Brian Wilson, who died on 11 June 2025, was one of the most creative pop musicians of his generation. He is best known as a singer/song writer in The Beach Boys who was instrumental in creating multiple iconic songs, including Good Vibrations and I Get Around. What is less well known is that he developed schizoaffective disorder when the band was at the height of its success. He reported first hearing auditory hallucinations at 25 years old. This followed a prodromal period characterised by increasing anxiety. He said that the voices plagued him with derogatory comments every few minutes for decades afterwards, and were coupled with depression and paranoia.

It has long been suggested that mental illness can help creativity, which makes it worth considering whether that was the case for him. Wilson co-founded The Beach Boys in 1961 and played a key role in writing, performing and producing their music. From 1961 to 1966, the band had 13 top ten singles in the USA; Wilson wrote or co-wrote almost all of them. This period of high creativity culminated in the album Pet Sounds, released in 1966; Wilson was key in writing and producing it. Pet Sounds has been credited with revolutionising pop music production, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in the 1990s. However, after he developed schizoaffective disorder in 1967, The Beach Boys did not have another US top ten single until 1975, with a cover of a Chuck Berry song, and only one other after 1966 – Kokomo in 1988. Wilson is not credited with writing this and did not have any US top ten singles as a solo artist. He also stopped performing live for a long period after his illness began. By these measures the development of schizoaffective disorder was devastating for his creativity. He did not take any medicine for it until he was in his forties, when he took a combination of an antipsychotic, an anxiolytic and an antidepressant. With treatment, he completed the album he said was his greatest achievement (SMiLE) and began performing live again. Indeed, one of the authors (O.D.H.) enjoyed seeing him perform with The Beach Boys at the UK Glastonbury Festival in 2006. At this time Parkinsonism was evident in his movements and features, presumably linked to the schizoaffective disorder and/or antipsychotic treatment. While this was incongruous alongside the band’s joyful, sunny sound, it did not diminish his performance. Wilson said that medication helped his creativity by providing some relief from the voices. However, the metrics indicate that he was not able to regain the high level of creativity he showed prior to the onset of schizoaffective disorder, contrary to ideas that mental illness can aid creativity. Notwithstanding this, his life is testament to individual resilience and the potential for substantial recovery from schizoaffective disorder with effective treatment. Wilson summed this up in a track from SMiLE, singing ‘I’m fit to ride … in the rough … I’m alright.’