The Beach Boys Love You is one of the quirkiest Beach Boys albums and one of my favorites. How do you feel about it?

That's quite interesting that you would notice that one because it's quite unheralded. Again, it was like a demo. We did it in another studio that we built in Santa Monica, again from spare parts. When I finally built my own studio in Big Sur, the guys didn't want to come. I couldn't believe none of the Beach Boys wanted to come - by then Brian didn't want to leave. After the Holland album, can you blame him? [laughs] There's some gems on Love You. I co-wrote "Good Time" with Brian. [Starts singing some of the song]. That's a typical Brian track, kinda goofy and zany. It was really really a lot of fun doing that.

How did you come up with the idea for the classical-sounding introduction to "Lady Lynda"?

A friend of mine, Ron Altbach, he and I decided to write something together. I was familiar with his love of classical music. I was at the Johann Sebastian Bach festival up here in Carmel which happens every summer up here. I heard that beautiful piece sung at the Mission Cathedral here in Carmel. Gorgeous piece. It's called "Jesu Joy Of Man's Desiring." It was written for the church. When I heard that movement I went, "My God, that's too heavy! Maybe I can start the song with this thing." [laughs] Ron is such a great player that it just worked. We had to hire a classical guy to play an absolutely beautiful harpsichord that was brought in just fro the occasion. It was a monster session with a 26-string orchestra, the harpsichord. Harry Betts arranged the strings. I can't remember if Dennis played the drums. Dennis helped me with the track. We played it live at a couple of places before we recorded it. I think he played drums. I did that 12-string guitar. It was a beautiful 12-string guitar that i still have. It would have worked better if it had been on my own album, but it certainly worked. We always seemed to be five people making five different albums on the same album.

Tell me about the band's 10-minute disco rendition of "Here Comes The Night" that appeared on the record.

We performed it once and we were booed. We actually received such criticism that we never played it again. I hated that track. It was one of the worst experiences of my like recording anywhere, but Bruce has this idea to do the perfect disco record, which of course none of our fans wanted us to do. I like the original song, but this pandering to disco did not work. Curt Becher, who was really quite a producer and musician in his own right, it was really a labor of love for those guys. They wanted every note perfect, and it had to be right on the right beats per minute, mathematically created for disco. But that disco sound didn't suit the Beach Boys at all.

If I put it on right now would you leave the room?

First I would probably burst out laughing because it was so unlike anything we'd ever done. It was a good lesson for us that pandering after fads does not make for a successful recording, no matter how good it is. And I have to say that it was technically damn good, [laughs] but you just have to follow your hear and not the fad.

Another great tune is "Santa Ana Winds," a track of yours that appeared on the next LP, Keepin' The Summer Alive.

It was such a wonderful experience doing that record. At the time the Santa Ana Winds didn't connotate anything particularly negative. I always thought of them as a harbinger of Indian summer, that late wonderful dry wind that comes off the desert. Unfortunately, it happens to make the environment perfect for forest fires. So it's kind of got a bad rap, not the song but the subject. I found it a very romantic subject, because to me growing up in Southern California, you get summer twice. It's such a natural force of nature. It really does clean the environment up. Just for a few days you can feel what it might have been like 100 years ago, 1,000 years ago. And also you get that offshore breeze which keeps the waves big for surfers. It's just magical.

You revisited California with "California Calling" from the 1985 Beach Boys LP, and Ringo Starr plays drums on that track.

Wow, I totally forgot about that. The producer, Steve Levine, was from England, so apparently he was able to get him to play on the track in England. I co-wrote it with Brian. That album was such a difficult project for us because it was the melding of certain forces. Unfortunately, Steve was so dedicated to computers that we weren't able to sing very much. It was like, "Okay, sing a verse or a chorus and I'll just put in all the 'oohs' in later. I'll multiply that add infinitum." [laughs] We would say, "We can sing the whole thing, really Steve." And he would say, "No, it's better if I do it this way. Plus i can pitch correct it, and you guys will be perfect." But again a perfect-sounding record does not always make for a perfect result. I have to admit when we were working on the LA (Light Album) and we were working with Jim Guercio on the song "Good Timin'," a beauty. And Jim wanted us to quadruple-track our vocals. We were triple-tracking everything, which I thought was okay. But then when we got into quadrupling I thought, "I'm on the way to Monterey." [laughs] Jim is a great producer and he really does get a great sound. But as the engineer for Steve Levine, all he had to do was put as many voices on there as he wanted. But then you don't get the diversity of the part because it's the same part multiplied over your own part. The character's gone. We do fatten [vocals]. If you're flat or sharp even, it flattens the harmony vocals on the overdubs. It may not sound great by itself, but when you blend it all together it starts to sound really big.

