Carl Wilson once described the Smiley Smile album as being a bunt instead of a grand slam, meaning it was a cheap substitute for the Smile album. How do you look back on that record?

Too much acid. Brian got so wacked out by that time. He was so sensitive, so fragile from whatever he was doing and ingesting those non-prescribed medicinals. Anyway, he completely changed form being dynamic and competitive to being non-combative and non-dynamic, the opposite. And so Smile was in the same direction as "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes And Villains" and then all of the sudden a grinding screeching halt, a hundred and eighty degree turn, and it became Smiley Smile for whatever reason.

Now the million dollar question: Will Smile ever be released?

There was brilliant pieces of music but it's disjointed and fragmented and unfinished so I don't see any real venue for doing it. I don't see any real reason for it to come out other than certain collectors would like to hear some of those unfinished tapes. They probably have them anyway (uproarious laughter).

I'm not saying anything.

You lousy bastard, that'll be 20 dollars (laughs).

"Do It Again."

I went surfing with my old high school buddy Bill Jackson in a place called Tressles in Southern California. It was a beautiful day, the waves were perfect. I just wrote that as sort of a diary of the day's events. It took no more than ten minutes to write.

Can you tell when a song is going to be a winner right away?

I have an instict for what's commercial and when I don't listen to it or fight for it, it's often not successful.

What's the deal with the Charles Manson song you recorded for the 20/20 album ["Never Learn Not To Love"]?

I knew of Dennis' relationship with him but I didn't know the specifics of who wrote what on which songs.

Did you like the song?

Not particularly.

Many people site Sunflower as the best collective Beach Boys album.

I liked it. Is that the one with "Add Some Music To Your Day"? I like that song a lot. And what else is on there?

"This Whole World."

Yeah, I thought that was a great song by Brian, mainly. It's a philosophical kind of thing. It's a very nice song. See, Brian at that point in time was capable of a song or two but he wasn't capable of coherent thought for 10 songs. Then it became more of Carl taking over the reins, Bruce took over the reins, an outside producer took over the reins (laughs), but I always took a laissez faire attitude toward it.

First of all, I do not like recording. It's boring. Tedious. I like writing a song and singing it. I don't like the tedious process of recording. I don't like it. I'd rather be outdoors, reading a good book, going to a movie. It's not my favorite thing to do, going into a room in Hollywood and living there for six months while you're making an album.

It's not my cup of tea, I'm not technically oriented. I don't care what kind of technology we're using to record. I care what it sounds like. I care what the lyrics say. I care that it's commercial and you're not wasting your time doing a subjective egotistical exercise. So I don't disdain it. I just don't like it as much as other aspects. Therefore, I was never raring to get in there and be the producer on an album. Forget it. I'd rather write and let somebody else produce it and be done with it.

Surf's Up exemplifies what you were talking about with Brian not having the ability to carry an album completely. He did write a few songs for the album, including "Till I Die" and "Surf's Up." "A Day In The Life Of A Tree" had Jack Rieley on vocals.

Jack Rieley, his voice on there is kind of like Landy's writing, you know? "Don't Go Near The Water" from that record is a good song. Al and I were mostly into doing that song.

In an Al Jardine interview he mentioned the group's 1971 appearance at Carnegie Hall as the live performance of your career. What are your memories or that pivotal show?

I think that was a really neat thing to do. I remember the feeling of that performance. I remember meditating before we went on and feeling the consciousness of the people in that auditorium buoying us. It was tangible.

There's been talk of the Beach Boys doing the entire Pet Sounds LP with an orchestra.

That's been one of Bruce's biggest desires, I would say. It would be good.

Is it possible?

That and a symphonic album by the Beach Boys would really be a good thing to do. Several of the songs would lend themselves to it. The opening of "California Girls" is an overture kind of thing (imitates the opening). "Sloop John B." "Wouldn't It Be Nice," a lot of things.

What's your selection for a lesser known Beach Boys gem that a lot of people may not be aware of?

Some songs are great songs that you like a lot and we as musicians like a lot but are a bit esoteric for the public. "I Can Hear Music" is good. That's actually fairly popular. "Sail On Sailor."

I like "It's About Time."

