Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / The Zombies: Rise, Fall & Resurrection [Episode 265]

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The Zombies: Rise, Fall & Resurrection [Episode 265] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: We're totally bummed rock and roll.
0:04
Speaker 2: I think I'll leave you. You're reading little hands this,
0:06
Speaker 2: It's time to rock and roll, Roll up.
0:09
Speaker 1: I totally booked. Welcome back to Booked on Rock, the
0:17
Speaker 1: podcast for those about to read and rock on our
0:20
Speaker 1: Accenter's fund. The podcast online at bookdown rock dot com
0:24
Speaker 1: and you can listen wherever you get your favorite podcasts. iHeartRadio, Spotify, Spreaker, Apple,
0:29
Speaker 1: and if you like what you hear, make sure you
0:31
Speaker 1: give the podcast a five star review that gets it
0:34
Speaker 1: out to more people. So much appreciated if you do.
0:36
Speaker 1: And for those who already have, author Robin Plattz tells
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Speaker 1: the story of the Zombies in this episode. How they
0:43
Speaker 1: got their name, their fertuitous record deal, their iconic Odyssey
0:47
Speaker 1: and Oracle album and why it was misspelled, The creation
0:51
Speaker 1: of the timeless classic Time of the Season, their breakup
0:54
Speaker 1: Imposter Bands, and their two thousand and four reunion. A
0:59
Speaker 1: playlist of the zomb in this episode show notes. Robin
1:04
Speaker 1: Plattz is the author of the recently released Times and Seasons,
1:08
Speaker 1: The Rise and Fall and Rise of the Zombies. Robin,
1:11
Speaker 1: great to meet you, Thanks so much for being on
1:13
Speaker 1: the podcast.
1:14
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you for having me.
1:15
Speaker 1: A beautifully written book, beautifully laid out by Hozac Books,
1:19
Speaker 1: and a forward by Susannah Hoffs. Susannah writes, quote, the
1:23
Speaker 1: band's songs are a case study in craft and excellence,
1:27
Speaker 1: but even more importantly the kind of songs you want
1:29
Speaker 1: to put on a mixtape or play on a boombox
1:31
Speaker 1: beneath someone's window, because they say the things you want
1:34
Speaker 1: to say and express the feelings you want to share
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Speaker 1: with someone but may not have the nerve too. Songs
1:40
Speaker 1: like you make Me feel good the way I feel
1:42
Speaker 1: inside and I Love You sincere heartfelt gems delivered with unflinching,
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Speaker 1: undeniable passion that was beautifully written as well. When did
1:50
Speaker 1: you become a fan of the Zombies and what is
1:53
Speaker 1: it that strikes you most about their music?
1:55
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny, you know, I spend so much time
1:57
Speaker 2: on a project like this, pestering Bolt for details and
2:02
Speaker 2: dates from you know, fifty or sixty years ago, and
2:06
Speaker 2: when asked that question, I can't tell you the exact
2:09
Speaker 2: year I heard the Zombies for the first time. It
2:12
Speaker 2: would have been nineteen seventy six or seventy seven, is
2:15
Speaker 2: my best guess. I would have been nine or ten
2:17
Speaker 2: years old. Friends of my parents had an album called
2:20
Speaker 2: the Best of Britain. This was a k Tell collection
2:24
Speaker 2: that came out in the mid seventies. Oh that's right,
2:27
Speaker 2: a classic, probably twenty tracks packed onto a single LP.
2:31
Speaker 2: All the British hits from the sixties were on there.
2:34
Speaker 2: And for me this was a revelation because I knew
2:36
Speaker 2: the Beatles, I knew Simon and Garfunkel and the Animals
2:40
Speaker 2: to an extent, but this was a revelation because it
2:42
Speaker 2: was the first time I'd heard people like the Kinks,
2:45
Speaker 2: Donovan Jarring and the Pacemakers, Dave Clark five. But the
2:49
Speaker 2: track that intrigued me the most was something called Time
2:52
Speaker 2: of the Season by the Zombies, and it was just
2:55
Speaker 2: this incredible ethereal, spooky, this whispery voice and curious lyrics
3:02
Speaker 2: and the harmonies, and it sounded like it was from
3:05
Speaker 2: another planet. It was probably kind of a bit analogist
3:07
Speaker 2: to roughd Argent. Hearing Elvis for the first time, it
3:10
Speaker 2: was like, where does this come from?
3:12
Speaker 1: What is this?
