Roberto Ricciuti/Redferns
Roberto Ricciuti/RedfernsThe current touring version of The Beach Boys, fronted by founding lead singer Mike Love, will perform Wednesday at Safari Club International’s 2020 convention in Reno, Nevada, however, that stirred up some bad vibrations with two other original members of the band — Brian Wilson and Al Jardine.
Wilson rallied fans on his official Instagram page to sign a petition at Change.org imploring The Beach Boys to withdraw from playing at the convention, because Safari Club International organization “supports trophy hunting” — that is, killing animals for sport — something Brian says both he and Jardine “are emphatically opposed to.”
The petition includes a letter to Beach Boys manager Elliott Lott stating that those supporting the document “pledge to stop buying or downloading all Beach Boys music, going to Beach Boys concerts, and purchasing any Beach Boys merchandise until the Beach Boys withdraw from the SCI Convention and publicly state their opposition to this sick ‘sport’ of killing animals for ‘fun.'”
The missive continues, “We will call on the Beach Boys’ record label, agent and publicists to disown the Beach Boys, and on members of the public to protest at forthcoming Beach Boys concerts, unless they do so.”
The petition offers some negative alleged factoids about the Safari Club International convention, calling it “the world’s biggest wildlife killing market,” and claiming that “870 companies will be selling trophy hunting holidays and wildlife body parts including animal heads this year.”
ABC Audio sent a request for a comment regarding the situation to a Beach Boys rep, but hadn’t received a response as of press time.
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