He still gets around

You talked in your autobiography about rock 'n' roll having the ability to liberate the soul. Is that still the mission of music for you?

Yeah. I'm living for my solo career right now. I don't have any intention of going back to the Beach Boys. I like where I'm at; I like the concert the way it is.

You've been using a whole orchestra, which must be incredibly complicated to deal with, especially since you're notorious for not liking the stage much.

I don't have to deal with it. I love it. The conductor tells them what to do and it's just a bigger sound, more sweet and lush. We have a theremin player onstage and he's fantastic. Wooweee [imitates the sound], it's a weird sound. It's really a thrill.

Are you writing right now?

I'm trying.

Are you collaborating with anyone?

I'm writing alone now. It's more appropriate for the time. I'm in my own space.

Could you talk about some of the ways you approach songwriting today vs. when you first started?

The biggest difference is that then I was writing to get No. 1 records. I was writing to get hit songs. I had a No. 1 record complex in my head and I'd go to the piano with a little bit of a competitive feeling in my chest, and I would lean down into the piano and put everything I had into it. That's the way I used to write. Now I write on a much less energetic scale; I don't have as much total energy as I used to, so I take it slower and it takes longer to write a song. I think even if it could be a No. 1 song, it probably wouldn't be anyway because everything is so different now.

You mention in the book a sense of your own mortality, of reckoning with getting older. How do you feel now when you see 18- and 20-year-olds onstage?

I feel jealous.

Why?

Because I'm in my 50s. I don't know -- I just am. These young people have so much energy and I'm just jealous.

But don't you sacrifice youth for experience and wisdom?

I've never had anyone tell me that! I always looked at the downside of being older; I never saw the upside.

I always believed that when people go through all the shit that someone like you has, it opens up their capacity for the good stuff, too. Do you believe that?

It takes a lot of courage. When you're on your ass and you're looking up like that, it's hard to manage to get back up there. It takes a lot of willpower and a lot of courage and inner strength to get yourself back into it.

Do you feel like you have a larger capacity for joy since that's happened?

Actually, yes. What's really given me some joy is my tour. It was raining in Birmingham, Ala., totally raining, when we did the concert. The rain just stopped right before we did the concert. We thought we were going to get rained out. And then when we got to Atlanta, Ga., it was foggy, pouring down rain the whole time. People had umbrellas and the people that didn't have umbrellas got just soaked. It was almost funny. And they were just there, all wet, shivering, and they stayed for the concert.

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