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Speaker 2: I didn't know anything about them, apart from the name,
3:15
Speaker 2: which was intriguing in itself. The Zombies, Who are these guys?
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Speaker 2: But I lived with that track on a cassette tape
3:21
Speaker 2: from probably about six or so years. And then when
3:24
Speaker 2: I was a bit older, I got my hands on
3:27
Speaker 2: the Greatest Hits. I thought, what else did these guys do?
3:30
Speaker 2: And of course the Greatest Hits was fantastic, So I
3:33
Speaker 2: absorbed that thoroughly for a couple of years. Then, when
3:35
Speaker 2: I was probably about seventeen or so, I had a
3:38
Speaker 2: very good friend who was enthusiastically devouring a lot of
3:42
Speaker 2: old sixties LPs, some of which I loved, others I
3:46
Speaker 2: was a bit less taken with. Sometimes he'd played me
3:48
Speaker 2: the psychedelic type concept albums like The Arc by Chad
3:52
Speaker 2: and Jeremy, and I wasn't quite so sold on that one.
3:55
Speaker 2: And so when he mentioned to me that there was
3:58
Speaker 2: a Zombies album called Odyssey and Oracle that he just bought,
4:01
Speaker 2: I thought, oh, it's going to be like The Arc again,
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Speaker 2: or you know, Journey to the Center of the Mind
4:06
Speaker 2: or one of these kind of tripped out things. And
4:09
Speaker 2: he's like, no, you got to hear it. I'm like, okay, okay,
4:11
Speaker 2: and I think you finally made me a cassette of
4:13
Speaker 2: and saying here take this go home and so I
4:15
Speaker 2: went home and I put it on. I thought, okay, fine,
4:17
Speaker 2: and that was my moment of revelation. Every song was
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Speaker 2: just incredible. I was immediately hooked and as good as
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Speaker 2: the other stuff i'd heard had been, this album was
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Speaker 2: just fantastic. So I was completely sold and then went
4:31
Speaker 2: on to buy various other old LPs or at the time,
4:35
Speaker 2: as we went into the late eighties, probably there were
4:38
Speaker 2: these British labels like See for Miles and I think
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Speaker 2: Castle Records that would put out Zombies compilations, and he'd
4:45
Speaker 2: ended up buying one because it had like two tracks
4:48
Speaker 2: that I hadn't heard before that it kind of sneaked out.
4:50
Speaker 2: So it kind of went like that and on and on,
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Speaker 2: and of course Alec Palau put together the amazing Zombie
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Speaker 2: Having Collection eventually, which became sort of the benchmark. That's
5:00
Speaker 2: my story, and.
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Speaker 1: It's interesting to talk about that album because that, as
5:04
Speaker 1: it turns out, that's the end of the Zombies at
5:08
Speaker 1: least for that period, just as they're just as they're
5:12
Speaker 1: getting rolling, you know, creatively. That's what's interesting about there.
5:16
Speaker 2: They's already broken up. Yeah, they've already broken up before
5:19
Speaker 2: it came.
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Speaker 1: Out right right, let's go back to the origins. First.
5:22
Speaker 1: You begin with a chapter on the backstory of Rod Argent,
5:26
Speaker 1: the keyboardist, founder and leader of the Zombies, and singer
5:29
Speaker 1: Colin Blunstone, both from Hertfordshire, England. Rod was influenced by
5:34
Speaker 1: different genres like classical, jazz, rock and roll things and
5:37
Speaker 1: big part to Elvis Presley. Colin really good athlete, wanted
5:40
Speaker 1: to be a runner, but Radio Luxembourg turned him on
5:43
Speaker 1: to pop music and then he was hooked onto Elvis
5:45
Speaker 1: and Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Ricky Nelson. So take us
5:48
Speaker 1: back to the origins of the Zombies, how they form.
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Speaker 1: It's really with these two guys. It starts with them.
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Speaker 2: Essentially in a way. I mean, Colin meeting Rod was
5:57
Speaker 2: definitely a catalyst. But really, I mean Rod seemed like
6:01
Speaker 2: the natural place to start the story. And Rod hearing
6:03
Speaker 2: hound Dog by Elvis, because you've got this kid who
6:07
Speaker 2: loved music from an early age, but as a kid
6:09
Speaker 2: he only really liked classical music. He wasn't really taken
6:12
Speaker 2: by whatever popular music was going on in the fifties
6:16
Speaker 2: or early fifties and things like that. He sang in
6:18
Speaker 2: the cathedral choir at Saint Albans Cathedral. Here's Bill Hayley,
6:22
Speaker 2: but he's not sold on rock and roll. And then
6:25
Speaker 2: his cousin Jim Rodford, who also features prominently in the
6:29
Speaker 2: Zombie story over the decades. Jim Rodford, who's a few
6:32
Speaker 2: years older, plays him hound Dog, and Rod says this
6:35
Speaker 2: just completely blew his world apart, as he puts it,
6:39
Speaker 2: and is that phrase in itself is very rod argent.
