Michael Edward Love (born March 15, 1941) is an American singer and songwriter who is one of the lead vocalists of the Beach Boys which he co-founded with his cousins Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson and their friend Al Jardine.

Characterized by his nasal tenor and occasional bass-baritone singing, Love has been one of the band's vocalists and lyricists for their entire career, contributing to each of their studio albums and serving as their frontman for live performances.

Following Carl Wilson's death in 1998, the band members and their corporation, Brother Records, Inc., granted Love an exclusive license to tour under the Beach Boys' name.

Unsure of a career direction, Love pumped gas and briefly joined his father's company, whose fortunes dramatically declined in the late 1950s.

[4] With the failure of Love Sheet Metal, the family was forced to move to a modest two-bedroom house in Inglewood, closer to the Wilsons.

[5] Love played rudimentary saxophone in the first years of the fledgling garage band that evolved from the Pendletones to the Beach Boys.

[6] He also established himself, along with neighbor Gary Usher,[7] local DJ Roger Christian, and others, as a collaborator with Brian Wilson in the band's original compositions.

[12] That November, Love told a Melody Maker reporter that he and his bandmates wanted to look beyond surf music and avoid living in the past or resting on the band's laurels.

[14] Asked for his favorite Beach Boys album in a 1994 interview, Love responded, "I guess Pet Sounds ... because of the orchestrations and arrangement.

In the description of music journalist Erik Hedegaard, Love gathered a reputation as "one of the biggest assholes in the history of rock & roll" due to such accusations.

"[23] In his 2016 memoir, he wrote that, unlike Brian, he was never concerned about being taken seriously by critics, and felt that detractors of their early songs showed "elitism at its worst: because so many people loved our music, there must be something wrong with it.

"[24] In late 1967, Love became one of the many rock musicians who discovered the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi following the Beatles' public endorsement of his Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique in August 1967.

In December, Love and his bandmates attended a lecture by the Maharishi at a UNICEF Variety Gala in Paris,[25] and were moved by the simplicity and effectiveness of his meditation process as a means to obtaining inner peace.

[26] In January 1968, the Beach Boys attended the Maharishi's public appearances in New York[27] and Cambridge, Massachusetts, after which he invited Love to join the Beatles at his training seminar in Rishikesh in northern India.

[30][31] The tour begun in May 1968 ended abruptly after five shows due to the disappointing audience numbers and the Maharishi's subsequent withdrawal to fulfill film contracts.

At the induction ceremony Love delivered a hostile speech, criticizing McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, and Mick Jagger.

"[16] In 1992, Love, along with Jardine and several Wilson family members, sued Brian for defamation regarding claims made in his 1991 memoir Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story.

[16] Two years later, Love won a legal proceeding to establish what he considered to be proper authorship credit for many of the Beach Boys songs he co-wrote.

[43] After the death of Carl Wilson in 1998, Love continued to tour with the Beach Boys, along with Bruce Johnston and a supporting band of new musicians, occasionally including actor John Stamos.

Some critics accused him of having the film overstate his role in the group and portray negative depictions of Brian and Smile collaborator Van Dyke Parks.

[47][clarification needed] In 2011, Love reunited with Brian, Jardine, Johnston and David Marks for a new Beach Boys album and 50th anniversary tour beginning in 2012.

[48] In September 2012, Love and Johnston announced via a press release that following the end of the reunion tour the Beach Boys would revert to the Love/Johnston lineup, without Brian, Jardine or Marks, all of whom expressed surprise.

[16] Love is a vegetarian who practices Transcendental Meditation, wears Indian Ayurveda rings, and partakes in traditional Hindu ceremonies.

However, a photographed handshake between him and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and his longtime friendship with Donald Trump has led many to label him as a conservative; Love responded that being friendly with someone does not imply endorsing all of that person's opinions.

[56] Notwithstanding the friendly relationship between the Beach Boys and George H. W. Bush for many years, in 1992 the band raised money for the TM-backed Natural Law Party.

[61] In February 2020, Brian Wilson and Jardine's official social media pages encouraged fans to boycott the band's music on animal rights grounds, after it was announced that Love's Beach Boys would perform at a Safari Club International convention in Reno, Nevada.

The concert proceeded despite online protests; Love issued a statement that his group has always supported "freedom of thought and expression as a fundamental tenet of our rights as Americans.

[citation needed] Love personally donated $100,000 to the American Red Cross to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina and helped the foundation raise an additional $250,000.

[69] He performed a benefit concert for the foundation for the Children of the Californias which raised one million dollars to support the expansion of three new surgical suites.

During the 50th Reunion Tour, Love, alongside the Beach Boys, partnered with Operation Smile to raise funds for those in need of cleft lip and palate repair surgeries.