Yeah, but for me that's a little bit too guitary and rowdy. It's almost like us trying to be something we aren't. That ranks with "Student Demonstration Time" in that department. It's almost like us trying to be an AOR band when we're an AC band.

That probably had the toughest-sounding guitar of any Beach Boys recording. That and "Bluebirds Over The Mountain."

Yeah, exactly. "Bluebirds Over The Mountain" too.

How did you come to select that song to cover?

I just liked the melody. I thought the guitar stuff was pretty neat too.

Do you look back fondly on the Holland record?

The experience of being in Holland was really neat. I thought it was cool to go outside the country and do something unusual.

You shipped all your recording equipment over.

Yeah, unfortunately we did. It cost us an arm and a leg. The "California Saga" I thought was kind of neat. That was pretty cool.

How about your assessment of the MIU record?

Well, a lot of those albums that we did there's some neat gems there but there wasn't a coherence to some of those. It was too democratic, which is what I'm getting at. Everybody almost coming into it with their song, which is okay. It's like if you have an album and have a hit song on it and it's very commercially viable doesn't it make sense to have another song that would also be commercially viable? And a third and a fourth.

Now, I'm talking about not from a person who just likes the esoteric and the art of it all, I'm talking about trying to gain some sort of commercial recognition which gives you more power over your lives, to do things that you would want to be able to say and do. In other words, if you're not a success commercially then all you are in the Beach Boys' case is a lovable anachronism. But if you can be commercially viable you can have the money and the listenership and the attention of the industry to where people will take you seriously.

When you do an album that is fragmented, meaning you have a great idea, Al, or a great idea, Carl, or a great idea. Bruce, or a great idea Brian, and Mike, but they may not be compatible in a marketing sense. They may not even be commercial. There's a difference between doing an album that is not merely a democratic accommodation of egos but is using the collective best strengths from the standpoint of what are they capable of performing. Who is the strongest writer? Who are their strongest vocalists and which ranges and what kind of tempos?

So there's a whole lot of input that goes into something that has the potential of being a lasting hit product. I know Carl Wilson's strengths and I know Al Jardine's strengths. And I know there weaknesses too. I know if I left them to their own pursuits what they would do on their own and where the weaknesses would be lyrically or singing-wise. I know that Al has a voice that he hasn't used yet on record.

What a great voice.

He does have a good voice for what he's known for. He has an even better voice commercially. See, I have different voices, as you know. I have the "Surfin' Safari" voice and I also have the "Kokomo" voice. And I have my bass singing voice live, which is the bass in "Surfer Girl" and "In My Room," "Don't Worry Baby" and that kind of stuff, which I love doing. That's one of the things that I enjoy the most. My "Kokomo" voice happens to be with Carl's voice, which is pitched in the range of "God Only Knows" and "Good Vibrations"; Carl singing in that range and me singing in my range is very commercial. It's a good counterpoint.

There's a line in "Kokomo": "We'll put out to see and we'll perfect our chemistry. By and by we'll defy a little bit of gravity." What nobody knows is that when I was writing that there's endorphins that flow in the body when you're in love, chemistry. There's a thing that happens to your heart. There's actually a thrill of emotions that goes through. There's actually, physically, chemistry, that's why there's the line, "We'll perfect our chemistry."

Why did I say defy gravity? Because in the practice of the TM city programs there's sutras, where you develop the ability to levitate.

Have you ever levitated?

Yeah, I practiced doing this as part of my TM city programs.

And it's worked?

Yeah, well, I mean we're fledging hoppers. But the idea is with perfection of the mind and the body you can actually defy gravity. So it actually showed up in the song "Kokomo." A hundred years from now people will be defying gravity as a normal course.

See, there's a thing called survival of the fittest where evolution marches forward and people who are ignorant and violate the laws of nature, then their societies pass out of existence. People who are more in tune and in harmony with nature are gonna be those who survive. I want people who survive one hundred years from now to realize we were relevant now. It's just like we did in '72, "Don't Go Near The Water," in '92 you have the earth's summit so there's a relevance to our music form 1972 and 1992 and there's Donna be relevance beyond that. So that's my mental process, to go to work on doing a song. I don't always calculate like that. Sometimes it'll be moon and June, boy and girl and be done with it.

