of the Wilson brothers. Brian told an interviewer, "All I know is he got into a horrible fight with Jack Rieley. Some dispute, and they got into a horrible fight, and the next day Bruce was gone." Dennis Wilson said, "There's less tension since Bruce left. [...] Musically, we didn't click [and] appreciate each other, so one day we both said, 'OK, that's it.' He's a good guy but he was writing stuff for a solo album. [...] We're a band." Mike Love stated, "It was very amicable. The Beach Boys never threw him out. He was just on a tangent that was outside The Beach Boys for so many years." Johnston himself said that he left the band partly due to his unhappiness with Brian's creative withdrawal from the group. Later, in 1974, he said that he departed because he "didn't want to go on singing oldies for the rest of my life" and was "too frustrated being [considered as] a fifth of something – what was what I was with the Beach Boys." Solo career and return to the Beach Boys Although he was no longer an official member of the band, Johnston continued to make occasional appearances on their albums from the mid-1970s. Concurrently, he embarked on a solo career. In 1977, he released his third solo album Going Public, which included among its tracks Johnston's own recording of "I Write the Songs" as well as a disco remake of his 1970 Beach Boys song "Deirdre". Johnston would also score a hit off the album on the disco charts with a dance-oriented remake of the Chantays' hit "Pipeline" after the recording was popularized by Manhattan-based underground DJ David Mancuso. At the end of 1978, Johnston rejoined the Beach Boys at Brian Wilson's request to appear on (and co-produce) the album L.A. (Light Album). The following year he was credited as sole producer on the follow-up LP, Keepin' the Summer Alive. Johnston has remained with the Beach Boys ever since and was the only member to continue touring with Mike Love as the Beach Boys after the death of Carl Wilson. Biographer Peter Ames Carlin approached Johnston during the writing of the 2006 book Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. However, Johnston was reluctant to be interviewed and only offered a few comments via e-mail. According to Carlin, Johnston remarked