Double Elvis. Blood on the Tracks is a production of I Heart Radio and Double Elvis. Brian Wilson was a musical genius and one of the greatest songwriters of all time. He caught melodies like they were waves. He bottled good vibrations like no one else, and he picked up bad vibrations too. He broke down, he tripped hard. He didn't just hear music, he heard voices. He tried to lose those voices by making a teenage symphony to God called Smile.
But somewhere along the way, Brian Wilson lost his mind instead. This is his story. Randa moss In here again working through these archives of Brian Wilson tapes. It seems they're never ending. There are so many here. The latest batch I've been going through and compiling seemed to be from Brian at home. There's no dates on these, but they seem to be late sixties, perhaps early seventies. They all appear to have been recorded on a dictaphone in Brian's house.
Some of them make more sense than others. There's some tapes where he just talks about his family, Maly, his brothers. Others are song ideas. I'm not sure these are in any way usable for any type of official release, but they give us an interesting insight to what he was going through at the time. Two years ago, we were recording one of the biggest singles of all time. Now I'm here alone. I spend most days in the bathroom,
spend most nights looking at the TV. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now, who am I supposed to be? I'm having trouble being myself at the moment. Some nights I dreams if I'm Me. Other nights I'm Dennis or Carl, even my dad. Those ones are the scariest. I keep thinking about what has happened over the last few years, all those fights, all that money, all that blood on the tracks. Chapter six, Brian Wilson isn't himself good? Evening?
This is one oh five point four b r I A n f L. There's some interruptions to us were to light, so please bear it with us. Service will resume as soon as possible. Keep it, b R f L. If you thought we were done with my dad, you were wrong. Look I've been putting up with him for all these years, so you can shoulder some of that pain too. By the time we got to Smile felt like a lifetime ago. Hell, even Smiley Smile, the album we made after Smile failed, that felt like a lifetime
ago too. That was the time in my life when the music took a back seat to everything else, usually stuff like litigation. When you get big in the music industry, there's success that comes with it in money too. But with money comes money men and companies and contracts and agreements and lawyers. I was home one day in bed. I was in bed a lot those days. Sometimes I'd sit with the TV on static and spend most nights looking at the t V. I don't know why I
found it comfortable. I guess someone told me years later that TV static is like the sound you hear in the womb looking at the TV. Maybe that was it. But I was home, just staring at the screen, alone in my room, lost in that gray fuzz. When my phone rang. It was our financial manager, Nick Grillo on the other end. You've been examining our royalty statements from Capital and had uncovered years of unpaid royalties. Have you ever been paid as the band's producer, he asked me.
I don't know. Should I have been Brian. Nick said, Capital owes you a lot. Tell me you signed the contract yourself. Tell me it was you and not someone else. I paused, I can never remember what I signed and when it felt like I was always signing stuff. I heard Nick flick through some papers and let out a heavy sigh. You didn't, he said, finally, Murray did. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. I couldn't understand why someone like my dad, who knew business well,
would let us be so underpaid. It turned out A Capital owed me one point five million dollars one point five one of the biggest singles of all time, and that was for producing a loan. Nick also found out that they had used money from the Beach Boy's royalty account to pay for an album my dad made called The Many Moods of Murray Wilson. Well, Murray Wilson was about to experience just one fucking mood from his son. I slammed the phone down without even saying goodbye to Nick,
and jumped in my car. I knew where my dad was Sunset Sound Studios, the studio where we'd cut pet sounds. He was working on a few new songs of his there. We were probably hanging for those two. I burst into the studio. He was sitting there at the piano. You liar, I screamed. He couldn't have been expecting me, but he didn't miss a beat. Why, Brian, what's wrong, he asked me softly. All that money. I lost it with him again. I keep thinking about what has happened over the last
few years. I was shouting, throwing stuff around. I called him a coward with Charlotte and bad father. He barely seemed to listen. He said he was sorry. Then he turned back to the piano and played a couple of notes. I just stood there and watched. He began to sing, but it wasn't really to a melody. It was kind of half spoken. You're not gonna like this, he sang, but it's for your own good. Then he stopped and turned around. I've sold the publishing rights for all the
Beach Boys songs, he said. I am the owner of the company, and it was the right thing to do. All that money. I was stunned. Why, I asked him. My voice cracked because he replied. I jumped across the piano and grabbed the front of his jacket. Why I screamed all those fights. He rose up and pushed me off. I did it, he yelled, because I was worried. You're a spent force, a broken fucking record, literally a loser who has lost it. That's why I was so scared.
