The Beach Boys, led by founding member Mike Love and longtime musician Bruce Johnston, have signed with WME worldwide in all areas.
One of the most famous pop bands of all time with more than 100 million records sold, the group that now tours as The Beach Boys does not include founding songwriter, co-lead vocalist and former bandleader Brian Wilson, who now tours solo and recently headlined the Beachlife Festival in Southern California, nor does it include founding member Al Jardine, who also tours on his own. Founding member Carl Wilson died of cancer in 1998, and fellow founding member Dennis Wilson drowned in 1983.
Love is today the sole licensee of the “Beach Boys” name under a deal he negotiated with the band’s corporate entity, Brother Records Inc., in 1998 requiring him to pay a fee to the label, use only male vocalists and perform shows that feature the band’s most popular songs. In 2012, Brother Records licensed the name to a company called 50 Big Ones owned by Love, Wilson and producer Joe Thomas to use on their 50th reunion tour.
After a final London date on the 2012 tour, Love left to lead a different configuration of the band without Wilson, early member David Marks and Jardine. The founding members have since played together, telling SiriusXM in 2018 that they had mostly resolved their disagreements.
The group was awarded the Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, the same year Love co-wrote The Beach Boys’ No. 1 hit “Kokomo.” The band plays about 150 shows per year. In November 2017, Love released a special double album through BMG titled Unleash the Love with 13 previously unreleased songs and 14 rerecordings of Beach Boys classics.
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter