Why go to the beach when you can spend Memorial Day weekend with The Beach Boys? A new documentary about the group debuts May 24 on Disney +, giving fans insight into their rise to fame and lasting legacy, and all the bumps along the way.
The doc is directed by filmmaker Frank Marshall, who tells ABC Audio learning how The Beach Boys turned into such a legendary band is what first attracted him to the project.
“I knew it was a family story, I grew up in a musical family, too,” he says. “So I wanted to understand how the dynamics and how the blend came together.”
He adds, “I don’t think a lot of people understand what went in and how hard they worked.”
While Brian Wilson is often singled out for his work in the Beach Boys, specifically on their iconic album Pet Sounds, singer Mike Love says he’s happy the documentary gives fans insight into how important each member was to the group.
“Finally the story is told from a broad enough perspective where it honors everybody’s contribution,” he says, noting it’s a ‘”bit more objective and yet unifying in a way.”
Guitarist Al Jardine says he was a fan of the rediscovered live footage in the film, sharing, “I enjoyed watching us, that young energy.”
The making of the film also helped facilitate a reunion between Love and Wilson, who hadn’t talked in years.
“We sat together, we sang together, we reminisced together,” Love says.
Wilson has since been placed under a conservatorship due to a neurocognitive disorder, but Love says Wilson still remembers a lot about their past.
“I was thinking, ‘Wow, his long-term memory is way intact, better than mine,’” he says. “So that was really fantastic to see.
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