Dennis, Mike and Carl did solo records in the late '70s and early '80s. Were you ever tempted to do one?

Not at all. I was plenty busy enough with the Beach Boys. I wanted to get back to nature. What little life I had outside the recording studio, [laughing] why would I want to go back in yet another recording studio? You notice only one of the guys had any real success with their solo projects and that was Dennis. I just figured that we were better together than apart.

Carl's solo albums are quite good.

Oh yeah. Carl really wanted to be a rocker in the spirit of John Fogerty [sings "Rockin' All Over The World"]. He was trying to rough up his voice a little to get the growl. He had this natural, sweet voice which was excellent - that voice was so rich. He wanted to just dirty it up and go for the rock. He wanted to do rock n' roll.

So Carl could sing rock n' roll in the Beach Boys but couldn't be an out-and-out rocker in the band?

Right. We weren't rockers that way. We were tunesmiths. We were like the horn section for Brian. We were like a very finely tuned instrument. Doing his solo albums, Carl could get out of that envelope for a little bit. I was comfortable there. I enjoyed being a team player because, God, where would you find better music to sing to? It was so much fun. And also the personal challenge of writing a few of those.

While the success of the Endless Summer album rejuvenated the Beach Boys commercially, did it also impinged on the band's creative side?

It put us back on the map, geez did it ever! It also established us as what we are today or what is has become today, and that is kind of a party band primarily focused on the surf music and the good time stuff, which is fine.

From that period on, particularly in Mike's mind, it seemed the seed was sown that because the album of oldies was so successful, that was the direction the band should pursue.

Absolutely, you're 100 percent right. His instincts were, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It seems to work even today. But from a longevity point of view, my instincts tell me that you need to go into the catalog a little bit and preserve some of the gems before they're forgotten. Like some of the albums you mentioned to me, albums I should revisit. Capitol's reissuing them - Sunflower and Surf's Up. A few of those will be coming out as two-fers in the very near future so they can recapture some of the fort.

Let's go back to the Beach Boys' induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. It was a bittersweet night. It was an amazing honor that was lessened by Love's bizarre speech. What are your memories of that evening?

It was one of the early inductions. It was such a monumental event because of the magnitude of the stars that were there. It made us feel almost humbled by it. It was the Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Surpremes, The Drifters who were inducted. So many great stars. John Fogerty was there, Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, who inducted us, Billy Joel, Paul Simon. The stage was so jammed when we did the jam session at the end that I didn't even run into Paul Simon. It was awesome to be inducted. It was a mixed pleasure. Brian opened up with a speech of his own, written by his surrogate father, Gene Landy. The nutty professor, Gene Landy, who ended up writing a book with Brian. He scripted everything Brian did and said, so it was a little bit unusual and stilted. There were words there that Brian never uses in his speech. I could tell that. Then Mike was just dying to get to the microphone. As we were leaving the stage it seemed as if - Carl was trying to get us off the stage so the next artist could get inducted. Bob Dylan was waiting in the wings. Mike just drifted back to the microphone telling everybody how fucked it was that people that were still living weren't there, like McCartney. I'm not really sure what to this day he was trying to accomplish other then maybe the politics of the record business were not to his liking. But this was not an event to discuss the politics of the record business. That's a discussion you have at another time.

Were you, Carl and Brian embarrassed or just plain angry by his speech?

Of course, both. I remember meeting Dylan backstage and Bob saying, "What's going on?" [laughs] He said, "I'm sure glad he didn't mention me." [laughs]

When you returned to your table, did you say anything to Mike about his wacky speech?

