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The Weird Afterlife of The Zombies · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always, so
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our super producer,
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  Speaker 1: Max the Madman Williams.
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  Speaker 2: What, what, what?
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  Speaker 3: It's going to be great to have you back with
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  Speaker 3: me again. You know, kiss and make up and it'll
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  Speaker 3: be just fine.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Sorry, I have a zombie's head, man. I'm a zombie's head.
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  Speaker 2: I don't mean the Halloween kind. I'm not going to lie, Ben.
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  Speaker 3: When I saw the headline of this particular ridiculous history
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  Speaker 3: research brief, you're Ben, by the way, and I'm Noel,
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  Speaker 3: about the zombies' weird afterlife, I, of course, assumed that
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  Speaker 3: we were going to be talking about, you know, spooky zombies.
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  Speaker 4: I am Ben Bullen. You are Noel Brown. This does not.
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  Speaker 1: Result in a podcast made by three living, non-undead entities.
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  Speaker 1: And I think I had the same quick cognitive double
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  Speaker 1: take that you experienced there, Noel. But I've got to
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  Speaker 1: tell you, we did a great episode on several episodes
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  Speaker 1: on the idea of the undead or zombies.
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  Speaker 4: A while back.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, and we, you know, Ben, and that was a
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  Speaker 3: Ren Fair special, the zombie episode about zombie zombies and
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  Speaker 3: the whole voodoo of it all and the film industry
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  Speaker 3: and the, you know, what we, what came to lead
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  Speaker 3: to the George Romero Walking Dead style zombies that we
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  Speaker 3: know and love today. But this one comes to us
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  Speaker 3: from one of our brand new researchers. And while it
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  Speaker 3: has to do with the zombies, these zombies are British.
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  Speaker 4: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: Painfully so, folks. And with great thanks to our research associate,
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  Speaker 1: Natalia Winkleman, we are going to learn about the weird
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  Speaker 1: afterlife of the band, The Zombies. I don't know about
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  Speaker 1: you guys, but growing up around our fair metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia,
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  Speaker 1: I was lucky enough to catch an amazing oldies radio
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  Speaker 1: station called Fox 97.
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  Speaker 4: Did you guys have that growing up?
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  Speaker 3: I didn't, Ben, but one thing I did realize in
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  Speaker 3: doing a little traveling as I've gotten older is a
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  Speaker 3: lot of those oldies stations repackage the same jingles.
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  Speaker 2: Like mine growing up was oldies, 93, nine.
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  Speaker 3: And then it would say Augusta and I don't know
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  Speaker 3: how it works or how the system of Jingledom works,
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  Speaker 3: but I've heard that exact same jingle repackaged with different
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  Speaker 3: call letters, and it may well have been used by
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  Speaker 3: your hometown oldie station.
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  Speaker 2: What was it, Ben? The Fox?
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  Speaker 1: Fox 97. What I loved about Fox 97 was this,
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  Speaker 1: you know, like so many radio stations, the DJs had
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  Speaker 1: their favorites and their go-tos, but for someone who was
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  Speaker 1: not rocking around back in the 50s and 60s, this
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  Speaker 1: was like a time machine. You were able to hear
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  Speaker 1: these hits from yesteryear. So I didn't know growing up
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  Speaker 1: that a lot of the bands I was listening to
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  Speaker 1: had long since disbanded or the people who were singing
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  Speaker 1: had long since passed away. I thought the zombies were
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  Speaker 1: a current band. And my parents just let me believe
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  Speaker 1: that for a long time.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Ben, I did a little bit of math.
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  Speaker 3: It's probably not very good math, as I am, you know,
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  Speaker 3: want to perform good math. But 1969, you know, in
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  Speaker 3: terms of what we would consider, you and I have
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  Speaker 3: considered oldies growing up. Now that equivalent would be like,
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  Speaker 3: you know, 1999.
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  Speaker 1: Shout out to Prince, or the artist formerly known as.
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  Speaker 1: There's something crazy Natalia hipped us to, folks. which is
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  Speaker 1: that the zombies had a song hit number three on
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  Speaker 1: the big old billboard charts in 1969. However, this occurred
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  Speaker 1: two years after the band broke up in 1967. It's crazy, man.
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  Speaker 3: And it's a really neat story for multiple reasons, because
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  Speaker 3: you love to see an underdog story and also this
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  Speaker 3: whole idea of fake zombies.
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  Speaker 2: What does that even mean?
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  Speaker 3: Well, we're going to get to it as we dive
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  Speaker 3: into this particularly ridiculous chapter of music history, and a
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  Speaker 3: little more broadly, the once common practice of treating bands
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  Speaker 3: like a concept that I think we both love, the
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  Speaker 3: ship of thesis. At what point, when you replace enough
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  Speaker 3: original members of a band, is that band still that band?
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  Speaker 2: Like, let's talk about the Beach Boys.
