They’ve waxed surfboards, hot rods and poetically about girls. They get around the globe and bring the warmth of the sun to millions. Summer will start early in Sylvania when The Beach Boys play Centennial Terrace at 8 p.m. May 24. Tickets range from $29.50 to $55. Gates open at 6:30 p.m.
“We’re obsessed with replicating those songs like the record, so we do them in the same keys as we recorded in. And it helps that I’m the lead singer on a lot of songs — ‘Surfin’ Safari,’ ‘Surfin’ U.S.A.,’ ‘I Get Around,’ ‘Fun, Fun, Fun,’ ‘California Girls’ and so on. I sound quite similar to myself today,” Mike Love said and laughed.
Love and longtime Beach Boys’ veteran and keyboardist Bruce Johnston front the band, which is rounded out by guitarists Christian Love and Scott Totten, bassist Randell Kirsch, keyboardist Tim Bonhomme and drummer John Cowsill of The Cowsills.
“I don’t take the job lightly,” Love said. “I look at it as we’re there, we’re performing these songs, let’s do them absolutely the best we possibly can. So we try to keep ourselves in good shape; nobody smokes, nobody drinks to excess. We don’t do stupid things like stay up three days in a row like we might have done when we were young guys just starting out … We live sensible lifestyles,” Love said.
He sounded laid-back and happy during a call from a tour stop in Utah.
“I also do Transcendental Meditation, which I learned in the summer of ’67 from the Maharishi. That’s something that gives you extra clarity and energy and allows you to dissolve a lot of fatigue and stress, leaving your mind and your body clear enough and energetic enough to deal with those 100-plus shows a year.”
Love and his cousins, Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson, and their friend, Al Jardine, formed the group in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. Their bright harmonies and surf sound led to a wave of hits — “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “Help Me Rhonda,” “God Only Knows,” “Good Vibrations,” “Kokomo” — and to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.
“We’ve kind of represented America through our music around the world, so it’s been by and large an enormously positive legacy,” Love said. “There’s been tragedies and intramural problems over the years, but the music stands for so much harmony and happiness for so many people.”
Guitarist Carl died of cancer in 1998 and drummer Dennis drowned in 1983. Love and Brian Wilson and Jardine reunited in 2012 to celebrate the band’s 50th anniversary. There was a 73-city tour and a new disc, “That’s Why God Made the Radio.”
“The recording of that particular song, ‘That’s Why God Made the Radio,’ I thought the theme was pretty neat, and the harmonies coming back felt like mid-’60s again,” the singer-songwriter said. “Brian Wilson and I remarked kind of simultaneously it was déjà vu time.”
Wilson has said he’d like the band to make a disc of rock songs.
“If I was able to [write songs] with Brian Wilson, I would enjoy that. The problem is he’s often told by other people what to do or led to do other things,” Love said. “But if Brian and I were ever able to get in a room together and create some things, I think our natures would take over and we’d do what comes naturally, which could be fun.”