He was sitting next to Muhammad [Ali] so I didn't want to start anything. [laughs] Just kidding. But I immediately went over to George [Harrison] and Ringo and I said, "Geez, guys, I really want to apologize for that speech. My partner's not feeling to well." I said something to that effect. [laughs] They put their heads on my shoulder. That was really touching. When I was leaning down between them Ringo just kind of came over and put his head next to mine. He said, "Oh that's okay, we love you guys." George did the same thing. They were really nice.

Speaking of the Beatles, share your meeting with John Lennon back in the late '60s.

A the time we were in England. The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was speaking at a conference over there. He had recently initiated the boys into TM. They were so taken by it. Maharishi being a brilliant promoter and one who knows how to convince people to do good. Honestly I think the man is saint, he really is. But he had a way of getting people to spread the word. So he got the Beatles to recruit the Beach Boys. [laughs] So they came up to my suite at the London Hilton. I get this knock at the door and i said, "I wonder who it is." I open the door and there's John and George standing there. "Hi mate, do you mind if we come in?" I said, "Sure, why not, heck yeah." We introduced ourselves to them. Lynda Jardine, my first wife, was there. And lo and behold here comes this speech. They were proselytizing on behalf of TM. They suggested that we get involved with the program and that they would see us later in Paris because they were going to be with Maharishi at this huge concert we were doing for Unicef Emergency Children's Fund. We played there and all four of the Beatles were sitting in the front row with the Maharishi listening to the show. I wish the meeting with John was a musical one. I wish he brought his guitar up and said, "hey, let's write a song about meditation." I'm sure it would have been a lot better than what I sang on the Friends album ("Transcendental Meditation").

In out conversation, you've spoken a lot about Dennis as a musical artist. How about sharing a fond personal moment with Denny.

Standing outside of a bowling alley in Hawthorne, Calif., singing folk songs. Singing one in particular that I sill like. I swear to God every time I see a mandolin like the one you showed me at your house, he just loved when I played guitar or anything. This was in the early '60s. It might have been after I left the group for a while. We'd stay in touch and I'd always come by and I'd sing on a few songs on the early stuff as well. I sang backgrounds on a lot of the very early things even though I wasn't on the album covers. There was one called "Lonely Sea," a beautiful plaintive song. A bunch of stuff like that. Dennis couldn't wait for me to get my guitar or mandolin and start playing a folk song.

How would you characterize Mike and Dennis' relationship? Was there friction even in the beginning?

Oh constantly, constantly. It was which testosterone meter was the highest. It just went on and on and on. Constant competition. hen Mike talks about competition on stage I'm sure he's referring to Dennis. They were just at it all the time. Those first cousins had quite a battle to fight all the way up until the end. Remember that Dennis cut his hand in the '70s. It was Malibu and he dropped the darn thing and he tried to catch a Sparkletts water bottle and it cut his hand wide open. He couldn't play for a year. His solution was we hire another drummer, and that was Bobby Figueroa, who plays with our band now. Dennis would take the microphone with Mike up on stage and you can imagine the competition that goes on there. Oh God, and he began to sing some great songs. There's a song he claims to have written, "You Are So Beautiful." He told me he coauthored that with Billy Preston at a party.I believe that Dennis probably did write the lyrics to that. It's just pure Dennis Wilson, but he didn't get credit for it. He was competition for frontman. Dennis would infuriate Mike by simply standing up. Without saying a word he'd stand up and the audience would release an incredible amount of energy. Similar to Ringo when he would do some antics on the drums. The girls would go crazy, and Mike would have take a little bit of humility and continue to work like the rest of us as a team member. After a while Mike and Dennis learned to coexist like on the 20/20 album and a couple of those later projects. They did write some very inspirational things together.

From a purely personal standpoint, can you cite a Beach Boys album that deserves reappraisal?

