At one point, The Beatles were the most prominent promoters for The Beach Boys. And this was all because of a Keith Moon introduction.
This all came to light in their new documentary on Disney+, which sheds light on the band's incredible 60+-year career. It boils down to the band from Liverpool being massive fans of the boys from California.
How The Beatles became the biggest promoters for The Beach Boys thanks to Keith Moon
In a recent interview with Variety, Beach Boys member Mike Love shared details on how the biggest band at the time helped promote The Beach Boys and their 1966 album, Pet Sounds. It all started with the drummer for The Who.
“Derek Taylor, the Beatles' publicist who came to America and became our publicist, actually set up Bruce [Johnston — singer and songwriter with the Beach Boys] with about 15 interviews in England and introduced him to Keith Moon, who introduced Bruce to Paul McCartney and John Lennon,” Love said. “They were in Bruce's suite, and Bruce was able to play them the Pet Sounds album before it even came out in Great Britain, and they played it through twice. So those guys became our promotion men.”
Along with that, there was always this The Beatles/Beach Boys “rivalry” that was addressed in the interview.
Al Jardine, co-founder of The Beach Boys, said, “It was a mutual adoration, I think. And they inspired each other, because I don't think we'd have Sgt Pepper's without Pet Sounds, and I don't think we'd have Pet Sounds without Rubber Soul.”
Article Continues BelowAnother interesting aspect of the Beach Boys is that they sang constantly about surfing — but they didn't actually surf. That is, except for Dennis Wilson, the band's drummer.
Love said, “Well, a couple of the guys never surfed at all. A few of us tried to do it. But it's harder than Chinese arithmetic. I mean, it really is. So I really appreciate the fact that those guys would get up and before class go surfing and then go to school and then after school they'd surf until it got dark. That was the way of life. ‘Surfing is the only life, the only way for me now, now surf, surf [claps hands] with me.'”
“I used to take Dennis to the beach to go surfing,” Jardine added. “I had an old '49 or '50 Ford, and he needed wheels. So we went down to El Porto in Manhattan Beach, and he taught me how not to surf. I hit the sand straight, the very first wave, right down to the bottom. That was probably my last experience. He was a natural athlete. He knew how to do it. And he wrote the story on surfing.”
“Well, we may not have been great surfers, but we sang about it really well,” Love stated.
Catch a wave and watch The Beach Boys now streaming on Disney+.