Brian Wilson Interview With Jamake Highwater (1968-01-11)

[@MidosujiSen]

He had a beautiful speaking voice, might be the nicest voice I've ever heard.

[@Noah1997callahan]

Him and George Harrison. I hope when I die, they take turns narrating my life back to me

[@PhenomenalCat]

Brian Jones also had a nice speaking voice, almost hypnotic.

[@BlueSky...]

Gosh, what an interview. A few weeks after the _Wild Honey_ was released and about 6 months after _Smile_ was shelved. "We pulled out of that production pace merely because I was about ready to die."

[@1401minstrel]

"Ever since I blew my mind, everything has just been so groovy, you know?" Classic.

[@1401minstrel]

@TheBrabon1 Oh, I know.

[@gigid9606]

@TheBrabon1 kinda sad but true.

[@thedrogo3953]

His LSD Trip

[@SirCommoner]

timestamp for the love of god. i love this god damn quote. Edit: ok here it is, at 5:53 - this is sampled in Deca - Patchwork

[@TheLinuxYes]

dope blew his mind. he was never the same afterwards and couldn't right good songs anymore.

[@aziegster]

This interviewer loves hearing his own voice.

[@officialFredDurstfanclub]

A lot of interviewers do sadly

[@1401minstrel]

24:42 - fascinating when Brian says he hasn't heard of a synthesizer (likely true in 1968) and Jamake Highwater ends up describing the sound to him, apparently for the first time.

[@NotJarrett]

Especially great because of how heavily invested Brian became in synthesizers from 1969 onward, with them becoming a signature part of his sound in the mid-late 70s

[@subg8858]

He knew what an oscillator is though which is the defining foundation of synthesizers. They’d also at least used a theremin which is a synth so pretty sure he knew all about them

[@jajanesaddictions]

@@subg8858 It wasn't a true theremin they used, it was an Electro Theremin. There's a difference.

[@nuts45150]

Especially 1976-77😊

[@gigid9606]

listening to this interview is like taking a snapshot of an artist in the middle of a painting, asking him where he was, were he is going. I dont think Brian knew, or anyone know, what the end result of a career, looking back. But its a great snapshot, thanks. Asking him today, the interview would go different, etc.

[@eduardoc6441]

What a great interview! Brian seemed so lucid around that time… disappointed to hear from Brian that he and McCartney didn’t really get on when they met in the summer of ‘67

[@financegal7419]

McC just came around to get the heads up. ie Ram after Pet Sounds

[@tonythetigerlongliverocknroll]

Great to hear Brian talking this way. No ego, just a sweet honest intelligent guy rapping away. It must have been stressful ….after releasing pet sounds and good vibrations and still having the record label give him pressure for the next album/project, Mike Love was probably giving him pressure too. Brian was/is completely unique! A sensitive highly intelligent artist, he is one of my favourites. His music will be played on radio stations forever. He is an American Legend! I love his blunt honesty and strong surviving spirit 🔥❤️🎶👍🏻💥

[@rosu5726]

Brian had the prettiest voice in I get around and don't worry baby

[@subg8858]

Best vocal-papa oo mow mow from Beach Boys in Concert LP. Stupid song but his vocal blows my socks off every time.

[@camdenmckimm]

9:46 this actually was very accurate! Brian was soon to undergo the recording process for Transcendental Meditation from the Friends album.

[@BobSchusterMusiccom]

Sad and great to hear what beautiful speaking voice Brian had before he was totally ravaged while “blowing his mind.”

[@paladin1726]

He really did. Today he sounds so simple, and has for a while. Here it’s a very together, very clear Brian. Really refreshing. This 😅interviewer talks way to much

[@1401minstrel]

This interview took place in 1968, four years after Brian started doing LSD. Also, there is an interview he did on the Mike Douglas show in 1976 where he sounds totally clear and cogent. My point is this. I believe that Brian's speech patterns today have nothing to do with the illegal drugs he consumed in the 1960s and 1970s, and they have everything to do, instead, with the psychotropic medications Dr. Landy had him on in the 1980s. Dr. Landy was a psychologist and, as such, could not prescribe drugs, but he somehow found a way around that.

