Collapse of Smile

Background and context

The Beach Boys were voted the world's top vocal group for 1966 in the readers poll conducted by UK magazine NME, ahead of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. By this point, Wilson had been pressured into assuming a role as benefactor for the band and their families, which added to his hesitancy in delivering a product that had the potential to be a great commercial failure. Wilson had also exhibited varying signs of poor mental health before this point, such as at the end of 1964 where he suffered a nervous breakdown while on a flight to Houston. By December 1966, Wilson had completed much of the album's backing tracks. When the Beach Boys returned from their tour of Britain, they were confused by the new music he had recorded and the new coterie of interlopers that surrounded him.

By the beginning of 1967, Wilson's behavior became increasingly erratic, and his use of drugs escalated. For instance, taking advice from his astrologer who told him to beware of "hostile vibrations", Wilson holed up in his bed for days smoking cannabis and eating candy bars. Writer Jules Siegel was also exiled from Wilson's social circle on the grounds that his girlfriend had been disrupting Wilson's work through ESP. While such actions were a concern for some of his friends and many similar stories of his sometimes bizarre off-duty behavior became the stuff of legend, those who worked for him during this period have stated that he was totally professional in the studio.

On May 6, 1967, Derek Taylor announced to the British press that the Smile tapes had been destroyed and would not see release. Later that month, Taylor terminated his employment with the group in order to focus his attention on organizing the Monterey Pop Festival, an event the Beach Boys declined to headline at the last minute. This cancellation came to be seen as an admission of the band's failure to integrate with the burgeoning 1960s counterculture, resulting in a cataclysmic blow to their reputation.

Carl Wilson reflected: "In the middle of all this, Brian just said, 'I can't do this. We're going to make a homespun version of it instead. We're just going to take it easy. I'll get in the pool and sing. Or let's go in the gym and do our parts.' That was Smiley Smile." This decision ultimately relieved Brian, who felt that "the Smiley Smile era was so great ... I didn't have any paranoia feelings". Brian stated that he himself had requested Capitol Records to keep Smile unreleased: "We didn't tell them for how long. We told them 'For a while.'" Several months after the project's collapse, a memoir written by Siegel was published in an article for Cheetah magazine entitled "Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!". Many of the project's subsequent myths and legends would later derive from this single article.

Capitol Records

In a 2011 press statement, Capitol/EMI stated: "The reason Smile did not see release in 1967 had more to do with back room business … than anything else." In October 1966 the band began establishing Brother Records with noted difficulty. In March 1967, a lawsuit seeking US$255,000 (US$1,830,000 today) was launched against Capitol Records over neglected royalty payments. Within the lawsuit, there was also an attempt to terminate the band's contract with Capitol, a legacy of Murry Wilson's management, prior to its November 1969 expiry. The case was settled out of court, with the band receiving their $200,000 in exchange for Brother Records to distribute through Capitol Records, along with a guarantee that the band produce at least one million dollars profit, which has been recalled by Michael Vosse as a point "when things started getting bad."

Writer Paul Williams saw that "Ironically, the independence that forming Brother Records was supposed to bring to Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys was the very thing that knocked Smile–and the Beach Boys–out of the water. David Anderle's initial idea in the formation of Brother Records was sound, but the time it takes to put this type of thing through the courts was not conducive to the production race that was important during this period of radical change in pop."

Carl Wilson's draft

On January 3, 1967 Carl Wilson refused to be drafted for military service, leading to indictment and criminal prosecution which he challenged as a conscientious objector. He was arrested by the FBI in early May, and it would take several years in the courts before the matter would be resolved.

Rumors of leaked tapes

Although Brian's paranoia was consuming him, it was not completely unfounded. Domenic Priore has posited that he had good reason to be wary of his surroundings, pointing to his high position in the music industry and an instance where the master tapes for "Good Vibrations" had been stolen by an unknown party for three days. Rumors were abound that the Smile tapes were being leaked from their Los Angeles studios, and that Brian believed — as a result — the 1967 Sagittarius single "My World Fell Down" was a deliberate Smile pastiche. Brian's ill-perceived security of these studios are said to have contributed to his decision to construct his own personal recording studio.

Van Dyke Parks believes that Derek Taylor facilitated the Beatles with Smile acetates while they were in progress with their 1967 LP Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, explaining: "They heard Smile in part—the first eight-track—up at Armen Steiner's studio at Yucca and Argyle. It was after Brian found out that they had been in the studio, we heard. We walked into the place and heard that the Beatles had been there. We knew that the nest had been found, and Brian was very sad. He felt violated, raped. So we didn't go back there; we took the tapes and Brian got an eight-track machine. It was easier than losing the security he wanted, but the damage had been done." He asserts that Brian's attitude changed completely after the episode, making him "question the loyalties of the people who were working for him," and that to be "invited to a session was a big deal in those days, and certainly to know what Brian’s process was would be something that everybody desired at that time, because he was such an opinion-maker and he was inventing new formats, new ways of working." A cursory comparison of the relevant timelines — the location of the Beatles (individually and collectively), the location of the tapes — reveals that the episode cannot possibly have happened as claimed.

