Beach Boys announce reunion tour

Los Angeles - Iconic 1960s Californian band the Beach Boys are reuniting to celebrate their 50th anniversary with a new album and a 50-date world tour next year, the group announced.

The original members of the band whose hits include Good Vibrations and Surfin' USA - who fuelled reunion talk when they recently re-recorded Do it Again - had already been in the studio working on songs for the new album.

They will perform at the annual Grammy awards show in Los Angeles in February, before launching their tour in New Orleans in April, they said in a statement on their website.

"This anniversary is special to me because I miss the boys and it will be a thrill for me to make a new record and be on stage with them again," said core band member Brian Wilson, announcing the reunion on their website.

Fact of life

Mike Love, a founder member of the band with his three cousins Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson, said the idea came when they got together to re-record Do It Again at Capitol Records, the label which launched them five decades ago.

"Brian and I wrote that song which went to number 1 in Great Britain, Australia and elsewhere some 44 years ago. Brian paid me a compliment saying, 'How can a guy sound that great so many years later?'

"Later on, while working out some harmonies on a new song Brian had written, I got a chance to return the compliment.

And he said: "Music has been the unifying and harmonising fact of life in our family since childhood. It has been a huge blessing that we have been able to share with the world.

"Wouldn't It Be Nice to Do It Again? Absolutely!"

Solo career

The band, famous for their close vocal harmonies, was formed in 1961 by the three Wilson brothers, Love and friend Al Jardine, while Bruce Johnston and David Marks, who joined later, will also be part of the reunion.

Their 1966 album Pet Sounds is widely seen as one of the most influential rock records of all time, and their other hits include Wouldn't it be Nice?, Barbara Ann, California Girls and God Only Knows.

But while making increasingly pioneering music the band, wracked by drug-taking and musical differences, never regained the peak of their 1960s heydey, while money wrangles also exacerbated their divisions.

However, group leader and chief song writer Brian Wilson's recovery and launch of a solo career since the late 1980s has fuelled talk of a reunion, which had looked increasingly likely since their re-recording of Do It Again.

There were widespread rumours that they would reunite to perform at the Grammys nomination show on November 30, but the plans were apparently postponed at the last minute.

Now they plan to play at the Grammys awards show itself, in the Staples Centre on February 12 - and fans could be in for a treat, according to one band member.

"There will be a surprise at the Grammys," Jardine told Rolling Stone magazine. "We'll do something really exciting. There's a lot of interest in it, which is nice. It's going to be a very big operation."

As well as the new album and tour, the Beach Boys will also issue a number of commemorative releases during 2012, including a new hits collection and a career-spanning box set.

"It's no exaggeration to say that The Beach Boys are one of the greatest and most loved bands that the world has ever produced, and true American icons," said Roger Faxon, CEO of EMI Group.

"I can't wait to see the band back together doing what they do better than anyone else."