It was a cold, gray, overcast day in Arroyo Grande, but Merrell Fankhauser’s sunny surfer style said otherwise as he stepped into his tiki lounge.
Fankhauser still sports the long, white-blond hair he had when he ushered in the 1960s wave of surf music with his song “Wipe Out.” Everything about Fankhauser seems amiable, from his laid-back style to his easy-to-coax grin, still with the small gap between his two front teeth. He seems like the kind of guy who’d happily let you have his wave and let karma sort it out in the long run.
Notes about his current record effort, the re-release of an album called Message to the Universe, rested on a modest desk in his living room. Dozens of photos lined the walls, revealing musicians he’s interviewed on his cable access show The Tiki Lounge and others he’s performed with or met during his earlier recording days.
“You know, many of these people have died,” he said, then he talked about a few of them and paused as if considering how true his initial statement was.
Fankhauser’s walls hold a lot of memories, like playing on stage in Maui with Willie Nelson. Or meeting John Lennon during the infamous Lost Weekend, when Lennon was estranged from Yoko Ono and partying hard along with Harry Nilsson. The duo is known to have been kicked out of several bars for their antics, right around when Nilsson invited Fankhauser to a party.
“He picked me up in a limo, and I get there and look in the corner and see this man and think, ‘That looks like John Lennon. Harry didn’t tell me John Lennon would be here,’” Fankhauser said.
Fankhauser played his song “On Our Way to Hana” for Lennon, who said he liked the song. With the ice officially broken, it was time to get festive.
“I brought some Maui Wowie,” Fankhauser said. “My hair was long enough that I could stick a couple of joints behind my ears, and so I brought them out. I don’t do it now, of course, but I used to grow it on my property in Maui, and I’d fertilize it with mango and papaya so it had this real Juicy Fruit gum taste to it, and so I brought them out. And John, he really liked that.”
These days, Fankhauser is busy making new memories with his recordings. His song “Tomorrow’s Girl” appeared on the Rhino Records CD compilation set “Where the Action is: L.A. Nuggets 1965-1968,” which was nominated for a Grammy in the historical album category—but lost to some previously unreleased work by The Beatles. Still, Fankhauser was happy to be nominated: “To me, it was just really neat to be in a piece of history like his. And then to have it be nominated for a Grammy was really great.”
Another good thing that came from the nomination: Fankhauser was noticed by a London record label.
He signed a six-album deal with Gonzo Records U.K. The first album is called Return to Mu, a concept album about a lost continent. Several artists from the ’60s and ’70s have lent their talent to the effort: John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service; Nicky Hopkins, who played with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones; Dean Torrence of Jan and Dean; John McEuen of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band; and Ed Cassidy and Jay Ferguson of Spirit. The follow-up release will be a Best Of album of Fankhauser’s music from 1964 to the present. The deal also includes a 12-episode DVD set of his Tiki Lounge show.
Fankhauser will also be re-releasing his 1986 album, Message to the Universe: The Alien Rock Suite through Global Recording Artists of San Francisco for the first time on CD. The cover features Fankhauser playing with a space alien band on the island of Maui. The cover was used in the VH1/Doubleday book Alien Rock: The Extraterrestrial Connection.”
The musician also keeps himself busy locally with his band Merrell Fankhauser and Friends, playing events like the Pismo Beach Clam Festival.
He’ll be releasing his own line of electric guitars this summer, and he’s busy helping up-and-coming artists get their start through his own label, Ocean Records, an experience he said is as rewarding as his own success.
“It’s a good feeling to help someone get a start,” he explained. “I know what it takes and what a struggle it is to even get people to listen to your music. So it’s good to be able to help someone through that.”
Arts Editor Shelly Cone will leave a message for the universe after the beep. Send comments to scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 24-31, 2011.