All that blood. His face was red with anger. I flashed back to being at home in Hawthorne and receiving the belt. I felt so small again, like a child, a coward in the corner, tears flowing from my eyes. All I could get was seven thousand, he said, all triumphantly, that money. But they were valued in the millions. I cried, not anymore. He spat back. It would turn out that we couldn't do anything about it. He was right, he had control of the songs. I had signed that over
to him years before. In the end, Nick said the money he'd got for the rights was at least half of what we should have received. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. What happened with the money? Dad kept it all as a quote unquote transaction fee, all that money. On the way home from the studio that day, I cried again. I heard California Girls play on the car radio and After only the first couple of bars, I pulled over. I kicked the radio over
and over until it stopped working. When I got home, I took all my gold and platinum records off the wall. They never went back up. One oh five point four b R I A n F M is being taken over for the next twenty four hours. It's time for a new voice. This is Radio D E N N I S and it's gonna be a long summer. I can't go on like this. How long have I been talking to you in here? It feels like forever. I need a break. I need to tap out. I I don't have any more stories to tell, all right? Hello?
Is this where he's been hiding his head? God, it's huge in here, It's huge. My name is Dennis Wilson. Brian's my brother. But you probably covered that, right, Cool. Brian's got some stories to tell, I'm sure that. But I have a story too. It comes around this time as well. It involves drugs, orgies, and a serial killer. This is my tale. It all started when I was driving down the Sunset Strip. It was springtime. The air was clear, the sun was bright. I had nothing to do,
nowhere to be. I was just driving some night dream as if I could me. I was recently divorced, and I guess I was looking to start living a new type of life. Other nights, on Dentish, I saw these two women, pitchhikers, you know. I stopped the car and they jumped in. Patricia and Ella Joe, those were their names. They were headed east, but when they realized that I was a beach boy, we ended up back in my house bora bilk and cookies. We talked about trains and
dental meditation, which was an interest we shared. They mentioned a spiritual guru they knew the sky called Charlie. They asked if I wanted to meet him, and yeah, of course I did. I was really in all that stuff. First I had to go down to the studio and cut something or other, so I left the girls at my house. That's how it was back then, like an open house sort of deal. But when I came back that night, I was more than a little confused. It was so strange. There was a school bus parked in
my front yard. All its lights were on. It looked like it had been abandoned. As I slowly walked around it, a small man appeared. He looked like even sleeping on the street. His hair was a Mess's eyes were wild. They had a quality I'll never forget. They burned, you know. I felt like when they were looking at you they could see something else, something more than normal eyes. But they were also broken in some way, haunted even they
scared me. Those onest I didn't know what to say to him, so I just blurted out, are you here to hurt me? He smiled, but his eyes stayed the same. Does it look like I am, he asked. I didn't know what to say. I felt like saying yes, Yes, it fucking does. He dropped to the ground and started kissing my feet. It was so odd. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. Patricia and Ella Joe appeared at my door smiling. This is Charlie, laughed Ella Joe,
our guru. Charlie was unsettling, but alluring too. I found him fascinating. That first night we got high and spoke for hours. He told me he was both God and the Devil. I kind of laughed at the time, but looking back, that turned out to be true in one way. Over the next couple of weeks, I saw more and more of him, and more and more of the girls. Except it wasn't just Patricia and Ella Joe. They were more where they came from. He said, Charlie had a family,
That's what he called them. All women Paul, interested in an alternative way of living, all interested in free love. Charlie had such a hold over these women. They were basically his servants. Every day they'd wake up and wait for him. Dream He'd makes them put their hands in the shape of various symbols and tell them they were shaping the universe, that we were shaping the universe. One night, we had a big party. I wanted to show Charlie and the girls off to everyone. It was a hot night.
