vocation. It became cluttered the last few years. Your attitude is in the grooves, and it’s a very personal thing. But Brian thrived on competition.  

   “I remember when ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ came out. He wasn’t interested in the money, but a top ten record. He wanted to know how the song would do against the Beatles and if (radio station) KFWB would play it. But I never saw Brian as a competitor.” 

   I was with Brian at Capitol Records in Hollywood and we went to their mastering room. Brian was overseeing and reviewing a mono pressing of Pet Sounds for a planned 20th anniversary edition.  Brian got on a table putting his left ear as close to one of the big speakers as was physically possible. 

In 2007 he clarified this method to me. “I mixed in mono because I can’t hear in one ear. Made me concentrate more and get the best for that one ear. I always loved mono. Transistor radio. With mono you have one single sound source. We were doing stereo but I could only hear the mono and I always put the vocals up front in the mix. Mixing in mono is good for my left ear. My right ear is broke. Done and over with. I liked to mix with big speakers. You can hear the overall sound better. I would then take acetates home and play them on my little record player.”

 

    The last time I spoke at length with Brian was at a delicatessen in Bel-Air last decade. My brother Kenny and our father Marshall had been at a park in Westwood and Brian was walking next to them. After Brian chowed down his breakfast, we went outside into the parking lot. He asked, “How come you never asked me to sign any of our albums?”

I quickly visited Brian at the Wilson home. We hung out in his music room, and then returned to the delicatessen. He autographed a handful of CD’s and comically quizzed me after handing over the stack, “What is your favorite album by the boys?”

   I responded, “It’s not Pet Sounds. It’s Beach Boys Today.”

  Below is a collection of my Pet Sounds-themed interviews with Brian 1977-2014 as well as interviews with several engineers he collaborated with. In addition, are interviews with Al Jardine, Mike Love, along with friends, writers and Beach Boy scholars reminiscing about Pet Sounds.         

 Harvey Kubernik: I know the Beatles’ Rubber Soul made a big impression on you when first released in 1965.

Brian Wilson: “Michelle” and “All My Lovin’” are two of my favorite Paul McCartney songs. “Norwegian Wood’ completely blew my mind, and marijuana was around for Pet Sounds. Well, when I first listened to Rubber Soul, I then went to the piano and all I could see were my keys. I locked in with the keyboard and wrote [with Tony Asher] ‘God Only Knows’ in 45 minutes.”

HK: You once said your favorite John Lennon songs are “Across the Universe” and “Because.” I hear the influence on the Beatles from “Wonderful” off Smiley Smile.

 BW: I’ll say the influence was on “Here, There and Everywhere.”

 HK: The opening vocal intro on the Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” was informed by “I Get Around.”

 BW: Maybe it inspired them. I hope it did. I really do.

HK: You also had a tent on your home premises. Terry Sachen, who co-wrote “I Know There’s An Answer” with you and Mike Love on Pet Sounds, worked with you, and put it together. He ordered the fabric.    

 BW: We had a tent. An Arabian tent. Cushions. We would eat sandwiches and smoke pot and just laid around, you know. And, I got some ideas late at night when my wife went to sleep. I stayed up and thought of ideas like that.

 HK: Around 1963 you actually wrote the instrumental “Pet Sounds” for a James Bond movie, Dr. No. 

BW: It got turned down, Harvey. They turned it down! They turned the damn thing down. It got submitted. If you can do the twist then “Pet Sounds” got turned down. “We don’t have any interest in that song.” “Fuck that shit, I’m gonna put it on Pet Sounds.” That’s why it went on Pet Sounds. The James Bond people turned it down. And, when we play the “Pet Sounds” instrumental on stage now I turn around and face my band and take the piece in.

 HK: Every night you and the band perform “God Only Knows” and the song always garners a standing ovation from everyone in the crowd. Why? 

 BW: Because we’ve had a little practice, Harvey. (laughs) Second of all, Carl (Wilson) is gone, and third of all, I have to carry what he used to carry. I have to carry the damn weight. I have to carry the ball. I don’t remember the recording session of it. Too far in the past to remember. I mean, here is your part…O.K. Here is your part…O.K. And, somehow, we got “God Only Knows” done. And, the record spoke for itself. And it was a religious experience.

“Carl and I were into prayer. We held prayer sessions in our house on Laurel Way. “Dear God. Please let us bring music to people.” It happened. A cool trip. A lot of people say to me that Pet Sounds got them through high school or college.

 HK: “Caroline, No” is your favorite song on Pet Sounds. The recording was pushed up a beat.

 BW: And guess whose idea that was?

 HK: Your father, Murry Wilson.

 BW: Yes. He said to speed it up a half a note and you’ll have a real special song. I did it and it worked. What can I say?  

 HK: “The Little Girl I Once Knew.” John Lennon really praised the record in a 1965 interview in England. I read that he called it “the greatest record I’ve heard in weeks.” 

BW: That is my very favorite introduction in a song in my whole life. It kills me every time.

 HK: Because the way the music is suspended on the front end of the track?

