The following is an interview with Adrian Baker by Brian Mathew, on Round Midnight, Radio 2 on 31st August.
After playing I Get Around (Beach Boys version) BM introduces AB as a British musician who has become a Beach Boy 'albeit in a temporary sort of fashion'.
BM: It's an interesting story how this has come about, Adrian, but how do you feel about it, because you also exist under a number of other names as well as in your own right, don't you?
AB: Well, the Beach Boys... it's a kind of music that I've adored and loved all my life... it's not just the Beach Boys, in fact, it's vocal harmony. Ever since the age of 1 ½ I started to get into vocal harmony, and it's led me to the music business.
Asked about his ability with a number of instruments AB puts it down to his mother who made him learn piano at the age of seven. His mother plays the organ, his father the drums, and they play regularly four nights a week. Adrian, himself says he plays 'basically keyboards, guitar, bass, acoustic guitar' and that his studio took him a year to build - 'a sixteen track'. He says he picked up electronics as he went along, bought a ready made control desk and converted it from eight to sixteen track. Asked about facilities he agrees he could record a small group quite easily, in fact there are three electric pianos at the moment as well as a drumkit. Drum-tracks are done in a garage at the end of the garden to avoid annoying the neighbours.
BM: You've produced a lot of other people on record, haven't you?
AB: Yes, I've produced Liquid Gold, who have had six hits so far... very successful... I play a few of the instruments on the records
BM: And you do the production yourself in your own studio?
AB: Yes, everything I record I do in my own studio. I don't like working in other studios, in my own studio I know what to do to create sounds.
BM: Now then, I think it's really unfair to say to people 'well, we've heard the Beach Boy and now we'll hear Adrian - how close do they sound?', so what we've done is dub off a little section of one of your records and little bit of one of theirs and stuck them together, so we can really get a very close comparison here, and it goes something like this.
(follows, a short section of AB's Fun, Fun, Fun then the original)
BM: Well, you've got to admit it's close. There is a difference, of course, what would you say it was?
AB: The difference? I would say... the fact that The Beach Boys recorded that in 1965, was it? and they all had to stand around one mike and they only had one take... I think it's the slightly out of tune voices that give it that certain character.
BM: Do you not think, too, that you do inevitably get a different characteristic, because on your own record all the voices are yours, and on theirs there are five guys singing.
AB: Yeah, well I take more time over getting my voices right. I think mine has a smoother appearance to it.
BM: Now, how did The Beach Boys get to hear of you, get to hear your product, and ask you to join them?
AB: Well, dare I say it, Roger Scott from Capital Radio is a great friend of Bruce Johnston and about a year ago Roger Scott gave Bruce Johnston the record 'Beach Boy Gold', and Bruce has been sitting on it for about a year wondering how he could get me involved with the Beach Boys. I think the perfect opportunity has arisen where Carl Wilson has gone on tour promoting his solo album, so Bruce phoned me, totally out of the blue, via Roger, and said come out, meet the guys, and it's ended up with my touring with them.
BM: Well, that's really the next part of our story, so lets, before we get into that in detail, listen to your own record which you put out as Gidea Park.
(plays Beach Boy Gold)
BM: You've been out in the States a couple of months now.
AB: Yes, I've just been back a week.
BM: How many dates did you do?
AB: We did 32 shows in all.
BM: What is a Beach Boy date like now, and what kind of reaction do they attract?
AB: It’s fantastic, you would not believe the audiences… I mean the average audience size was about 22,000
BM: Were most of these dates on the West Coast?
AB: No, actually, they were east coast. We did a few west coast, but they go down a storm anywhere in the States. There’s no ‘better’ part of the States to play.
BM: This is astonishing isn’t it? What was the biggest audience you were in front of?
AB: Ah! That was Washington. I think it was a record breaker of 525,000.
BM: The mind can't conceive an audience of that size... (compares it to the Royal Wedding)... can people actually hear, did you get any impression of what the sound system was like?
AB: Well, I think Mike Love tested that, and he said 'How are you doin' to the people right at the back, and they all screamed… they could hear it fine.
BM: Were you already familiar with the Beach Boys repertoire?
AB: Oh yes, actually, you would not believe this but we didn't even have a rehearsal…
BM: Good grief... did you fill in one voice... how did it work?
AB: There were obvious parts to sing with Carl Wilson not being there. I just sort of learnt with each gig we did... they gave me different parts.
BM: Are you going to do some more with them?
AB: Yes, I'm going back in about two weeks time to do a tour of Canada.
BM: What about this business of making records - getting back to your own output now - depends to a large extent on what somebody else has done before. I'm not saying it's a copy because it's rather different from that, but you do take someone elses creation and then do your own thing with it, don't you…
AB: mm..mm..
BM: Don't you feel it in any way kind of frustrating in that it isn't something you devised yourself.
AB: Ah... I still do work on my own material, and I suppose, sadly, I haven't had any success with my own material. If there’s a demand for that kind of record - Beach Boy Gold - it makes sense, if I do it well, to do it.
BM: Oh sure, I didn't offer that in any sense as a criticism. I just wondered how you felt deep down... you know, you really like to do something that was all yours…
AB: I think I will, it's going to happen... I mean in a way with Liquid Gold. I write the songs, I produce them... that's a little bit my baby.
BM: Sure very much so.
AB: Well, very much so, yeah…
BM: Will you, meanwhile, do more Beach Boy type records on your own?
AB: ...Probably…
BM: Especially as you've now toured with them... do they mind? How do they feel about that?
AB: They don't mind, actually they don't mind at all. No, I probably will do that, I shall make.. I hate the word soundalike... make records with vocal-harmony content…
BM: Fair comment. All right, and off with them, probably to Australia in the near future.
AB: Yes, in January.
BM: And when is your next record engagement, or is it already in the can, in which case don't tell us about it.
AB: I have got something in the can, and I'm not going to tell you about it. (laughs..)
BM: I thought that might be the case, OK, thank you very much for joining us and giving us a glimpse of this rather interesting aspect of the record business. We're going to play another one of yours right now, and it's the current Don't Worry Baby.