There was booze everywhere. Everyone was on acid. Charlie was chatting with Neil Young and Mike Love over at the piano. They were singing some song I didn't recognize. I think Charlie wrote it. When I walked over to join them, Neil beamed at me. This is Charlie, said, he's an improv genius. Where did you find it? I laughed and said I found him in my front yard. Charlie cut in and said found me at the gates of hell. We all laughed. He grabbed my hand and said it
was time. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. I didn't know what he meant, but he moved us into the center of the lounge area and announced to the room that it was the hour of love. He clapped his hands and all of the women, all of Charlie's followers, started to undress and keep thinking about what has happened. Almost immediately, everyone was kissing, hugging, touching. Charlie
walked around the group and handed out more acid. He walked up to Mike and offered him attack uh like decline, and then came over to me as Patricia was trying to take my shirt off. Can I take a shower? He asked? A shower Mike. I laughed at him, I think you might want to do that after, but he cut me off. I'm not taking part in this, he said, motioning to the origin in front of him. It's hot and I'm sweating, and we have to get back to
the studio. I was being led into a forest of limbs by Patricia, so what I said to him was sure, but I couldn't concentrate. Who am I supposed to be. I was worried about Mike. I was worried about letting my band down. As you probably can tell, I had no intention of going to that session. He was added due. I wanted to apologize, or at least put out any fires that might have been billowing. I'm sure Ryan's told you Mike can lose his temper. I found him in
the bathroom. Your friend, Charlie, he said, real name, Charles Manson. God, he sounded like he was some square TV detective. You know he spent half his life in jail, right. I rolled my eyes, but stopped halfway through because another voice answered him, well, not quite half, but almost. Manson stood at the door. He was completely naked and smiling. I'm sorry you don't want to play, Mike. He said, I'm married. Mike told him. Manson shrugged and then said love his love.
There was a silence, and I thought that might be it. But Charlie seemed to change. There was a shift in him. He grew incredibly intense. He looked at me with those burning eyes. He walked towards Mike. He shouldn't leave the group, he whispered in Mike's ear, No, you must not leave the group. I got angry and told him he does whatever the funk he likes. But as he went to walk past, Charlie put his arm out and cornered him, pushing his whole body on it. One no one leaves
the group, he whispered again. I didn't know what the funk was about to happen, but I knew these two would be like a couple of freight trains colliding if it came to blows. Mike moved his head close to Charlie's ear and nearly spat on him, saying, get your dick off my fucking clothes. He shoved him aside and strode out of the room. Charlie had his back to me, but I caught his face in the mirror. His eyes were burning so hard I thought he might shatter the
thing into pieces. Dream A few minutes later, we're back downstairs other nights on Dennis. More guests had arrived. One of them was someone Charlie had been dying to meet, even my dad. I remember them shaking hands. I served up introductions, Charlie, this is Columbia Records Best Producer Darry Melcher. Charlie grinned as he took his hand. I'd love to come audition for you, sir. Terry politely informed him he
only lived down the road. I didn't know it then, but that meeting would be the start of one of the most horrific and famous murders in the history of this country. We'll be right back after this word. We were. Charlie Manson stayed in my house for a while. That's what it was like back then. You know. Of course, if I knew what was going to happen, I would have made him leave, called the police, done something anything. In those days, Charlie wanted to be a rock star.
He was desperate to be one. That's why he came here California. I mean, well, he was good at it, to be honest. He wrote good songs. One from that time was called Ceased to Exist when it was well fine, hardly up to the standard of what Brian was writing, or any of us for that matter, but it was good. He wanted to record it, and then he wanted the Beach Boys to record it, and so he did. At the time, it was like why not. It ended up being a B side to a song called Bluebirds over
the Mountain. It also appeared on the album. By the time it made it onto our record though the song had changed structurally musically. Lyrically it changed a lot. It's name was changed, it became never Learned Not to Love. When I first told Charlie we were going to record it, he was ecstatic. He saw this as his first step to becoming a rock star. When he actually heard the song, however, it wasn't so happy. I keep thinking about what has happened.
