In Her Own Words: Jean Sievers On Managing The Late Great Music Genius Brian Wilson

Brian Wilson, who passed away on June 11 at the age of 82, did nothing less than change the course of contemporary music as we know it. And Jean Sievers for the last 28 years, had the distinct privilege of working with Wilson as his manager, co-manager, co-conservator, publicist and far more in helping him fulfill his genius.

Wilson’s time with the Beach Boys, his prodigious singing, songwriting, arranging and production talents, his withdrawal from the road, mental and physical health struggles, manipulation by outside forces and spectacular Phoenix-like return in the late ’90s are well documented and one of the most poetic narratives in music history.

Significantly, his unlikely return coincided with Beachwood Entertainment Collective’s Sievers coming into Wilson’s orbit. Indeed, under her management stewardship, along with her late partners, manager/publicist Ronnie Lippin and Wilson’s wife, Melinda Ledbetter Wilson, Brian Wilson spent the last quarter century in his rightful place: actively touring and recording music (including the improbable 2004 release of his lost masterpiece SMiLE) while bringing joy to generations of music fans. Between 1999 and 2022, according to Brian Wilson band member Darian Sahanaja, Wilson played 907 shows, including 823 solo shows and 84 dates with The Beach Boys. Here, in her own words, Sievers discusses how she came to manage Wilson, the formation of his touring band, incredible dinners at Musso and Frank’s, Pet Sounds’ recent return to the charts, unreleased projects and that time when she was simultaneously dealing with Brian Wilson, the Queen of England and Prince.

IN THE BEGINNING
I started working with Brian in 1997. I had just left American and was working for Rick Rubin. We’d all gotten laid off. There was a record company called Revolution under Giant Records and I got a job working with Missy Worth. Marc Geiger, who worked at American, put me up for the job with Missy. I got the job and was head of PR for Revolution. I worked with some really great people there who are still dear, dear friends, Buddy Deal, who’s worked for Hollywood Records forever. There’s a ton of people and we’re all still close.

Irving Azoff had signed Brian with Jeff Aldridge A&R’ing the project. I started working the Imagination album. I was the sole person doing PR and brought in Ronnie Lippin, who was Eric Clapton’s publicist, and we ended up doing it together. When Giant was folded into Warner Bros, I went to work with Ronnie at the Lippin Group doing PR and brought Brian over.

BECOMING HIS CO-MANAGER
We ended up being partners. We were kind of doing everything anyway, so Ronnie and I started managing him with Melinda (Ledbetter Wilson), his wife. That was when, pretty much right away, he started doing live performances again and it was very new. He hadn’t done a lot. It started from there.

With somebody like Brian, there is so much to do. You had to travel with him. We were basically taking this person who hadn’t put out any new music in years and years. He had done Orange Crate Art (1995), which was a collaboration with Van Dyke Parks. And then there was the infamous 1988 album that had Dr. Eugene Landy all over it. That was complicated, but there was some great work. There was all this work he did with Andy Paley, which is going to come out finally. He had just gotten married to Melinda and they had just adopted a daughter. There was just a lot going on. We were already doing the work, so Ronnie and I just went to them and said, “You know what? If we’re going to do this, let’s really do it.” So we organically became partners with them and it worked out.

GETTING THE BAND TOGETHER
At the time, Mike Love was doing the Beach Boys with Carl (Wilson). When I started working with Brian, Carl had just passed in 1998 and obviously that was a big loss to the Beach Boys. Mike had the license, so he continued to do the Beach Boys and Brian was doing little bits of touring here and there. He’d met this group of musicians called The Wondermints (including Darian Sahanaja, Probyn Gregory, Nick Walusko and Mike D’Amico) who were all Brian Wilson fanatics. They could dissect everything he had ever done. Then Joe Thomas, a producer on Imagination, knew some guys out of Chicago, so we had Paul Mertens of Poi Dog Pondering, he’s brilliant. It was just this mishmash of musicians that knew what they were doing when it came to this incredibly complicated material. To do it live is complicated. It’s one thing to go out and do “Fun, Fun, Fun” but it’s another thing when you’re doing Pet Sounds.

