Brian Wilson and Al Jardine Distance Themselves from Trump’s Beach Boys Benefit
Former Beach Boys members Brian Wilson and Al Jardine are not happy about the fact that Mike Love’s touring version of the Beach Boys will be headlining Trump’s campaign benefit today, and they want the world to know it.
“We have absolutely nothing to do with the Trump benefit today in Newport Beach. Zero,” Wilson and Jardine told the press, “We didn’t even know about it and were very surprised to read about it in the Los Angeles Times.”
News that the current version of the Beach Boys would be the main attraction of the event was announced on Sunday morning. It will be taking place in Orange County and tickets will range from $2800 to $150,000 for co-chair status. The version of the Beach Boys will be the licensed touring edition, a group that has been known to support Trump in the past.
The last time the surviving members of the Beach Boys performed together was for a 50th anniversary tour in 2012. After that, Love continued touring under the Beach Boys name as he holds the license for concert purposes. Wilson and Jardine have also been staying active performing Beach Boys material under Wilson’s name.
This isn’t the first time the members of the band have had political issues come between them. In February, Wilson and Jardine signed on to a Change.org petition urging a boycott on the touring Beach Boys after Love booked a headlining slot at the Safari Club International Convention in Reno, NV, an event that featured hunting enthusiast Donald Trump Jr. as the keynote speaker.
“This organization supports trophy hunting, which both Al and I are emphatically opposed to,” Wilson said in a statement at the time. “There’s nothing we can do personally to stop the show, so please join us in signing the petition.”
Love has supported the President publicly in the past and once posed for a thumbs-up picture with Trump in front of the Washington Monument.
“I don’t have anything negative to say about the president of the USA,” Love said in a 2017 interview. “We did attend the inauguration. [His version of the Beach Boys headlined one of Trump’s inaugural balls.] That was a moving experience. I understand there are so many factions and fractious things going on – the chips will fall where they may. But Donald Trump has never been anything but kind to us. We have known him for many a year. We’ve performed at some of his venues at fundraisers and so on.”
In other Beach Boys news, Love has been doing drive-in style concerts featuring actor John Stamos as a special guest. The group has been playing with Bruce Johnson in the current lineup. Johnson joined the Beach Boys in 1965 and is the only other veteran of the group playing with Love in the touring edition.
