(Credits: Far Out / Gage Skidmore / Press)
Mon 12 January 2026 4:00, UK
The Beach Boys are celebrated as one of the greatest bands of all time, but their songs didn’t come easily.
Look at a track like ‘Good Vibrations’, while we listen to it pretty gleefully, getting the actual track down on wax was a painful process. The band needed to stay in the studio for days, recording and re-recording, tape draped the walls like tinsel at Christmas as they tried to get the right amount of layering down to give the song that unique twang. They got there eventually, but it was a tough process, and something which is often understated.
As such, the idea of taking a Beach Boys song, which is only half complete and turning it into something that does the original band justice is a massive ask for even the most competent of musicians. Well, that’s the position that Taylor Hawkins was put in when he was asked to restore a song that Dennis Wilson had previously started writing.
The pressure would be on regardless, but it was especially a problem for Hawkins, who considered Dennis one of the greatest and most authentic members of the Beach Boys. While other members are often praised as the voice and talent, Dennis is the artist who Hawkins was always most capable of connecting with.
“One of them, Carl, had the voice of an angel, and the other, Brian, is a mad genius,” he said, “But Dennis was the only one who surfed. He was the real Beach Boy. … With all due respect, because they all had their moments, Dennis did the best stuff. There’s no question.”
Dennis used to work with Gregg Jakobson a great deal. After he passed away, Jakobson put together a number of unfinished songs that the two had been working on, and he believed were strong enough to actually be finished. He sent one of these tracks to Hawkins, saying that it was time to finish what Dennis had started.
“Gregg called me,” recalled Hawkins, “And said, ‘We’re doing it. We got the funding and everything’s on. I want you to check out putting some vocals on this unfinished song that was really important to Dennis’.”
Despite the unrelenting pressure the Foo Fighters drummer felt, there was no escaping the fact that he was probably the best person for the job. Given he was such a huge fan of the Beach Boy, he knew the mind of Dennis inside out, and so had no problem putting lyrics on the page. What Dennis had originally written was no good, and so Hawkins used what he knew about the musician in a bid to put together a track that outlined his life, his genius and his struggle. It was called ‘Holy Man’.
It wasn’t just Hawkins who was the only musical legend working on the song, either, but Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor both lent their voices to provide backing vocals. Once again, this is no small task given they’re singing for a band who were so well regarded for their backing vocals and harmonies. “I was a little nervous,” admitted Hawkins, “I was like. ‘Who the f–k am I to do it?’ This stuff is pretty sacred. I didn’t want to piss on his Picasso.”
Jakobson was happy with the way that the track came out. Having a song like ‘Holy Man’ is always going to be difficult because the title promises so much, but he felt as though what the team managed to accomplish was pretty inspiring. “Any song with that title is likely to be contrived or clichéd, and we could never come up with a lyric,” he said. “But Taylor, who’s a big Dennis fan, did a great lyric and vocal; he has that same whisky-smoker-gravelly voice as Dennis. If you’re a purist, yes, it’s strange, but music doesn’t work like that, and nor does life.”
Related Topics