The first live thing we did was Live at the Roxy (2000), which was fun. And we’re going to reissue that album. That was people hearing Brian live with this band, which was literally the first thing we did, and they sounded great.

PERFORMING SMiLE IN LONDON
In the beginning, we were doing these dates and we did some overseas. We had Neil Warnock out of the UK. He was brilliant in us launching SMiLE. It was Neil Warnock and Steve Martin at The Agency Group. That’s when we did SMiLE. We were with David Levine and Peter Grosslight at William Morris. And then we had David Levine and David was a big fan. I love David. He now represents the Beach Boys, and he represents Carnie and Wendy Wilson as well. So he stayed in the family.

At one point we took everything in-house with The Agency Group because we wanted more corporates. It was Neil who went to Glenn Max at the Royal Festival Hall and talked about SMiLE. So we announced this “SMiLE Tour” in England before Brian had even finished the album. He had been working on the album, but was like, “O.K., I’ll do it.” And we did this big announcement. Then we came home and it was like, “Okay…” He gathered the band, and they had to get to work. It was scary for him because it was this music that he had put away for so many years.

Glenn Max was the brainchild behind the Royal Festival Hall and it was really quite brilliant. I want to say it was six nights. We filmed it. Which we haven’t released yet, and we’ve had it for all these years and we still have that entire first show, those shows that no one’s ever seen.

There’s been clips of it in a couple of documentaries, but no one’s ever seen it and we’re definitely working on releasing that because it’s historic. McCartney was there, George Martin, you name it. Everybody came to witness that. If you ever watched “Beautiful Dreamer,” David Leaf’s documentary, that outlines what happened during those six sold out nights in London.

BRIAN WILSON, PRINCE & THE QUEEN
And then we toured it. It was very successful. It was like this weight lifted off Brian’s shoulders. He was so scared going into it. He had this amazing band and the Stockholm Strings and Horns toured with us. It did it justice. And then we came back. That was probably in 2003 or 2004 because I remember we were working with Prince at the same time. He was doing 12 nights at the Staples Center. We were doing his PR. That was a wild couple of months, because it was like Ronnie flew out to England for a show and I stayed back with Prince. And then the next one, I flew out. And then The Queen invited Brian to perform at her 50th Jubilee. There was only like two or three Americans in that whole thing. He got to play at all these places that were just remarkable and he really started enjoying it. So as time went on, he started making more albums and we kept touring.

PET SOUNDS FOREVER
After that, we dove into Pet Sounds. All these anniversaries were coming up. And Brian’s touring audience, not that we didn’t have the older Beach Boys fans with the shirts, but we also had all these young people, teens, 20s, 30s, the hipsters, the musicologists. It was a very hip crowd. And when we played Pet Sounds people were taking their kids, their young children. We would have entire bands show up, guys that are in bands. We’d have professors bringing their students. And then we’d have the regular Beach Boys fans that go to Mike’s show, which is a great show.

But they went to hear Pet Sounds by Brian because that’s his baby, right? And also some of his other solo stuff and his interpretations. We would do a deeper dive into the catalog and pull out these other Beach Boys songs that nobody had ever heard live. That was a really big thing with the band and Brian loved that. The band would go to Brian and say, “What do you think of this? Can we do the ‘The Night Was So Young’? Can we do ‘Long Promised Road’? Can we do Dennis songs like ‘Forever’?” And Brian would really pick and choose and be like, “Yes, yes.”And they would work it up and they would do a great job. A lot of stuff off the ’70s albums.

We were always a little bit more obscure. We toured Pet Sounds for years. I mean, we could still be touring it now. Today I got an email from Iconic Artists Group, who have been a great partner with The Beach Boys, where Pet Sounds right now is back on the charts, the Billboard charts. It’s like at No. 100 or something which it hadn’t been since 1966.

