We Still Like Mike

Friday, Sept. 7, 2001 | 4:43 a.m.

"Surfin'," "Surfin' Safari," "Surfin' U.S.A.," "California Girls," "Surfer Girl," "409."

"Good Vibrations," "Kokomo," "Barbara Ann," "Sloop John B.," "Wendy."

"Help Me, Rhonda," "Little Deuce Coupe," "Fun, Fun, Fun," "I Get Around."

Do they need any further introduction?

The Beach Boys will perform at the Stratosphere Friday and Saturday. Featured in the group are Mike Love, a founding member, and Bruce Johnston, who joined in 1964.

The band has endured despite undergoing vast changes over the years. Two original members have died: Carl Wilson, of cancer in 1998; and Dennis Wilson, who drowned in 1983. Both were the brothers of the group's bassist/pianist/songwriter, Brian Wilson, who is Love's cousin and is touring again with his own band after years of well-publicized psychological problems. Meanwhile member Al Jardine is estranged from the group that he helped create.

Love, speaking by phone from Boston, recently discussed with the Sun his life as a Beach Boy.

Las Vegas Sun: You turned 60 in March. Don't you ever get tired of being a Beach Boy?

Mike Love: No, we don't get tired of it. We like doing what we're doing. The harmony is the thing. We sing some songs so rich in harmony, it is fantastic to be able to do that so many years after we started. To hear those songs and to hear the audience respond to the songs. We're lucky enough to have turned a hobby of singing into a profession.

Sun: A hobby?

ML: We weren't a professional group at all. Brian and I, we would sing with his brother, Carl, or sometimes with my sister, Maureen, and once in a while with my aunt, Audree (Brian's mother). We were always drafting people to sing a fourth part.

Sun: If you hadn't become a professional singer, what would you have done?

ML: I don't know. My dad's occupation was a sheet-metal worker. He and my grandfather had a company called Love Sheet Metal. I did a lot of apprenticing with them, but it wasn't my cup of tea. It just so happened my cousin, Brian, and I liked music quite a bit. We always sang songs by the Everly Brothers and doo-wop songs from the '50s. So we made a profession out of a pastime.

Sun: Your first recording was "Surfin'." How did you come up with that one?

ML: We were asked (by a record company) to write a folk song and we said, "Well, we're not folkies, even though we like the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary." There was a whole group of kids in Southern California dressing in a certain way and talking in a certain way and living a certain lifestyle and they called themselves "surfers." So we went and made up a song, "Surfin' " -- I wrote the words and most of the music as well; Brian did the arrangements and harmonies and stuff. It was the first song we ever tried recording, and it was a regional hit. It was No. 1 or No. 2 in Las Vegas. So here we are 40 years later, coming to Vegas to sing "Surfin'."

Sun: Are you going to do anything to celebrate the 40th anniversary of "Surfin'?"

ML: We're probably going to focus more on next year. I'd like to do (a tour of) all 50 states. Our first touring took place pretty much in conjunction with our first national hit. Our first nationwide hit was the second song we recorded, "Surfin' Safari" in 1962. Then in '63 there was "Surfin' U.S.A." We've got a lot of 40th anniversaries coming up pretty quick.

New Year's Eve will be the 40th anniversary of our first concert in which we were promoted and paid as the Beach Boys, at the Long Beach (Calif.) Memorial Auditorium for the Ritchie Valens Memorial Dance and Show. The Ikettes (featuring Ike and Tina Turner) were there, too. We were paid $300.

Sun: You've written a fair share of the group's hit songs, but Brian gets the credit for being the creative member of the Beach Boys.

ML: That's because I was eliminated from getting any credit on "California Girls" and "Help Me, Rhonda" and "I Get Around" and 35 or 40 others because my uncle (Murry, Brian's father) hated my guts and eliminated me from credit on those songs. Brian was unable to stand up to my uncle because he was having his own emotional problems. But (the song credit issue) was rectified in '94, I think it was. I had to go to court to establish authorship. I was given credit and finally started getting paid for the songs I co-authored.

Sun: Speaking of lawsuits, what's up with Al Jardine? Is there a lot of animosity there since you guys sued each other earlier this year?

ML: I don't harbor any animosity. I'm not into that. I haven't performed with him for over three years. He's been doing his own thing, with his own band. That whole issue (of the lawsuit) was not directly with me, or anyone other than Brother Records, the entity that owns the name Beach Boys.

I understand (Jardine's) situation, his problem, which is that he has a problem with using the name Beach Boys for what and how he wants to use it. Brother Records has certain standards and procedures you have to follow, which Jardine didn't particularly want to follow, but he wanted to use the name. So he has a problem with Brother Records. Brother Records brought a suit against Al to restrain him and he counter-sued. The federal judge (in early August) threw out his suit.

Sun: What about your relationship with Brian?

ML: I think it's good. He's doing his own touring. He's opening for Paul Simon currently. But Bruce and I are hanging out with the Beach Boys. We were just in Europe for a month and Canada for nine days and now we're on the East Coast. Since Carl passed away three years ago last February we must have done 150 concerts a year.

Sun: How have the Beach Boys transcended age groups for four decades?

ML: I think the subject matter has a lot to do with it. A lot of our songs are simple songs, fun songs, but they've got nice harmonies and good melodies. Our original songs were youth-oriented, since we were youths ourselves. Carl was 14. I was the old man at 20. A lot of people who started with us at 20, now they are 60 and they look at it as nostalgia. And new young fans discover the Beach Boys every year because of our songs' subject matters, things they can relate to growing up -- cars, girls, schools and surfin'.