Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a
Speaker 1: story about the quiet One, the genius, and the bathrobe,
Speaker 1: the savant, the ghost. And it's a story about murder,
Speaker 1: about theft, about manipulation. It's a story about the cost
Speaker 1: of music and the way a sound can save a
Speaker 1: person and the way it can drown them too. It's
Speaker 1: about the beach Boys, yes, but it's also about the
Speaker 1: wave that never stops pulling. And this is a story
Speaker 1: about love and mercy and about family and the violent
Speaker 1: cracks that split these things apart. It's about the man
Speaker 1: who made pet sounds, and it's about the people who
Speaker 1: nearly destroyed him for it, people who medicated him, isolated him,
Speaker 1: rewrote his contracts, manipulated his mind, and stole his future.
Speaker 1: It's about a murder that marked his descent, a theft
Speaker 1: that changed his legacy, and a manipulation so complete it
Speaker 1: turned a fragile artist into a legal hostage. It's a
Speaker 1: story about beach Boy Brian Wilson, a man who made
Speaker 1: great music. Unlike that loop I played for you at
Speaker 1: the top of the show that wasn't great music. That
Speaker 1: was a preset loop from my melotron called pick in
Speaker 1: Cass forever. I played you that loop because I can't
Speaker 1: afford the rights to Monday Monday by the Mamas and
Speaker 1: the Papas. And why would I play you that specific
Speaker 1: slice of your mother's Laurel Canyon Cheese. Could I afford it?
Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
Speaker 1: May sixteenth, nineteen sixty six, And that was the day
Speaker 1: Brian Wilson's Beach Boys released Pet Sounds and changed the
Speaker 1: course of pop music forever. On this episode Murder, Theft, Manipulation,
Speaker 1: Love and Mercy and the Broken Beauty of Brian Wilson,
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan, and this this disgraceland and the surfboard
Speaker 1: hit Brian Wilson's head so hard that it brought on
Speaker 1: total blackness. But when he opened his eyes under the wave,
Speaker 1: the salt brought a sharp sting. The pins and needles
Speaker 1: that bit at his hands and feet brought fear, and
Speaker 1: a voice in his head not his own, told him
Speaker 1: it was going to be all right. He was young,
Speaker 1: not much older than ten, but he was physically strong.
Speaker 1: Soon he'd be a high school athlete. He'd survive this
Speaker 1: scary incident off the beach a couple miles from his
Speaker 1: family home in Hawthorne, California, but he'd never serve again.
Speaker 1: The hits kept on coming back in the Hawthorn home
Speaker 1: throughout Brian's childhood. Hits to the head, close fist, hits
Speaker 1: to the face, to the stomach so hard his knees buckled,
Speaker 1: and down he went. Above him, he heard his father's
Speaker 1: voice screaming at him. Whatever Brian had done, Murray Wilson
Speaker 1: believed it justified the beating his sons, especially his oldest son.
Speaker 1: Brian needed to be tough if Brian was going to
Speaker 1: survive in this world, if he was going to make
Speaker 1: something of himself like Murray had, and Brian Wilson was tough.
Speaker 1: Brian Wilson, the songwriter, producer, composer, singer and beach boy,
Speaker 1: passed away in twenty twenty five at the age of
Speaker 1: eighty two, and much has been said and written about him.
Speaker 1: When it comes to twentieth century musicians, Brian Wilson stands
Speaker 1: among a small group of giants Paul McCartney, Miles Davis,
Speaker 1: George Gershwin in The list pretty much ends there. In
Speaker 1: the first paragraph of Brian Wilson's Wikipedia entry, and in
Speaker 1: the first paragraph of his New York Times obituary, you'll
Speaker 1: see the word genius, which is entirely justified. But Brian
Speaker 1: Wilson was, of course, much more than that. He was,
Speaker 1: as the Times oh Bit points out, damaged. He was
Speaker 1: mentally ill. He abused drugs, the kind of drugs that
Speaker 1: exacerbated his mental illness. He was also partially deaf and creatively,
Speaker 1: he was as controlling as he was collaborative, as focused
Speaker 1: as he was untethered. He was a son, a brother,
Speaker 1: a cousin, a friend, a husband, an ex husband, a
Speaker 1: husband again, a father, a dad, both loving and unintentionally unloving.
Speaker 1: He was also a forever child who, like a kid,
Speaker 1: found it difficult to rein in his impulses, and that
Speaker 1: childlike quality persisted throughout his life, and it was, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, part of what contributed to his genius. That
Speaker 1: ability to see around creative corners other musical geniuses hadn't
Speaker 1: yet approached, and other so called professionals were too grown
Speaker 1: up to even notice. That childlike quality helped Brian Wilson
Speaker 1: create America's band, The Beach Boys with his family, his
Speaker 1: two little brothers and his cousin Mike, as well as
Speaker 1: a couple of kids from the neighborhood, all under the
Speaker 1: guidance of his domineering father and loving mother. The Beach
Speaker 1: Boys gave the world. I'll repeat that, The Beach Boys
Speaker 1: gave the world a glimpse at what the best of
Speaker 1: America could be. Son, surf, young love, fast cars and
Speaker 1: all the rest. And then Brian Wilson reached deep down
Speaker 1: inside of himself and largely of his own creative volition,
Speaker 1: gave the music world the greatest pop record of all
Speaker 1: time up to that point, Pet Sounds, and later on
Speaker 1: in life, it was also that same childlike quality that somehow,
Speaker 1: perhaps ironically, helped Brian re emerge from his madness as
Speaker 1: not only a survivor, but to regain his position in
Speaker 1: pop music as a unique voice capable of penning one
Speaker 1: of the most poignant and inspiring pop songs that I've
Speaker 1: ever heard, Love and Mercy, and then becoming the literal
Speaker 1: embodiment of what that song offered to the world. To
Speaker 1: do all that, however, Brian Wilson had to endure three
Speaker 1: devastating crimes murder, theft, and manipulation Ian Wilson's life. To
Speaker 1: put it mildly was an incredible life, and this is
Speaker 1: an incredibly brief look at his story. Chapter one love.
