The Beach Boys announced their first-ever official anthology book on Thursday morning (July 13), the 400-page, 60,000-word The Beach Boys by The Beach Boys. The book covers the summer-lovin’ band’s rise from a Hawthorne, CA garage in 1961 to international fame thanks to such indelible sand-and-surf hits as “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” “I Get Around,” “California Girls,” “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “Little Surfer Girl,” “Kokomo” and many more.
“There’s love in the music and people can relate to the love, regardless of whether you’re two years old or 92 years old,” said musical mastermind Brian Wilson in a statement about the book due out in December. “For me, music is about love. Love is the message I want to share. I hope people feel that in my music. That makes the hard work worth it.”
The collection will be limited to 500 copies, with the band’s story told through the words of members Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, DennisWilson, Carl Wilson and Bruce Johnston, with rare and classic photographs and rarities; a hardcover edition for bookstores will be issued in 2024.
“I think it’s the heart that you put into what you’re doing that’s important. Each member of the Beach Boys puts their whole heart and soul into what they do, and that is probably the saving grace of the group,” added Brian Wilson in a statement shared by publisher Genesis Publications. “Few families are together spiritually and emotionally over art.”
The book will feature photos from the Capitol Records archive, the band’s archive and members’ personal archives, including outtakes from album sessions for such landmark releases as Pet Sounds and Smile, live shots from their first European tour and the rehearsals for their first live performance of “Good Vibrations.” It will also include other rare objects, including photos of tape boxes, tour posters and programs, handwritten lyrics and notes, newspaper clippings, album ads and studio documents.
“The environment in which we grew up and the things we chose to sing about primarily, which were the beautiful things about growing up in Southern California – the lovely girls, the lovely cars, the lovely weather and the lovely beaches – it was like an endless summer,” said singer Mike Love in a statement.
The book will also feature new text based on extensive interviews with Wilson, Love, Jardine and Johnston done exclusively for the project, as well as archival text from late members Carl and Dennis Wilson. “We were just having fun and it developed into something else. It’s funny. We were really an accident — but a good accident,” said Jardine. “And our first record seemed to be enough for us. We sure didn’t think we’d be recording into the next century.”
A number of contributors who worked with or were inspired by the Beach Boys also participated in the book, including Lindsey Buckingham, Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, Ray Davies, Bob Dylan, Def Leppard, the Flaming Lips, Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, David Lee Roth, Jimmy page, Pete Townshend, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and more.
An 85-copy numbered ArtLuxe edition — which is already sold-out — is hand-signed by Brian Wilson, Love, Jardine and Johnston and is quarter-bound in apple leather and sea blue Toile Ocean cloth; the cloth is woven from 100% recycled plastic gathered from oceans and coastlines. The large-format ArtLuxe edition comes in a handcrafted, cloth-bound solander case finished with screen-printing and foil embossing.
The Beach Boys will also come in a numbered Deluxe edition hand-signed by the living members (limited to 415 copies) and a hardcover Bookstore edition due out in 2024, with more details to be announced soon. A portion of the proceeds from both non-bookstore editions will go to the ocean conservation group the Surfrider Foundation.