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Speaker 2: This is a guy who's very, very enthusiastic about music.
6:45
Speaker 2: And you know, I think I spoke to him a
6:47
Speaker 2: couple of different times about this hound Dog incident, but
6:50
Speaker 2: even maybe two or three years ago, I spoke to
6:52
Speaker 2: him again, and it was as though he had just
6:55
Speaker 2: heard the record five minutes ago and couldn't wait to.
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Speaker 1: Tell you about it. Right.
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Speaker 2: He's so even, you know, going into his seventies, he's
7:04
Speaker 2: so enthusiastic and so keen, and so he's absorbing all
7:07
Speaker 2: this music. He discovers Elvis, and then he gets hooked
7:11
Speaker 2: on Miles Davis, sells his Elvis record so he can
7:13
Speaker 2: buy a Miles Davis album, and as time goes by,
7:16
Speaker 2: he then sees Jim Rodford, his cousin, playing in a
7:20
Speaker 2: group called the Bluetnes, a local band, and Rod decides
7:24
Speaker 2: he's got to form a rock and roll band when
7:26
Speaker 2: he has the chance, but he's a bit too young.
7:28
Speaker 2: But time passes by and a few years later he's
7:31
Speaker 2: at the school music club and he runs into a
7:34
Speaker 2: guy called Paul Atkinson, who is the same age, maybe
7:37
Speaker 2: a year younger, playing guitar in one of the school classrooms.
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Speaker 2: He liked Paul's playing, he told me. But the process
7:44
Speaker 2: really of assembling the zombies is pretty informal, you know.
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Speaker 2: He says to Paul, do you want to be in
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Speaker 2: a group. Paul says yes, and so Rod meets Paul.
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Speaker 2: Paul says, yeah, sure, why not, I'd like to be
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Speaker 2: in a group. Rod decides they need a drummer. So
7:59
Speaker 2: where to find a Well, the school has a marching band.
8:01
Speaker 2: They have this sort of army corps thing that all
8:03
Speaker 2: the kids have to go in, and they have a
8:05
Speaker 2: marching band. So Rod goes and watches the marching band
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Speaker 2: go by, and he picks out the guy who looks
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Speaker 2: like he's got the best rhythm, which is a guy
8:13
Speaker 2: called Hugh Grundy. So again he asks you and Hugh says, yeah, sure,
8:17
Speaker 2: why not? And then Rod has a neighbor called Paul Arnold,
8:21
Speaker 2: who's I think he's probably his best friend at the time.
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Speaker 2: Paul plays plays some guitar, but Rod is aware that
8:28
Speaker 2: he's Paul Arnold is building a bass for school woodworking class,
8:33
Speaker 2: homemade bass guitar, so he's in based on that. He's
8:36
Speaker 2: going to be the bass player. Paul Arnold never played
8:39
Speaker 2: bass before at this point, but he's building one, so
8:42
Speaker 2: you know, it's good enough to get you in. Paul
8:45
Speaker 2: went to a different school from the others, and he
8:48
Speaker 2: sat next to a kid at school called Colin Blunstone
8:50
Speaker 2: who played guitar. So Paul says, hey, you know, my
8:54
Speaker 2: neighbor and friend is forming a band. You're going to join?
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Speaker 2: And so they say yes and that with no real
9:01
Speaker 2: auditions or anything other than you want to be in
9:03
Speaker 2: a band. Shore Okay. With that, they've got four fifths
9:06
Speaker 2: of the lineup that made She's Not There, Odyssey, an
9:10
Speaker 2: Oracle and all the original Zombie records.
9:13
Speaker 1: Wasn't the quote you fancy being in a band?
9:15
Speaker 2: Yes, that was one of them, of course, fancy being
9:18
Speaker 2: in a band? Yes, yeah, and uh yeah, and that's it. Yes, yeah,
9:23
Speaker 2: very simple and I mean the luck of Rod finding.
