Like the Gen Zer that she is, Olivia Rodrigo sang in one of her more rock-forward tracks, ‘My jealousy, jealousy / Started following me.’ It appears that whether you’re a youngster or an old-timer, the feeling never gets old. Once it’s there, it’s tough to shake it off, and it turns out the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson’s jealousy over his brother Dennis caught up with him. Why was he jealous? Let’s break it down.
Not so surprisingly, like any other band that started with pure love and excitement for creating art, the success and fame that came with the job turned the wholesome brothers into rivals. If not rivals, it definitely turned them into competitors within the band, and before you know it, the band is no longer the original band, and the dream has turned into a nightmare.
After riding the wave of success the band received in 1964 for their albums, ‘Shut Down Volume 2,’ ‘All Summer Long,’ and ‘The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album,’ it became harder for Brian to write and produce the same level of songs. Some would say he was overworked as the genius behind many of the tracks that had made them the Beach Boys while simultaneously touring the world. It took a toll on him, so he announced that he would no longer be touring with the band for the predictable future.
In his ‘The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America’s Greatest Band, on Stage And in the Studio,’ Keith Badman wrote that Brian had said that Dennis was so devastated by the news. His immediate reaction was to “pick up a big ashtray and tell some people to get out of there, or he’d hit them on the head with it. He kind of blew it.”
Some people in the brothers’ lives described the falling out in a different light. In his book ‘Dennis Wilson: The Real Beach Boy,’ Jon Stebbins reflected on how Brian’s jealousy went down. He explained that photographer Ed Roach, a close friend of Dennis’s, had stated that Brian was deterred from the stage due to jealousy over the flattery Dennis received from the audience. According to Brian, the attention Dennis received was “hard to handle. The girls would be going ‘Dennis, Dennis’ and run right past us to get to him.”
However, Dennis later said of his brother, “Brian Wilson is the Beach Boys. He is the band. We’re his f*cking messengers. He is all of it. Period. We’re nothing. He’s everything.”
Even though Dennis thought highly of Brian, the strings were already broken between the brothers, and Brian had already made up his mind. While the band was on the road, Brian moved to a one-bedroom apartment in Hollywood and continued to distance himself even further from the Beach Boys.
In the end, Dennis tragically died from an accidental drowning in 1983, and Brian soon became estranged from the band even further than he already was. After Carl Wilson’s death from lung cancer in 1998, the band gave Mike Love legal rights to tour under the band’s name. A dream that started with excitement ended with tragedy and heartbreak.