[@garrethboland]

@@1401minstrel I agree. Brian was always lucid and totally with it. You can even listen to all the studio takes from the Pet Sounds and Smile sessions and hear that he is in complete control. After Landy, he seemed totally fried like he had had a stroke or something. I actually have a sad story about the perception a lot of people get from Brian. I went to school for recording arts and some time around 2011 or so, a professor of mine showed one of my classes a clip of Brian from the 80s talking about the Theremin. At that time, I was going through a Brian Wilson obsession and was discovering him to be my favorite song writer ever. During the clip, most of the class were laughing their asses off, ripping on Brian and saying all sorts of rude, ignorant crap about him. I sat there in silence almost having pity on the total ignorance my classmates had of this guy. Not to be mean to my former classmates, but a lot of them were total pretentious hipsters and didn't know a single thing about Brian Wilson. Oh well. Their loss.

[@BURSRKR]

@@1401minstrelI agree with you

[@profile2047]

@@1401minstrelYep. If you read everything you can find about the effects of the drugs he was prescribed, and over prescribed, a lot of what he began to suffer from seems to stun from that. And the voice I’d say cocaine and smoking. Cocaine will of course tear up your nose and throat.

[@TheStarclipse]

At last I can Hear an interview of this era thank you Elora!

[@rokinsam]

thanks for uploading this. used to be up on youtube but ig it got taken down and i've been lookin for it for a while. classic brian dismissing synthesizers here, if only he knew what bag he'd be gettin into within the next 10 years...

[@jackburgoyne3725]

I’m Jack by the way, I’m a music student at Belmont University in Nashville, TN. Thank you for all these posts!

[@NateRuvin414]

This is legendary, I really do feel what he's saying here

[@notanotherjamesmurphy5574]

8:08 “My brother Carl, who’s driving…” Haha, this audio is awesome

[@essbo53]

Stockhausen asked the interviewer to send Brian some synthesizer recordings??? wow

[@vampyros1]

What’s so “wow” about that?

[@essbo53]

@@vampyros1 it was surprising to me that Brian was on Stockhausen's radar.

[@vampyros1]

@@essbo53 I see your point, given that Stockhausen’s sonic interest and body of work was tantamount to an atonal, cacophonous heap of excrement while Brian, otoh, created some of the most beautiful music ever.

[@NOWtheband]

@@essbo53 - Exactly. That's so good to know, isn't it? :-) Both won-won-wonderful artists.

[@deepsouthvideo3482]

Fantastic. A great insight into Brian's space in '68.

[@soulvigilante]

Damn, cuts off as it gets interesting. Hearing how excited Brian got about the concept of what we think of today as a synth (what they had been talking about prior was something very different) and how concerned he was as to whether the Beatles had heard some tech in that direction before him...He seems to have come to some peace with the outcome of _Smile_ in the moment, though...

[@inthetraffic]

Agreed. The Brian I always wanted to hear was really engaged at the end…then boom. It cuts off. I’m assuming if there was more it would be posted.

[@Zoologic21]

It's funny hearing him say Paul was initially uptight.

[@ragingbull888]

It’s a shame “friends” wasn’t better received. I think that effected his confidence greatly

[@artapollo3367]

Oh wow this is a treasure, die hard bboys fan here, I never heard this one before. I'm wondering if you have any rare footage of Brian playing piano in 66,( it's similar to the surfs up footage) it's of him playing section of do you like worms, there is a clip of it in An American Band

[@nopeteys2424]

Ive never been able to find that footage either. Its a shame that there really weren’t any interviews with Brian during the Pet Sounds and SMiLE era. I would of loved to hear him talk about working on them at the time.

[@fredbreuer5504]

Greetings from a hard to day BBoys fan from Germany

[@f.m.r.1437]

Brian was so cute then, and still is at age 81. Guess I've always been crushin' on him since the old days. I would give him 5K for that shirt he is wearing in the video.

[@eighthgate1420]

They say in 1967 when Brian heard “Strawberry Fields forever” on the car radio he pulled over, cried and said “they got there first” Poor guy was confused. His dad must’ve taught him the business end of the music industry.

[@nopeteys2424]

I know especially because Pet Sounds and the SMiLE album that he was working on at that time were so much better than what the Beatles were doing. I love the Beatles but they at the end of the day were just good songwriters, while Brian was a prodigy of composition and harmonies. Brian was on a different level than anyone at that time.

[@rapabsinthe786]

"Fire", "Woody Woodpecker", and "Do You Like Worms" make "Strawberry Fields Forever" sound like "Wild Thing". "Wind Chimes" was two years removed from Steve Reich's "Percussion Phase".

