They helped define the 60s, but were hopelessly uncool as the 70s began – and Brian Wilson was unravelling. The band discuss the masterpieces they made against the odds
![‘It was the happiest time’: The Beach Boys on their strange second coming](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/4c505f42953d756634b9320b020999d590941aae/0_219_5443_3266/master/5443.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=112dc45b6ee6cc46b037c3479056becd)
In the 1960s, the Beach Boys staked their claim as the US’s most popular band, as their dazzling, harmony-drenched songs about surfing, cars and
California Girls epitomised the
American dream. So, at the end of the decade, when leader and principal songwriter Brian Wilson – who had recently spent several months in a psychiatric hospital – suggested that the band were on the verge of bankruptcy, everyone thought it was a joke.
“We arrived in
London for a tour on the day that hit the headlines,” co-founder Al Jardine says over the phone from California. “The IRS [US tax collection agency] had closed our studio and our offices in
Hollywood. The hotels wouldn’t accept our corporate credit cards. In the end, I had to use my personal American Express card to pay for our rooms.”