Carl Wilson and Steve Levine in the studio, 1984.
“Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys is exploring Red Bus Studio One, and his reaction is like that of Woody Allen awakening to the future in Sleeper. Wilson strums a chord on the Roland G-707 guitar synthesizer, pushes a button, strums again, and ejaculates (‘Wow’). He switches to a Yamaha DX1 digital synthesizer, playing a delicate two-bar melody and adding different effects (‘Gosh!’). An engineer suggests another setting, and the result astonishes Carl further (‘Golly!’). The man who was involved in some of the most ground-breaking production techniques in rock history is speechless, except for a few wholesomely Californian interjections. He looks around the electric sandbox-cum-recording studio and shakes his head. ‘The technology in this room is really quite amazing,’ he finally exclaims. [...] ‘We’re gonna get a real fresh energy on it,’ Carl Wilson says of the album, ‘not just redo a tune written from some other time.’ He is polite and relaxed, almost to the point of seeming distracted or absent-minded. It is not surprising that Carl is in the studio before the rest of the band, given his well-publicized attempts to get the band off of the nostalgia circuit. ‘The guys just weren’t into recording at that time, so I went ahead and did a couple solo albums. It’s an old story and everybody knows it, so you don’t need to go into it,’ he laughs.” - Musician (November 1984)
