Breaking Down Beats || The Beach Boys

The host of Breaking Down Beats, Perry Trouman, interviews special guest Jack about his musical background and influences. They discuss the evolution of music throughout time, with a focus on the influential bands of the 60s, particularly The Beatles and The Beach Boys. Jack explains that while The Beatles are often regarded as the most influential, he believes The Beach Boys had even more influence, especially with their album "Pet Sounds." They also discuss the innovative techniques used in the creation of The Beach Boys' song "Good Vibrations" and how they influenced subsequent artists. Jack expresses his newfound appreciation for The Beach Boys and their often underappreciated contributions to music. The episode concludes with gratitude to the listeners and a reminder to keep listening to music. Welcome back to Breaking Down Beats. I am your host Perry Trouman and today we are joined by special guest Jackson Kruzan. Thanks for having me Perry, you can just call me Jack. Alright Jack, well you're quite the musician yourself. You play the saxophone, electric guitar, and at an incredible level. With playing for many years and you being a musician, you know a decent amount about music throughout generations. Could you say a little bit about yourself so that these listeners can get to know you? Alright, well I mean no need to flaunt my skills. I'm not as good as you may have heard. But you know, I started playing the saxophone back in the 5th grade. You know I started out on that there alto saxophone. And I transitioned to tenor saxophone. From there in about the 7th grade, you know what I was saying, like I thought I'd make some friends. So I started playing guitar man. From there, I've been playing the guitar. Alright, you know some of my favorite bands are like, you know, I'm more into rock, like Metallica, Nirvana, ACDC, you know all those big 80s, 90s genres. But you know, I like me a little bit of country too because you see I am from the South. So yes, Mississippi is big music culture. From Mississippi we've gotten jazz, we've gotten bluegrass, and it's the birthplace of Elvis Presley. So yes, my primary genres are rock and country. That's great. I mean I love rock as well. I mean I'll listen to country. I'm not the biggest fan. I tolerate it. But I'm not going to go out of my way to put it on. I just didn't really grow up listening to it. Yeah, well we can change that. You can listen to a little bit of Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings. Man, I tell you what, you're going to be yeah-ho before you even know it. Anyways, the main thing we're talking about today is influence of music throughout time. Music has changed throughout time drastically. Comparing music from the 60s to today is completely different. Even us comparing the 60s to the 80s, music has evolved just based on the times around them. A range of our listeners said they listened to 70s, 80s, 2000s, and past 2010s to now. But the majority said the 60s. That's for good reason too. The 60s were a very influential time period in music. That's when bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Creams Clearwater Revival, a personal favorite of mine, and many other bands were around. Out of the bands of the 60s, who would you regard as the most influential? Me personally, I'm going to have to go with my boys from England, the ones that inspired a generation of music, Reno and Paul, all of them, The Beatles. That's what everyone's response is when I ask that question. It's always The Beatles. Now, don't get me wrong. The Beatles are incredibly influential and have made some of the greatest songs and albums, but the Beach Boys had way more influence. Not enough people give them credit for the amount of influence they had over music. Well, not enough of the public gives the Beach Boys credit. The creation of the album Pet Sounds is one of the reasons that Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which is regarded as one of the greatest albums ever created, was created. You know, I know a lot of songs by the Beach Boys, but never even thought to regard them as a top influential band. Makes a lot of sense, though. Did they have any specific things that were majorly influential? Well, I'm going to take a quick break real quick, and Jack, I know you're excited for the Army-Navy game, so let's take a quick break to hear about it. Man, let me tell you about this dang old Army-Navy game, man. I tell you what, we got about 12 days before we record this, boy. I tell you, man, decent attempt, man. Get you on down to the Lincoln Pond in Philadelphia, man. We're going to see them boys out there. We're going to see them boys out there beating the hell out of David. Man, I tell you what, we just had the uniforms off today, man. They looking fly, man. I tell you what, man, we're going to be up in there starting that football, man. You're going to be in your long hovers. It's going to be worth it, because, you know, we're going to be cold out there, so that tailtail's going to keep you warm. So go out there and make sure you support Coach Munker. Make sure you support Lieutenant General Steve Gilliam, man. And let me tell you what, y'all going to have a good old time, man. We're going to be down there beating the hell out of David. And then y'all come back to see us in a few weeks, one more week, and then you out there, be there for our Christmas break. All right, man, I tell you what, back to the program. All right, so great hearing about our game coming up. Let's beat the hell out of the