Mike Love will release “Good Vibrations: My Life As a Beach Boy” in 2016 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Beach Boys’ biggest hit.
The memoirs and the “Good Vibrations” anniversary might be reason enough to launch a major tour akin to the Beach Boys 50th anniversary trek that kicked off in Tucson in spring 2012. But don’t expect to see founding members Brian Wilson and Al Jardine on the lineup as they were in 2012.
“There’s no plans, but then again I’m not opposed to it,” said Love, who with longtime Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, licensed the Beach Boys name in 1998 and legally controls its use. He and Johnston have toured as the Beach Boys since the 1990s.
At the end of the 2012 tour, Love made it clear that he and Johnston intended to continue touring as the Beach Boys sans Jardine and Wilson — news that some media cast as Love firing the pair. In a phone interview in mid-December, Love said the 50th anniversary tour was meant to reunite the original members for that tour only.
Love described the tour as “a good experience for the audience to see all of us, the remaining living members of the group, together.”
“But I was disappointed in the fact that I was told that I was going to be able to write some new music with Brian Wilson, but it never came to pass,” he added.
“I’m not going to say everything’s rosy because I was misled. If it was just Brian and I around a piano in a studio, that would be great. But that was just not allowed. When he and I wrote songs together, they were big hits. The chemistry between the two of us — with my lyrics and hooks and his musical abilities, which are incredibly great — we came up with everything from ‘Surfin’ Safari’ to ‘Good Vibrations.’ We had a dozen big hit records.”
The Beach Boys released “That’s Why God Made the Radio,” the band’s 29th studio album, in June 2012. The following spring, Capitol Records released “The Beach Boys Live — The 50th Anniversary Tour.”