Speaker 1: Families are built on love, and families, as we all know,
Speaker 1: are messy. By now, we've learned that there are different
Speaker 1: ways of building a family. Families in the past, back
Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties, weren't that different.
Speaker 1: I have two young kids, and I was a kid
Speaker 1: back in the eighties and the nineties. So I try
Speaker 1: to raise my kids with some of the same gen X,
Speaker 1: independence and grit that I grew up with, but it's
Speaker 1: very difficult. The world is a different place. During summers,
Speaker 1: when I was my eleven year old son's age, I
Speaker 1: left the house in the morning on my mom was BMX,
Speaker 1: mostly without a plan, maybe came home for launch if
Speaker 1: I wasn't scarfing down food at my friend's house, and
Speaker 1: otherwise didn't return until the street lights came on. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: my son leaves the house to walk the dog for
Speaker 1: twenty minutes with an Apple watch on his wrist, which
Speaker 1: I can track on my phone, and he walks to
Speaker 1: the edge of the neighborhood and back again on time.
Speaker 1: Thank god, because if he doesn't, my mind starts imagining
Speaker 1: kidnapping and child trafficking rings, and worse, God forbid he
Speaker 1: should go into a friend's house without checking with me first,
Speaker 1: and visiting a friend's home means my wife and I
Speaker 1: will be googling his friend's parents like amateur detectives to
Speaker 1: make sure they're not lunatics. Like I said, it's a
Speaker 1: different world and my kid's a different kid. But back
Speaker 1: in the fifties it was a little closer to what
Speaker 1: it was like when I was a kid. In the eighties,
Speaker 1: families had more of an open door policy in their neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: and kids came and went with less oversight. That was America,
Speaker 1: and that was the America in which Brian Wilson formed
Speaker 1: The Beach Boys with his little brother Dennis and his
Speaker 1: youngest brother Karl, and their cousin from the neighborhood, Mike Love,
Speaker 1: and their buddy from school, Al Jardine, And when the
Speaker 1: band took off and learned part due to the Wilson
Speaker 1: Boys Dad Murray helping steer them toward a recording contract
Speaker 1: while they were still in their teens, and when the
Speaker 1: band started to tour, Al quit the group to get
Speaker 1: his college degree it was a sensible thing to do,
Speaker 1: with rock and roll not being anybody's idea of a
Speaker 1: stable career choice. And when Al quit, Carl's buddy from
Speaker 1: across the street, David Marx took his place, and there
Speaker 1: were new auditions. It was that simple. After the band
Speaker 1: took off, after they'd spent nineteen sixty four jockeying with
Speaker 1: the Beatles at the top of the charts with incredible
Speaker 1: singles like I Get Around, Fun, Fun, Fun, a year
Speaker 1: in which the Beach Boys would release four full length albums,
Speaker 1: when all the pressure caught up with Brian Wilson and
Speaker 1: brought for the first time his mental illness to the
Speaker 1: forefront of the band after he suffered a massive anxiety
Speaker 1: attack on an airplane flight, Brian simply decided that he
Speaker 1: wouldn't tour anymore, and he was quickly replaced by a friend,
Speaker 1: a burgeoning singer songwriter named Glenn Campbell. And when Glenn's
Speaker 1: own solo career took off, requiring him to leave the
Speaker 1: Beach Boys, the Wilsons and their cousin Mike turned to
Speaker 1: their buddy Bruce Johnston to replace Glenn as Brian's replacement
Speaker 1: on the road. Shortly after David Marks quit, but that
Speaker 1: was no sweat. By then Al Jardine was ready to rejoin.
Speaker 1: It sounds complicated, but it wasn't. The Beach Boys. Their
Speaker 1: revolving personnel door reminds me of a neighborhood pickup game
Speaker 1: of football. Oh, Stax has to go home early for dinner,
Speaker 1: but the game's not over. No sweat. Just go knock
Speaker 1: on Mike's door and get them to come out and
Speaker 1: replace Stacks. Wait a minute, Barney has to leave too.
Speaker 1: Grabs Seth from over on the other side of the park,
Speaker 1: and let's keep playing. There were no egos, no her feelings,
Speaker 1: just boys being boys, just beach boys. And the brothers
Speaker 1: Wilson and their cousin Mike loved the music they were
Speaker 1: making with the Beach Boys, and they loved the music
Speaker 1: they'd grown up on, the Four Freshmen, the Everly Brothers,
Speaker 1: the Ronettes, the Ventures Link Ray, and they loved channeling
Speaker 1: that music into a vision of America that they were
Speaker 1: almost solely responsible for exporting across the world. But despite
Speaker 1: the subject matter of so many of their songs, the
Speaker 1: Beach Boys did not love to surf. With the exception
Speaker 1: of Dennis Wilson, the Beach Boys, they spent little time
Speaker 1: at the beach. We covered this in our previous two
Speaker 1: Beach Boys episodes, which you can revisit if you like.