Fear of rejection

According to historian Darren Reid: "In Wilson’s mind, the first album to market [in 1967] would be the one to claim victory, it would be the record which would set the standard against which all other albums released after that time would have to be judged." Reportedly, his first exposure to the Beatles' February 1967 single "Strawberry Fields Forever" affected him. He heard the song while driving his car and pulled over to listen, commenting to his passenger Michael Vosse that the Beatles had "got there first". Wilson denied the story's accuracy in later years, however, saying that the song had not discouraged him. At the time, Brian was reportedly having doubts on whether Smile would still be received as a culturally relevant work among record-buyers and the contemporary rock audience.

In 1968, Dennis said, "We got very paranoid about the possibility of losing our public. We were getting loaded, taking acid, and we made a whole album which we scrapped. Instead, we went to Hawaii, rested up, and then came out with the Smiley Smiles [sic] album, all new material. Drugs played a great role in our evolution but as a result we were frightened that people would no longer understand us, musically."

"Heroes and Villains"

In the months leading up to the debut of the single "Heroes and Villains", it had garnered a considerable amount of hype, with many publications referring to it as another recording milestone on par with the innovations present in "Good Vibrations". In June 1967, Wilson personally delivered an exclusive acetate of "Heroes and Villains" to radio station KHJ by limousine. As Wilson excitedly offered the vinyl record for radio play, the DJ refused, citing program directing protocols, which Terry Melcher recalls "just about killed [Brian]". Jardine believes that the version of "Heroes and Villains" that Brian had completed was a "pale facsimile ... He purposefully under-produced the song … It was lost because Brian wanted it to be lost. He was no longer interested in pursuing number one.

Upon its release in July, "Heroes and Villains" disappointingly peaked at only number 12 on the Billboard pop charts, and was met with general confusion amongst underwhelming reviews. This included the seminal rock figure Jimi Hendrix negatively describing the single as a "psychedelic barbershop quartet" to NME. Wounded by the relative indifference to "Heroes and Villains", Wilson's emotional state began to plummet further, as the band's future manager Jack Rieley wrote for an online Q&A on October 18, 1996:

Brian blirted [sic] it out one evening at [his home], and later spoke about it several times in agonizing detail. He had expected that [the single] would be greeted by Capitol as the work which put the Beach Boys on a creative par with the Beatles. All the adoration and promotional backup Capitol was giving the Beatles would also flow to his music because of ["Heroes and Villains"], he thought. And the public? It would greet [the song] with the same level of overwhelming enthusiasm that the Beatles got with record after record. As it was, Capitol execs were divided about [the song]. Some loved it but others castigated the track, longing instead for still more surfing/cars songs. The public bought the record in respectable but surely not wowy zowy numbers. For Brian, this was the ultimate failure. His surfing/car songs were the ones they loved the most. His musical growth, unlike that of Messrs. Lennon and McCartney, did not translate into commercial ascendancy or public glory.

Other noted episodes

Following the recording session for the "Fire" section of "The Elements" at Gold Star Studios on November 28, 1966, Brian became irrationally concerned that the music had been responsible for starting several fires in the neighborhood of the studio. Brian falsely claimed for many years that he had burned these session tapes, but that was not the case, although he did abandon the "Fire" piece for good. Parks deliberately stayed away from the session—during which Brian encouraged the musicians to wear toy firemen hats—and that he later described Brian's behavior as "regressive," something which band mates also observed during and after this session. Besides the "Fire" session, Parks was uncomfortable being placed in the middle of the overwhelmingly drugged atmosphere that typical Smile sessions beheld, which he has said to have indulged in only at Brian's insistence.

Brian went to see the movie Seconds after hearing that Phil Spector was one of the film's investors. It briefly impacted Brian, who had entered the theater late, and upon arriving heard Rock Hudson's character "Mr. Wilson" greeted on screen, mistaking that the film was talking directly to him. He would expound on the experience saying that it had "completely blown" his mind, and that, "The whole thing was there. I mean my whole life. Birth and death and rebirth. The whole thing. Even the beach was in it, a whole thing about the beach. It was my whole life right there on the screen. … I mean, look at Spector, he could be involved in it, couldn't he? He's going into films. How hard would it be for him to set up something like that?…You can understand how that movie might get someone upset under those circumstances."

David Anderle was head of the Beach Boys' label Brother Records during the period when Brian was working on the Smile album. Anderle painted a portrait of Brian, which reportedly frightened him when he saw it, convinced that Anderle had somehow captured his soul on canvas. Anderle would go on to tell Rolling Stone years later that things had not been the same between him and Brian afterward. In subsequent years, participants have acknowledged that the lack of mental health awareness in the 1960s made it difficult for people to comprehend what was happening to Brian or how to best approach the symptoms that were arising at an overwhelming pace.

