The Beach Boys and Director Frank Marshall on the Band’s Disney+ Doc: ‘We May Not Have Been Great Surfers, but We Sang About It Really Well’
If Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial start of summer on most Americans’ calendars, then it makes sense that the real tentpole kicking off tent season for a lot of people is not “Furiosa” or “Garfield” but “The Beach Boys,” a streaming documentary devoted to the least wintery group of all time.
The Disney+ film, co-directed by music-doc stalwarts Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny, focuses on the first decade and a half, in the 1960s and ’70s, of the career of the rock band that still might rightfully be considered America’s greatest all-time group. It starts with their unusual, pre-Beatles melding of complex Four Freshmen harmonies with surf music and themes; continues on through the ground-breaking work of the “Pet Sounds” era that led to a friendly rivalry with the Beatles; covers the complicated years when musical architect Brian Wilson physically and psychologically retreated, leaving the group to seek out new identities during the counterculture years; and finally, their comeback in the mid-’70s when the “Endless Summer” best-of created a fresh wave of Boys-band mania.
Should it be at least an hour longer, and probably a lot more than that? Undoubtedly, if you’re a fan. But in an era of everything in the culture feeling like an extended deluxe edition, there will also be much gratitude for the skill with which Marshall and Zimny hit the key points in a doc that, true to the SoCal-based subject at hand, can honestly and admiringly be characterized as “breezy.” It’s a very efficient safari. (In his review, Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman writes: “I wondered how, exactly, the movie was going to pack the Beach Boys’ vast career into an hour and 53 minutes. But in its unabashedly conventional and fan-friendly way, it brings this off with a tasteful clarity and showmanship. In moment after moment, it gets the Beach Boys.”)
Variety had a conversation with original members Mike Love and Al Jardine (pictured above, left and right), along with Marshall (ccenter), just prior to the premiere. They talked about the documentary, plus a hefty new book, “The Beach Boys by the Beach Boys,” that covers the same ground in greater (600-page) detail. Meanwhile, Love’s touring edition of the Beach Boys (which includes one other near-original member, Bruce Johnston) will be back on home turf later this summer; the group plays the Greek on Aug. 30.
Marshall: No, I think it was kind of my fault, that Thom Zimny and I were sitting around after we did Johnny Cash [“The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash,” which they also co-directed, released in 2019] and talking about what musical doc would we like to do together next. He started talking about the Beach Boys, and I said, “Well, I grew up in Newport, yeah, I love them.” And then as life does, things change; he did something else, I did something else. [When not directing music docs like “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” Marshall is a producer of major Hollywood and Broadway projects.] But we still kept at it.
But the problem was that the Beach Boys were not one unit. If you went to get the rights or approvals on everything, it would’ve taken forever. But then Irving Azoff and Iconic Artists brought them all together — one-stop shopping — and then I said, “I know Irving. I’m going in.” And that’s how it happened.
Love: We owe a lot of gratitude to Irving and to Frank for picking up the gauntlet.
Marshall: And now there’s a book, and everything’s coming together to celebrate this music that’s had such an impact on the world for so many years.
Love: Genesis, they make some beautiful books, and they did one for us [“The Beach Boys by the Beach Boys”] and it’s amazing.
It’s literally the heaviest book I own.
Love: The big one is, like, literally 11 pounds. I weighed it with my little weighing thing because, you know, if you go on Southwest Airlines, you can only have 50 pounds.
Jardine: Only Mike would know. He wants to read about himself.
Looking at the book, there are thousands of pictures, which would lead somone to believe the archives are really well-kept. Was that the same case with film clips for the doc, or were there any hurdles to overcome?
Marshall: No, it’s always a challenge because, first of all, there have been so many articles, books, movies, and I always try to find stuff that’s never been seen before. But once I got to know everybodyand say, “Have you got any home movies under (the bed)?” And sure enough, there’d be a shoebox with 8mm film, and that’s how we got Dennis. Both Carl and Dennis’s families were great in helping us represent their dad and their husband in the right way. So it was like a little treasure hunt where there’s gold bullions every once in a while.
