The one singer that Brian Wilson regretted meeting: “I never saw him again”
For all of the talk in Hollywood about not meeting one’s heroes, Brian Wilson may have been the lone exception.
The Beach Boys may have had more than a few unsavoury characters around them during their time together, but even with some of the greatest melodies that Wilson had under his belt, he remained one of the most unassuming, humble figures in rock history until the day he passed away. And while he did have a lot of chances to meet with his own musical heroes, not all of them were the most pleasant of experiences, either.
Then again, Wilson always had his fair share of ups and downs throughout his glory years as well. No one was discounting his gift for writing the sweetest melodies that have ever been committed to tape, but there were also more than a few times where he started to go a little bit off the rails as well. The Beach Boys Love You is a fantastic album in many respects, but hearing him sing tunes like ‘Roller Skating Child’ is more than a little creepy coming from anyone that’s not a literal teenager.
That’s before even getting into the sad history of his lost years with Dr Landy. Wilson was at the hands of a scoundrel that wanted nothing more than to bend him to his every will, and while he did finally break free of that, there’s no shortage of eyewitness accounts from both friends and fellow rockstars detailing just how uncomfortable it could get seeing Wilson look so helpless next to his therapist.
But even in the era before everything started going downhill, there were more than a few high points. Pet Sounds had already changed the landscape of what pop music could sound like, and while it’s a shame that Smile couldn’t become the cultural juggernaut that Wilson wanted it to be until years later, it was bound to be a breath of fresh air when Elvis Presley said he wanted to meet the group.
Wilson had grown up listening to every rock and roller on the planet, but Presley was always something different. None of the Beach Boys were showmen in the same way that ‘The King’ was, but Wilson remembered that he ended up getting a little too comfortable with Presley when he first met him.
Everything seemed to be going well, but after Wilson tried to play-fight with Presley after being shown some moves, he remembered Presley turning cold, saying, “I knew he was a black belt, so I faked a karate chop and a kick at him. He blocked them both easily and I started cracking up, but he didn’t think it was funny and said ‘Hey, don’t do that.’ We talked about music for a few minutes, about ‘Good Vibrations,’ and then the conversation sort of died down, so I threw another karate chop at him. He backed up in his chair, said ‘I’m a little worried about you,’ and then signaled to his boys that they were leaving. I never saw him again. I regret that.”
At the same time, you’d think that Presley would have had a process for dealing with people that were a bit more eccentric than others. He had been pretty gracious when meeting The Beatles a few years before, but since Wilson wouldn’t harm a fly, it’s safe to say that ‘the King’ shouldn’t have felt like he was in any real danger or anything.
While most of us probably wouldn’t have gone into combat mode the first time that we meet any of our idols, it’s not like Wilson meant any harm by it. If anything, the fact that Wilson managed to lose his cool a little bit only serves as a reminder that even some of the greatest musicians in the world have the potential to get starstruck every now and again.