Speaker 1: But the point here is that the Beach Boys from
Speaker 1: their earliest days were less of a band and more
Speaker 1: of an idea, an idea of what America could be,
Speaker 1: and that came from their love of what their lives
Speaker 1: and family had been up to that point. The same
Speaker 1: love drove the bands one for all and all for
Speaker 1: one approach to making music at home, in the studio
Speaker 1: and on the road. It didn't really matter who was
Speaker 1: in the Beach Boys at the time, as long as
Speaker 1: the train kept on chugging. The band, Mike, Dennis, Carl
Speaker 1: Al and Bruce toured incessantly to sell the songs that
Speaker 1: Brian stayed home to write. Eventually, Brian would begin recording
Speaker 1: on his own with an incredible group of LA Studio
Speaker 1: musicians known as the Wrecking Crew, who worked with superstars
Speaker 1: arranging from Frank Sinatra to Elvis Presley. The idea was
Speaker 1: that the boys in the band, upon returning to LA
Speaker 1: would help Brian finish the songs by laying down their patented,
Speaker 1: tight knit vocal harmonies by nineteen sixty six. The result was,
Speaker 1: to Paul McCartney anyway, undeniable. Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six album, was a masterpiece. Brian created a
Speaker 1: technicolor version of what his hero, the producer Phil Spector,
Speaker 1: had established before her. Pet Sounds took Phil's layered wall
Speaker 1: of sound technique and raced it towards the Summer of
Speaker 1: Love in a way that no one at the time
Speaker 1: thought was possible. Few Paul McCartney aside even understood it,
Speaker 1: and even some of the Beach Boys themselves were skeptical,
Speaker 1: notably Mike Love, who lobbied for a return to what
Speaker 1: had always worked for the group, songs about sun girls
Speaker 1: and fast cars. But over the years Mike Love has
Speaker 1: become known as the Pet Sounds boogeyman. But that's not
Speaker 1: quite fair. Pet Sounds was a commercial flop. Hardly anyone
Speaker 1: got it at the time. Be honest, when you first
Speaker 1: heard Pet Sounds, did you love it? Did you really?
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't pay attention to it. I didn't
Speaker 1: pay attention to whatever Pet Sounds single I heard first
Speaker 1: as a kid. But I did pay attention to Barbara
Speaker 1: Ann and help me. Ronda, like I said, was a
Speaker 1: little kid after all, not sophisticated enough to understand the
Speaker 1: genius of Pet Sounds. And that's pretty much what the
Speaker 1: world was like, with few exceptions in nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: not sophisticated enough to understand Brian Wilson's genius. Just yet.
Speaker 1: He was breaking the mold with Pet Sounds. There was
Speaker 1: no comparison, no roadmap. I don't blame Mike Love whatever
Speaker 1: his ignorance or lack of understanding was for Pet Sounds.
Speaker 1: The dude wrote the lyrics to Good Vibration, so he
Speaker 1: gets a pass. But Brian Wilson's genius wouldn't let him
Speaker 1: off the hook. Fragile as he was increasingly running off
Speaker 1: the rails with LSD and marijuana and alcohol, all of
Speaker 1: which were echoing the literal voices in his head. With dread,
Speaker 1: Brian was unable to complete the Beach Boys' next record, Smile,
Speaker 1: and from there he was in and out of the
Speaker 1: band for a string of records Smiley, Smile, Wild Honey
Speaker 1: and Friends. And in this period of the Beach Boys
Speaker 1: had some incredible moments like the aforementioned Good Vibration single
Speaker 1: and Heroes and Villains from Smiley Smile, the title track
Speaker 1: from Wild Honey, and Little Bird from Friends among them.
Speaker 1: But these moments were mostly about a group trying to
Speaker 1: find their place and a culture that had left them
Speaker 1: where it thought the Beach Boys belonged in the past.
Speaker 1: By nineteen sixty nine, Brian Wilson was back underwater figuratively, yes,
Speaker 1: but sinking nonetheless. Smacked down by endless waves of addiction,
Speaker 1: self doubt and growing mental illness, he was down under
Speaker 1: the surface, his chest filled with dread. He couldn't breathe
Speaker 1: never mind create, and by the end of the decade,
Speaker 1: the love that Brian Wilson had used to fuel the
Speaker 1: Beach Boy's rise, the love for his family, for his brothers,
Speaker 1: for rock and roll, for an idealized version of the America.
Speaker 1: He was lucky enough to grow up in his love
Speaker 1: of Phil Spector, for the Four Freshmen, the everleas Gershwin,
Speaker 1: his love of harmony so tight they made Lennon and
Speaker 1: McCartney burn with jealousy of melodies nobody, but he was
Speaker 1: able to hear of sounds and arrangements that made Box
Speaker 1: Ghost smile. All that love, by nineteen sixty nine was
Speaker 1: being drowned out. It was no match for the drugs
Speaker 1: in alcohol and the growing mental illness. By the end
Speaker 1: of the decade, a darkness like the dead of the
Speaker 1: ocean had consumed Brian Wilson, just as it had the
Speaker 1: rest of sixties culture, and for America, all that love
Speaker 1: had curdled into something worse than hate. Chapter two murder
Speaker 1: by nineteen sixty nine, with the culture turning its collective
Speaker 1: back on the decidedly unhipped Beach Boys, with Brian Wilson
Speaker 1: increasingly isolated and unavailable creatively to the point of being
Speaker 1: admitted into a psychiatric hospital in nineteen sixty nine to
Speaker 1: address his growing mental illness, specifically the voices in his
Speaker 1: head that he was hearing alongside all those great harmonies
Speaker 1: that were driving a mad The Beach Boys needed songs,
Speaker 1: songs that would resonate with a record buying public that
Speaker 1: the band now felt disconnected from. Dennis Wilson had an idea.
Speaker 1: His little guru friend, the one who had all the
Speaker 1: young girls following him around, the girls that Dennis and
Speaker 1: his friend Terry Melcher were sleeping with. That little dude, Charlie.
Speaker 1: He had songs. Now Terry didn't hear it, but Dennis
Speaker 1: did so Dennis brought Charles Manson into the studio. The
Speaker 1: knife flashed out of Charlie's pocket in an instant, and
Speaker 1: Charlie waved it all around the room crazy, like a
Speaker 1: shithouse rat. He aimed it at the vocal booth and
Speaker 1: then wheeled it towards Dennis, right next to him in
Speaker 1: the control room, and pressed it to his throat. The
Speaker 1: blade was warm on his neck and the fear was
Speaker 1: cold in his veins, and Dennis froze and felt that
Speaker 1: now familiar Charlie chill ride his spine if I hear
Speaker 1: one more fucking note from you, I swear man respect
Speaker 1: the prism fuckers. He then put the knife away. Everyone
Speaker 1: acted as if this was somehow cool. Dennis included. Things
Speaker 1: in the studio were not going well for Brian Wilson's
Speaker 1: brother Dennis with Charles Manson, but Dennis wasn't so easily dissuaded.
Speaker 1: In the summer of nineteen sixty eight, he went back
Speaker 1: and forth between wanting to do right by Charlie to
Speaker 1: getting Charlie and the girls out of his life. Nis
Speaker 1: to the throat aside, no pussy was worth one hundred
Speaker 1: grand in a rotting package. He brought Charlie and the
Speaker 1: girls into the studio to try to get something down himself.
Speaker 1: It was nothing short of a nightmare. The recording session
Speaker 1: devolved into an orgy, the results of which were captured
Speaker 1: on tape and to this day have never been heard,
Speaker 1: and aside from occupying a rather large swath of music
Speaker 1: history's collective imagination, they are buried somewhere deep in the
Speaker 1: Beach Boys vault. They ceased to Exist, which was the
Speaker 1: title of the Charles Manson song Ceased to Exist that
Speaker 1: Dennis Wilson decided to purchase off of his wild eyed
Speaker 1: guru friend in one last desperate attempt to propel the
Speaker 1: grifter prophet out of his life of hippie squalor and
Speaker 1: into music industry stardom. Cease to Exist, a simple folk
Speaker 1: blues number that Manson penned about well who the fuck
Speaker 1: really Knows, was purchased by Dennis Wilson for one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in a BSA motorcycle that Charlie coveted for
Speaker 1: use at Spawn Ranch. Dennis brought the track into record
Speaker 1: with the Beach Boys, passing it off as an original
Speaker 1: song that he'd written. Once they had the track in
Speaker 1: the studio, Dennis, unusually engaged in the process, got down
Speaker 1: to arranging and producing the track with his brothers Brian
Speaker 1: and Carl and the rest of the group. They modified
Speaker 1: the feel from a traditional blues to something more pop,
Speaker 1: more of a psychedelic ballad that only the Beach Boys,
Speaker 1: in their tremendous harmony singing, along with Brian's arrangement prowess,
Speaker 1: could pull off. They altered Charlie's lyrics cease to Exist
Speaker 1: became cease to Resist, and a bridge was added to
Speaker 1: avoid the monotony of Manson's original. Finally, the title was
Speaker 1: changed from the bleak Ceased to Exist to the hippie
Speaker 1: Zeitgei's sounding never Learn Not to Love, and the results
Speaker 1: were pretty stellar. The track is, in a couple of words,
Speaker 1: fucking awesome. It was featured as a B side to
Speaker 1: the December nineteen sixty eight Beach Boys single Bluebirds Over
Speaker 1: the Mountain. It was later featured on the Beach Boys
Speaker 1: album twenty twenty. The A side charted and the B
Speaker 1: side was met with positive reviews, but Charles Manson was
Speaker 1: not impressed. In fact, Charles Manson was pretty pissed off.
Speaker 1: Pissed off at Brian Wilson's brother Dennis, and Dennis who
Speaker 1: Charlie believes screwed him over, screwed him over by messing
Speaker 1: with his song, and screwed him over by not working
Speaker 1: hard enough to get his friend, producer Terry Melcher, to
Speaker 1: help Charlie launch his career. As one version of the
Speaker 1: story goes, this is why Manson directed his followers to
Speaker 1: the house Dennis and Bryan's friend Terry Melcher once lived
Speaker 1: in and where director Roman Polanski and his pregnant wife,
Speaker 1: the actress Sharon Tate now lived the house that was
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine. All over the news on Brian
Speaker 1: Wilson's television set, We.