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  Speaker 3: I just saw a video today of Mike Love propped
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  Speaker 3: up Weekend at Bernie style in a chair. Basically, I
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  Speaker 3: don't know if he's even singing, but he's just surrounded
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  Speaker 3: by a bunch of young dudes. So is that still
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  Speaker 3: the Beach Boys, especially after we've lost Brian Wilson?
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to say no.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and some of, Mike Love's interviews have not aged
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  Speaker 1: that well either. But before we beach the boys, let's
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  Speaker 1: wake up the zombies here. Their origin story, put quickly,
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  Speaker 1: is the following. The group we call the zombies forms
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  Speaker 1: in Hertfordshire, England in 1961. They're in a little city
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  Speaker 1: called St.
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  Speaker 4: Albans.
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  Speaker 1: It's about 20 miles north of London proper, and the
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  Speaker 1: band members, when they first get together, they're around 16
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  Speaker 1: years old. This makes sense. It's a tale as old
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  Speaker 1: as time. You're a teenager, you've got an instrument, a dream,
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  Speaker 1: and at least one parent who will let you wreck
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  Speaker 1: their garage.
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  Speaker 3: Totally, and this is like the earliest days of that
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  Speaker 3: kind of thing, if you think about it. Like, I mean,
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  Speaker 3: the availability of the electric guitar was incredibly new. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: that was only really something that came about in the
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  Speaker 3: late 50s and early 60s. And they were affordable. And
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  Speaker 3: you could pick up a real cheap Silvertone one that was,
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  Speaker 3: I think, if I'm not mistaken, made by Kmart or
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  Speaker 3: another such big box store. And that was the case
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  Speaker 3: in what you might call suburbs of England. And it's
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  Speaker 3: something that led to a lot of these British invasion
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  Speaker 3: type bands that we know and love today.
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  Speaker 2: And I just go ahead and say it right now.
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  Speaker 2: I watched this recently on a plane.
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  Speaker 3: And I highly recommend if anyone's interested in a little
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  Speaker 3: more of a visual account of the story we're going
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  Speaker 3: to tell today, check out the documentary hung up on
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  Speaker 3: a dream about the zombies, which is a zombies documentary
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  Speaker 3: kind of, and then talks about a lot of the
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  Speaker 3: things we're going to hit on today with a lot
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  Speaker 3: of excellent archival footage and interviews with the band members,
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  Speaker 3: most of which are still alive today.
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  Speaker 1: And, It may surprise you to hear that many of
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  Speaker 1: these band members are still alive. It reminds me of
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  Speaker 1: how startled I was to learn that the band Goblin
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  Speaker 1: was not only still around, but regularly performing. And I'm
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  Speaker 1: so sad I missed their show.
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  Speaker 3: Did we talk about this when we were on the road, Ben?
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  Speaker 3: I talked about it with somebody. Maybe it wasn't us,
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  Speaker 3: because I think I talked about it with my friend Eric,
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  Speaker 3: who I stayed with for a bit in New York
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  Speaker 3: after our cruise.
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  Speaker 2: They must have just played.
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  Speaker 3: Because I definitely saw them years ago doing a similar tour,
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  Speaker 3: and they are quite old. But if anyone isn't familiar
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  Speaker 3: with Goblin, they are responsible for a lot of Italo
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  Speaker 3: disco horror soundtracks from the likes of Dario Argento.
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  Speaker 1: And with the zombies, our origin story will immediately begin
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  Speaker 1: with two guys who again, teenagers, right? One is Rod Argent,
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  Speaker 1: who will later become the keyboardist of the zombies, and
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  Speaker 1: his pal, another guy, Colin Blundstone, they meet up outside
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  Speaker 1: of the local pub. And because of their age, they
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  Speaker 1: aren't old enough to go inside the pub. There's a
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  Speaker 1: later interview with Blundstone where he says, I was literally
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  Speaker 1: in a corner singing to myself, doing a Ricky Nelson song,
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  Speaker 1: and Rod came over and said, hey, that's really good.
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  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, if you be the lead singer,
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  Speaker 1: I'll play keyboards.
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  Speaker 3: I love that because it's not dissimilar to a lot
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  Speaker 3: of origin stories of these like British Invasion, well, American
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  Speaker 3: bands too, but like just, it was a matter of, availability,
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  Speaker 3: like who was around, who could learn how to play
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  Speaker 3: the thing, who had the best voice. It wasn't some
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  Speaker 3: like mystical meeting of the minds that was overthought and,
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  Speaker 3: you know, overworked in any way. A lot of these stories,
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  Speaker 3: the Beatles included, involved just people that like went to
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  Speaker 3: primary school together and just picked up guitars in their
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  Speaker 3: little small towns and then ended up moving on to
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  Speaker 3: bigger and better things, especially as the world of this
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  Speaker 3: kind of, you know, rock music was kind of becoming
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  Speaker 3: a lot more popular.