That dude had been mixed and mastered and sent to my house on tape. When it rived, I left it out for Charlie to listen to. I left to record more songs for down at the studio. When I came back home, I could tell something was wrong. I walked in the front door, and rather than being greeted by the carnival of Charlie's family, the whole place was quiet,
silent even. I walked into the living room and Charlie was sitting there all on his own, his elbows on his knees, leaning forward on the couch with his head on his thumbs, looking pensive. Where the girls, I asked, They're upstairs, having a moment of silence, he said, a moment of silence. I asked, yes. He said his words were ice cold. I'm having trouble being myself. I heard someone move upstairs. Charlie jumped up and out of silence. Then he marched up to me and brought his face
right up to mine. Our lips are practically touching. You changed the song, he whispered, just like he had done with Mike in the bathroom at the party. Just some of the structure. I said, I don't care about structure. He told me, you change my words. My words are all I have. Don't you see? I thought he might cry or I don't know I have a stroke. He was speaking so intensely. I'm having trouble. I need to show Terry Melcher that I'm a musical genius. How can
I do that? When you changed the song? I explained that Terry the Columbia producer, Charlie had become obsessed with I wouldn't care about a beach boy song. I told him we could record something new, but that only made it worse. He stormed over to the couch, where he picked up a white envelope and thrust it under my nose. Open it, he cried. Patricia appeared at the top of the stairs and asked if Charlie was okay. Charlie screamed at her to shut up. He was read now. His
face was haunted, his eyes just burning. The envelope was almost empty except for one thing, something fairly heavy. I opened it and straight away saw the pointed gold tip of a bullet. What is this supposed to mean? I asked this, he said, grabbing the bullet, holding it above his head. This is for your fucking kids, if you ever fucked me over again. He walked around the room, holding it above him as he spoke. I could hardly
believe it. Charles Manson threatening my own children in my own house, the house he'd been staying in rent free. In fact, everything was free. Come to think of it, we had already spent a thousand dollars alone on the shots for the gnarrhea that swept through the place. I couldn't hold my anger back. No one threatened my family like that. I jumped at him and tackled him to the floor. I heard his arm crack onto the coffee
table as he fell, but I didn't care. I sat on top of him and grabbed that arm and bend it back as hard as I could. I wanted him to feel maximum pain. He dropped the bullet and I tried to get a punch in, but he blocked me. Patricia ran over and tried to pull me off, and I pushed her back, and she and up on the floor, crying for Charlie. While I was distracted, he managed to get free from under me, and I saw him grab for the bullet. I looked at his other hand, fearing
he'd have a gun. Nothing, thank god. Without warning, he dove on top of me, flattening me to the floor. His breath was hot and wet in my face. He held the bullet to my temple, pushing it hard into the skin. Don't fuck me over, he screamed, don't, don't, don't. He pushed the bullet in harder and harder. I could feel the skin breaking. I didn't say anything. I was lost in those eyes, those burning, tired eyes, those ones
the scariest. My free hand was frantically skating around the carpet, looking for something, anything to get me free, and I felt it. The tape, the tapes. Have never learned not to love what I was supposed to do now. They came in a pretty weighty box, and it was bulky. It spanned the full reach of my fingers. I grabbed it and drove it in the back of Charlie's head. His eyes seemed to grow huge when I did that, but I didn't care. He fell to the side and
I was free. Who am I supposed to be? I left on top of him and punched him right in the face, right in the same place that years later, with sport a swastika tattoo. Patricia yelped in pain as if she had been hit. Charlie was unconscious. That was the last time I saw him face to face. A few months after that, Charlie instructed his family to go to ten thousand fifty Cello Drive and kill everyone there. Abigail Forrester, volcheck Rakowski, Stephen parents, J C. Bring, Sharon Tate,
and Sharon's unborn child. They all died that night. Why ten c l O Drive, you might ask, because that's where Terry Meltrie used to live around the time I introduced Charlie to him at that party. He never did get that audition. It's hard to get over something like that. In fact, it's impossible. I think of those six people all the time. How can I not some days when I go surfing early in the morning, after I've been
up all night. I turned in the morning sun rising over the ocean, and I pray that their souls are at peace. It's been two days since journalist Tom Nolan got the tip, two whole days. Once again, he walks to the corner of Fairfax Avenue in West third Street, up to the shops front door, and he knocks. Nothing. No one's inside. The lights are all off. Silence. Nolan turns around and makes his way back to where he came from. He sticks his small reporter's notepad back into
his pants pocket. He walks the streets of West Hollywood for a while, and the city is winding down. The glow of the day is gone. Another l a night is starting to unfold, and there's a sense that anything can happen. In that sense is the only thing that prevents him from hailing a cab and call all in a night. Instead, he walks a few more blocks to the Melvin Theater. Written in large letters on the theater's marquee is the word scammen shame, Nolan translates out loud.
