Tony Asher

Tony Asher on Collaborating with Brian Wilson on Pet Sounds – and the One Thing He Would Change.

(The following interview took place in 1997 when Tony reunited with Brian to write new songs)

Did you ever think that your work with Brian on Pet Sounds would not only hold up so many years later, but would be considered one of the classics of the century?

Never! Frankly, when the album was released and met with relative indifference, I figured we had simply miscalculated. That “The Boys” were probably right. We’d come up with stuff that was pretty good – I didn’t really fault the quality of the songwriting – but that what we’d done wasn’t right for The Beach Boys or their audience. By almost any measure, the albums was – if not a failure – a disappointment. If, in the face of that, you had said to me, “Just wait 20 or 30 years – this album is going to end up being regarded as a classic.” I would have told you that you were out of your skull!

What was it like to have Brian ask you to write Pet Sounds with him – did you have any idea what you were getting into?

I have thought about how odd it was that I wasn't the least bit overwhelmed or intimidated by the situation. When Brian gave me the first tune to write, I could have been excused, I suppose for thinking "I hope he doesn't hate what I come up with." Or even "I hope I can come up with something!" But I can remember vividly thinking "This is great! I'm getting to write songs with Brian Wilson that the Beach Boys are going to record!" It never occurred to me that Brian would listen to what I wrote and say "Well, thanks for doing this. I'll listen to it some more and if we decide to use it, I'll  give you a call." I was just sure that we'd write great songs together and that they'd end up being recorded. 

It’s been said that you were exasperated when you started the project due to Brian’s eccentric nature.

Well that may be overstating it. I was frustrated in the beginning because I'd show up at the appointed time and Brian wouldn't even be awake yet. And I had only a limited amount of time I could be on leave of absence from my job. But I think a lot of that was inertia on Brian's part. I mean, I think he was reluctant to plunge into the project initially, perhaps because he didn't know me really. And because he knew it was going to be a lot of work. And because he knew that part of the process is this baring of your soul. You know. Even if you're Brian Wilson with all of his success at that point, he was going to have to play something on the piano and run the risk that I was going to say, "That sucks!" Or "Are you serious?'' Or something like that. But once things got rolling, it became more and more productive. It was slow starting, but at the end, we were turning out an amazing quantity of work. All of that frustration of mine eventually evaporated.

Can you talk about the songwriting process?

The songwriting process took two forms. In some cases, Brian had a completed melody which he gave me on a tape and I went home and wrote a lyric and came back with a completed song. That was true about "You Still Believe In Me” “and “Wouldn't It Be Nice." But on most of the other songs, the process was a highly collaborative one. It goes something like this: One person suggests something. The other person reacts. Brian would sit and play a feel – some chord changes – and maybe he'd be singing "La-la-la's" or dummy words. He might say, "You know I've always loved this kind of feel." And I might say, "Wow. I liked it better when you went up right there instead of down." Or "Gee, I liked it better when you went to the minor chord there." So then he'd go to the minor chord, only then he'd say "Wow. It would be even better if we went to this chord." And I'd say, "Well, why don't you save that until the second time around, and just use the straight minor the first time."

Now if you do that kind of thing for a couple of hours and you end up with a song, you can see how difficult it would be to say for sure just who wrote what. And, I was a player, too. So I could play stuff. And sometimes I did. And, by the way, the same process sometimes took place with regard to lyrics, although, Brian is not really a word person. He tends to speak through his music, which is part of the reason why he doesn't like to do interviews.

I remember with "Wouldn't It Be Nice" he was in the process of writing the melody over a period of a couple of weeks or more. And I kept saying, "Hey, you want to work on that tune you were playing me the other day?" And he kept saying, "No. I haven't quite figured out the structure of it. I think it needs another section. Let me work on it some more." Which was odd. Because most of the other tunes we wrote in what you might call "real time." Meaning, we were both reacting to what the other was doing, but he was working primarily on finalizing the melody and I was working on finalizing the lyrics. 

Anyway, with "Wouldn't It Be Nice,” he finally said one day, "Okay, I finished that tune. Want to work on a lyric for it?" And I said, "Sure." But it was a disaster. Brian had nothing to do, because the music was already finished. So, he focused on the lyrics as I was writing them in a way he never had previously. And every time I'd write a word, he'd question it. I couldn't get half a line written before he was analyzing it and making suggested changes.

