6. Brian Wilson Was Taking Too Many Drugs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OgTeInrUNM Brian Wilson once claimed that he wrote the famous riff of California Girls during his first acid trip. That was in early 1965, but a year later his drug use was starting to have less positive effects. To prepare for the writing and recording of SMiLE he bought $2,000 worth of marijuana, and a hefty batch of LSD. This was on top of the amphetamines he had been prescribed and took every day.
A Playboy article about the author Thomas Pynchon gives an insight into the chaos that this drug intake created around Brian. Meeting for the first time, Pynchon was so dumb-struck by Brians repeated and failed attempts to light an oil lamp fashioned from a parking meter that they never talked. Later they tried to go the studio where SMiLE was being recorded but were refused entry because one of Pynchons friends was a witch and f***ing with Brians head so heavy by ESP that he couldnt work. As the pressures of the album grew, so did the drug taking, and before long, instead of continuing work on SMiLE, Brian would rather spend days in bed, smoking cannabis and eating candy.