Just before the band’s 38th lifetime performance at the legendary Jones Beach Amphitheatre in Long Island, NY on Thursday night (August 8), Mike Love of The Beach Boys joined WCBS-FM’s Race Taylor to talk about the epic milestone, and plenty more.
LISTEN NOW: Mike Love talks with WCBS-FM’s Race Taylor
“You know, I remember when they used to have a moat in front of the stage,” Mike remembers of performing with The Beach Boys at Jones Beach, whose upcoming 38th concert there will mark the most times any band or artist has graced the outdoor stage. With more than 60 years of performing under his belt, it can be safe to say Mike has the setlist committed to memory.
“I can do them in my sleep,” he says, “but I promise to stay awake.” Looking back on the band’s storied career, “I just knew that we loved to harmonize and I always wanted to accentuate the positive,” he says. “I mean, we sang about surfing, we sing about cars we love, we sing about the girls we love. California girls, surfer girls, all those nice things. ‘Good Vibrations’ was about a girl in the ‘60s who was all into peace and love, and flower power. That was our psychedelic anthem, and that song makes people feel good. We love seeing that multiple generations turn out, entire families, and everybody loves The Beach Boys -- which energizes us and it makes us feel very happy to do what we do.”
The harmonies that fans have come to know and love, he explains, stem from him and his family members singing Doo-Wop and Everly Brothers songs at their Wednesday Night Youth Night. And “We still love doing those harmonies to this day,” he admits.
Mike also touched on the story of one of the band’s longtime favorites, their Cocktail hit “Kokomo,” recalling dialing into the studio to sing the hook to producer Terry Melcher. “And I said, ‘Aruba Jamaica, oh, I wanna take you,’ like that. It was when we had payphones, it was 1988," joking that the dollar twenty-five expenses to place the calls were “getting out of hand..”
The beautiful thing about the music of The Beach Boys is that they are truly a gift that keeps on giving. Take, for example, the biggest movie of last year, Barbie, whose official trailer featured their classic track “Fun, Fun, Fun.” Mike says, “Margot Robbie herself said that she never listened to The Beatles, she liked The Beach Boys! How about that?”
Fans can get all caught up with all things Beach Boys with their brand new Disney+ documentary now streaming. The biggest takeaway from that project, Love believes, is how it shows “the contributions of everyone that was involved in the group. A lot of times they focus on Brian [Wilson] or whatever it is, but it showed the family connection and the harmonizing together -- that love of harmonizing had nothing to do with money or fame or anything like that. It's just pure love of harmonizing and singing about what we loved about our environment in Southern California growing up. That's what gave us our start, and people still relate to these songs.”
“We just always accentuated the positive. That's really what the thing is,” he says of the band’s legacy. “There was a psychologist in Sheffield, England about a year and a half ago that said that ‘Good Vibrations’ was the number one song for making people feel good -- and that's pretty amazing.”
Listen to Race Taylor's full chat with Mike Love on WCBS-FM above, and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite stars and artists right here on Audacy.
Check out a full list of currently scheduled Beach Boys concerts. Tickets are on sale now.