Now, I don't know if you've noticed, but "Wouldn't It Be Nice" has a lot of lyrics. And there are lots of notes in the melody. And I could see myself spending the rest of my life negotiating this lyric word by word. So I finally said, "Hey look, Brian, make me a cassette of this thing and I'll take it home and write a lyric. And then you can comment on the whole rather than on the pieces of it." So that's what I did. And he was basically happy with it just the way it was.

Pet Sounds is a very moody album – how did that play into things?

That's a very shrew observation, Michael. Mood was indeed everything on many of the songs. What happened was I'd come over and Brian and I would sit around and talk about stuff. Girls, mostly. The ups and downs of relationships. Being in love. Falling out of love. Getting dumped. Whatever. "Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind?" by the Lovin' Spoonful kind of stuff. And we'd get into something. Some feeling or another. And it would set the mood for that day's writing. It might be how wonderful it is to have someone who really believes in you no matter what. Or the sadness of seeing someone you used to think was so beautiful back in high school, and now she seems hard and bitter. Yeah. Very often it was all about mood. 

Were there any cases where the lyrics were written after the song was recorded?

The only case I know of where the session preceded the lyric was "You Still Believe In Me." It's a very luxurious way to write lyrics. Although it's a little more restrictive, I suppose. Once the track is recorded, the mood is set. The feel is locked up. So, the lyric has to work not only with the melody, but with the arrangement. When you're writing to a melody that's being played on a piano, you can try it faster or slower. Or with a different feel. The lyric can inspire a change in the feel.

Imagine what it was like for me to work on a song so intently often with no idea what Brian was hearing in his head in terms of arrangement. Okay, sometimes he'd tell me what he was hearing. But it was all just words. He'd say "strings" and I know what strings sound like. But I had no idea what kind of voicing he was hearing or what counter melodies were going through his head. And then, after working so intimately on a song, I'd finally hear the track. It's hard to describe that experience. Here's something you think you know so well and suddenly it takes on a whole new dimension. It was amazing. 

Did you feel disappointed by anything?

Well, for one thing, I wish Brian had sung the lyric to "Caroline, No" the way I wrote it. But I wasn't at the session. And somehow, he sang the last verse incorrectly. I think he sings, "Can we ever get 'em back now once they've gone? Oh, Caroline, No." Every other stanza ends with a word that rhymes with "No." The way I wrote the lyric above was "Can we ever get 'em back now once they go? Oh, Caroline, No." When I heard it I couldn't believe my ears. But Brian never thought is was any big deal. It still kills me every time I hear it. 

What else? I wish I'd argued to keep "Sloop John B" off the album. I thought it was really out of character with the rest of the music. But I was afraid that I'd be seen trying to get rid of a song I didn't write so that there would be room for another one I could write. So, I wasn't very vocal about my feelings. 

We’re lyrics ever considered for the track “Let’s Go Away for Awhile”?

Yes. Brian and I had that song on the list of ones we intended to get around to writing a lyric on eventually. But it never happened. In all  fairness, the album was way overdue. So, I don't think one can really say that Capitol rushed it out. They probably saw it as the appropriate thing to do. To make sure that too long a time didn’t go by without some new Beach Boys products out there for the fans.

Pet Sounds is such an iconic album, but you didn’t continue working with Brian after that. Why is that?

Oh that’s a pretty simple one, really. The “Boys” had predicted that Pet Sounds was not the kind of music their fans were expecting or wanted from The Beach Boys. And that point of view was pretty much borne out by the poor sales of the album, at least in this country. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Brian thought, “Gee, I guess that experiment with Tony Asher didn’t work out so well. I’d better look around for someone else to write with.” I mean sales were everything. Especially in those days. And the album simply didn’t sell.

Tony, one more thing: give us a couple memories you have of working with Brian

One is a general thing. That shriek of joy he comes out with when you’re standing next to him singing a lyric to him for the first time while he plays the tune on a piano. “That’s fanTAStic. It’s a smash.” “This is going to be a smash. It’s a giant tune!” “Really, I think we’ve just written our best song ever!” That unbridled enthusiasm is just delicious to experience.

The second one is the moment he looked at me, after putting up every argument he could think of against using the word “God” in the lyric of “God Only Knows,” when I knew he was finally at peace with the idea. Somehow I knew there would never be any more discussion about it. He was committed to it and that was that. It was a great moment.

Interview by Michael DeMartin for Brianwilson.com
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