My early wounds were the English school system among other things. It wasn't merely the discipline, it was the ways in which boys got what was called the school spirit.
Well, obviously I wanted it to sound as original as possible. I suppose the influences that we had were probably from the actual power point of view we wanted to be like the Who. Vocally we wanted to be like the Beach Boys, whatever was good at the time.
It's taken folk a while to come around, hasn't it? Even the boys in the band weren't too sure about the whole art thing. They just wanted me to concentrate on the music. But they respect it now.
And let me tell you, you boys of America, that there is no higher inspiration to any man to be a good man, a good citizen, and a good son, brother, or father, than the knowledge that you come from honest blood.
I had been playing for about a year and a half when the Beach Boys formed. When our folks went to Mexico on business, we would take the food money they had left us and we would rent instruments.
Some parents say it is toy guns that make boys warlike. But give a boy a rubber duck and he will seize its neck like the butt of a pistol and shout "Bang!"
A long time ago, when all the grandfathers and grandmothers of today were little boys and little girls or very small babies, or perhaps not even born, Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura and Baby Carrie left their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin.