Speaker 2: Have a weird homicide. Later last night, another bizarre murder
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles, the second in two days.
Speaker 3: Roland Polanski, the film director and husband of Sharon Tate,
Speaker 3: Paul Newsman to a hotel in Hollywood today, and there
Speaker 3: he made a long emotional statement total a good deal
Speaker 3: of what had been on his mind since his pregnant
Speaker 3: wife and four others were killed at their home on
Speaker 3: August eighth. Twenty one year old Susan Atkins is involved
Speaker 3: in still another murder case.
Speaker 2: She appeared in the Santa Monica City courtroom this morning
Speaker 2: to enter a plea in a trial stemming from the
Speaker 2: July thirty first murder of thirty four year old Gary Tinman.
Speaker 2: Los Angeles police have placed miss Atkins on his saty
Speaker 2: gluts at the scene of the Tate murder, taking into
Speaker 2: account the published report in the Los Angeles Times, the
Speaker 2: story that Susan Atkins told about what allegedly happened that
Speaker 2: night after the murder at the Tate house. We drove
Speaker 2: from Clo Drive at the base of Benedict Canyon. Up
Speaker 2: here we found some trousers and some shirts appeared to
Speaker 2: be turtleneck shirts or something.
Speaker 3: Dark in color.
Speaker 2: Did they appear to have any stains on them?
Speaker 3: This is where they lived, among the stables, barns, and
Speaker 3: tony buildings of an old rundown movie location twenty.
Speaker 2: Miles from Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: They called themselves the Family.
Speaker 2: Five members are now in jail on.
Speaker 3: Other churches in the Desert John of Independence. The family's leader,
Speaker 3: Charles Manson, is jailed here. It is expected that he
Speaker 3: will be charged on the Tate murders.
Speaker 1: Weird say it was Dennis Wilson, who brought the Manson
Speaker 1: family into the Beach Boys family, and the guilt he
Speaker 1: felt for his involvement, no matter how unintentional, in the
Speaker 1: Manson murders, would drive Dennis harder into drugs and alcohol
Speaker 1: and further away from his brothers in the creative center
Speaker 1: of the band. Brian Wilson and the rest of the
Speaker 1: Beach Boys did what they could to distance themselves from
Speaker 1: what was about to become known as Helter Skelter, the
Speaker 1: Crime of the Century. But in nineteen sixty nine, the
Speaker 1: bottomless blackwater that Charles Manson left in his wake flooded
Speaker 1: the band, nearly drowning Brian, and the worst thing to
Speaker 1: come that year hadn't even happened yet. We'll be right
Speaker 1: back after this. We're We're where, Chapter three, Theft. It
Speaker 1: was November in nineteen sixty nine and Brian Wilson was
Speaker 1: alone with his father Murray, in the house he grew
Speaker 1: up in. But his and his father's voices were not
Speaker 1: the only voices Brian was hearing. Brian heard his father
Speaker 1: shouting above all the rest, and Brian exploded in anger, fear,
Speaker 1: and disappointment. Trying to quiet the sounds that were consuming him.
Speaker 1: Brian grabbed plates, glasses, silverware, whatever he could get his
Speaker 1: hands on. They're rocking again with his father. His father's
Speaker 1: voice only grew louder, and Brian cried out in response,
Speaker 1: a cry of anguish, of deep pain, so deep, so painful,
Speaker 1: so dark. He didn't recognize it. It only made his
Speaker 1: father raise his voice more, and Brian pinned himself to
Speaker 1: the kitchen wall and exploded in tears, a grown man
Speaker 1: twenty seven years old, crying for his father to stop yelling.
Speaker 1: But the pain kept coming. It rose up from his feet,
Speaker 1: passed his ankles, above his knees. He was waiting in
Speaker 1: it now, and the only thing stronger than the rising
Speaker 1: anguish was the power of his father's voice screaming at Brian.
Speaker 1: And the pain rose up into his chest and filled
Speaker 1: his lungs, and Brian began hyperventilating. His father explained that
Speaker 1: there was no other way. Brian was no good, he
Speaker 1: was washed up. He'd never write hit songs again. The
Speaker 1: public had moved on from the Beach Boys, from Brian Wilson.
Speaker 1: He wasn't back, for God's sake. He wasn't Phil Specter either.
Speaker 1: He wasn't even Lawrence Welk. Brian would be lucky to
Speaker 1: get a job fetching coffee for Burt Bacharack at the
Speaker 1: rate he was going and the pain was up to
Speaker 1: his neck now, and Brian still pinned against the wall,
Speaker 1: arched his head up, chin first to stay above it,
Speaker 1: but it was no use. He was drowning right there
Speaker 1: in his father's kitchen. His father's voice rang out, still
Speaker 1: louder now in some sick harmony with the voices inside
Speaker 1: Brian's head. Chuck Berry's, just who the fuck did Brian
Speaker 1: think he was trying to cash in on his walking roll,
Speaker 1: letting his little brother rip off all those riffs and
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney's Brian pet sounds as good, but it was
Speaker 1: no Peppers it was, And what happened to smile?
Speaker 3: Brian?