He plunks down his money and spends the next one and three minutes lost in a surreal world of horror, courtesy of the master Swedish filmmaker Igmara Bergmann. When the film ends, it's almost midnight, Nolan is emotionally shook up and the streets feel different than they did earlier. That evening postile unsafe, He walks quickly once again, heading for Fairfax and Third, trying to cast the images of the film he's just seen out of his mind, and as
he approaches the corner, his heart skips. He sees the lights on in the shop. He's never seen the mom before. He looks closer and the door is open too. He's definitely never seen the door open. As he stands now on the other side of the street, he watches a man inside the shop walk past the open door. He's barely visible, there's so little light, but he can just see it. Tim He thinks, funk, it's actually him. It's actually true. Seconds later, no one is bounding over the
crosswalk and practically jumping up the curb. He stops outside and looks up at the large sign, an elongated red radish with green leaves shooting out the top in the center in a faded white tight are the words radiant, radish. Nolan takes a beat and then walks inside. After only one step, it feels like he's back in that movie theater. It's dark inside, really dark, unlike any shop he's ever been in. He looks up and sees all the ceiling lights have been shut off and the only light is
a ghostly fluorescent glow emanating from the food pins. Nolan takes a deep breath and through his nose and he can smell vegetables, dirt, slight tang of mildew, and something else, something he recognizes but couldn't put his finger on. Tills that was it. He can smell that stale air that seems to almost exclusively exist in urged jars of pills. Nolan spins around and sees the front wall the place adorned with a jar upon jar of pills. A small ladder leads up to the ceiling and the places like
a Victorian pharmacy. He lowers his eyes to the counter in front of the wall, where he sees a large open jar, a stick of celery, and amount of what looks like salt. Finally, his eyes come to rest on the only other person in the shop, Nolan looks at him properly for the first time, and the man's head is bowed down, fumbling with something in his hands. His long hair dangles there. He's wearing a bathrobe. It's striped, loose pajamazon underneath, but Nolan keeps staring, and finally the
man looks up. Can I help you with anything? He asks? Nolan stutters, you're You're Brian Wilson. The man in the bathroom nods slowly Tom Nolan, Nolan says, extending his hand from Rolling Stone magazine. Brian doesn't offer his own hand. Instead, he explains that he's not doing interviews, but he can serve Mr Nolan if he needs anything. B twelve, says
the journalist. Brian runs his hands over the jars behind him as Nolan watches, unable to take his eyes off one of the greatest living pop stars just standing there in a bathrobe. All he can think is three years ago, Brian Wilson changed the world with good vibrations, and now he's working here. No one heard the rumors he got the tip, and that's why he kept coming back to see it with his own two eyes. But he never imagined it would actually be true, I came yesterday and
earlier tonight. No one says, but you were closed. We opened one I want, Brian replies, grabbing a couple of tablets from a jar that definitely isn't B twelve. He tosses him up in the air and catches both in his mouth, and then he swallows hard. He pulls a small bottle off the shelf and puts it on the counter. He looks at Nolan. You get a call a call? No one asked a call from your doctor. Brian says, well, now unless there's a call, well we can't. Brian shrugs.
No one thinks it's a joke, but Brian stare indicates otherwise. No one makes his excuses, and after an awkward silence, decides to leave the store, trying to work out if after watching scom and he slipped into some strange alternate reality.
His exit is interrupted by Brian, who says, I used to be Mr. Everything you know, jumping on jets one city to another, producing, writing, arranging, singing, planning, teaching, and to the point where I had no peace of mind and no chance to actually sit down and think or even rest. So that's why I'm in this, and he motions to the bathrobe. Nolan smiles. This, Brian says, pointing to the store, this is for me, for me alone. They called me a genius, but I'm not a genius.
I'm just a hard working guy. No one doesn't know quite what to say. He just leaves his card on the counter and tells Brian to give him a call the next time he wants to talk about his career. And then he steps out into the l a night, and once again Brian Wilson is alone when no one gets home that night. He listens to his battered copy of Good Vibrations, but it doesn't sound the same. All he can think about is that man he saw earlier in that bathroom. You can't get the image out of
his head. And now the song playing on a stereo seems to have lost some of its joy, And the more he listens more the joy is slowly torn from the song, leaving behind so much Blood on the Tracks. Blood on the Tracks is produced by Double Elvis in partnership with I Heart Radio. It's hosted an executive produced by me Jake Brennan, also executive produced by Brady sat Zeth Lundy is lead editor and producer. This episode was written by Ben Burrow, mixing and sound designed by Colin Fleming.
Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spraaker. This season feature Chris Anzeloni is the voice of Brian Wilson. This episode featured Spencer Grow as the voice of Dennis Wilson. Sources for this episode are available at double elvis dot com on the Blood on the Tracks series page, follow Double Elvis on Instagram at double Elvis and on Twitch at s Graceland Talks, and you can talk to me per Usual on Instagram and Twitter at disgrace Land Pod, rock and Roll, or Dead