April 2025
With the release of SMiLE: The Rise, Fall & Resurrection of Brian Wilson, I’m happy to report that the reviews have been great. And I’ve also done more than a dozen podcasts. So, this may be way more than you want to hear or read, but here are links to the podcasts (you’ll probably have to copy and past in your browser) as well as reviews and interviews.
Podcasts and Reviews
THESE ARE SOME O THE BEST ONES
Giggens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9SYKJuC6s4&t
Setlist Kitchen https://www.setlistkitchen.com/post/really-good-vibrations-inside-brian-wilson-s-smile-with-david-leaf or
https://www.setlistkitchen.com/.../really-good-vibrations...
Beach Boys Reddit Video Teaser
Full Reddit interview
https://www.reddit.com/.../david_leaf_the_full_length.../
Abigail Devoe’s Vinyl Monday https://youtu.be/vtkTDgthhs4?si=W7y-cLorVpu_BIOD
Jokermenpodcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jokermen/id1519299517?i=1000703578600
Good Day Austin (Short TV piece)
This one is behind a paywall
Elliot Roberts https://youtu.be/YJEZnJsvLh0?si=_Yc7fBbcDcYZKQLX
BELOW HERE ARE GOOD PODCASTS AND INTERVIEWS BUT YOU MAY FIND THEY GET REPETITIVE AND ARE PROBABLY MORE BEACH BOYS ORIENTED.
Beach Boys Basement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MPRL9au2qo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzKl9nmRr_8
Pray For Surf https://prayforsurfblog.blogspot.com/2025/03/smile-in-three-words.html
TuneX https://banana-and-louie.org/2025/03/30/episode-25-farther-down-the-path-was-a-mystery/
Pet Reads Part 1 https://podfollow.com/petreads/episode/8a2eb7dd4eb024c22125a504fd3faf81353fd257/view
Dec4 podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZFdAEq5xeg
ESQ (four-part podcast) https://www.youtube.com/@esqeditor229
Brewster’s Musical Heroes Part 1
https://youtu.be/6X3ANbp9OdE?si=xb87UHfPJAyaTI54
Brewster’s Musical Heroes Part 2
https://youtu.be/QJW5B4wLYok?si=CfpzL-tmkTHLK2qP
The Lives They're Living (episode about Van Dyke Parks and SMiLE) https://open.spotify.com/episode/2vLIBNb7VR6DFMfxFBaBiG
Plastic EP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItmGK3C0G04
REVIEWS
Chris Charlesworth
https://justbackdated.blogspot.com/2025/01/smile-rise-fall-and-resurrection-of.html
Endless Summer Quarterly review
prayforsurfblog.blogspot.com
Pre-publication interview for UK fans (with Andrew Doe)
Andrew: David, we’ve been hearing about this book for a while. You had two chapters in The Beach Boys and the California Myth about SMiLE. You made a film about SMiLE. You wrote, albeit briefly, about Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE in God Only Knows. What is SMiLE: The Rise, Fall & Resurrection of Brian Wilson? How is this different and was it really needed?
David: Andrew, big question, lots of answers. Looking at the research and interviews that I did for Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson & The Story of SMiLE, I realized I needed a much larger canvas to take a real deep dive into the story. This book, over 300 pages, gives the reader so much information all in one place. Allows me to tell so much more of the story. And most importantly, as it’s an oral history, give so many other voices an opportunity to tell the story of and talk about SMiLE and Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE. It is, as you well know, a story without precedent, appropriate for music that was and remains groundbreaking. And I think this book is very, very different from anything anybody’s done in a rock book or even non-fiction.
In terms of style, it’s what would be called an “oral history,” but it’s much more. To begin with, the goal of the book was for the story to be told not by me but as much as possible, by those who lived it. The book itself focuses on two key periods of Brian’s career: 1966/1967 and 2003/2004. The story is told by the people closest to the music: Brian and Van Dyke Parks in the first SMiLE era and Darian Sahanaja and Brian’s entire band in the Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE era.
As with the documentary, I felt it was important to contextualize Brian’s place in music history, so we hear from dozens of his contemporaries as well as artists who he influenced.
There were entire interviews that didn’t make it into Beautiful Dreamer from people who were right there, and what they have to say is very important.
Andrew: So this is very different from your last book, God Only Knows? Which, by the way, I thought was quite an important update of “The Myth.”
David: Thank you. Those of us close to the saga of Brian and the Beach Boys know there are two basic Beach Boys stories: one is about a family band, their greatest hits, an amazing body of work the group recorded from 1962-1966 that made them “America’s Band.” Those records – composed, arranged and produced by Brian Wilson, featuring songs primarily written by Brian with his lyricist cousin Mike – have brought joy to the world for over six decades. That’s central to the the story of God Only Knows, especially in The Beach Boys & the California Myth part of that book.
