The Wrecking Crew! Page #6

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to push the music

to another level.

And to do that,

he enlisted the best of L.A.

We were on the road

150 days a year.

Brian was getting a little bit

more complex

in his arrangements. And

it just got to be too difficult

to... to coordinate

our itineraries.

And that's when

The Wrecking Crew stepped in.

When I heard that

some of the guys sat in

for some of The Beach Boys,

that surprised me.

But in truth, at that point,

The Beach Boys were

Brian Wilson.

He created it all.

He was very self-assured,

very much in control.

He brought in the charts

that he wrote himself.

And most of the time, I mean,

the music was entirely his.

I mean, there were

very few times that we made up

- licks on his stuff. Yeah.

- ...musically correct.

He had in his head

what he wanted.

First album, it was...

Summer Days,

The Beach Boy album.

Ray Pohlman was a great

bass player, really good.

Steve Douglas was,

like, so on-the-mark

as a saxophone player.

He just blew my mind.

He played with such finesse,

you know?

And he used to get real close

to the microphone

to get the best benefit

of his instrument.

They were all... The Wrecking

Crew... They were just great.

Brian was a genius.

I mean, he would just...

He was just good

as I've ever seen, I believe,

about putting things together.

Western studio,

and there was probably...

fifteen, 20 guys in that studio.

He'd start at the first guy...

and he'd sing 'em their part

until they got it,

and second guy,

he'd sing their part,

and the third guy,

all the way around the room.

Then he'd go back

to the first guy.

Well, the first guy

had forgot his part

and he'd sing it again,

sang a second...

He taught the whole thing

by rote.

And all of a sudden,

that whole band

could play that sh*t.

I mean, Brian is...

When you want to talk

about genius,

he's... There's not any more

like him that I know of.

I mean, he's unbelievable.

Pet Sounds was

an incredibly important record,

and still stands there, like,

"Okay, top this," you know?

George Martin told me

Sgt. Pepper was an attempt...

It was an attempt

to equal Pet Sounds.

So it was an incredibly

influential record

and I think it had

an electromagnetic field.

And people were drawn here,

and wanted to be a part of that,

and wanted to make records

like that.

Good Vibrations, we must have

done 25, 30 sessions.

It might take six months to do.

Some days,

we worked five minutes.

- Some days, four hours.

- Yeah.

- On the same song.

- We just... We experimented.

And they would ask me,

"Well, what do you want?"

And I'd say, "well,

I don't know," you know?

and we'd go home, and

the next time we get together,

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