Carol Kaye Finally Speaks Up About Brian Wilson

For decades, Carol Kaye remained one of the most respected yet understated figures in American music.

As the iconic bassist behind countless hits of the 1960s and a key member of the legendary session group known as the Wrecking Crew, her fingerprints were all over the sound of a generation.

But among all the artists she worked with—Frank Sinatra, Simon & Garfunkel, the Monkees—it was her time with Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys that left the deepest, most complex mark.

For years, she stayed mostly silent on the subject.

Now, she’s finally speaking up, and what she has to say about Brian Wilson is as surprising as it is revealing.

Carol Kaye first met Brian in the early 1960s, when he was pushing the boundaries of what pop music could be.

Even then, she sensed that Brian was different—not just talented, but obsessed.

During the *Pet Sounds* sessions, which have since become the stuff of musical legend, Kaye played bass on tracks that would redefine pop music forever.

She recalls long hours in the studio, pages of chord changes, and Wilson pacing the room with wild eyes, hearing sounds in his head that no one else could yet understand.

“He was a genius,” she admits.

“But he was also lost in a world no one else could fully enter.”

In her recent reflections, Kaye makes it clear that working with Brian was both exhilarating and exhausting.

His sessions were unlike anything she had done before—endlessly experimental, deeply emotional, and often chaotic.

She describes moments when Brian would stop everything because a single note felt off, or when he’d instruct seasoned musicians to play in strange, counterintuitive ways that later made perfect sense.

“Sometimes we didn’t know what he was after,” she said.

“But then he’d play it back, and it was magic.”

Yet her honesty doesn’t stop at praise.

Carol Kaye also opens up about the darker side of working with Brian.

She saw how his mental health struggles began to deepen, how the pressure from his bandmates and record executives wore him down, and how he grew increasingly isolated, even in a room full of people.

“There were times he looked right through you,” she said.

“Like he was somewhere else entirely.”

She doesn’t romanticize his suffering—she witnessed the toll it took on everyone around him, and she doesn’t hesitate to call out how little support he got when he needed it most.

One of her most poignant admissions is how often Brian was misunderstood—not just by the public or the music industry, but by the very people closest to him.

According to Kaye, there was tension in the studio not just because of the complexity of the music, but because some Beach Boys didn’t believe in what Brian was trying to create.

“He was making art,” she said.

“But they were chasing charts.”

Even with the chaos, Carol says she never doubted his brilliance.

She believes that without Brian Wilson, pop music would never have reached the level of depth and sophistication it did.

And without musicians like her, Brian’s ideas may never have made it out of his head and onto tape.

She describes their collaboration as a kind of unspoken trust—he would challenge them, and they would rise to meet it.

In the end, Carol Kaye’s words about Brian Wilson are not just a tribute, but a reckoning.

She praises him, questions him, and ultimately honors him not just as a musician, but as a fragile, driven, and deeply human soul.

“He made something eternal,” she said.

“And he paid a price for it.”

Now, as time moves forward and the stories of that golden era fade into myth, Kaye’s voice reminds us of the human stories behind the legends.

Her long-held silence wasn’t out of fear or neglect, but perhaps out of respect—for the music, for the pain, and for a man who, despite everything, gave the world something truly unforgettable.