 BW: Yes. It might have been the first time the music stopped and started again on a record. I wrote the intro at the studio before we cut the thing. And, (session musician) Larry Knechtel, it was his idea to keep the music rolling. And we tried one, and then I put a second guitar overdub on top of the other guitar. And the rest of it was history.

 HK: What about teaming with lyricist Tony Asher for Pet Sounds?

 BW: A cool kind of guy. A little more soft spoken. His attitude is just right for creativity and just right to work with. I might call him up as a matter of fact. That might be a good bet for me. Just before we began collaborating on Pet Sounds, I asked him what it was like writing commercials for an advertising company. It seemed like interesting work. I said, “You should be good with words if you can do that.” And, he said, “I’m pretty good with words.” Out of nowhere I said “Would you like to work with me on some songs and write some lyrics?” “I’ll give it a try.” Then, Pet Sounds, like that. 1966 was a very big year for the Beach Boys. 

 HK: What was the difference collaborating with Van Dyke Parks on SMiLE to lyricist Tony Asher whom you worked with on Pet Sounds?

 BW: Well, Tony Asher worked a little slower working with me than Van Dyke who was faster.

 HK: Why did you select Van Dyke Parks? He emailed me and said the first time he talked to you was at a party.

 BW: I met him in 1965. We met initially at a lawn party held by Terry Melcher at his home off Benedict Canyon, overlooking Beverly Hills. Later Van Dyke came up with David Crosby on a visit to check out my new home recording set up. Van Dyke was brilliant at talking. I picked him because he was good with lyrics and pretty good with music, too. I can’t answer what drew me to him.

 HK: Do you recall the origin of “Heroes and Villains?”

 BW: I sure do. The song started at my Laurel Way house. [Brian and Marilyn never lived in Laurel Canyon as represented in a 2018 documentary. In 1966 they resided in Beverly Hills]. We had a sandbox and a piano. The actual recording took five or six weeks.  I love “Heroes and Villains.” The magic of Van Dyke’s lyrics and my lead vocals. It’s a pretty youthful lead. Because the damn thing is so together and cohesive. It comes together so beautifully that people can’t resist lovin’ it.

 HK: I know you used different studios for various sessions. Van Dyke told me he had never seen anyone before you move from studio to studio with master tapes.

 BW: I liked the Capitol rooms, and I liked the instrumental sound, but I didn’t like the vocal sound. I didn’t like that kind of echo chamber. Tell me I’m an idiot! I just didn’t like the vocal sound, so we switched over to Western, and Gold Star. Western had a big room, and Phil Spector was over at Gold Star. Western had a good bass sound and a better vocal sound. Sunset Sound also had a great tack piano, too. I did things at RCA with engineer Dave Hassinger. “Help Me, Rhonda.” Capitol did have a good violin sound.  

BW: Well, we recorded the background tracks at Western. And then we went over to CBS for the vocals on 8-track. I felt confined with 4 tracks. 8 track was fantastic. You could put the cello on one thing and the Theremin on another. It was fantastic. I was also able to record tracks at Gold Star, Western, Sunset Sound, CBS--- and bring the tapes to each studio. It’s a whole different trip because it’s the same song but you’re going to a different studio. Truth is, going to different studios didn’t really matter. All that matters is the vocals, because I tried to do vocals first and then the music. I didn’t like to do that a lot. It was tracks first because you had to have something to sing too. Chuck Britz at Western made suggestions and was like a co-producer but only got credits for being an engineer.  

 HK: You were a regular Gold Star visitor and customer for many years. In that room you produced the Beach Boys’ “Do You Wanna Dance,” “I Just Wasn't Made For These Times,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” and the original version of “Heroes & Villains” at Gold Star. And, a version of “Cabin Essence” earmarked for SMiLE. 

BW: Basically, it was their echo chamber. More than anything else. I liked their drum sound. I loved their tack piano, too. It was a great studio next to the Musicians Union on Vine St. I liked the whole vibe. I liked the owners Dave Gold and Stan Ross and engineers Larry Levine and Doc Siegel. On Pet Sounds and SMile I had Phil Spector’s players:  Lyle Ritz the bassist was also a ukulele player. He was a trip and played good stuff. Carole Kaye on bass. She was previously on “California Girls.” Ray Pohlman. Fender bass. Hal Blaine was the greatest drummer I ever worked with. Don Randi, the keyboardist.”

 I interviewed Don Randi about Pet Sounds in 2022.

     “You’ve got to remember that most of the guys that were in ‘Phil’s band’ especially were all jazz players and rock ‘n’ roll was a living for them. And a lot of them didn’t like it as much as I did. I have to be very frank about it. I always liked the rock ’n’ roll part of it. I thought it was great fun and sometimes very musically interesting. Not all the time. 80 per cent of the time. We got to do some things on rock ‘n’ roll dates we could not do in jazz and studio settings. Absolutely.

  “We brought that into Pet Sounds. It’s an interesting concept but those guys were very capable. They were the best musicians and still are the best musicians. Like, The Big T.N.T. Show, I was the Musical Director, and on all our dates, we all could read, except maybe a few of the guys who were brought in as players. As specialists. Like (guitarist) Mike Deasy when he came in. All the guys could always read chord charts. That’s for sure. I had Don Peake and Barney Kessel on The Big T.N.T. Show.

 “But the fact was that we could do the music instantly and it made it easier for everybody else. Because if they didn’t know what to do our parts were the same. Unless they asked us to change it. We stayed constant so that they got used to dealing with a constant rhythm section. A band that plays together and listens to each other. Because we had the ability to do that, we didn’t have to do 20 takes, especially on that.

        “At Gold Star it was the echo chamber, which was a natural studio. It just blended and worked. When you went to Gold Star you just knew you were making a hit record.

    “The recordings have durability because musically, lyrically and the composition and note parts were brilliant. There were always great songs. The songs always told a story. The songs in themselves were films. And, especially in Phil’s case, he knew how to write them and how to produce them. And in Brian Wilson’s case, Brian always knew where he was going with it. He may have not known at the beginning, but after a while Brian had an idea and he developed it. We were there to help him develop it.”

  

 HK: Brian, talk to me about implementing strings into your work.

BW: I liked Jack Nitzsche’s string arrangements with Phil Spector. Sid Sharp was the guy I called for violins for my sessions. I like strings. It’s good to use strings. Strings bring you in more. Like Nelson Riddle and Frank Sinatra. But you need some spaces and holes.  I like horns, too. Brass. I liked to use two saxes, baritones, and a trumpet.  

 HK: I was at Capitol records studio in 2004. Paul McCartney said how much he liked the bass lines on Pet Sounds. I know you employed the bass as a principal instrument. Like on “Here Today,” where you conceived the idea of the bass playing an octave higher on the rhythm bed track.

 BW: Because the bass parts resound better in a studio and you can take three hours to get one line if you really needed it. You could take forever and get a goddamn line, you know?  I asked Larry Levine what Phil Spector did with his bass players and Larry said Phil uses a standup and a Fender both at the same time. And the Fender guy used a pick. So, I tried it out at my session and it worked great! You also get a thicker sound putting the two basses together. I start with drums, bass, guitar and keyboards. Then we overdub the horns and the background voices.

 HK: Both you and Paul McCartney as songwriters and musicians go away from the root chord and establish counterpoint sound. It’s a structure both the Beatles and the Beach Boys did. Can you talk to me about veering away from the melody from the root chord as a writer?

 BW: I learned that from Motown. I learned how to play bass from Motown for Christ sakes! I learned how to play different type of roots on certain chords. I love Stevie Wonder. We did his “I Was Made to Love Her.

 "On Wouldn’t It Be Nice” Barney Kessel did the introduction to the song and Glen Campbell was also there. And, I said to myself, “I’m going to have these guys play directly into the board instead of going out into the studio.” And they plugged their instruments into the recording console direct. That’s how we got that sound. I also did that on “California Girls.” My brother Carl played a 12-string on that and we plugged him into the console and he did his thing. Every now and then I’ll do that. It sounds more mellow and it is something I can’t quite describe but it is much more mellow than an amp. 

 HK: You brought in the Theremin instrument in Pet Sounds for “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times” and more prominent in “Good Vibrations.” I know during Pet Sounds you talked to Barney Kessel at Western recording who was with a Theremin player for a science fiction soundtrack. You requested Barney to do a session the very next day and to bring the Theremin guy. Barney said, “I’ll ask him and see if he’s available.”

 BW: Yes. I first discovered it when I was a little kid. My mom and dad had a friend who had a thing where you put your hand out and get a sound that goes higher and lower. And then I found out about what they call a band Theremin where you slide your finger across a band. And I used it. It is an instrument that you use sparingly. 

 HK: In late 1965 at RCA studios on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, you first met Andrew Loog Oldham when he was producing a session with the Rolling Stones at studio A on “What to Do” for their Aftermath album. The influence of stacked vocals. Mick Jagger said to Andrew, “What do you want me to do? Beach Boys?” Andrew mentioned to me that you told him you would one day, “write songs that people would pray to.”  

 BW: Yes, I did. I don’t remember when I first felt that. I know music was more than people applauding and buying records. Even when Pet Sounds came out a lot of people told me it got them through high school or college. The most amazing comment I got from one guy who said ‘that’s the most spiritual album I’ve ever heard.’

(Harvey the K. included a lot more great content but for now that's all folks!_ed.)

 

 

  

(Harvey Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015's Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016's Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love.

    Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021 they wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble. 

      Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters. His Screen Gems: (Pop Music Documentaries and Rock ‘n’ Roll TV Scenes) was published on February 6, 2026 by BearManor Media.

    Harvey was an interview subject along with Iggy Pop, the Beach Boys’ Bruce Johnston, Love’s Johnny Echols, the Bangles' Susanna Hoffs, Victoria and Debbi Peterson, and the founding members of the Seeds for director/producer Neil Norman’s documentary The Seeds: Pushin' Too Hard. In summer 2026, GNP Crescendo will release the film on DVD/Blu-ray). Author Miss Pamela Des Barres narrates.