PLEASE SIT DOWN:
I wanted to tell you this one thing that happened when we were touring Pet Sounds, and we toured it so many times, like the fans wanted it. So our agents would come back and be like, “They want Pet Sounds again.” I think we did two different tours of Smile globally. And then we did, I don’t know, maybe four different tours of Pet Sounds. I don’t know. You’d have to ask the agents. And that was globally, too. And then we would do these festivals, like all the hipster festivals we did Pet Sounds at Pitchfork and Primavera. All of these people who probably didn’t speak English, they knew every word that sounds. Every single word.

But Clint Boire, he was our sound guy, and he was on the road with us forever. When he would do “God Only Knows” at any of our shows, we would always get a standing ovation every time and it would go on forever and ever. And Brian would get frustrated, and he would say, “Thank you. Thank you. Okay, please sit down.” He would tell the audience to sit down. And Clint and our crew made these black t-shirts. And on the front, it says, “God only knows” in the lettering. And on the back, it says, “Please sit down.” And those were just like shirts that we made for the I mean, they’re genius. And like my husband wore one after Brian died last week, my husband wore his on his walk or wherever he was going, and somebody’s like commented on it. Wow. It’s kind of like the cruise prize possession. But that’s how he was. You know He’s like, “Thank you for the applause, but I just want to get through the show.” You know what I mean?

TOURING, THE CREW, BURGERS, SNICKERS & CITY WALKS

Brian Wilson (piano, center) with his band Gary Griffin, Darian Sahanaja, Probyn Gregory, Matt Jardine Jim Laspesa, Mike D’amico, Al Jardine, Bob Lizik, Randell Kirsch, Paul Von Mertens perform at The Joint at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas. (Courtesy Beachwood Ent.)

Brian was very well cared for and didn’t do anything he didn’t want to do….He was so funny. He just wanted to be with the guys and tell funny jokes and be on the road. He loved his tour bus. He loved pulling into the venue, and we’d have his big leather chair for him.

He loved the crew. It was like family, the road family that he didn’t really have with the Beach Boys. He stopped touring with the Beach Boys so long ago. They would bring him out every once in a while, but he was home writing songs. But these guys, these crew guys, the band, they turned into a family.

He loved going to all these cities. He loved hotels. He loved room service. He loved the simple things. He loved all the snacks in the rooms. Like, “Oh, my God, there’s a full-size Snicker bar in here.” He would just be stoked. That’s the kind of stuff really made him happy. Ordering a a hamburger and fries and tipping the guy $75. That made him happy..

What really wrecked him was he had this back surgery that did not go well. And once that happened, it was harder.  And he had had a couple of procedures and the last one left him partially paralyzed in one of his legs. So it made the touring much harder. We needed more people to help him and he couldn’t just go take his walks in whatever city we were in.

MUSSO & FRANK‘S

After Melinda died, we would do these dinners at Musso and Frank And it was like Brent (Wilson, director, no relation to Brian) and Jason (Fine, music journalist, Rolling Stone editor)) would kind of started with Cameron Crowe. And then Brent and Cameron and Jason would invite peers. Jim James always came you know because Brian and Jim James from My Morning Jacket they did that track for “Long Promised Road,” (documentary on Brian Wilson directed by Brent Wilson with Jason Fine interviewing him). That film was shortlisted for the Oscars. That song is so SMiLE-esque and Jim and Brian did such a great job on it. And then Robin Pecknold from Fleet Foxes showed up. And then it would be like, “Oh, and there’s Steve Perry” (Journey) And then it’s like, “There’s Gerry Beckley from America.” They were these brilliant dinners.

And Musso and Frank were so wonderful. They would give us this big back room. And like one day, there’s Luke Wilson. Why is Luke Wilson here? Because Cameron was on the phone with him and said, “Hey, do you want to go to this Brian Wilson dinner?” And then all of a sudden he showed up. Brian just wanted to talk to the guys. Even though he had dementia, it was the kind of dementia that affected his physicality, but it didn’t really affect his mind. So he could talk music. And he wanted to hear people talk about their music.