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Speaker 2: You know, like I say, four out of the five guys,
9:29
Speaker 2: Paul Arnold didn't go on with them, but yeah, the
9:32
Speaker 2: luck of finding, and these guys are going to be,
9:34
Speaker 2: you know, number one or number two in the charts
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Speaker 2: within a few years. It's just incredible the way.
9:38
Speaker 1: It has it is incredible. Talk about the first time
9:41
Speaker 1: they came together to practice and how that went. This
9:43
Speaker 1: was in a youth club Atkinson called a big old
9:45
Speaker 1: corrugated iron shed and right, Colin had two black guys
9:49
Speaker 1: and a bandage across as nos.
9:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they had agreed to I think there were
9:54
Speaker 2: Jim Rodford, being a bit older and being a bit
9:57
Speaker 2: more experienced and having his own band, agree to help
10:00
Speaker 2: his cousin Rod sort of get the band together and said,
10:03
Speaker 2: you know, you can use our equipment and we'll set
10:05
Speaker 2: you up, but you can practice at this place called
10:07
Speaker 2: the Pioneer Club. And so they go. I think it
10:10
Speaker 2: was Rod and Jim and Jim's car because Rod's probably
10:13
Speaker 2: not old enough to drive. At this point. They stop
10:15
Speaker 2: by a pub called the Blacksmith's Arms, which now has
10:18
Speaker 2: a plaque in front of it commemorating the occasion. They
10:21
Speaker 2: pull up because they've got to pick up their guitarist,
10:24
Speaker 2: Colin Blunstone, and neither of them I don't think new
10:26
Speaker 2: Colin or met him before. But they see this tall
10:30
Speaker 2: guy outside the pub with a bandage all across his
10:34
Speaker 2: nose and his face and two black eyes, and I
10:37
Speaker 2: think they were slightly apprehensive about this guy, as Colin
10:41
Speaker 2: told me, he said, I think they thought I was
10:43
Speaker 2: fairly rough and tough looking, but you know he Nevertheless,
10:48
Speaker 2: he gets in and they all troop over to the
10:50
Speaker 2: Pioneer Club and Jim Rodford sets his own band's gear
10:54
Speaker 2: up for them, and just to sort of highlight how
10:56
Speaker 2: green they all are at this point. Hugh Grundy, although
11:00
Speaker 2: an able drummer on his side drum in the Marching Band,
11:04
Speaker 2: he's never played a full rock drum kit before. So
11:09
Speaker 2: Jim Rodford sets the kid up for him and he
11:11
Speaker 2: shows him how to play a kick and snare and
11:14
Speaker 2: high hat sort of a basic rock and roll type rhythm,
11:17
Speaker 2: which Hugh picks up very quickly. And at this point
11:20
Speaker 2: Rod isn't playing anything because the idea in Rod's mind,
11:23
Speaker 2: and again Rod is the prime mover behind this whole thing.
11:26
Speaker 2: Rod has it in his mind that a rock band.
11:28
Speaker 2: It's two guitars, bass, and drums, and then Rod is
11:31
Speaker 2: going to be the singer. But at some point during
11:33
Speaker 2: that first practice they have a break and Rod sits
11:36
Speaker 2: down and starts playing a thing called nut Rocker by
11:39
Speaker 2: a group called b Bumblin' the Stingers, which is it's
11:42
Speaker 2: like a rock and roll version of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite,
11:45
Speaker 2: And so Colin is thinking to himself, well, why isn't
11:48
Speaker 2: this guy in the band. And then a short while
11:50
Speaker 2: after that, they're having another break or at the end
11:53
Speaker 2: of the practice or something, and Colin's fromming his guitar
11:56
Speaker 2: and Colin just starts singing to himself, singing a Rickey
11:58
Speaker 2: Nelson's song and sort of looks and thinks, well, why
12:02
Speaker 2: isn't this guy the singer? And so they kind of
12:04
Speaker 2: come to a bit of an agreement whereby Rod says, Okay,
12:06
Speaker 2: I'll play piano in the band if you be the
12:09
Speaker 2: lead singer. And so that's kind of how the lineup gelled.
12:12
Speaker 1: Originally, Colin had an explanation behind the black eyes and.
12:16
Speaker 2: The oh yes, yeah, just to make sure.
12:18
Speaker 1: I'm sure people are wondering, I don't don't leave him
12:21
Speaker 1: in suspense right after.
