You just put out Gettin' In Over My Head and now the much anticipated Smile. Seems like a creative time for you considering it had been six years since you put anything out.
Yeah, it took about a month and half to write the third movement and touch up the first two movements of Smile with Van Dyke Parks, me and Darian Sahanaja who is my band conductor. It took us about a month and a half to get it written.

That seems very quick. I know that once you went to into the studio, things went very swiftly.
It took about ten days to record it. We knew it very well. We had rehearsed it very much so we knew it very, very well.

The recent recording was achieved largely through live takes of the songs, with minimal overdubbing versus the modular concept of editing that seemed so central to the original process. Yet the new recording sounds remarkably similar to the original. How did you reconcile the differences?
We used Pro Tools computers to make it, to refine the sound and to make it sound like the original.

How do you think Smile is being received by younger audiences and the peers of your time nearly 40 years after its initial inception?
Well, when we went to London in February, the first night we got a standing ovation for ten minutes. That’s how much they liked it.

It’s my understanding that’s what helped catalyze your reinvigoration of going back into the studio to record it.
Yeah, that inspired it.

Is it fair to say that Smile became a kind of monkey on your back?
Well, it was when I was recording it in 1967 because I was on some bad drug trips. And Van Dyke and I were on some bad drug trips so we had a hell of time creating it and getting it together.

If Smile’s physical description is a three-movement symphony for rock band, orchestra and chorus, what is its emotional description?
Emotionally, I would say an angelic vocal experience.

How did it feel going back into Studio One at Sunset to record this album considering you had done some of the original work there?
Well, it gave me the feeling, the spirit of the original spirit of Smile. Although we were on bad drug trips, we did enjoy creating some of it in 1967. So by going back to that place, it was like a sentimental thing for me.

In 1967, as you were at work on Smile, two other California bands were emerging: Buffalo Springfield released their self-titled album with single “For What It’s Worth” and The Doors also released their self-titled album with “Light My Fire” and “The End,” clear reflections of the times. Did you see what you were doing then as a reflection of something greater?
We saw it as reflection of early and mid Americana which was at the head of its time. People weren’t ready to hear all about early America yet. The way we created it, people weren’t ready for it. It was too advanced.

Smile is based around the concept of a bicycle rider traveling from New England’s Plymouth Rock to Hawaii’s Diamond Head. Do you think the landscape witnessed has changed much since then?
Not really changed much, no. It’s pretty much the same as it was. Only thing is that we created a third movement which was a little bit more… a little different than the first two movements.

The original name for Smile was Dumb Angel.
I was smoking some marijuana one night in Los Angeles in 1967 and I thought the title of the album should be Dumb Angel. Then Van Dyke suggested Smile as the title and I said, “yeah, that will make people smile when they… It will make people think it’s a happy album.”

Do you consider it a happy album?
Oh yeah, it’s the happiest album I’ve ever created.

Besides Van Dyke Parks and Mike Linett, have you heard any responses from people who heard the songs back then and have now listened to the new version?
No, none at all. They were proud to hear the new recording was superior to the old one. And they all admitted it to me.

What is meant by the term “pop music” has changed quite a bit over the last 40 years.
Pop music has slowly deteriorated over the last 40 years. It got worse and worse from the ‘60s to 2000, it went down and down and down… and down and down and down.

What does that term mean to you now? How much has it been bastardized?
Pop music has been bastardized and embarrassed, I think, by the music of today.

You’ve said you don’t listen to any younger musicians’ music yet your current musical director, Darian Sahanaja of The Wondermints is quite young, probably half your age. If you’ve surrounded yourself with younger musicians you respect, why not listen to the music they’re creating?
I like their music, I just don’t think you can hear their lyrics very well. That was my only criticism of the music.

Is there any other music that’s exciting you right now?
No, actually not. I listen to Spanish music now on the radio.

Any particular bands or just in general?
No, just in general.

During the ‘80s and ‘90s, The Beach Boys sort of positioned themselves as “America’s Band.”
Right.

Playing various events in a fairly nationalistic way.
Right.

As you continue the legacy of that music through your own solo work, do you want to be this current version of America’s band?
Ah, no no. Mike Love and Bruce Johnson licensed the name The Beach Boys and they go out under the name The Beach Boys and I’m going out under Brian Wilson.

I guess I mean to say that Brian Wilson wouldn’t want to be America’s band at the moment in the same way that The Beach Boys were prior.
No, I wouldn’t like that. I don’t accept that it is the truth.

A lot of artists- art, music, literature- suffer from mental illness. It seems that they’re often the most brilliant. Do you a relationship between your own mental illness [manic depression] and creativity?
Well my own mental illness slowly expressed itself with the creation of Smile, the new recording of it. Some of my emotional hell I went through turned itself into a positive album.

I have to say I was absolutely stunned when I heard the new album.
How’d you like “Heroes and Villains”?

I thought it was great. It just… I couldn’t believe. It sounded, to me, so paradoxically modern and old and fresh at the same time.
Thank you very much, I appreciate that.

What was interesting was that as I played it in the office yesterday, during “Fire” with the sirens, actual sirens from outside on the street came by and mixed very naturally with the album and it just hit me that it seems very appropriate that it’s coming out now.
Yeah, it is appropriate. It is an appropriate time for it. It’s fresh and yet it’s got that old time feeling and the new time feeling, both.

I think that dynamic is uniquely yours. I congratulate you on achieving that.
Thank you very much.

Have you ever thought about your own epitaph would say?
Here lies a nice guy. That’s what I want.

That will do it. Thank you for your time. I look forward to seeing you at Carnegie Hall out here.
I’ll see you at Carnegie Hall backstage.

Note: I doubt if I’ll be seeing Mr. Wilson backstage; I hope I do, but again, I highly doubt it.

Brian Wilson was interviewed by Josh Baron.