Do you believe that you were destined to be doing what you're doing with music?

I believe that the Beach Boys create what they call in Sanskrit "sattwa," which is positivity. It's tangible. When you walk out on stage on July 4th in Washington, D.C., in front of the monument and you get a standing ovation before you do anything, that's pretty good. Not many people even at the end of the concert get the kind of ovation we get at the beginning without even doing anything. People anticipate that they're gonna have a good time. We hit some chords, we make some sounds, we do some music and it creates euphoria and positively with most people unless they're on a total bummer.

For the uninitiated what are the benefits of Transcendental Meditation?

If you learn TM and you're over 40 and you practice TM regularly, you have 90 percent less health care utilization when it comes to heart disease. The quality of thoughts and the quality of our mind influences our physical well-being so dramatically that the little bit of investment of a few minutes in the morning and the evening to meditate can clear the stress out. Stress weakens the organism which leads to disease, deterioration and ultimately death. You can reverse the aging process and all kind of negative things by regular practice of TM...

What is your impression of the album The Beach Boys Love You?

"Airplane" is pretty. I like that song. I think there's cute things on it but that was one of the last albums on Warners and they were in no mood to promote it. We were at the end of our contract. We had already signed with CBS and they were just like forget it. They pressed up maybe 50,000 copies.

So that's why the record never took off?

That's right.

How about your view of 1980's Keepin' The Summer Alive album?

I like the artwork. I thought that was a pretty cool album cover. But the title song could have been more commercial. "Goin' On" is great. That's Brian Wilson. See, Brian, I've said a lot of bad things about him because he stole from me. And that's history and it's a fact and it will remain to be seen how it will be resolved and even Brian in his worst moments is still Brian. He has a certain inherent nature. He was a brilliant ability with music. I wouldn't say he's brilliant with words and that's why he's always had co-writers with respect to lyrics, unfortunately, in some cases. Not the best circumstances or people. Maybe they were kind of taking advantage of him. Maybe they were drug buddies.

Did you like Van Dyke Parks' lyrics on "Heroes And Villains"?

I like Van Dyke Parks as a person. At the time I though his lyrics were alliterate prose, which is great if you appreciated his prose and his alliteration. He's brilliant. But as far as translating to mid-American commercial appeal, I don't think so.

"Columnated ruins domino."

"Columnated ruins domino," yeah. Or, "Over and over the crow cries uncover the cornfield."

What's that mean?

Exactly. It's a self-indulgent sort of drug-induced... I guess that's how Van Dyke's brain functioned with those things in his system. Van Dyke Parks is on the new record. He's playing accordion and all that kind of stuff. He's great. He's one of the nicest persons in the world. And I tell him, "Hey, I though your lyrics, Van Dyke, were brilliant, except who the fuck knows what you're talking about!" That's exactly how I talk to him (laughs). And he and I joke about it 'cause he has the greatest sense of humor and he can laugh at himself. He's a very gifted musician...

Mike talks about Al Jardine:

... And I told Al... we had a rough time the last couple of years communicating. He's definitely been on a bummer for many years based on some things that have happened to him historically. Different than what happened to me with Brian with respect to the writing but a similar effect on him emotionally. And me, I ignore it and go straight ahead and I think more of the future. Al has this thing where he'll obsess on something that happened 20 years ago. It's hard for him to let go.

So we've actually been having group meetings between Carl, myself and Al with the psychiatrist Howard Bloomfield, who's a good friend of mine and a board member of the Love Foundation, and we've done a lot of healing kind of things, airing grievances and working things out. It's been very therapeutic for all of us individually and collectively. I think we've gotten to understand each other and see the other's point of view and experience and it's made the group better and stronger.

That confirms a report i heard a little while back that Al Jardine had left the Beach Boys.

We got to the point where we didn't want to be in the same room or on stage with him because he was so negative about things. He was negative about certain things and once we were able to get into a forum, an area where he was able to unload some of that, we could empathize with some of it, not all of it, and air our points of view and it resolved all that stuff.

Are you getting along better now?