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  Speaker 2: This is called getting in on the ground floor, right?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And, you know, you probably run into this with your
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  Speaker 1: own friends from childhood or your teenage years. A lot
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  Speaker 1: of your friendships are actually based on proximity.
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  Speaker 2: That's exactly what I was going to say. Exactly. Very
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  Speaker 2: well put.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, because you hang with the people that you can
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  Speaker 1: meet without needing a car. So Argent, our keyboardist again,
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  Speaker 1: he introduces our guy Blundstone to a guitarist named Paul
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  Speaker 1: Atkinson and a drummer named Hugh Grundy. I don't know
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  Speaker 1: if he's a relation to Solomon Grundy. They later add
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  Speaker 1: a guy named Paul Arnold to the mix, and they
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  Speaker 1: have here a delightful mix uh description of their quest
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  Speaker 1: to get a band name yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Very important very important first step even before you start
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  Speaker 3: making a single note playing a single note uh he
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  Speaker 3: said blunt stone every young band wants an original name
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  Speaker 3: we were just in our teens so we tried the
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  Speaker 3: mustangs uh if i'm not mistaken obviously that was probably
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  Speaker 3: a maybe that was a popular car at this point
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  Speaker 3: but it was definitely an early fender guitar that was
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  Speaker 3: called a fender mustang that was the Well, it was
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  Speaker 3: a combination of a Mustang and a Jaguar that Kurt
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  Speaker 3: Cobain played, but I digress. The Mustang was a popular model,
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  Speaker 3: and I'm not sure about the history. You might know, Ben,
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  Speaker 3: when did the Mustang become a popular car? Was that
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  Speaker 3: more in the 60s, like the mid-60s?
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  Speaker 1: It first came out in 1964, so at this point,
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  Speaker 1: it would have been one of those more popular aspirational cars.
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  Speaker 2: Makes sense.
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  Speaker 1: If you were a kid growing up where these kids
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  Speaker 1: grew up, You almost definitely did not have a Mustang
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  Speaker 1: of your own, but you would know what it was,
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  Speaker 1: and you probably would have a poster.
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  Speaker 3: If I'm not mistaken, I think I remember this from
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  Speaker 3: the documentary, they tried the Mustangs, he said. I'm pretty
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  Speaker 3: sure the name was right. To your point, Ben, if
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  Speaker 3: that was an aspirational car, cool guy, sort of piece of,
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  Speaker 3: you know, kit, probably there were multiple Mustangs, you know,
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  Speaker 3: throughout the countryside. Arnold then came up with the zombies.
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  Speaker 3: I love this quote from Blundstone. To be honest, I
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  Speaker 3: didn't even really know what a zombie was. Right. Right. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I hadn't certainly hadn't taken on the the pop culture
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  Speaker 3: cachet that it has today.
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  Speaker 4: No, no, nowhere near at that point.
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  Speaker 1: We were still sort of codifying our pantheon of monsters
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  Speaker 1: in Western canon. So it's a great name. It's interesting, right?
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  Speaker 1: It's going to grab people's attention. And unfortunately, the guy
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  Speaker 1: who coins the name ends up leaving the band. He's
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  Speaker 1: kind of like Pete Best at this point. Arnold leaves
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  Speaker 1: the band. After he comes up with the name, he's
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  Speaker 1: replaced by a guy named Chris White. So 1964, again,
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  Speaker 1: the same year the Mustang debuts, the zombies debut as well.
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  Speaker 1: They release an absolute banger called She's Not There. Let
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  Speaker 1: me tell you about the way she looked.
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  Speaker 2: That's the way she looks.
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  Speaker 3: The way she dances.
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  Speaker 2: Is the color of her hair. It's like, you know
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  Speaker 2: what's funny though, Ben?
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  Speaker 3: It actually has kind of a Monster Mash-y quality to it.
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  Speaker 2: Like the zombies, it's such an evocative name.
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  Speaker 3: Because of course it is easy to think about like
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  Speaker 3: a song like the Monster Mash or the spooky thing.
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  Speaker 3: But that one does have this spooky organ. It's like
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  Speaker 3: this like Farfisa organ kind of thing. And folks who
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  Speaker 3: have seen the Kill Bill episode, may remember this song
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  Speaker 3: was pretty interestingly remixed for the very important pivotal sequence
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: in the end of part two, when the bride and
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  Speaker 3: Bill meet. There's a really cool sequence where this song
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  Speaker 3: is used to great effect.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and She's Not There leans heavily on complex harmonies.
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  Speaker 1: It's bluesy, it's melodic. It also has a lot of
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  Speaker 1: keyboard or organ in it because it's written by our keyboardist, Argent.
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  Speaker 1: It's a hit, and their first album, Begin Here, is
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  Speaker 1: released the next year in 1965. They're off to a
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  Speaker 1: wonderful start. They're touring the Americas. They're on the second
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  Speaker 1: wave of the British invasion that was started by the Beatles.
