You don’t need to be a boomer from California with a love for harmony vocals and surfing to be moved by the passing of Brian Wilson.

Even here on the shores of the North Sea, in the circles of nihilistic '90s Scandinavian rock, the death of the man, the myth, the legend hit an emotional nerve.

Why?

Well, like everyone else, we love the music, of course.

But it goes deeper than that. Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys have run like a parallel track alongside our own journey as a band and as musicians for over 30 years—part music history mascot, part inside joke, but also something we truly love.

One place to start is the Pet Sounds pastiche we used as the artwork for our 1996 album Ass Cobra. Back in the early ‘90s, being into Brian Wilson—at that time more of a cult figure—his collaborations with Van Dyke Parks, the abandoned Smile! project, and the radical therapy of Dr. Eugene Landy, all of that held a kind of cachet in our world. It signaled a distinct approach to rock history—as something meaningful, even inspirational—long before that became the norm. It was almost like a secret code, a way to bond over music that brought us closer to a lot of friends over the years—Steve McDonald, Matt Sweeney, Ebbot Lundberg, Pelle Almquist, just to name a few—not to mention a bunch of journalists and industry people.

When we were mixing the Party Animals album in Los Angeles, we were obsessed with those everyday, therapeutic, and kind of childlike songs Brian wrote on albums like Friends and Beach Boys Love You. We even made up our own fake Beach Boys songs in that style, like “Diarrhea on La Brea,” and hummed them constantly during the mixing sessions.

But it wasn’t just Gen X irony or cynicism. During our van tours as a punk band in the ‘90s, the single CDs from the Good Vibrations – 30 Years of the Beach Boys box set were on constant repeat. Our drummer, Chris Summers, developed a deep fandom for the Beach Boys that’s lasted his whole life—he even sang “Let’s Put Our Hearts Together” at his wedding to Anne Mette Hårdnes in 2023.

Euroboy’s instrumental project, Kåre & the Cavemen, was so inspired by Brian Wilson that some tracks were borderline rip-offs—almost covers.

Because the Beach Boys represented something we were fascinated by too, thirty years after the ‘60s, and on the opposite side of the globe: the recording studio as a laboratory for pop music, the California ethos, and narrative and myth as a way to communicate through rock’n’roll.

In 2005, we even met Brian Wilson himself. Backstage at Roskilde Festival, in the catering area. He sat down at our table with what must’ve been a combination personal assistant, rhythm guitarist, and probably harmony vocalist. Brian didn’t say a word the entire meal, but the assistant introduced him as “the world’s fastest eater.”

There are a lot of people who owe Brian Wilson a thank-you—and yeah, even us.