Oh that Love You album has some gems on it. That's the one. It's a shame that the album cover is so crummy - everything about that thing is homemade. I think they thought it was our last album. I think it was issued as our last album for Warner Brothers. And when we went over to sign with CBS, they checked their agreements and we owed them another one. [laughs] They didn't spend a penny on the Love You album because they knew that we weren't coming back. They used real cheap cardboard for it. But the music, you wouldn't believe it. Ed Carter played on that. He's in our band now too. "The Night Was So Young" is a favorite.

One of the most beautiful moments is Carl's singing on the bridge.

Oh God, isn't that a remarkable bridge? With that little tempo change, it's beautiful. It is Brian and Carl at their best. And also "Good Timin'." Those two wrote together or sang together - Brian would use Carl as his surrogate as he did Mike for many years. Dennis and I were kind of on the outside looking in on a lot of those great ones.

Tell us about the Jardines project you are working on with your sons, Matt and Adam.

We have started recording. We've started tracking up at the studio in Big Sur. I think it sounds really good. We've only scratched the surface, Ken. So I'm going to go and review those tracks. We've cut six songs. They're simply works in progress. There are contributions from Matt and Adam primarily. I'm trying to get behind their writing. There's one or two of mine. There's one in particular that I like that Matt has done. In general I would say they're ballads. I'm trying to write more ballad-type songs as opposed to rockers right now. But we definitely should have some rockers in there because coming from a singing background we tend to emphasize the vocals. A lot of people love those rock n' roll songs. But they're sometime the hardest things to write. You really need a rock n' roll band to write around to do that. Right now we don't have a band as such other than Family and Friends, and they're all in Los Angeles. What we tried to do when we get together up here is do a drum track. My engineer plays drums, and we use him as well. Our strongest material will be the ballads obviously and California-oriented tunes. I'm trying to finish up another trilogy to the central California coast that I've worked on. It's since surface on a bootleg album. I wasn't even aware of it until it was sent o me from Los Angeles by Steve Kalinich, another wonderful lyricist who co-wrote some songs with Brian and one he did with Dennis Wilson called "Little Bird." The fact that it wound up on a bootleg makes me wanna get it done. Makes me wanna finish it, because it bugs me when I hear unfinished things pop up on bootlegs. It was a vinyl bootleg, and I don't think it's ever surfaced again, thank God. It's called "Looking Down The Coast," and it's something that literally describes the coast as I see it. I'm even incorporating some stuff from the '98 storm that took out our entire Highway 1, which was just lost into the ocean.

Do you ever foresee a time when you'll play onstage with Mike and Bruce again?

I think it could happen. I don't see why not. I'm always open to making things work because I believe in everyone being there for the public. But thus far it has been taken out of my control, so that's why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Alan Jardine's comments about people associated with the Beach Boys:

Brian Wilson: A tortured genius. Pal. School chum. A good friend. We grew up together in Hawthorne.

Mike Love: Corporate genius. Never got to know the guy. I still don't know who he is. I think Mike is different things to different people. I just don't know the guy.

Dennis Wilson: You got what you saw with Dennis. He was real in your face and honest. Great friend.

Carl Wilson: Same thing. Carl was more black and white, extremely black and white individual. Big heart. Generous to a fault. He had very set ideas on how he saw life.

Bruce Johnston: A terrifically talented individual. Great songwriter.

Nick Venet: He was our first producer and quite frankly brought the band to our first hit record.

Nick Grillo: Nick was a corporate manager.

Murry Wilson: Frustrated songwriter and a gentleman.

Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar: Really great talents from Africa. Ricky's a fabulous drummer and Blondie is a great guitarist who is now working with the Rolling Stones.

Roger Christian: Great car lyricist. Great car fanatic.

Gary Usher: He was the first one who brought the Beach Boys to cars with "409" and then it was Roger Christian. Gary was a very good lyricist.

Terry Melcher: A real gentleman from the Monterey Peninsula.

Tony Asher: I loved the lyrics he wrote for Pet Sounds. Great lyrics.

Van Dyke Parks: Genius poet.

Glen Campbell: Glen Campbell had all his teeth filed down and replaced with crowns because he knew he was gonna be a star. Seriously, he had all of his teeth perfectly finished.

Jack Rieley: A real fraud from the Netherlands.

Eugene Landy: Same thing. Landy might have had an edge in the fraud department.