This book is the other story. For Brian Wilson…for music lovers around the world…for SMiLE obsessives like me and you, my friend…this is the tale that matters most. SMiLE is “the holy grail” of the rock era, so I think of this as almost a SMiLE bible.
The animating idea for the book was to celebrates the twentieth anniversary of Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE, the concerts and the Grammy award–winning, critically- and fan-acclaimed best-selling record that was the most unexpected and miraculous creation of Wilson’s heartbreaking and glorious roller coaster of a career. Editing issues delayed it, but as somebody wrote on my Facebook page, that makes sense for anything to do with SMiLE.
Andrew: I’m a bit confused. What is your role in the book? It’s called an oral history, so did you write the book?
David: Yes and no. Think of me as the curator, organizing the storytelling and contextualizing it, too. It closely follows Brian’s artistic explosion in 1966, his annus miraculous, when he composed, arranged, and produced the Pet Sounds album and the “Good Vibrations” single, perhaps the most influential one-two punch in rock history. And he intended to follow that with a new album recorded in the modular style he had pioneered on “Good Vibrations.” He worked on this new record, to be called SMiLE, for about nine months. Then, for a catastrophic list of reasons, he put it on the shelf. Where it tragically remained unfinished for thirty-seven years. It became an almost paralyzing albatross around Brian’s creative neck. Then, in 2004, at the Royal Festival Hall, to the surprise of everybody – to audiences that included lifelong admirers Sir Paul McCartney, Sir George Martin, Roger Daltrey, and Jeff Beck – Mr. Wilson finally presented a 21st Century version of SMiLE to a week of SRO crowds, in what was, as Brian admitted… Well, suffice it to say that his response explaining what it meant to him was to me, so stunning, it’s on the back cover of the book.
Andrew: How much of this is new material and how much of it will be familiar to us SMiLE obsessives?
David: I did over two dozen new interviews for the book. There are generous excerpts from the extended 2004 interviews I did with Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks for Beautiful Dreamer that didn’t make the film. As well as outtakes from other interviews I did. Lots and lots of stories and commentary that I think will be brand new even to you.
The central idea of the book is to tell the story of SMiLE by those who were there in 1966 and from the participants in its 2004 resurrection, including all the members of Brian Wilson’s band. It also features fan memories of what it was like to see Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE and what it meant to them. Actually, there’s an entire chapter written by those who were at Royal Festival Hall for the World Premiere and another chapter by those who saw him on another stop on the tour.
There’s a foreword by Brian’s recently-deceased wife Melinda. And something that I think makes the book very different - an anthology of a dozen essays from SMiLE historians, devotees, friends, musicians, and music professors, each with their unique point of view on the subject. Writers who were there like Tom Nolan. Writers who have interviewed Brian numerous times, like Sylvie Simmons.
Overall, because the goal was to hear from everybody else, I think I wrote maybe 25% of the book. There are certain things that had to be by me, such as my “take” on The Beach Boys SMiLE Sessions box set.
Andrew: After all these years, what does SMiLE mean to you? Why would you devote a year of your life to this book?
David: Because I had to. SMiLE was what brought me to California. The direction of my life was completely changed when I heard “Surf’s Up.” I was so fortunate to be the one who documented 2003/2004, who witnessed it, who was part of it in ways that I reveal in the book, I felt compelled to write this. After all, I worship in the Church of Brian Wilson.
So, if it can be righteously stated that the greatest art (e.g. Michelangelo’s work in the Sistine Chapel) can be seen as a dialogue between the artist and his God, then it can be fairly suggested that in 1966, Brian Wilson had his most intense conversations with his spiritual master, resulting in a year of musical creativity that may be the peak that any composer enjoyed in the 20th Century. In 1966, Brian Wilson was the composer, arranger, and producer of Pet Sounds, “Good Vibrations,” and the songs of SMiLE.
For me, this book is what happened to him as he rose to eternal greatness, fell off the edge of the earth, and then came back to reclaim his place as one of the most significant artists of his time and all time. It’s a story that should mean something to anybody who loves music. And I felt I owed it to him.
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January 2025 After disappointing delays, the release date for my SMiLE book seems firm. April 15, 2025 in the U.S. A dozen days earlier in the UK.
There is an entire Facebook page dedicated to the book. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61569348715754
Here is the first interview I’ve done about the book. You can read it here: https://acrobat.adobe.com/.../urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:01216255...
If you want to pre-order the book, here are the links:
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/4fI5kmg
Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/49czwn1
NOTE: All the links have to be copyied and pasted into your browser.
In 2004, I wrote, directed and produced a documentary on the story of SMiLE. You can watch it here https://youtu.be/0SriaRRcA6w?si=-OspSmRJXT9HcwRF
In 2024, I wrote a book called SMiLE: The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of Brian Wilson. It will be published in Spring 2025 by Omnibus Books. You can pre-order it at Amazon.