Al Jardine Shares His Joy: Cruising the Highway with the Pet Sounds Band

The Beach Boys Mark Creative Era with New Box Set

This month, The Beach Boys are commemorating a pivotal period in their musical history with the release of “We Gotta Groove: The Brother Studio Years.” This box set compiles recordings made after the late Brian Wilson’s full-time return to the group in the mid-1970s, coinciding with the establishment of a studio built from a former adult movie theater by Brian and his brothers Dennis and Carl.

Al Jardine, one of the two remaining original members alongside Mike Love, is gearing up for a tour with Brian’s backing ensemble, The Pet Sounds Band. This tour aims to celebrate the music featured in the new box set, which includes extended versions of 1976’s “15 Big Ones” and 1977’s “The Beach Boys Love You,” along with sessions for the unreleased LP “Adult/Child,” often regarded as one of rock’s great lost albums.

“I just reviewed the liner notes myself,” Jardine said, noting the wealth of content. “There’s a lot of stuff on there (laughs). I feel like I’m starting all over again. I’ve gotten some comments already which aligned with what I was thinking of playing. Someone actually suggested we play ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll,’ for instance. It’s funny, because I’ve been wanting to do that song, but nobody’s gonna want to hear it. But there are some vocal arrangements that I like which are on it.”

The Beach Boys’ rendition of the Big Joe Turner classic “Shake, Rattle and Roll” remains a standout on “15 Big Ones,” which was released the day after Independence Day in 1976. This album marked Brian’s first production effort since the legendary “Pet Sounds” in 1966. For Jardine, revisiting these songs has been a nostalgic experience.

“We were trying to get Brian back involved,” Jardine explained. “We knew he would go for (covering songs), because he’s had so much pressure to continually compete with himself. So the easiest way around that was doing things that you love doing, and we enjoyed all that music. We loved redoing our favorite songs.”

While “Love You” largely reflected Brian’s vision, it also signaled a shift in his approach. Unlike his earlier work, he emphasized synthesizers for texture, rather than relying on a full orchestra.

“We’re a guitar band and we go out and play the instruments we understand,” Jardine noted. “Brian was more experimental and he didn’t tour at all at the time, so he was able to hang back in the studio and have fun. Primarily, ‘Love You’ is a synth album, although there are some throwbacks to the old days like ‘Roller Skating Child’ and ‘Honkin’ Down the Highway.’ But those others are quite delicate, beautiful tunes that, without the technology, might not have been on the album.”

He added, “I was into the Moog, and by the time this album came around we had the MiniMoog. So we didn’t need to have the giant computer ones that we borrowed for our early ’70s stuff. And we were able to use the MiniMoog to replace the bass guitar, for instance. It was great. A little understated, it could have been bigger, I thought. But Brian was not into big production anymore; he was more into the songwriting as opposed to producing. His brother Carl did the production. He got a lot of help from Carl.”

In terms of “Adult/Child,” Jardine acknowledged that it was primarily Brian’s work, including the song “Still I Dream Of It,” which he hoped Frank Sinatra would record. He enlisted the talents of renowned arranger Dick Reynolds, who added lush strings to several tracks, enhancing their appeal.

“He was really stretching,” he admitted. “And Sinatra blew it, big time. He could have had a No. 1 smash with that song. I bet you Frank never even heard it. You can present something, but then it gets lost in the shuffle.”

At 83, Jardine remains energetic and will embark on his tour with the Pet Sounds Band, starting on February 21 at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe in Stateline, Nevada. The group will perform the entirety of “Love You” on February 27 at the United Theater on Broadway in Los Angeles.

“It was my idea,” Jardine shared. “My Endless Summer Band — which is a very excellent band — we were stagnating. So I called (Brian’s longtime musical director) Darian Sahanaja and said, ‘Let’s do it. Let’s do ‘Love You,’ we’ve been yakking about it for years. And he says, ‘Really?’ And I’m like, ‘Yep. And I want you to arrange it for me. Do you think it will work?’”

He continued, "He said, ‘If you do this, it will go through the ceiling. People will go berserk.’ And, sure enough, at our first show in Cohasset, Massachusetts, they went bananas. It worked.”

Jardine is particularly excited about bringing the performance to the United Theater, having previously played there last year.

“I played a firefighting benefit there last year, and the crowd went nuts,” he recalled. “We should do quite well there. They have excellent dressing rooms and it’s in a good location. Everybody can get there and find parking. It’s really a great theater. I highly recommend it.”

Additionally, an event at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles is scheduled for February 12, featuring engineers Stephen Moffitt, Earle Mankey, and John Hanlon, who worked at Brother Studios during the ‘Love You’ era. They will discuss the “We Gotta Groove” box set and their experiences working with The Beach Boys.

Although Jardine will not attend the event, he expressed disappointment over the lack of a proper tribute to Brian Wilson during the 68th Annual Grammy Awards.

“It was way too brief,” he criticized. “I think their focus was on the future, obviously. But Brian was someone who contributed so much, these masterpieces of music. It’s probably political. The Beach Boys, our legacy is somewhat tainted due to the jukebox formula. Maybe they didn’t see us as serious enough. I don’t know.”

The box set, “We Gotta Groove: The Brother Studio Years,” will be available in stores on February 13.