The night Brian Wilson, John Lennon and Micky Dolenz jammed together
They say don’t meet your heroes, and often that saying can be misconstrued as a lot of inspiring people, it turns out, are pretty inspiring. However, there is always the chance you catch them on a bad day, and if that’s the case, your view of them will become slightly askew. That’s precisely what happened to Micky Dolenz, as when he was in a jamming session with the legends Brian Wilson and John Lennon, he found the experience to be a rather disappointing one.
The idea of a jamming session between three musical legends makes any music lover’s mouth water. As the drummer for The Monkees, Micky Dolenz was exceptional when stringing together catchy and melodic drum beats. Pair that with the songwriting ability and ingenuity of Brian Wilson for the Beach Boys and John Lennon from The Beatles, and you have a recipe for genius.
Musicians have an unspoken language that connects all of them, and there is something quite beautiful about that. Regardless of how well they get along in a regular conversation, when you put them all in the same room with their respective instruments, a common goal connects them so they can all work towards creating good music. You would think that resonated when Dolenz, Wilson and Lennon all played together, but something got in the way.
The music world and the world of drugs are forever intertwined. This is not a glorification or a dismissal but a fact. A lot of musicians have dabbled in drugs, including Micky Dolenz, who says that, in his experience, they’re not worth it. “I’m not going to preach to anyone about the dangers of drug abuse. They should be self-evident. All I can tell you is that, in my experience, it simply isn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth the money, the time, the energy, the damage to my physical and mental being, the damage to my relationships and my disposition. And in the end, it also got so boring.”
Drugs played a part in the jam between Dolenz, Lennon and Wilson. When they are introduced into a creative atmosphere, their impact is unpredictable, sometimes leading to positive works of art that expand beyond the realms of the usual human psyche, while other times, they can completely derail things.
In the case of Dolenz, the everyday communication that all musicians have in common was broken down to the point that the end goal of creating good music was left behind, and the product was instead something mundane and pointless. “My last experience with LSD was at a Malibu beach house in the company of Harry Nilsson, Brian Wilson, John Lennon, et al. With those participants, you’d think it would have been a stimulating, inspiring occasion. Unfortunately, it was not.”
Rather than drugs inspiring an element of creativity into the jam, all participants could not string two chords together. Dolenz continued, “Brian, who was already long gone even at that time, played just one note on a piano, over and over again, and John stood and stared into a swimming pool for four hours. What fun!”
Should you ever meet your heroes? It’s debatable. On the one hand, you might have a pleasant exchange and feel closer to someone’s work once you’ve met the person responsible for it. On the other hand, if your meeting is anything like the jam Dolenz was a part of, it could be a very uninspiring experience.