[@financegal7419]

depends on who “they” is

[@eighthgate1420]

@@financegal7419 How about it was said?

[@weatheredtome]

It wasn't about that either way though. It was about being a leader in the artistic realm in the world that he was king of

[@martoto77]

Stockhausen asked someone to pass some of his records on to Brian in the hope that they would turn him on to that scene. That’s heavy!

[@JackCasablanca-painter]

The interviewer talks way too much. This is not about Brian it's about listening to the interviewer ramble.

[@arvidsmith1038]

Jamake , or J Marks was pretty full of himself and something of a con man . I read his Bio of Mick Jagger which a lot lifted from Rolling Stone interviews w M&K.

[@collj86]

Good point

[@MrOctober44]

Interesting to hear Brian so coherent.

[@clmc8811]

It's weird. His voice still sounds like 'young Brian', but sometimes when he speaks louder it sounds like 1976's Brian (like at 14:55).

[@vincevirtua]

He was still only 25 or 26 here … pretty ‘young’. He just made himself sound old quickly from all the cigarettes and coke in the mid-70s.

[@lobo53695]

You should hear the live performance of 'please let me wonder' way back in 1965. His 'old' voice breaks out a few times, but that's probably because his voice was worn from all the singing prior. And I reckon all the drug abuse wore it down permanently.

[@madcap_9539]

@@lobo53695Man I was about to comment that lmao. That performance freaked me out when I first heard it. It's a perfect mixture of 60s falsetto Brian with late 70s Brian's back Brian. I assume he probably didn't want to overwork his voice for something I'm sure he didn't want to do since he was basically forced to come back for that performance.

[@jamiehovis7722]

Not weird at all. He’s a young man. Duh.

[@THECLARENCES]

God bless Brian! xoxo The Clarences

[@vincevirtua]

Brian sounds pretty switched on, not the hermit locked in the room we've come to hear about. I guess he got to that a bit later.. it really is a shame what he went through, the worst is he dropped himself out of the production race after Pet Sounds, and stopped pushing himself forward in that way, when he still could have here.

[@stepheebee]

in his bio he talks about it being a total myth that he became a hermit and stopped working with the band.

[@budnap47]

@@stepheebee yea, he went full hermit when Murray passed

[@fawful8215]

@@budnap47 No hermit phase. More like endless partying and self-destruction, drugs, and untreated mood disorder. Brian buried his problems like any American buried their problems in those days (and still today, in some places), by indulging until he forgot.

[@budnap47]

@@fawful8215 classic american disintegration, god blss 'merica

[@tosinmcboy]

I love how Brian Wilson spoke well in a interview

[@sammytheonionhead]

Amazing. I’ve never heard this.

[@LightsPersonalAcc]

5:21 "all of a sudden I realized I had a lot of music to make."

[@marcofalzone6469]

Thats a cool ass shirt Brian has on in this Thumbnail. Wow. Ill bet you could find it at a vintageclothes shop in the 80s

[@barbarawebb7185]

He isn’t letting Brian Wilson talk.

[@nuts45150]

Sometimes these 67-68 interviews Brian sounds close to the Jim Morrison interviews 69-70. Speaking wise.

[@gothfather1]

Brian sounds just as articulate as Jim. Even more in some cases. Syd Barrett sounded pretty good 66-67. The decline for Syd was in mid-late 67, Jim in 69-70 and Brian 72-73.

[@thecwaxman]

OMG. This is amazing.

[@Marble8008]

14:21 on my knees mourning the jams that never were.

[@collj86]

You know like i was in this totally other bag you know and it was like a new scene altogether

[@Thr333_Sugar_Skulls]

Jesus! I thought this was a Brian Wilson intefview. The interviewer wouldn't let the man get a word in. What a waste of an interview and time with a musical giant. Shakin my damn head

[@antebellumstage]

Brian sounds overwhelmed and kinda stressed out when talking about the synthesizer. Like he knows that he alone won't be able to challenge the innovation of the Beatles.

[@darthjesus420]

Pre psych hospital/mid mental breakdown Brian Wilson, ladies and gentlemen.

[@NOWtheband]

Outtasight!

[@DummyAccount-f1q]

I’m confused about the timeline here. Is this from after Wilson abandoned the Smile project? But I thought he cracked while making that.