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  Speaker 1: They were as famous as BTS is now.
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  Speaker 2: I guess.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe, maybe close, maybe not quite as famous, at
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  Speaker 3: least over here, but they were, uh, making some waves
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  Speaker 3: because boy, oh boy. I mean, there were bands like
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  Speaker 3: that now just seem like a footnote. I think the zombies, uh,
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  Speaker 3: gets a little more, um, love and some of these,
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  Speaker 3: but like bands like Herman's hermits, you know, and like, uh,
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  Speaker 3: I don't know. There, there were tons of you and
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  Speaker 3: the mysterious.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly.
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  Speaker 3: Cause tons of these little flash in the pan kind
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  Speaker 3: of almost borderline novelty, uh, British invasion acts that aren't
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  Speaker 3: really remember the turtles who I think we love as well.
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  Speaker 2: Uh, he might've been American.
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  Speaker 3: No, there's no way, but they did happy together of course. Um,
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  Speaker 3: but there were a lot of, a lot of the
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  Speaker 3: bands of the thing bands, you know, the Beatles kind.
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  Speaker 2: Of kick, kick that off. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And also folks, just to, just to stay honest here, um,
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  Speaker 1: Q and the Mysterians were not British. I'm just thinking
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  Speaker 1: of the bands from the 1960s. I think they're actually
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  Speaker 1: from Michigan. So shout out to Max Williams there. So
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  Speaker 1: these guys are doing a great job. They're living life
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  Speaker 1: high on the hog. They're also very young to be
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  Speaker 1: rock stars. It's 1967, and lo and behold, it is
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  Speaker 1: time for our boys to record their second album.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, and really quickly, Ben, the Turtles were absolutely from
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  Speaker 3: the United States. They were from Los Angeles, which absolutely
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  Speaker 3: adopted a lot of the British Invasion kind of sound
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  Speaker 3: and sort of became its own thing. A lot of
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: that echoes in the canyon. I can't remember the name
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: of the canyon. But like some of the also ran,
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: I literally just Googled also ran British Invasion bands. You
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: got the Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, Jerry and the Pacemakers.
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  Speaker 3: That goes well with the naming convention of that band
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  Speaker 3: that you mentioned, Ben, which would have been perfectly at
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  Speaker 3: home in this list. the Spencer Davis group, the Yardbirds,
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  Speaker 3: the Hollies. Some of these were kind of one-hit wonders.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: The Trogs, who had the smash hit Wild Thing, but
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  Speaker 3: then not much else.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the zombies are existing in this same milieu.
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  Speaker 1: If we go back to Blundstone and we hear the
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  Speaker 1: story of how their second album came together, it's kind
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  Speaker 1: of funny. It reminds me of sneaking around and doing
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: kind of off-the-book stuff at our old office job. Blundstone says,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: They somehow managed to get into Abbey Road, the infamous
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Abbey Road Studios. Normally, this was reserved for EMI artists.
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  Speaker 1: It was very expensive. They had to get in and
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: out quickly. They actually borrowed John Lennon's Mellotron and got
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: through this recording gig by avoiding the studio's employees. And
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  Speaker 1: they were trying to cram all the time in in
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the most efficient way as possible.
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  Speaker 3: They did a lot of live takes. It was definitely
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: trying to be, like you said, Ben, as efficient as possible.
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  Speaker 3: Fun story about the employees. They, I guess infamously you
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: could say, wore lab coats and they treated the place
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  Speaker 3: almost like.
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  Speaker 2: A laboratory facility.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: It was the cutting edge of recording technology. EMI, the label,
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  Speaker 3: also actually made a lot of the equipment specifically for
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: or the equipment was made for the studio.
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  Speaker 2: And so that stuff is really, really sought after.
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  Speaker 3: And there are like audio plug ins that like copy
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  Speaker 3: a lot of the pieces of hardware equipment that EMI
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  Speaker 3: made for Abbey Road. But she had like bands like
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  Speaker 3: Pink Floyd that would record there, like just, you know,
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  Speaker 3: the biggest of the big British bands worldwide. would record
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  Speaker 3: in Abbey Road, and John Lennon's Mellotron is probably a
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  Speaker 3: fixture there. It's probably the one that he used when
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  Speaker 3: they made, like, Strawberry Fields.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, he probably kept it there, and they were borrowing
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: it with hard air quotes. They might not have asked
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  Speaker 1: Johnny themselves. They did manage to record this LP. They
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  Speaker 1: released two singles from it. Unfortunately, both of those singles flop,
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  Speaker 1: and the band has been going through some inner turmoil.
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  Speaker 1: Blundstone is talking about this too. He says they had
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  Speaker 1: a very rough period.
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  Speaker 4: They had been touring the.
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  Speaker 1: Far East where they got very badly ripped off. And
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  Speaker 1: then he says, quote, there were some quite scary things
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: that happened to us there. End quote.
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  Speaker 4: We don't know exactly what those were, but it sounds unpleasant.
