PEOPLE MAGAZINE: DECEMBER 10, 2012

By Kevin O'Donnell

Photographs by Peter Yang

(Click on photos to view large versions)

One hour before the Beach Boys performed their final U.S. show for their 50th-anniversary tour in July, the band was backstage with family and friends at Harveys Lake Tahoe in Stateline, Nev., fueling up on catering and happily slipping margaritas. But frontman Brian Wilson didn't seem to be in much of a celebratory mood. After snacking on a cookie and picking at a steak ("It's tough," he said quickly), the legendary songwriter ambled up to the stage. There he sat in a plastic folding chair, closed his eyes and meditated. "I get really nervous before I go up on stage," he explained later. "But once [we start playing] and I hear the band start to sing everything is cool."

The fact that he's even still playing at all is rather remarkable. It's no secret that Wilson, 70, an icon of pop music, has suffered from mental illness for decades. "I feel good," he says. "I really do feel good these days." In fact with his band celebrating a hallmark anniversary, the critically hailed album That's Why God Made The Radio earlier this year and their new Greatest Hits: Fifty Big Ones, Wilson is happily nostalgic. "This whole year," eh says, "has been very emotional and – what do you call the word? – sentimental."

He has a lot to look back on. Raised in Hawthorne, Calif., Wilson grew up with an abusive father who also happened to encourage him to pursue music. While in high school, he and his two brothers Carl and Dennis (both now deceased), along with their cousin Mike Love and pal Al Jardine, formed the Beach Boys, breaking through with their first single "Surfin'." With their lush harmonies and sophisticated orchestrations, the group was America's answer to the Beatles, eventually releasing 36 Top 40 hits. "It's been a thrill!" he says of the reunion. "We hadn't been together for a long time."

Wilson's life wasn't always as sunny and cheerful as his Beach Boys classics: In the 70s he was a drug-addicted recluse and eventually tipped the scales at more than 300 lbs. And for years he's been coping with schizoaffective disorder. "On my good days I feel creative, I laugh a lot, I go to my piano and play," says Wilson, who takes medication and occasionally sees a therapist. "Some days I don't feel creative and I don't talk to anybody." His wife of 17 years, Melinda, 66, says some of his biggest challenges come from auditory hallucinations. "He hears voices," she explains. "I can tell if it's good voices or bad voices by the look that comes over his face. For us it's hard to understand, but for him they're very real. I have to bring him back down to reality and say, 'They're not going to hurt you.' And then he'll say, "Yeah, yeah, I got it.'"