Mike Love, Al Jardine and Bruce Johnston speak to PEOPLE about the enduring interest surrounding the music

NEED TO KNOW

• The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds is celebrating 60 years as one of rock’s most influential albums
• Capitol Records is releasing special anniversary editions featuring rare tracks and new liner notes
• Band members reflect on Brian Wilson’s genius and the album’s impact on their rivalry with The Beatles

It's a truly never-ending summer: The Beach Boys' groundbreaking album Pet Sounds, which marked a dramatic evolution of the band's music, has remained so timeless that it might be difficult to believe that it's been 60 years since it made its debut in May 1966.

The surviving members of the original band are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the landmark collection of songs, now considered one of the greatest rock and roll albums of all time, and the unique genius of the late founding member Brian Wilson, who pushed the group's signature sound — themes of "girls, surf, cars, school" — further, maturing the pristine, layered harmonies into something more deeply and complex.

Pet Sounds marked such a departure from what was expected from the chart-topping pop group, which became the defining Southern California band after forming in Hawthorne, California in 1961, that it garnered moderate reviews and respectable sales in its initial release. But in the six decades since its release, Pet Sounds has been certified double platinum, while several of its now unforgettable songs have thrived as evergreen singles, including "Wouldn't It Be Nice" (4x platinum), "God Only Knows" (2x platinum) and "Sloop John B" (platinum).

To commemorate the milestone anniversary, Capitol Records is releasing The Pet Sounds Sessions Highlights, a two-CD collection of a cappellas, alternate versions and tracking sessions , and new liner notes, and a Vinylphyle Edition of Pet Sounds, a limited run two-LP set cut from original mono and stereo analog tapes.

Brian Wilson and his brothers Carl and Dennis, among the earliest members of the Beach Boys, have each died, but several key members of the group continue to carry the legacy forward. PEOPLE spoke with founding member Mike Love, founding member Al Jardine, and Bruce Johnston, who joined when Brian stepped back from touring to focus on songwriting and production, who all shared their memories of making Pet Sounds, experiencing Brian coming into his own and even the album's effect on the band's friendly rivalry with The Beatles.

On their first reaction to hearing what Brian Wilson had been working on in the studio while the rest of the band was away touring in Japan:

Al Jardine: We had little knowledge of what was going on in Brian's brain because we were 7,000 miles away and he was like a kid in a playbox. He was just having all these wonderful ideas, and he had a really great co-writing partner, Tony Asher, that he found while we were gone, because he was always anxious when we left town. Mike and I would be gone and he wouldn't have anybody to write with. So he and Asher put together these wonderful compositions. 

Mike Love: I thought what he'd done was brilliant. The tracks were amazing. I was thinking, "How did he come up with that?" It's genius, I would say. So we were very impressed by that…A lot of times in the past it was Brian and I doing the hits and recreating little songs and putting them together. But this was different. This was thematic in the sense of the production and the sound of the tracks, and the vocals as well were unique. It was different, more comprehensive.

Jardine: Lo and behold, we step off the plane and we are summoned almost directly to the studio: "Don't go home yet. Come to the studio and listen to my tracks." We had a little bit of rest, but as I recall, literally the following day or two we were in the studio singing.

Bruce Johnston: Carl [Wilson] said, "Start coming to the studio while he's making tracks." So I took my girlfriend to the studio and of course they're recording "God Only Knows." I went, "Ahhhh!" 

On watching Brian Wilson coming into his own as a musical genius on Pet Sounds:

Love: It showed what Brian was capable of when left to just do what he wanted to do, which is songwriting, production and recording. Pet Sounds was the absolute testament to that.

Jardine: "Wouldn't It Be Nice" was a big vocal challenge, along with "Good Vibrations" [which was saved for the group's follow-up album Smile]. We did those two pretty much simultaneously and every time we go back into the studio, we usually were starting quite late at night and there's Brian with "Wouldn't It Be Nice" and "Good Vibrations." We're on the 24th track: "Here we go…" and "I didn't like that. We could do that better. I think there's a little tweak I can do here and there." So if you listen to the acapella version of these things, they're perfect, but he heard things that obviously he heard in his head. But you get to a point where you got to stop somewhere along the line, because it won't get more perfect than that.

Johnston: We recorded "Sloop John B." while we were recording [the previous album] Summer Days and Summer Nights and it just sat on a shelf. [The band's record label] Capitol said, "Well, we want to ensure that we have something really to drive this album song-wise." And so Brian agreed and put it in. As great as "Sloop John B." is, it has nothing to do with Pet Sounds. Between "God Only Knows" and "Wouldn't It Be Nice" the label was covered with hits, but I don't think they [saw it]. It was so sophisticated to them after "girls, surf, cars, school." They didn't have the confidence in the album to have those hits. "God Only Knows" went to No. 1, by the way, in England and Europe.

Jardine: It was fun. It just took a little more time than we thought it would. But we were doing Smile at the same time, so we were like, "Woo, man!" Brian was on fire.

On the darker side beginning to take hold behind the scenes: 

Johnston: People started bringing drugs, pills, all kinds of stuff. "Brian, take this. It'll really help your creativity." I'm surprised he made it through the album. People were trying to steal Brian from the Beach Boys. 