A lot better. But the point is he wasn't even on the album until a couple of months ago when we finally resolved all the stuff. Then he came in and I told Al he made a good song great. It's not that we couldn't do an album and do it well without Al Jardine around. Or the same goes for anybody. You're talking the Beach Boys, you're going to get someone to listen anyway. But on several songs it went from good to great. And Carl, God, he's a monster on the album. I think he sounds phenomenal, the most commercial he's ever sounded.

Mike talks about the Beach Boys' influence on the world:

... The only constraints I felt as an individual is that I don't think the Beach Boys' celebrity and influence is felt profoundly enough in the area of socially uplifting efforts. Our basic premise is that if there's so much intelligence and creativity in the world then why is there ignorance and starvation and violations of the natural law? So it doesn't matter how many colleges you have or how many Ph.Ds you have if you're gonna allow such terrible problems to exist on the planet.

Same thing I have to say about rich people having wealth. There's nobody truly wealthy in the world because if there were there wouldn't be any poverty. They'd pay for it out of petty cash. They'd clear it up because they wouldn't like the site of it. There's certainly not enough caring and compassionate people so I include myself in that and all the Beach Boys and everybody within listening distance. Your life should not just be self-satisfaction, you've got enough money and that's it. We're all interdependent and connected whether you like it or not and the environment has proven that to us...

It's been almost 10 years since your cousin and fellow bandmate Dennis Wilson passed away. What is your fondest recollection of Dennis?

My fondest recollection of Dennis would be at the Sacramento Civic Auditorium playing the drums and beating the hell out of them (laughs), and having screams that were at least as loud if not louder than the Beatles ever got, because he was so charismatic and so appealing to those young girls. He was like the sex symbol of the Beach Boys, very dynamic, very healthy, very powerful drummer, not finesse but raw power. And as far as a person he was very generous to everybody and had a lot of spirit and energy.

Unfortunately, he got into drugs and alcohol and became addicted and it ruined his life. Took his life ultimately and in the process he was not enjoyable to be with in his last few years because of that. And we had problems that arose from the alcoholism and the influence that it had on his drumming which had an obvious impact on the group in terms of performance.

So we were forced to do things with him because he was committed to his addictions and would not get up off them enough, though we tried to force him to. But as far as his essential nature it was just a lot of raw power and energy and charisma and he had a big heart.

Way back in the early days we used to go fishing together and that's when we first talked about doing a surfing song. We were on Redondo Beach breakwater fishing. We'd go out like five, six in the morning and go fishing and we'd talk about girls and we ought to do a surfing record and then we went back to Brian and went, "Hey!" Then I wrote 90 percent of "Surfin'" and "Surfin' Safari" and "Surfin' USA," which I wasn't credited on either.

Next to Brian, many felt Dennis was the best songwriter in the band.

Dennis' style of writing was kind of subjective. I am more objective in the direction of how do we relate to the masses? How do we take a concept such as "Good Vibrations," which was ethereal and avant in 1966, and make it so that it's not like it's just gonna sell 10,000 singles and 50,000 albums. How can we get the concept across but in terminology where it relates to enough people where it will be commercially viable and acceptable and performed on the radio. That's where I came up with "I'm picking up good vibrations. She's giving me excitations." A boy-girl connection, yes, vibrations, but it wasn't just scary and weird stuff, it was yeah, okay, boy-girl.

Most people can relate to that and what happened was it was a big huge multi-million seller. Dennis doesn't think like that and he also would go along a certain track and then change it up. I think he heard Brian change up things and then he tried to emulate Brian's style. Brian did some changes that were very interesting and creative changes. I thought Dennis' changes were more self-indulgent or subjective rather than purely creative like Brian's. I think he was trying to emulate his brother's style.

And then that's everybody' value judgment on whether a song is good or whatever, but he definitely did come up with some good melodies and great moments. He had stuff in him. But he was not verbally facile. He was kind of in between Brian and myself. He wasn't quite comfortable with words, he's more into feelings. The feelings was his strong suite, I think.

Isn't Carl Wilson involved in a new project?

He's been writing with Gerry Beckley [of America] and Bobby Lamm [of Chicago] and they're doing a project together. I think they're gonna start recording this fall or winter.

Lastly, what's your favorite Brian Wilson song you didn't have a hand in co-writing?

"Surfer Girl," probably.