Group infighting

In 1975, Derek Taylor told NME: "A key factor in the breakdown had to be the Beach Boys themselves, whose stubbornness by this time had seemingly twisted itself into a grim determination to undermine the very foundations of this 'new music' in order to get back to the old accepted, dumb formulas." The group feared that the album's musical adventurousness would prevent its commercial success. Danny Hutton reflected in 2012 that during the sessions for Smile and Pet Sounds there was worry in the Beach Boys camp that they wouldn't be able to perform the songs live to a satisfactory degree. Other people who were present at the sessions — including Anderle and Michael Vosse — have also reported that Smile vocal sessions had been tenuous between Brian, Parks, and the other Beach Boys, which caused Brian "tremendous paranoia" knowing every studio visit would lead to an argument. The group was filmed by CBS during December 15 vocal sessions for "Surf's Up" and "Wonderful" which were reported to have gone "very badly."

In reference to such claims, Alan Boyd has noted that group opposition is not audible on the recordings he has heard, while others observed no "Let It Be style sniping" on The Smile Sessions.

Mike Love allegations

Tom Nolan published a 1971 piece in Rolling Stone which reported that it was Mike Love in particular who had issues with straying from the formulaic style of the Beach Boys earlier material. The December 6, 1966 session for "Cabin Essence" was the scene of an argument between Van Dyke Parks and Love where the latter requested that Parks explain the meaning of the lyrics he was to sing. The event was said by Parks to be the prime catalyst for his reduced involvement in Smile, which led him to gradually move away from the project. Love has since defended his actions, elaborating that he was displaying uncertainty over the song's lyrics, worried whether they would be appreciated and understood by the fanbase the band had built their commercial standing upon. The surrealism and obtuseness of the lyrics had led Love to adopt the term "acid alliteration" when describing them. Despite these reservations, Love contributed vocals when asked and followed Brian's odd requests to engage in behavior such as acting as an animal on the floor while recording vocals.

Love has hypothesized that his vocal opposition to those who supplied Brian with hard drugs caused those participants to start spinning the web that pinned him as the reason to why Smile was shelved, something he says was further perpetuated by writers who weren't there. He also stated that his criticism of the drug culture mostly stemmed from observing the detrimental effects it played on his cousins. In response, Parks has repeatedly accused Love of historical revisionism, believing that Love held hostility toward Brian and Smile, and that it was "the deciding factor" in the album's postponement. Reacting to promotion for the Beach Boys' 50th anniversary reunion and The Smile Sessions compilation in 2011, Parks released a statement on his website:

Certainly, I did walk away from Smile. … I comment only to combat any doubt that Mike Love delayed the release of Smile by 40 years purely out of a mislaid jealousy. Smile was an obviously good work. … Yet, revising facts isn't necessary for the progress of profit. I sure wish Brian were here to weigh in.

In the ensuing years, Brian has stated on several occasions that the other Beach Boys met Smile with huge disapproval, and that he was disappointed with their reactions. Other times, he has said that the group eventually grew to like the material as sessions progressed. In 1976, Brian corroborated that some group members were opposed to the recording of "Good Vibrations", but declined to name who specifically. In the 2000s, Brian named Love's opposition a contribution to the project's failure explaining, "He was disgusted with it, he said 'I'm disgusted with this,' he said this is nothing like anything like a surf song or a car song or any kinda Beach Boy-type of song. I said 'Mike. If you don't wanna grow, you shouldn't live.'" In a 2004 interview, Brian said that Love, Jardine, and Dennis "hated the Smile tapes".

Loss of creative direction

Once Brian Wilson missed the January 1967 deadline, he rigorously continued work mostly on "Heroes and Villains" and "Vega-Tables" as potential singles. Throughout the first half of 1967, the album's release date was repeatedly postponed as Brian tinkered with the recordings, experimenting with different takes and mixes, unable or unwilling to supply a completed version of the album. Desperate for a new product from the group, EMI released "Then I Kissed Her" as a remedial single without the band's approval.

Van Dyke Parks' leave

On April 14, 1967, after gradually distancing himself from Wilson and the group, Van Dyke Parks left the project in the wake of signing a record deal with Warner Bros. Records so he could work on his debut album Song Cycle. As a result of Parks having quit, Brian Wilson lost sight of the album's direction. He went back and forth considering many different ways to execute Smile, fluctuating between ideas such as a sound effects collage, a comedy album, and a "health food" album. Eventually, the number of possible variations for song edits became too overwhelming for him.

Although Derek Taylor had announced the album's shelving in early May 1967, Wilson continued working and revising the year's worth of material he had amassed for as long as he could bear its repetitiveness. He then became desensitized to the material, feeling it was increasingly necessary to start all over from scratch. In the documentary An American Band, Wilson expressed: "Time can be spent in the studio to the point where you get so next to it, you don’t know where you are with it, you decide to just chuck it for a while."

Unfeasible technology

Audio engineer and The Smile Sessions co-producer Mark Linett speculated that Wilson could not have finished the album simply because his ambitions were unfeasible with pre-digital technology, accordingly: "In 1966, [assembling pieces] meant physically cutting pieces of tape and sticking them back together — which is how all editing was done in those days — but it was a very time-consuming and labor-intensive process, and most importantly made it very hard to experiment with the infinite number of possible ways you could assemble this puzzle." Sessions co-producer Alan Boyd shared the same view, stating that the tape editing "would have been probably an unbearably arduous, difficult and tedious task."