On their pride in their own creative contributions to Pet Sounds:

Love: The bridge of "Wouldn't It Be Nice?" That's pure Mike Love…It's a beautiful song: great harmonies, amazing track. The thing is something to be very proud of. And people love it. When we play "Wouldn't It Be Nice" in our live concerts like we have for 60 years now, people love that song. And it's romantic, actually. It's not about anything negative at all. It's just a really sweet song — like if you're a child in school and you have a crush on somebody, "Wouldn't It Be Nice" fits. If you're an older person, maybe it hits you more in a retrospective way, which makes sense. But yeah, it's one of my favorite songs of the album.

Johnston: "God Only Knows" — that's the one! I was hoping he'd let me sing on it. We all sang on it, even Terry Melcher and Brian's wife and sister but it was too top-heavy.  And Brian went "Wrong!" And he just peeled it off and everyone went home except for Carl and I. So there we are with Brian and we started over, and it's just enough…It's so simple. It's just hard to get to that point.

Jardine: I enjoyed my solos, particularly on "I Know There's an Answer," just because it was fun — it had a good Beach Boy feel to it. Mike didn't like some of the songs' lyrics, however, so we had to do some lyric changes. And that was the only really major hurdle we had to get through, because he didn't think [the song's original title] "Hang Onto Your Ego" was a very good title. He thought it was too sophisticated for the general public. And at the time, to be honest with you, I didn't even know what an ego was!

Love: It was just when it was appropriate to write something — not "God Only Knows," let's say — but if it was appropriate, I would use that voice that had been used on so many hit single records during the '60s.

On Pet Sounds' impact on the Beach Boys' friendly rivalry with The Beatles, which inspired the British band to push themselves further and create Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band:

Jardine: Brian was blown away by Rubber Soul and those earlier pieces, and of course we all admired The Beatles, their progress. Their songwriting is just amazing. And so we were aware of the presence, but we didn't let that interfere with our process at all. 

Johnston: [After recording Pet Sounds] I went over to England for a promotional tour. I met [The Who's drummer] Keith Moon there. I went out to dinner, I came back and Keith was in the lobby and he said, "[John] Lennon and [Paul] McCartney are in your suite. They want to hear Pet Sounds." So I played it twice for Lennon and McCartney.

Jardine: When they heard the album, they thought, "Oh boy — what are we going to do?” And so apparently they answered the question.

Johnston: I heard later that McCartney was flipping out over the voices and the arrangement of "Wouldn't It Be Nice." Somehow he put that vibe in "Here, There and Everywhere" in the Revolver album.

Love: Paul gave Pet Sounds to all his children to listen to it for musical education. And he's said such wonderful things about "God Only Knows" being the greatest song ever and stuff — I mean, that's said by a guy who's done some real winners himself!

Johnston: We never competed. We were always friends.

Jardine: The [album] artwork could certainly have been better – that I will always remember: Paul McCartney said, "Hey, Brian, you guys have to work a little harder on your album covers."

Love: I liked [that back-and-forth] a lot. I was in India at the Maharishi's invitation and when I got there, I didn't know it beforehand, but John, Paul, George [Harrison] and Ringo [Starr] were all there. Ringo left after a short while, but George Harrison and I had our birthday parties in India that year. I wrote a song, a song reminiscent of that time called "Pisces Brothers," because we're both Pisces. I had some amazing moments there, amazing times, and they did an amazing amount of great music while being there. I heard "Back in the U.S.S.R." for the first time on Paul McCartney's acoustic guitar.

Jardine: We shared in a relay race together and I think The Beatles won it, ultimately.

On realizing Pet Sounds, which was not immediately embraced for its unique brilliance, had at last become considered a classic:

Love: I don't understand exactly when, but I know that that happened and it's been regarded as one of the top albums ever, and something pretty unique to rock music and rock albums. I don't have a time that I could say, a day or a morning that I woke up thinking that, but yeah, it definitely has happened and it's become a classic album that has been appreciated more and more each year.

Jardine: Just like anything else, with a good aging… like a good cheese. Maybe that's a bad allegory, huh? Yeah, a good wine. It aged like a fine wine.

Love: It definitely has affected a lot of [artists] – people that we would randomly talk to and they would be amazed by the Pet Sounds album. Maybe it didn't change their life in any serious way, but it inspired them to do a little more than they thought they might be able to.

Johnston: I think it's slow-motion organic. It's pretty cool to sit here 60 years later this week and realize that people whose parents weren't even born [then] are loving it.

On missing Brian Wilson, who died in June 2025:

Johnston: Without Carl and Brian on the planet, it just leaves me as the only living Beach Boy to be on the original mono recording, you know? So I feel really weird about that. I was sorry about Carl, but when Brian passed away, I thought, "Uh-oh. The magic's left the planet."

Jardine: It was quite a tragedy when Brian died. It was just unthinkable. The last time I saw him, it makes me laugh and cry at the same time. My wife and I would visit him about every other month, and he looked at me and he said, "You started the band!" And I said, "What? Brian, you had a little to do with it!" But the truth is we did, when we were in college together. That's when I said, "Brian, we've got to start a band." And we instantly went in the music room and started composing — "Sloop John B." was one of them I came up with, come to think of it, that very first time we got together. And it's been a great ride.

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