Speaker 1: We made the white album? What have you done? And
Speaker 1: of course Phil Specters, so you never should have come
Speaker 1: for the wall. Sound kid, you shoot with the king
Speaker 1: and you better not miss. But his father's voice eventually
Speaker 1: drown out all the other scene. I had to do it, Brian,
Speaker 1: you finished. That's why don't you see that? Don't you
Speaker 1: see that? I got as much for us for you
Speaker 1: as anyone could more. Because Brian Wilson's father, Maury, had
Speaker 1: just sold Brian Wilson's songs. And before we get into
Speaker 1: the mechanics of this crime, I have to explain what
Speaker 1: this means for a songwriter. I've done so in past episodes,
Speaker 1: but it bears repeating. Aside from their children, a songwriter,
Speaker 1: songs are literally the most important things in their lives.
Speaker 1: For Brian Wilson in nineteen sixty nine, his soul was
Speaker 1: wrapped up in his songs I get around Surfing USA.
Speaker 1: God only knows good vibrations. Those songs were his identity.
Speaker 1: Being the composer of Beach Boys tunes was who Brian
Speaker 1: Wilson was. And for Brian Wilson, it wasn't just his
Speaker 1: history tied up in all those enormously popular songs. It
Speaker 1: was his family history which made his connection to his
Speaker 1: tunes even stronger. And his father, his father, had just
Speaker 1: sold them to someone else, making matters worse. It's arguable,
Speaker 1: almost certain, actually, that his father did so illegally, thus
Speaker 1: stealing from Brian, his son the things that mattered most
Speaker 1: to him in this world. Back in nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: leading up to this theft, Brian and his brothers and
Speaker 1: cousin Mike fired Murray from his role as their manager,
Speaker 1: largely because Murray Wilson had become a major pay and
Speaker 1: the ass for the band, inserting himself into the creative
Speaker 1: process on top of being a world class dick to
Speaker 1: his kids and to his nephew. The deal is that
Speaker 1: Murray would get to continue his involvement with the band,
Speaker 1: a band, let's be fair that he did help launch
Speaker 1: toward their initial success, but a band that by nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four definitely did not need him in any creative
Speaker 1: capacity or even in any real business capacity anymore. So
Speaker 1: Murray was allowed to stay involved and handle the Beach
Speaker 1: Boys publishing. That was it. There's another way of saying
Speaker 1: that Murray was now tasked with managing the band's songs
Speaker 1: and finding ancillary ways for the Beach Boys music to
Speaker 1: make money. But one of the first things Murray did
Speaker 1: in his role as publisher of the Beach Boys songs
Speaker 1: was make sure that Brian and only Brian was registered
Speaker 1: as the songwriter, thus cutting out his nephew Mike Love
Speaker 1: from his share of the songwriting royalties and making sure
Speaker 1: that all of the songwriting revenue flowed into the Wilson
Speaker 1: household alone. Murray then pressured his son Brian to reassign
Speaker 1: the publishing share of his royalties, essentially fifty percent of
Speaker 1: the revenue to him Murray, in exchange for Murray handling
Speaker 1: the administration of the songs. According to Murray, Brian agreed. Also,
Speaker 1: according to Murray, Brian later agreed to give up his
Speaker 1: own control of his songwriting share, which is something that
Speaker 1: Brian absolutely never did. These so called negotiations around the
Speaker 1: Beach Boys publishing happened while Brian's drug use in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties was at its peak and his mental illness
Speaker 1: was rearing its head and spinning him out of control.
Speaker 1: For much of nineteen sixty nine, Brian Wilson didn't even
Speaker 1: get out of bed, and when he did, he spent
Speaker 1: his time playing piano in an indoor sandbox, or at
Speaker 1: least imagining what it would be like to play piano
Speaker 1: in an indoor sandbox. He wouldn't actually have the indoor
Speaker 1: sandbox installed for a couple more years, but the point
Speaker 1: is that Brian was spiraling in nineteen sixty nine. He
Speaker 1: was in no condition to negotiate with his domineering father
Speaker 1: for control of his song catalog, and his father, of
Speaker 1: all people, knew this, but that didn't stop that sneaky
Speaker 1: Murray Wilson from selling the Beach Boys song catalog for
Speaker 1: seven hundred thousand dollars in November of nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: and this development absolutely wrecked his son. The rationale that
Speaker 1: the Beach Boys were washed up and had to sell
Speaker 1: their catalog in nineteen sixty nine in order to get
Speaker 1: anything for their songs while they still had some juice
Speaker 1: is beyond shortsighted. The catalog is estimated to be worth
Speaker 1: two hundred million today and the Beach Boys still don't
Speaker 1: own it. In nineteen eighty nine, Brian sued to reclaim
Speaker 1: the copyrights and some royalties, and he was forced to
Speaker 1: settle out of court for an undisclosed amount, and in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four, Mike Love had to sue Brian for
Speaker 1: the credit his uncle, Brian's father screwed him out of
Speaker 1: and Mike won. But again, the songs are still not
Speaker 1: theirs these days. They're owned and controlled by Universal Music,
Speaker 1: the biggest music company on the planet. So when you
Speaker 1: see a Beach Boy song and a Chili's commercial don't
Speaker 1: blame Brian and Mike, blame Murray. Fifty plus years ago,
Speaker 1: when Maury sprung this news on Brian, it devastated him,
Speaker 1: and it only drove him harder into drugs and alcohol,
Speaker 1: deeper into paranoia and drowning beneath the sounds of the
Speaker 1: voices in his head. Brian Wilson needed serious help, a doctor,
Speaker 1: twenty four hour medical care. Instead, what he was about
Speaker 1: to get was falsely imprisoned. Chapter four, Manipulation. It was
Speaker 1: the mid eighties. Brian Wilson was sitting at his piano.