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  Speaker 2: They tell some stories about that period in the documentary,
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Hung Up on a Dream, that I was talking about.
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  Speaker 3: And largely it had to do with um, borderline being
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: held hostage by promoters where they were like, I almost
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  Speaker 3: liked them. I want to say it was something along
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: the lines of like the promoters wouldn't give them their
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: passports back. And they kind of were like, you know,
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: siphoning money off of the top. And these guys were
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: getting paid pennies on the dollar. And, uh, but that
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: was also happening in, in the, in the States and
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: even in the UK, like these guys were successful in
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: a lot of these younger bands, uh, were blowing up
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: what they call the hit parade. But much like even
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: in America, I just heard an interview with Lance Bass
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: from NSYNC.
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: I was thinking that went viral.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Dude, $ 35 a day. $ 35 a day per DM.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: They made a shitload of money for the labels and
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: for the promoters and that horrible Perlman, Lou Perlman guy.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: But these young guys, similar to the boy band model
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: that we're talking about with bands like NSYNC, They were
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: living on the road, sleeping rough, you know? Splitting rooms
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: at the Holiday Inn, that kind of level. If they
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: had rooms at all. They would be living in rented vehicles, exactly. Yeah.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: So, Blundstone is having a day-to-day life that is in
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: sharp contrast to the image that a lot of the
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: fans are assuming. He says, the guys came back to England.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: They saw a single had been released in their absence.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: It was a cover of of a song called Going
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Out of My Head by Little Anthony and the Imperials,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: and he says everybody in the band hated the song,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: the mix was atrocious, so they broke up with their producer,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: and because of all those horrible things that happened when
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: they were touring the Far East, they broke up with
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: their agent, so suddenly they had no agent, no manager,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: no producer, and they said, what gives? There's not a
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: lot of interest in our band.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean, they're kind of approaching that level
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: of diminishing returns where they've put all this like you
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: know heart and soul into making these records I mean
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: Odyssey and Oracle is one of my favorite albums of
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: all time and it is a beautiful baroque piece of
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: work and now it's looked at as a masterpiece but
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: back when it came out Like you said, Ben, both
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: singles flopped.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: It was an absolute, you know, more or less commercial disaster.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: And it started from some, you know, like the whole
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: story behind it is fascinating because the title of the
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: album actually came from a misprint or a misspelling, rather,
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: in the art that was created for it. It's spelled,
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Odyssey is spelled incorrectly. I believe it's spelled like O-D-E-S-S-E-Y
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: as opposed to O-D-Y-E-Y.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: S-S-E-Y, isn't that right?
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: So imagine insult upon injury here. You have the album title,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: you like the cover, but you don't have your agent,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: you no longer have your producer, and even your graphic
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: designer is not up to snuff. Your graphic designer has
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: misspelled Odyssey with an E where that first Y should be.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: But I like it because it's a cool play on words.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: And they said, all right, we're going to keep it.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: We're going to call it A Journey Through Songs. But
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: if you look at other sources, aside from the co-founders
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: in their interviews, you'll see other people saying that the
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: band was so stressed out and having such a bad
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: time that they actually did not notice the misspelling and
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: may have made up that story to rationalize it.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: After the fact i can't remember i think it's addressed
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: in the documentary as well um but i don't i
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: think i think the idea is that that whole misspelling
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: they didn't care enough to fix it isn't true i
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: think if they had wanted to they probably could have
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: gotten it redone but they were just sort of like
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: that's actually kind of cool um and it is it
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: is kind of cool um so as we were saying
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: the album came out in 67 uh really didn't make
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: any noise at all uh the band had actually because
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: of a lot of these factors, broken up before the
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: album even came out because they just felt like there was,
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: like you said, Ben, the interest in the band had
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: kind of waned.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: And, you know, again, they're very young kids. They've traveled
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: the world. It's fair enough for them to say, hey, guys,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: good hustle. We had a go at it on to
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: adult life. But that's not what happened. Because, as you know,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: if you're a fellow music nerd, folks, at this time,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: an album would not release across the world on the
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: same day and date. So the album comes out in
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the UK in 1967. The band has already broken up
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: and said their goodbyes. But the album hits the United
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: States in 1968 entirely by chance.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a guy from the band Blood, Sweat &
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: Tears who had become, I want to say, an executive
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: at CBS, or a producer. He was an album producer.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: Because a lot of the record producers were not freelance.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: They would be hired guns for these different record labels.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: And he really liked the album, and he was able to,
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: I believe, get a distribution deal through CBS. And it
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: was a different lead single over here.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: It was Time of the Season.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: Whereas, if I'm not mistaken, the first single from the
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: British version was the first song.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: On the album, which is like, Good morning to you,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: I hope you're feeling better, baby. It's called Care of
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Cell 44.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: And it's kind of an intense song because it's this
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: jaunty little Britpop bop that is someone writing to their
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: lover or their loved one who is about to get
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: out of prison. and very kind of upbeat. And it's
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: a wonderful song with incredible harmonies. But y'all, if you
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: know The Zombies, it's probably time of the season you know. Like,
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: what's your name? Who's your daddy?
