Of the countless interviews that Mike Love has conducted over his 49-plus years in the music industry, I felt it was about time that fans got to know a different side of him.
Beach Boys Examiner: What do you feel is the one thing that fans don't know about you that might surprise them?
Mike Love: I’m known to be kind of a wiseass [laughs]. My sense of humor is kind of like a product of my family upbringing. The Love household had a lot of smartass comments going around the dining room table at dinnertime, so I think that that just became a way of expressing myself that is sometimes sarcastic. That doesn’t mean that I’m saying something to be mean-spirited. I find it humorous, and that’s based on the way I grew up and the way people regard humor. I appreciate that not everybody either has a sense of humor or has the same type of sense of humor. Some people don’t have any…they don’t find anything humorous or fun in life.
When Brian (Wilson) and I did “Cassius Love vs. Sonny Wilson” on The Beach Boys Shut Down Volume 2 album, it was a way to show our different styles of humor. When I attended Dorsey High School I was with a lot of African American kids because I was on the track team and we would put each other down in the spirit of humor. It was really a creative use of sarcasm, and put-downs became an art. It was like Don Rickles in high school with some racial overtones too. It was a way to make fun of each other’s differences and have a good time doing it. So between my family environment and my school environment I kind of developed a cavalier approach to humor. If I sound flippant or sarcastic it’s usually in the interest of something that I found funny…making a joke out of something, etc. But there are certain things that are never going to be funny no matter how funny I think they are…they don’t go over with anybody else [laughing].
I would say that the thing to remember is that I don’t say things in order to be an asshole to people, I say ’em because that’s the way my sense of humor is structured. People should know that on the other hand, I’m very altruistic, a humanitarian and caring…all good things. It’s just that cultural indoctrination of the kind of family and school life that I experienced.
Want to see Mike in concert? Thebeachboys.com
© David M. Beard/All rights reserved
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