THE TOUR MANAGERS

THE KIND OF PERSON BRIAN WILSO WAS

First of all, he was the sweetest man ever. Like When I got pregnant with my daughter, so that was about 17 years ago and it was back before we had iPhones where you would just have it on your phon, he called my office. It was like a hard line, and he’s like, “Jean, I am happy and honored that you’re going to have a baby. I think it’s great. And have a nice baby.” I mean, he was just hilarious.

I’m not saying we didn’t have conflict. Of course, we did because sometimes we’d be doing the Letterman show or we’d be traveling somewhere doing and he’d not want to do something. And I’d be like, “You have to do it. We flew all the way over here. You agreed to do it. You’re not backing out.” Like any musician, any rock star. “Oh, it’s too late. Why do I have to get up early and do this fucking television show?” All that kind of stuff. So you know we butted heads on stuff like that.

But really, he was incredible. When I would come around, the three things he always asked me up until the last time I saw him. “How’s Todd, my husband, how’s Vivienne, my daughter, and how is Jeff Bridges? (another of Sievers’ clients). Because him and Jeff have this love for each other. They’ve known each other. They’ve been around each other.

At my 40th birthday party, they both came and hung out and Jeff Bridges photographed the whole thing. He took all these pictures of Brian with all of the guests and Jeff was like the photographer. Jeff had just come off of the set of “Iron Man” in Mammoth, the first “Iron Man,” and drove straight to my house for my birthday party. Brian always wanted to know what Jeff was doing, which was super sweet.

And then I would come over and he’d be like, “What do you got for me today? Who am I talking to?” And Lauren, who works with me, who’s been with Brian now for 17 years. I started having her do a lot of this stuff because I was doing other things and management. And he was like, “What do you got for me today? How many? To parse out how many interviews he was doing. But he was always glad I was there. It was comforting to him. And he knew that we would be there to protect him and make sure nobody was going to overstep anything in interviews, make sure he had security going in and out of wherever we were.

We had a really good relationship. He was very happy to have us around, and that makes me feel good. And on the road, had all the band and the crew. and nobody took better care of Brian than the band and the crew on the road. Nobody. They loved him.

Seven days before he died, I had to have a full business conversation with him. And he was like, “Yep. Okay,  Jean  What do we do?” It was funny, the answers, I don’t think I can put it in this article, but the answers he gave me were brilliant and very specific. Brian didn’t have any filters. If I showed up and I didn’t look good, he’d be like, “Jean, you look really tired today.” He just had no filter. So when we would talk business, he was very specific.

A FULL LIFE
It kind of went full circle. He did realize how many people loved him. I think he was happy that he was able to have a second life after Dr. Landy and all of that drama and have friends and make music. Melinda used to always say this, and I know Carnie and Wendy have said this, and I’m sure Marilyn, his first wife, would say this: Out of all of them, all of everything, music was his first love. And everybody knew they were taking a back seat to that. Didn’t matter who you were. It was about music.

When he died, and now we’re seeing these reactions come in, we knew there was going to be big reactions, but it’s way bigger than we ever thought. It’s way more global. When you’ve got grocery stores putting marquees up saying goodbye to Brian; signs on the side of the freeway, like “PET SOUNDS”—one that was outside of the McKenna BMW dealership toff the 5 freeway in Norwalk—then it says “BRIAN,IT WAS NICE”. The Forum had something up, I saw a post with what the Roxy wrote on their marquee. Everybody was just doing it on their own. People were like, “Did you tell people to do this?” I’m like, “No.” Pastors are talking about him in their sermons, we’re hearing it from all over.

It would have killed a normal person to go through what Brian went through. And he just kept coming up. And he used to always say, “I’m strong. My last name is Wilson. It has the word ‘will’ in it, right?” He just kept coming back and coming back. And everybody rooted for him. And they would go to his shows, and they didn’t expect him to run around across the stage. The fact that he played bass on SMiLE or whatever else, people were shocked, but they hung on every word he said and he didn’t say a lot. But when he spoke, they listened. And I don’t think you’re going to find that from a lot of these other guys. He was like the people’s musician, because he suffered so much to give so much music to everybody. Beautiful music.