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: The little, ah!
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, it is evocative and absolutely phenomenal. And to
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: your point, Ben, it sounds like a modern, it sounds modern.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: I love it. In so many ways, it really does,
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: especially given what an influence a song like that had
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: on a lot of bands that are big now.
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: So it's not the first single. But it's 1969 when
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Time of the Season becomes a hit in the United States. Technically,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: that's two years after it was released originally. And Blundstone
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: himself has always found it interesting that people say 1969
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: was the summer of love and that Odyssey and Oracle
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: epitomizes this period because it was recorded two years prior
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: to the fact. So the same way that the name
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: The Zombies was chosen before there was ever some sort
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: of overarching zombie culture, Odyssey and Oracle was recorded before
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the Summer of Love that it came to characterize.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: Well, timing is everything, man, because it's like, you know,
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: the most recent Paul Thomas Anderson movie, One Battle After Another,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: he'd been writing and working on and workshopping for, I
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: want to say, like 20 years. And it comes out,
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: and it just feels like a film of our time
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: and describing directly what's going on with all of the
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: controversy around immigration and like internment camps and, you know,
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: the craziness within the government and a lot of the
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: just really gnarly rhetoric.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: And that's how things work sometimes.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: You'll have like a record that drops that just feels
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: like it was made to describe the time, but it
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: turns out it's kind of a coincidence in the way
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: events sort of align and people sort of impart their
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: own meanings.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: And another quick historical pickle for the long-suffering members of
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: the Zombies here, they had no idea that the song
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: was a massive success in the States. They were broken up.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Their quartet, as Stephen King would have said, had left
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: for separate directions. Two of the musicians were writing music
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: for other projects. The other three, including Blundstone, got day jobs.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: And he has this anecdote about about how he ended
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: up working at an insurance agency for almost a year,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: and he said, I didn't feel like it was my
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: great calling or vocation or anything. It's just that I
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: had to get a job. I didn't have a choice.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: Well, it's so easy to take for granted how, to
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: your point, Ben, releases happen instantaneously worldwide. When it comes
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: to music, everything's streaming immediately. Everyone has access to everything
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: all the time. which can lead to kind of decision
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: fatigue in a way, and things just don't feel as
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: special anymore. But back then, it's like, if something dropped
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: in America, it would have a totally different trajectory in
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: the UK and vice versa, having to do with what
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: DJs decided to pick it up. There was no grand
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: scheme of like, you know, the Illuminati of the music
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: industry deciding what was going to get big. It was
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: a lot more based on happenstance.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: And also, this was far before the era of what
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: we would call social media. So even if you say
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: you were a fan of the zombies in the United States,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: the odds are high that you haven't ever met them.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: You may not have ever seen a show. You just
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: love time of the season because it's been playing on
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: the radio constantly and other unethical groups.
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: Took advantage of this.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: There's a management company in 1969 called Delta Promotions. Natalia,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: I want to point out that your drug jokes are awesome.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Natalia ultimately teaches us that Delta, whose story is very
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: fuzzy and sketchy, managed not one, but two entirely fake
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: versions of the zombies. Other groups, they played instruments They
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: toured around the United States, Delta promotions raked in the cash,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: but none of them were the zombies themselves.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: Some of them were.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Like blues guys, but whatever they were playing was sometimes
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: not even close to the actual sound of the zombies.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: But audiences didn't know that, so they just paid their
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: money for the ticket and got to say, wow, I
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: can't believe I saw the zombies live. They sound way
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: different than they do on their records.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: No, it's certainly not.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: And I think a lot of folks maybe assumed that
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: the band were not a live performing band. That was
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: really common back then. The Beatles did do their famous
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: tour of the United States and, you know, Ed Sullivan
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: show and all that. But then once they really started
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: getting into their super psychedelic period, they didn't play live
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: like at all.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: And that was not uncommon.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're not calling the audience gullible or knuckleheads.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: They just didn't know what the score was. The first
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: imposter band was called the Texas Zombies. And even, it's
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: so weird, we've got a quote for you here, folks,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: but it's so weird how even the members of these
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: so-called imposter bands were getting the rug pulled over their eyes.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: And this is one of the members of that iteration
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: of the Fake Zombies Recall. As far as the zombies,
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: I was told they didn't exist, that they were only
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: a studio sound. I was just excited and flattered. I'd
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: only been playing for a few years, and the other
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: guys were pro-level at that point. I didn't look at