Speaker 1: The Beach Boys were no longer a part of his life.
Speaker 1: They were on the road, or in the studio, or
Speaker 1: somewhere somewhere far from Brian's thoughts. The voices in his
Speaker 1: head were all he could concentrate on at the moment,
Speaker 1: which was a problem because Brian had to concentrate on
Speaker 1: the song he was trying to get down. The longer
Speaker 1: he went on without writing anything of importance, the more
Speaker 1: upset as Doctor would get, and Brian didn't want to
Speaker 1: upset Eugene Landy. Doctor Landy wanted hits. Doctor Landy wanted genius.
Speaker 1: Doctor Landy wanted to be the one who brought the
Speaker 1: genius Brian Wilson back to the top with a hit record,
Speaker 1: A hit record that he doctor Eugene Landy, would co
Speaker 1: write and produce. It was possible, the Good Doctor reasoned,
Speaker 1: after all, he himself was a genius, even more so
Speaker 1: than Brian Wilson. Brian had brains, sure, but they were
Speaker 1: all over the place, and it was only through the
Speaker 1: strength of his genius that Brian Wilson was even still alive,
Speaker 1: never mind recording music again. By the mid nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: Brian Wilson was a barefoot recluse in a bathroom, chain
Speaker 1: smoking in bed for months on end, surviving on cocaine
Speaker 1: and cheeseburgers, and racked by fear, while his brothers and
Speaker 1: bandmates carried on without him, they themselves too burned out
Speaker 1: to stage an intervention, but still too caring not to.
Speaker 1: It was decided that doctor Eugene Landy, a showbiz shrink
Speaker 1: with a Messiah complex, should be hired, and so he was,
Speaker 1: and in nineteen seventy five, the Good Doctor went to
Speaker 1: work dragging Brian out of his bedroom exile and back
Speaker 1: into show business. Miraculously, his efforts worked. Brian lost weight
Speaker 1: cleaned up a little and rejoined the Beach Boys on stage,
Speaker 1: and so Landy was dismissed and Brian was better, and
Speaker 1: then he wasn't. When Brian crashed out again in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two, doctor Landy was rehired and this time given
Speaker 1: tighter can control. A year later, when Brian's brother Dennis
Speaker 1: drown doctor Landy put his control to the test to
Speaker 1: help manage Brian's grief, and Brian was in such bad
Speaker 1: shape by then that doctor Landy was granted legal guardianship,
Speaker 1: working under a mandate to do whatever it took however
Speaker 1: he deemed necessary to help save what was left of
Speaker 1: the broken beach Boy. Once Landy had full control, he
Speaker 1: medicated Brian into imprisonment. He dosed him into submission with meds,
Speaker 1: cut him off from his family, and went as far
Speaker 1: as rewriting Brian's will to include himself. This is on
Speaker 1: top of paying himself thirty five thousand dollars a month
Speaker 1: and attempting to insert ownership of Brian's songwriting, publishing, and
Speaker 1: eventually to collaborating with Brian on his new album, which
Speaker 1: doctor Eugene Landy wanted to call Brain's Ingenius. Brian being
Speaker 1: the brains and him Gene being the genius. Get it dipshit,
Speaker 1: and Brian was too sedated to fight back. He sat
Speaker 1: at the piano and pecked out noises while the doctor
Speaker 1: screamed that he was doing it all wrong. Doctor Landy
Speaker 1: was on the precipice of taking everything, not just Brian's possessions,
Speaker 1: but his physical and mental capacity, and now not just
Speaker 1: his songwriting but his creative process. Brian was powerless at
Speaker 1: the piano, a broken down musical genius, heavily drugged against
Speaker 1: his will, his mouth agape, drooling, being screamed at by
Speaker 1: a quack doctor telling him Brian Wilson how to write songs.
Speaker 1: It's a scene so absurd that it's hard to believe,
Speaker 1: but it happened. And that's right around when Doctor Landy's
Speaker 1: own unraveling began. He pushed to be credited as co
Speaker 1: writer an executive producer for his efforts in shaping Brian's
Speaker 1: solo record. He nearly made it happen. He did succeed
Speaker 1: in getting his girlfriend listed as a lyricist on multiple tracks,
Speaker 1: but those efforts raised suspicion, and other people around Brian
Speaker 1: started asking questions when they did. Landy shut them out,
Speaker 1: and this raised their suspicions further. Brian's new girlfriend at
Speaker 1: the time, Melinda Ledbetter, wouldn't back down. She worked with
Speaker 1: Brian's daughters, Carneye and Wendy Wilson, and together they built
Speaker 1: a legal case to free Brian from doctor Eugene Landy's
Speaker 1: unethical treatment and guardianship. Ultimately, Landy would not be criminally prosecuted,
Speaker 1: but a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled that he'd
Speaker 1: violated professional boundaries and ethical standards, and he was legally
Speaker 1: barred from contacting Brian Wilson again. As a result, California's
Speaker 1: Board of Psychology revoked his license to practice. It was
Speaker 1: also deemed in court that Brian Wilson had been mentally
Speaker 1: incapable of making informed legal decisions at the time doctor
Speaker 1: Eugene Landy inserted himself into Brian's will. Mercifully, those documents
Speaker 1: were voided and the doctor was completely extricated from Brian
Speaker 1: Wilson's life. Landy's girlfriend did manage to retain her songwriting credits,
Speaker 1: and it is suspected that she received some royalties from
Speaker 1: Brian's solo album. Eventually, however, her credits were struck down,
Speaker 1: and it is believed that those shady royalty payments ceased,
Speaker 1: and one of those songs was one of Brian Wilson's
Speaker 1: greatest achievements, the song Love and Mercy Chapter five Mercy.
