How Ferris State Helped Give Birth to the Beach Boys

When you think of Ferris State University in Big Rapids, the first thing that comes to mind is surfing, right?

Well, maybe not. It’s probably football or pharmacy school, both of which Ferris State is excellent at.

But here’s a Ferris fact you probably didn’t know: One of the original Beach Boys not only went to Ferris State, he also got involved in a folk group at Ferris State that helped lay the foundation for the Beach Boys. Surf’s up!

Al Jardine was one of the founding members of the Beach Boys back in 1961, along with brothers Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson, and their cousin, Mike Love. But right before he helped create the band, Jardine spent three semesters at Ferris State (which was then known as Ferris Institute), with the goal of becoming a dentist. And one of his experiences at Ferris helped lay the foundation for the Beach Boys.

Jardine had grown up in California, attending Hawthorne High School along with Brian Wilson, but in 1960, Al’s dad, Donald Jardine, got a job at Ferris as an instructor in the visual reproduction program. Al decided to follow his dad to Michigan to enroll at Ferris, which had a great pre-dentistry program.

His goal was to become a dentist, but Jardine had also gotten bit by the music bug, so he formed a three-man group with two other Ferris students, Don Schultz and Ken Grunst. They called themselves The Islanders. Al and Ken played guitar, and Don played the banjo.

“I started a little folk group with these guys (and) we sang Kingston Trio records,” Jardine told the Big Rapids Pioneer in 2012. “We played once in the commissary where all the students ate.”

The Islanders were basically just a college trio that played at bars and frat houses around Big Rapids, but the experience of being in that group was a profound one for Jardine. In an interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, Jardine said that being in the group with his two college buddies gave him the confidence that he could sing harmonies and make it all sound good.

When he moved back to California in 1961 after his three semesters at Ferris, he reconnected with Brian Wilson and said he wanted to start a new band.

“Because of my Islanders experience, I was pretty good with harmony and stuff like that,” Jardine said. “He said, ‘Okay, come on over to my place. I'll introduce you to my brothers and my cousin (Mike Love) sings really good – he has a real bass voice, and my little brother plays a guitar.’ That’s how it started, just by the experience I had had earlier with my own band.”

So in addition to winning four of the last five national championships in Division II football, Ferris State can also lay claim to having a hand in helping start the Beach Boys. Be true to your school, indeed!

Jardine kept in touch with his Islanders bandmates through the years. Ken Grunst moved to Virginia and became a guitarmaker, while Don Schultz went to Alaska and became a pharmacist and the most acclaimed banjo player in the state.

When Schultz passed away in 2011, it noted in his obituary that Jardine had asked him to join the Beach Boys when the group first started. “Doc said no because he promised his beloved mother he would finish college,” it said.

As for Jardine’s time at Ferris, he has fond memories of the community and the school, but not the cold.

“I almost froze to death going to biology lab,” he said in 2012. “Seven in the morning, it was 30 below zero and I didn’t have the right clothes because I had just come in from California. I didn’t know if I would make it. I was really burly and (in) pretty tough condition, you know, because I had played football. I didn’t know if I could make it to the lab.”

He wasn’t a fan of the weather, but everything else was great.

“I loved that area,” he said. “It was beautiful. And I made the dean’s list, I might add. I was trying to impress my dad.”

Jardine returned to California in early summer 1961, and in September of that year, the Beach Boys cut their first demo record, “Surfin’.” Within three years, they were appearing on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and had become one of the most popular bands in the world. It’s been a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ride ever since.

Jardine has been in and out of the Beach Boys through the years and has made countless trips back to Michigan to perform, both with the group and as a solo act. I got to see them at Detroit’s Olympia Stadium in 1977, and it was the best $7.50 I’ve ever spent.

Jardine is still going strong at 83, and he currently tours with a group called Al Jardine and the Pet Sounds Band. They have a full slate of concerts set for this summer, but none in Michigan (the closest ones are in Illinois and Wisconsin).

If he ever makes it back to Big Rapids, he’ll see that the campus has changed quite a bit since its days as Ferris Institute. A lot more buildings, a lot more football trophies, but still a lot of kids freezing their butts off going to biology lab.