[@WilliamHELLHASEYIS]

The Day I was Born ! 🫡

[@DerGlaetze]

The groovy ended quickly with Charlie.

[@MarcelaR-dh1ok]

Everybody had their direct line to God...no more hang ups like, don't do this on Friday And here we are 55 years later...how's it working out for you

[@Gardosunron]

Brian sounds very clear minded in his thoughts. Not the out of it basket case we have been lead to believe he was at this time.

[@l7casanova336]

10:27 talks about Stack-O-Tracks

[@JorgeVelezMusic]

This fascinating interview should be labeled as a TM / meditation focused interview with Brian. This is what was blowing Brian's mind - and the interviewer's and I guess the rest of the Boys. I guess Brian didn't stick to the meditation. Maybe he should've. It works ( not selling anything here, btw).

[@iAmNovaFilms]

“We’re singers, not musicians” What an interesting thing to say John?

[@Jasandcam]

John Phillips of the mamas and papas

[@scottpaton1173]

The interviewer is quite ponderous. To be fair, many pop culture journalists were at that time. But still...

[@ChriTur]

Horrible interviewer, loves the sound of his own voice. Shaddup and ask the question already.

[@MarcelaR-dh1ok]

The maharishi...He is the answer...He has long since been revealed for exactly what he is...

[@greatcitysportaction2289]

Very cool can you upload the full concert at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on February 4, 2011

[@acerjackson4579]

I wonder if Brian ever listens back to this kind of thing, or do his kids even?

[@RossHudsonMambo]

Elora, you're a gigachad

[@JEThunder1978]

Jesus, this interview is terrible 3:00 min in and I have a headache

[@SirCommoner]

What the hell happened to his voice over the years? Sounds like another person

[@David-tg2sb]

His voice was burned out by the years of drug abuse...his cords were burned...

[@marcofalzone6469]

He sounds ALOT like Dennis here

[@vincevirtua]

@@marcofalzone6469 just with Brian’s voice.

[@sheatiller2465]

Smoking.

[@markstevenson6635]

When you briskly inhale things thru your nose they also hit your vocal cords. Same with inhaling vapors like smoke.

[@jackburgoyne3725]

Where did you find this?

[@markstevenson6635]

Ah, the 1960's.

[@DenkyManner]

He sounded a lot like Carl.

[@KeizerHedorah]

the interviewer trying to ask if Brian did drugs is so cringe and slimey, trying to ask it without asking it and implications

[@sjh9173]

Prior to the antipsychotics that he has to take that distort his memory and vocal delivery. Prior to the cigarettes that wrecked his voice.

[@garrethboland]

Brian was likely crushed at this time, having shelved SMiLE

[@doyoulikeveggies]

nice upload keep it up

[@kookadams85]

I wanna like this vijoe but it's @ 666. Brian Wilson is to music what God is to religion. *Period* 💯 🎵🇺🇲

[@petersaines2048]

SPACE CADETS!!!!!

[@jala1081]

5:53

[@pacz8114]

14:31: "I just decided to not try anymore...and not try to do such great things". Well, that describes Wild Honey to a T.

[@rosu5726]

68 must have been a great year for rich like Brian. The hope for magical possibilities is easy to have even just from marijuana. I have a photo of my dad from then in a nice suit holding his new infant beside a fancy car but everything turned bad from not having small amounts of money. Brian was a child with money. A luxury only money allows.

[@nopeteys2424]

Yeah but it was right around this time where he really went into a mental breakdown and stopped making good music and laid in bed for three years

[@ChitakuPatch]

@@nopeteys2424 he still made good music

[@zeusinduce788]

Brian was in a good mental state during the first half of ‘68, but apparently everything went to shit during the second half

[@notanotherjamesmurphy5574]

longwinded interviewer

[@smedleybutler8787]

Harry Krishna talk. No thanks!👽👺

[@earflab]

Brian trying to be hip is so funny it is just not him at all. sounds like he is just parroting what he hears others say.

[@DveDveSold]

Sounds more like you trying to impose your opinion rather than his personality in his 20s.

[@charliemoore8177]

This was completely authentic 1968 brian wilson. Dude was out of his mind

[@mrs.featherbottom5901]

I’m not sure Brian is capable of being fake

[@oranjuly]

I agree. i love the guy but I agree.

[@earflab]

@@oranjuly He wasn't made for those times.