Navy. Thank you. Thank you. What was your question again? My question was, I know a lot of songs by the Beach Boys, but, you know, did they have anything specific that was majorly influential? Great question, Jack. And yes, the song Good Vibrations is an incredibly influential piece of music. The song implemented musical composition techniques that had never been used to a degree as sophisticated before. Brian Wilson was a genius musically, other than the fact he kind of went crazy later on in his life, but we can talk about that another time. Believe it or not, that story spirals into the Manson family stuff. Kind of wild, but research that later. But anyways, Brian Wilson was a genius musically. He thought about music in ways that nobody else had. He basically spoke music. He could just understand it in a way that a majority of people couldn't. For a three minute song, what do you think the cost was? For a three minute song? I'd say about, you know, with the popularity of them at the time, I'd say around $20,000, man. It was somewhere between $50,000 and $75,000. $50,000? Holy cow. Yeah, but that three minutes doesn't account for the 90 hours of tape from 17 different recording dates. Also, the band may or may not have been on LSD and marijuana during the process of recording, but we can talk about that another time. Each instrument was recorded separately and layered together. This technique is used a lot now. Learning music is a very common technique, but at the time, it wasn't very popular. The different recording sessions layered and spliced together created a beautiful sequence of tempo changes and chord changes. On the song, you can even hear cue changes from one studio recording session to another. Man, that is actually amazing. You know, the effort that went into this song is just immense. You know, I've played instruments for a long time, and I can't imagine taking 90 hours of stuff that I record and condensing it down to three minutes. I mean, you don't even need to know music at all to know how crazy that is. That's like over three and a half days straight of just recording. Just to cut it down to a three minute song? Three minutes? That shows the dedication. Who exactly did they influence? Well, it's kind of a chain reaction of influence. Artists and bands that exist nowadays don't really directly draw from the Beach Boys, but they draw from techniques that they popularized and are influenced by the people who were influenced by them. The Beach Boys influenced the Beatles, who in turn influenced artists and bands such as Nirvana, which they led on to influence the whole rock genre. The chain of influences led to Queen, and Queen, they've influenced so many people, but never would have had its wide range of influence if the seed was never planted originally by the Beach Boys. That makes a lot of sense. And while they may not have been the direct influence, they are the ones who started that chain effect. Are there any people who came before them that, you know, influenced them? Oh, absolutely. Of course. There's always someone who influenced someone else. People like Chuck Berry. Oh my god, I love Chuck Berry, man, I tell you what. Oh boy, Chuck Berry, Chuck Berry. You know, he plays that Gibson ES-335, that's a $6,000 guitar. But I tell you, as soon as I get out of this academy and start getting that sweet LT peg, I'm going to be buying me one of those Chuck Berry guitars, man. Cherry red, oh yes. Yeah, so people like Chuck Berry influenced the Beach Boys. While they drew a lot of influence from other people, nobody else really had an innovative way of making music like they did. Like I said, the creation of Good Vibrations was unlike anything that came before. You know, personally, I think I need to listen to the Beach Boys more now. I mean, how can such an influential band go so unnoticed? You know, actually, I believe I did hear a song recently, they have a Christmas song. Man, Beach Boys. Yeah, I mean, that's a crazy thing. Bet Sounds, which is regarded as one of the best albums ever made, didn't get any recognition at first. Brian Wilson, he set out to create the best album ever made, but it basically flopped right when it came out and he fell into a terrible depression. Oh wow, that is horrible. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. While the Beach Boys' current works are appreciated today, they weren't as much back then. Even when people ended up drawing from their techniques. Drawing techniques, but not appreciating the original uses of them. Man, there's probably even more bands out there like that that we just don't even know about. I mean, I can tell you what, I'd definitely drop in their approaches to music because I like layering my sounds too. Sometimes I'll play my saxophone a little bit, hop on the drums, record that, hop on my guitar, start playing everything over each other. To think that that dates back to the Beach Boys, that's just wild. Yeah, I mean, definitely. I'd love to hear something out sometime. Maybe we can get this on the podcast, bring it back another time. We should probably start bringing this episode to a close. You've been great here today. Oh, I know I have. Once again, thanks for joining in on the podcast, Jack. Alright, it was a pleasure to be here, Perry. And I tell you what, man, look forward to being on more podcasts. See you at Army Navy. And to all the listeners, thank you for tuning in to Breaking Down Beats with me, your host, Perry Trowman. I hope you learned something today. Keep listening to music and have a fantastic day. Oh, yeah.