Collaborators Paley, as he himself described, was assigned to the project "to kick [Brian] in the ass and get him going", as well as to evaluate material for Stein and
Lenny Waronker, the latter of whom being the president of Sire's distributor, Warner Bros. Records. As was typical for Wilson's previous collaborators – namely,
Tony Asher and
Van Dyke Parks – Paley usually met Wilson at his home and spent time together chatting or doing some other activity for inspiration before working on songs. They were not composing together until, Paley said, "Brian realized I could play a number of instruments, [after which] we started jamming and then writing music together to flesh out the songs." Wilson recalled that, between 1982 and 1986, he had been unusually prolific as a songwriter and composed at his piano at least once a day. "We had 130 songs, then weeded it down to 20. We recorded 18 of those and chose 11 out of the 18". He and Paley trawled through three briefcases filled with tapes containing nearly 170 mostly unrecorded songs he had written. By Paley's account, there was "great stuff", but also many songs that he termed "hamburger songs" in reference to stories about
Dennis Wilson, in the early 1980s, enticing Brian to write songs with
McDonald's hamburgers. Paley said, "I could tell Brian if he was repeating himself in any of his stuff by incorporating some tiny thing from an obscure old tune. I kept him honest with himself as well as looking forward." In turn, Wilson said of Paley, "He's a real swift guy. Real fast. A very brainy guy. He puts a lot behind it, let's put it that way. He's a scary guy when you get right down to it." Other producers, including Waronker and
Russ Titelman, were soon involved. Both of them had worked with Wilson in the past; in Titelman's case, he and Wilson had written the songs "
Sherry She Needs Me" and "
Guess I'm Dumb" in the mid-1960s before becoming a staff producer at Warner Bros. According to Titelman, he got involved with the project after several months had passed and Wilson and Paley had produced only six "sloppy sketches" of incomplete songs. He said that Wilson "used to be a benevolent dictator in the studio; now, his ideas are great, but he needs someone to help organize those ideas." Waronker stated, "Each song had moments, but they needed help. But Brian had all the inspiration. All Russ did was make it stand up, make it be a record." Waronker had been the Beach Boys' A&R representative at Warner–
Reprise. In the words of biographer Mark Dillon, the project was "so important to Sire" that Waronker got "hands-on". He implored Wilson to produce something akin to the
extended, modular recording style that he had adopted with
Smile in the late 1960s. Waronker recalled, "I told Seymour that to
not have Brian do one of the more experimental things he used to do before he went into hibernation would be, well, ridiculous." However, Wilson had formed an aversion to this approach due to the fact that his personal decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s had coincided with the "diminishing commercial reception" to his more experimental recording output. Waronker had initially envisioned the album as "a
new age record [with] a bunch of things like '
Cool, Cool Water". Instead of forming the entire album around such a concept, they compromised with just one song of an extended length, "
Rio Grande", the only track on the album whose recording Waronker personally attended. The album featured a host of guest appearances from acts including
the Cars' guitarist
Elliot Easton, jazz keyboardist
Philippe Saisse, singers
Christopher Cross and
Terence Trent D'Arby, among others. Following the release, some writers and fan publications implied that Wilson's songs were
ghostwritten by the other producers and musicians, or that he was forced into writing the songs. In response to such accusations, Paley stated that the listed credits were indeed inaccurate, and that "there were a lot of people helping on that record", but that his and Wilson's writing was in no way contrived. Paley added, "the guy is always writing songs anyway, it's not like someone has to tell him to do it."
Session difficulties and credits discrepancies Landy's aides, nicknamed the "Surf Nazis", were a constant disruptive presence, and creative differences between Landy and the rest of the production team occurred throughout the album's making. His assistant, Kevin Leslie, watched over Wilson at all times in the studio, while Landy himself regularly phoned to check on what track they were recording and to instruct Wilson to work on something else. Landy would also frequently confiscate the master tapes once a day's work had been finished. Stein, who characterized the album's recording as "hell on earth", said that Landy would then send back the wrong master tapes, "just to drive Russ crazy". Titelman said of Landy, "He kept Brian off guard all the time [...] interrupting the creative flow and it was unbelievably frustrating. I started to go out of my mind. It was so chaotic and unpleasant that it became rather untenable." Landy acknowledged, "Titelman and I were always nose to nose, pushing, pushing, pushing. Russ Titelman is not my favorite person. But I must give him his honest due. [...] Russ has to be congratulated for having the balls to stand up to Brian and Dr. Landy ." Biographer
Peter Ames Carlin reported that Landy's meetings with Stein, Waronker, and Titelman had often "devolved into screaming matches". During the vocal sessions to one song, one of Landy's aides bribed Wilson with a milkshake in exchange for him to sing alternate lyrics written by Landy and his girlfriend, Alexandra Morgan. The team stopped communicating through the studio intercom system after it was discovered that Landy's aides were using it to eavesdrop on sessions from another room. Paley remarked, "Anything good we got out of those sessions was done totally on stolen time." Paley indicated that the official writing and production credits for
Brian Wilson are inaccurate. Near the album's release, Landy had fought to be awarded songwriting credits on certain tracks while removing songwriting and production credits from others. According to Paley, the musician, writing, and production credits became "all inaccurate", and he himself remains uncredited for several of the album's tracks.
Recording Brian Wilson was largely recorded at Ground Control Studios in Santa Monica from April to late spring 1987. After Titelman was recruited in June, the album was essentially completed by December. The sessions were held across eleven studios in Los Angeles, New York, Honolulu, and Boston.
Mark Linett was recruited as engineer, a role he ultimately kept for the rest of Wilson's solo records. Critic
David Fricke noted that "the rich, expansive arrangements echo the orchestral radiance of Wilson's spiritual mentor,
Phil Spector."
Synthesizers are a major presence on the album, with Wilson employing samples, sound effects, keyboards, and percussion. Wilson said of his recording process, "I would overdub, I'd play all the keyboard stuff, and then I'd have my right hand, my assistant producer Andy Paley, play the guitar, and bass, and drums–he can play four instruments, piano too. Which is great." Programmer
Michael Bernard was closely involved with some of the tracks. Bernard recalled, "The way [Brian] would go about layering things, his choice of sounds and instrument was different from what I was used to, but it was really interesting to watch him work. Most people put down drums, bass and chords first, but Brian might go from the drums to horns to strings to a lead vocal." Production costs were reported to exceed $1 million (equivalent to $ in ). However, it is unclear if that figure is truly accurate; in a contemporary article, Wilson mentioned that the cost was $800,000, while Paley cited $1 million. Waronker disputed both of those figures, saying that $1 million was "a tremendous overstatement". Titelman blamed the overages on Landy's unusual practices. Writing in his Beach Boys biography,
Timothy White states that "Landy would change studios every few weeks so Brian would not, in the words of one production staff member, 'form any lasting new professional relationships.'" After an extended Christmas holiday, the album was mixed by engineer
Hugh Padgham of
Peter Gabriel and
the Police fame. Landy then remixed the work, although Titelman stated that Waronker prevented Landy from making significant alterations, adding "It pretty much sounds the way the original mix sounded." White reports that a discarded remix, arranged by Landy, had been "heavily accented by strings and other intensely lush touches à la
Murry Wilson".
Brian Wilson took over a year to record – four times the span of time it took to record
Pet Sounds. ==Content==