Speaker 1: After doctor Eugene Landy was banished from his orbit, Brian
Speaker 1: Wilson began the long, slow crawl back to himself. He
Speaker 1: married Melinda Ledbetter, the woman who helped save his life,
Speaker 1: and for a time he found peace in her steadiness.
Speaker 1: He reunited with the Beach Boys and Fragments, patched things
Speaker 1: up with his brother Carl before cancer took him in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, and stood beside the surviving bandmates on
Speaker 1: anniversary tours. But the real triumph came when Brian, backed
Speaker 1: by gifted musicians called the Wonderments, led by bandleader Darien
Speaker 1: san Naja, finally finished Smile, the lost master work that
Speaker 1: had driven Brian mad and haunted him for decades. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, he brought the album to the stage,
Speaker 1: alive and whole for the first time, to triumphant standing ovations.
Speaker 1: And then came more albums, global tours, a biopic, and
Speaker 1: the long overdue recognition that Brian Wilson wasn't just a
Speaker 1: fragile genius. He was a survivor, a man whose voice
Speaker 1: was erased for a long time by the voices in
Speaker 1: his own head, had finally succeeded in quieting the noise
Speaker 1: and found himself for his final act. I believe that
Speaker 1: Love and Mercy the simple leadoff track from Brian's self
Speaker 1: titled album, which Doctor Landy tried to spend Gali. That song,
Speaker 1: to me is Brian Wilson at his core. It's not
Speaker 1: a particularly robust production. It's a simple melody with simple,
Speaker 1: beautiful harmonies. It's not trying to be something it's not.
Speaker 1: It's a man in pain at his piano, singing into
Speaker 1: a microphone and putting himself aside and trying to ease
Speaker 1: the pain of others. In researching this episode, I purposefully
Speaker 1: avoided learning about how that song was produced. I know
Speaker 1: that it was part of the era when Brian was
Speaker 1: being abused by Doctor Landy, but I don't know much
Speaker 1: else except how the song came out, and what the
Speaker 1: song sounds like and what it says. And I like
Speaker 1: my vision of how I imagine Brian made that song
Speaker 1: better than anything I could read in a book or online.
Speaker 1: When listening to interviews with Brian Wilson and reading his autobiography,
Speaker 1: you get a pretty good look into the man's soul.
Speaker 1: He was delicate, childlike, funny, generous, aware, filled with life
Speaker 1: and love and mercy. Brian talks about his struggles with
Speaker 1: his father and with his doctor, and to a lesser degree,
Speaker 1: with his cousin Mike, and his bandmates brothers, and in
Speaker 1: all of that you hear zero spite and somehow very
Speaker 1: little judgment. You even hear forgiveness. It's quite beautiful, actually.
Speaker 1: It's a story that began with love, somehow overcame the
Speaker 1: true crime hardships of murder, theft and manipulation, and ultimately
Speaker 1: still somehow ended with mercy, love and mercy. I like
Speaker 1: to picture Brian Wilson at his piano writing the song
Speaker 1: Love and Mercy, under the full way of psychotic oppression,
Speaker 1: and there, at his lowest moment, he's choosing to sing
Speaker 1: about bringing love and mercy to others. It's what a
Speaker 1: big brother would do, and it's anything but a disgrace.
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan, and this this disgrace land.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: I hope you dug this episode. Discoes listen Apple podcast listeners,
Speaker 1: make sure you get auto downloads turned on so you
Speaker 1: never miss an episode of Disgraceland. This week's question is
Speaker 1: which musician is the best example of the torture genius.
Speaker 1: Is it Brian Wilson? Is it someone else? I want
Speaker 1: to know who, and I want to know why. Tell
Speaker 1: me Who's pain shaped something beautiful? Whose story hits you
Speaker 1: hardest and why it matters? Hit me up voicemail text
Speaker 1: at six one seven nine oh six sixty six three eight.
Speaker 1: Can also find me on Instagram, Facebook, x and at
Speaker 1: disgracelamdpod at gmail dot com. Leave a review for the
Speaker 1: show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify wins free merch. This
Speaker 1: is mythwork, Baby. We uncover the truth, confront the story,
Speaker 1: and reclaim the music. Brian Wilson did that with pet
Speaker 1: Sounds with every note, and so do you every time
Speaker 1: you listen. All right, here comes some credits. Disgraceland was
Speaker 1: created by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with
Speaker 1: Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on
Speaker 1: the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If you're
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