Love: I think it’s wonderful that everybody was represented. Glen Campbell was in the group for a while. David Marks was in the group for a while, right at the beginning. Blondie (Chaplin)and Ricky (Fataar)from South Africa were in our group for a while. So it’s really been nice to see that everybody’s talents and contributions were recognized.
It’s easy to forget, until this film reminds you, that Glen Campbell was briefly in the group, before he had to take off and got replaced by Bruce Johnston.
Jardine: Glen had a burgeoning career about ready to happen, so he had to leave the band early. I think he only did one summer with us while Brian was out of action. And then I think you (Love) found Bruce…
Love: We called 12 people to find somebody who could play bass. Bruce could sing high, but he didn’t play bass and we needed the bass player, so he said, “Oh, I play bass.” And he went and learned it, you know…
Jardine: …on the way to the airport…
Love: Kind of!
Is there anything that you dug up archivally that was a little bit surprising, or just that you hadn’t seen in a long time, that you’re kind of delighted is in the documentary?
Love: Well, I hadn’t seen certain people’s home movies. Why would I have, you know? The Wilson stuff, yes, the Love stuff, yes. But the Jardines, the Marks, the other people involved…
Jardine: How about the photo of Bruce and Keith Moon? Those are the ones I went, “I can’t believe that.” And you know, nobody knows that story, really.
Love: Derek Taylor, the Beatles’ publicist who came to America and became our publicist, actually set up Bruce with about 15 interviews in England and introduced him to Keith Moon, who introduced Bruce to Paul McCartney and John Lennon. They were in Bruce’s suite, and Bruce was able to play them the “Pet Sounds” album before it even came out in Great Britain, and they played it through twice. So those guys became our promotion men.
Jardine: It was a mutual adoration, I think. And they inspired each other, because I don’t think we’d have “Sgt. Pepper’s” without “Pet Sounds,” and I don’t think we’d have “Pet Sounds” without “Rubber Soul.”
Marshall: Well, my dad was a guitarist [noted jazz guitarist and TV/film composer Jack Marshall], and we played guitar a lot at home with him. But I also grew up as a surfer, so we did “The Surfer Stomp” at the Rendezvous Ballroom [on the Balboa beach in Orange County]. But all the music was instrumental; it was the Ventures or Dick Dale. Then suddenly there were lyrics and harmonies, and I was keenly interested because my dad was so sophisticated with his music, and also at Capitol Records [the label that both the Bach Boys and Jack Marshall were signed to]. And I thought, “Wow, they’re writing about this lifestyle and this culture” — which was very small at the time; surfing was very small — “but they put words to it.” And that just exploded out, because people started thinking: That’s what I want to do. It created a lifestyle that people envied and wanted to be a part of, and it was music that made people feel good and want to come to sunny Southern California.
Love: Yeah. But for the end of the film, he was great. We sang together. We talked together. He was 100% present with the long-term memory and everything. He’s just not physically as well as he could be, and he does need help and supervision, particularly health-wise, and it’s challengng. But he was remembering stuff from our childhood and teenage years that I had forgotten, actually, and so we could sing together. We sang “Their Hearts Were Full of Spring.” We sang “Fun, Fun, Fun.” Sang “Surfin’ Safari” together. All that was fantastic.
Marshall: And that was kind of my dream come true. I had always wished as we were going along: Maybe I can get ’em together. And what a perfect spot, where the first album (cover was shot). But it wasn’t an interview. So Brian was able to just be himself, with the guys he spent 60 years with, and it was like a family reunion, laughing, crying, singing, telling stories. It was incredible. There wasn’t the pressure of “Tell me about when you did this or that.” So that was part of what made it special.
Marshall: And that was kind of my dream come true. I had always wished as we were going along: Maybe I can get ’em together. And what a perfect spot, where the first album (cover was shot). But it wasn’t an interview. So Brian was able to just be himself, with the guys he spent 60 years with, and it was like a family reunion, laughing, crying, singing, telling stories. It was incredible. There wasn’t the pressure of “Tell me about when you did this or that.” So that was part of what made it special.
Marshall: But you’re right about the interview. It was difficult.
Marshall: In September.
Jardine: Maybe we’ll hear some more about it in part two
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