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: it as anything more than a chance to have some fun,
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: hang out with some cool guys, learn some songs, go
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: somewhere outside of this hillbillyville, and earn a little money.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: And that is coming to us from an article by
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Daniel Ralston for BuzzFeed, The True Story of the Fake Zombies,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: The Strangest Con in Rock History. So, Daniel, Delta Promotions
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: asked these Texas zombies to go on a short tour
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: as yet another band. They're a less successful band that
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: also recently broke up. They're called The Rose Garden. They
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: were a folk rock quintet from L.A., and they had
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: a 1967 Top 20 hit called Next Plane to London.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: That's the only song the fake band bothered learning. The
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: rest of their set was perfect. pretty much generic blues.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: So audiences were so hungry for live music that they
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: just didn't really think to question it. They were just like,
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: don't look a gift band in the mouth. So the
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: fake Rose Garden, despite the fact that the real Rose
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: Garden had a female lead singer, Diana DeRose, And this
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Rose Garden duplicate or doppelganger act had a male lead singer.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: DeRose was from West Virginia, but reportedly claimed that she
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: was from Blackpool, England. And even fact checking stuff like
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: that wasn't a particular priority in this era. And one
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: of the great drug jokes that Natalia made is the
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: fact that when there were women rock journalists writing about
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: these types of bands and interviewing people that had gone
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: to the concerts, it was all kind of a drugged
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: out game of telephone. Very difficult to fact check just
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: about anything when everyone was all looted up, zooted and looted.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and nobody was confronting the fake Rose Garden that
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: would later become the fake zombies about this. People asked,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: people started asking, hey, where's your female lead singer? And
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: they would say, oh, you know, She's somewhere else. And
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: they got they got their jimmies about them because they
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: realized they could get away with this. As you said,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: no audiences were just so thirsty for live music. So
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: the fake Rose Garden slash fake zombies decide to tour
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: without a keyboard player for their gigs where they pretend
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: to be the zombies and the zombies die. music is
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: pretty keyboard heavy.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and they had a really funny fake backstory that
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: maybe added a little bit to the mystique, the idea
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: that their keyboard player got busted in Dallas and was
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: rotting in a jail cell somewhere. So Delta seemed to
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: have a pretty good handle on this fraudulent band business model.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: The concert promoters in most cities knew what they were
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: in on the scam. They knew they were getting fake
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: versions of these bands, but obviously they could get them
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: for a lot cheaper, and people were still paying for tickets.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: They operated as independent entities, with each taking a huge
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: percentage of the money earned. So a very similarly, I
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: don't know, advantage-taking model to what was going on with
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: the real zombies. Even these fake zombies were also getting
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: taken for a ride. Yeah, because they were really getting extorted.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Since what could they do, right? Because if they tried
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: to get a more fair deal from these different venues,
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: all those venues had to do was threaten to expose them.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: And that's where we see one of the fake zombie members,
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: people like Mark Ramsey, say, you know, we were getting swindled.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: The audience was getting swindled. The fans would leave disappointed.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: The band would leave town as quickly as possible. They
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: were like traveling con artists for a while. But oh, yeah.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Skip in town. Right. Right. Before people came after them with,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: you know, pitchforks.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: And this is just the first fake zombies band. The
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: second fake zombies band is what we can call the
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Michigan zombies.
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: These folks were actually really, really good.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: Right. And to be clear, Ben, I'm pretty sure we're
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: on the same page here. We're just using the shorthand
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: for like they were just billed as the zombies. It
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: wasn't like it was the Texas zombies, the Michigan zombies
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: on the on the billboard or the posters. It was
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: just right.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were called the the first one was called
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: the original zombies.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So therein lies the grift.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: And it is funny because this does sort of predict
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: the future of like really elaborate tribute acts, which is
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: not illegal, obviously.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: I do sometimes wonder, and I used to run sound
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: at a venue.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: That hosted a lot of tribute acts, how that works
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: in terms of royalties.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: I've always wondered.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: I imagine a lot of the lesser known ones fly
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: under the radar, but I guess if you're like the
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: biggest Kiss cover band in the world, like Kiss Army,
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: maybe you are having to kick back a little bit
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: to Kiss, especially since we know a lot of those
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: Kiss guys are pretty litigious.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Gene Simmons runs a financial empire that happens to also
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: play music.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: And is, uh, by all accounts, I'll see it a
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: real piece of work.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Uh-huh. No, not, not, not, not a good dude.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: Um, so most of the time Delta would claim to
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: the whole ship of thesis argument or question that their
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: touring zombies did have one original member, um, which gave
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: them a little air of credibility. Yeah.
