The Beach Boys are a band.
The Beach Boys are an American rock band formed in Hawthorne , California , in 1961 . The Beach Boys began as a garage band managed by the Wilsons ' father Murry , with Brian 's increasingly sophisticated songwriting and recording abilities dominating their creative direction . In 1966 , the Pet Sounds album and `` Good Vibrations '' single vaulted the group to the top level of rock innovators and established the band as symbols of the nascent counterculture era . Even though Wilson and Jardine have not performed with Love and Johnston 's band since their one-off 2012 reunion tour , they remain a part of the Beach Boys ' corporation , Brother Records Inc. . The Beach Boys are one of the most critically acclaimed , commercially successful , and widely influential bands of all time .