2025 year was a tough one for The Beach Boys, their family, friends, and fans. With the passing of Brian Wilson this past June 11th – just days before his 83rd birthday, The Beach Boys community weathered the loss of the last remaining Wilson brother, following the deaths of his beloved siblings and bandmates Dennis and Carl. As always, the music created by these three brothers, their cousin, and friends lives on and today is heard and loved by millions more than they could've imagined upon laying down their tentative first demos in suburban Hawthorne, California.
That music -- those timeless, ageless, beautiful songs -- now span the entirety of the planet and continues to mend hearts, change minds, and inspire positivity. It's comforting to know that at any given moment in any spot of the world, someone is happy by listening to The Beach Boys. That has to be the ultimate reward, because in the end that's all that matters.
Along with us all, Brian's bandmates miss him deeply and cherish his memory.
Bruce Johnston, who back in the day replaced Brian on the road and a year later was personally responsible for introducing Pet Sounds to the British rock elite, said:
"Here's what I love about Brian Wilson. From all the people I could come across and know, he had the best laugh, the most real laugh, of anyone I ever met."
Al Jardine first connected with Brian on the football field at Hawthorne High School and admitted he never tired of making music with him:
"I just love him to death. He was always so engaging and easy to work with -- even though he was a taskmaster. He made it fun. He had a great sense of humor. I was there for him. He knew he could depend on me and I was glad to be there for him."
Mike Love literally knew Brian Wilson for his entire life. When talking candidly about his relationship with his younger cousin, the chats nearly always veer back to their teen days together, when they were just buddies hanging out:
"Brian would get in his old car, a Nash Rambler, and come by my place to listen to the radio, play the piano, carry on and then, at about eleven o'clock, my father would yell at us, 'If you're going to play that music and make a racket, get outside!' We'd go outside and listen to the car radio and sing. Sometimes we'd spend the night in the car."
Brian Wilson never made music for money or accolades. It was merely what he did. He was always amazed when at the piano, the muse came to pay him a visit:
"I play around, just like trying to relax myself and play music, meditate and everything -- and I feel a little better. It puts me into a quiet place. It gives me the space and the chance to create, or to do what I'm supposed to do. I'll sit and I'll play for hours sometimes. And then a melody will start to come and I'll say, 'Hey! I'm getting a melody!' I don't know where they came from, but they just come to me. I think we're instruments that God plays. I could be a flute and God plays me like a flute. I never really fully took credit for the songs that I wrote because I knew that a higher force was with me when I was writing. It was a higher field of consciousness. I was proud of my songs, but also humble to God."
Here's to a fantastic 2026 with A LOT to look forward to -- including a massive new archival box set, along with classic albums being revisited and re-examined along with SO MUCH MORE.
Let's raise a glass to the New Year and plenty of reasons to fall in love all over again with The Beach Boys!