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: And this is where we go to Chris White, one
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: of the Zombies, actual, I'll call them. He remembers the
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: time a local radio promoter reached out to him and said, hey,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: the zombies are apparently coming to tour my city. And
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: White said, well, they're not the real zombies because we
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: are and we're here. The promoter said, well, I don't know.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: You might be the fake zombies. How do I know
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: you're really Chris White? And this was enough of an impetus,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: enough of a feather on the camel's back of misidentification
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: that For the original zombies to say, okay, we have
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: to go back, we have to get the band back
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: together literally and do a third album if only to
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: establish that we are who we are and are in
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: fact alive.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: For sure, but it didn't take off right away.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: They made an album that they would consider or what
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: you could consider like a proof of life album called R.I.P.,
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: which is clever considering the zombies of it all. It
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: didn't get released in the UK until the 2000s, like
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: until 2010. It was also a difficult task to reform
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: the band because some of those guys, like you said,
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: had kind of gone straight. They were working, you know,
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: square jobs and maybe didn't really have any interest in
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: doing this.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: So they had to be convinced.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and their reunion did, by the way, ultimately fail,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: and they abandoned the recording session, which is part of
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: the reason RIP doesn't come out until so much later
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: in the game. And this teaches us another lesson, because
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Delta and companies like them are getting backlash from bands
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: whose identities it had stolen, right? And they could only
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: do this grift, like a Ponzi scheme, up to a
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: certain point. They eventually realized they could no longer keep
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: up this grand charade, which I like to pronounce that way.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: The beginning of the end comes when a fake version
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: of the animals, also created by Delta, get confronted by
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: the founder of the actual animals, a guy who still
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: fascinates me named Eric Burden. He's got a bit of
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: an ego, does Eric, so he doesn't take well to impersonators.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: He sure does.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: And by the way, there's a really great publication called
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: Far Out Magazine out of the U.K., And they have
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: a really cool article called Delta Promotions, the company responsible
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: for a string of fake bands. So Delta was not
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: only ripping off the zombies, they were ripping off other
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: bands like The Animals, other bands like The Archies, and
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: a handful of others. So they were taking advantage of
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: that sort of live music scarcity and the fact that
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: a lot of these bands maybe were more studio creations.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: And because there wasn't that instantaneous cancel culture kind of
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: ability for people to call this stuff out.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: On the internet.
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: It's not really the same thing as cancel culture, but
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: you see what I'm saying. They were able to pull
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: this off for a lot longer than you certainly would
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: be able to get.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Away with today.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: And one version of this that is sort of contemporary
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: is a band doing this themselves.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you know the band Death Grips.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: They did a thing for a while.
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: They considered, you know, they're all about these like elaborate
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: kind of performance art kind of things where they even like,
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: I think they, They took all the money that the
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: label fronted them for the promotion of this album that
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: they made called No Love Deep Web. And they spent
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: it all on a lavish, like, you know, staying at
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles and making videos from
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: inside of it.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: And then they leaked the album themselves.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: But they also would often hire fake musicians to go
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: on tour as themselves and play music.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Impersonating Death Grips.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: They would also even do stuff where they would have
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: shows set up where the equipment would just be set
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: up on stage and then no one would ever come
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: on stage.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: My favorite version of this is the legendary MF Doom
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: for any hip hop fans. You're probably already aware, folks,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: that MF Doom became notorious over the course of his
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: career for booking himself for so many shows that it'd
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: be impossible for him to go to all of them.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: and then sending his own hand-picked impersonators with an MF
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Doom mask to perform. Just absolutely legendary. He never did
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: the thing, though, that Eric Burden did when Eric Burden
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: confronted the fake animals. He went to that fake animal
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: show with a baseball bat, and apparently he got a
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: bunch of his biker gang friends to dance chase the
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: fake animals around and physically threaten them into no longer performing.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: And so Delta, in a way, is kind of like
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: those studios who do those purposeful ripoffs of blockbuster movies.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: So instead of the Terminator, you'd have the Eradicator at
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: your local blockbuster or something.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Mockbusters. Mockbusters.
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: Thank you. Perfect.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Delta Promotions is doing that with music. They dissolve and
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: the bands that are in their ill-gotten roster disappear. Our
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Texas Zombies go home to Dallas. A few of them
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: get together and later form a little band called ZZ Top.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: That is so cool. You guys know ZZ Top, the beardies,
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: the beard guys.
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: The beardies and the one guy on the drums.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: The one guy on the drums. Does he not have
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: a beard as well? I guess maybe you're right.
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: He has, but he doesn't have a wizard beard.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: It's not his wizard. He would get caught in the sticks.
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: There you go.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: You got to think about the sticks. Congratulations, however, to
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: the real zombies. Despite their trials and travails, they entered
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019, just
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: two years after the 50th anniversary of of Odyssey and Oracle.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: And that is our episode, folks. Thank you so much
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Big thanks to our super producer, Max
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: the Madman Williams.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: Huge thanks once again to our research associate extraordinaire on
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: this one, Natalia Winkleman. Really, really excited to talk about
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: music history. I think the both of us are music
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: nerds in our own rights. Jonathan Strickland, The Quizster, AJ Bahamas, Jacobs,
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: The Puzzler.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: Dr.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Rachel Big Spinach Lance, as well as, of course, the
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Rude Dudes of Ridiculous Crime. If you love us, you'll
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: love them. We can't wait for them to come back
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: on the show very, very soon.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.