12:23
Speaker 2: I don't want to create a build up or a
12:25
Speaker 2: smirch collinage. Colin had broken his nose playing rugby, and
12:32
Speaker 2: it was as simple as that. He was an avid
12:34
Speaker 2: sportsman as well as being a runner. He was an
12:36
Speaker 2: avid rugby player. But rugby can be a rough game,
12:39
Speaker 2: and Colin had broken his nose, and this, to clarify,
12:43
Speaker 2: was why he was bandaged and black eyed.
12:45
Speaker 1: Yes, I did mention he was a good athlete, so
12:47
Speaker 1: yeah he was. He wasn't. He wasn't getting in street fights.
12:50
Speaker 2: No, no, nothing, not to my knowledge.
12:53
Speaker 1: No podcasts. We'll be back after this.
12:58
Speaker 2: Don't go away, gentlemen, they may need all of you.
13:07
Speaker 1: The band names. Talk about that a few names before
13:10
Speaker 1: they settled on the Zombies. What were those names? And
13:12
Speaker 1: who came up with the zombies? It was just it's
13:14
Speaker 1: just one of those things. Somebody blurted it out.
13:16
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the first name they tried because I
13:18
Speaker 2: think they got to a point where they wanted to
13:20
Speaker 2: start playing at local dances and things like that, so
13:23
Speaker 2: they had to have a name to start performing in public,
13:26
Speaker 2: and so I think they first chose the Mustangs, and
13:29
Speaker 2: then they discovered there was already another band called the Mustang,
13:32
Speaker 2: so okay. Then they became the Sundowners, which I think
13:35
Speaker 2: they got from a movie poster or something, and then
13:38
Speaker 2: they found out there was already another Sundowners band operating.
13:42
Speaker 2: I think they had a few other crazy ones like
13:45
Speaker 2: Chatterly and the Gamekeepers and a couple of others, but
13:48
Speaker 2: they were really they were struggling to find a name
13:52
Speaker 2: that wasn't taken, basically, and so they were I think
13:55
Speaker 2: they were. As Paul Arnold explained to me that they
13:58
Speaker 2: were all riding home on a bus after one of
14:00
Speaker 2: their practice, which again just shows you kind of how
14:03
Speaker 2: young and you know, sort of green they all were.
14:06
Speaker 2: The riding the bus home after one of their practices,
14:09
Speaker 2: Paul Arnold said he just sort of blurted out the
14:12
Speaker 2: zombies and it stuck. They didn't necessarily already know what
14:17
Speaker 2: a zombie was, I don't think, but they knew the
14:20
Speaker 2: name wasn't taken, and I think that was I think
14:22
Speaker 2: that was the biggest selling point, and that was it.
14:25
Speaker 2: They were the Zombies.
14:26
Speaker 1: Well, nineteen sixty four they signed to Decca Records, and
14:29
Speaker 1: that's covered in chapter four. So we need to go
14:32
Speaker 1: back to an important event in Zombie's history, which is
14:34
Speaker 1: the Hearts Beat Competition. What was that event and how
14:38
Speaker 1: does that lead to the band getting a major record deal.
14:41
Speaker 2: So in early nineteen sixty four were at the point
14:44
Speaker 2: where I think the Beatles are just about to kind
14:46
Speaker 2: of invade America, but they've already completely swamped Great Britain.
14:51
Speaker 2: Not only that, but there's a great interest in Britain
14:54
Speaker 2: and other bands from Liverpool, so they've got the Mersey
14:57
Speaker 2: sound is sweeping the UK like Cilla Black, Billy j
15:01
Speaker 2: Kurimer and the Dakotas during the Pacemakers and so on
15:04
Speaker 2: and so on. So I think by this point the
15:06
Speaker 2: Liverpool scene has been sort of pretty much plundered in
15:09
Speaker 2: terms of finding anyone worth worth finding there, and there's
15:13
Speaker 2: a bit of a rush in Britain to try and
15:14
Speaker 2: find other sort of musical meccas around the UK. I
15:18
Speaker 2: think it was in January or February nineteen sixty four
15:22
Speaker 2: journalist Patrick Starter wrote an article about Watford the Watford Sound. Now,
15:26
Speaker 2: Watford was a town in the county of Hertfordshire. It's
15:30
Speaker 2: about fifteen miles north of London and a few miles
15:33
Speaker 2: south of Saint Albans, where the Zombies are from, and
15:36
Speaker 2: at this point beat group contests were sort of a
15:38
Speaker 2: bit of a rage in the UK, battle of the
15:41
Speaker 2: band's type things and away to launch, to find talent
15:44
Speaker 2: and launch people. So a newspaper called The London Evening
15:47
Speaker 2: News saw this article and they teamed up with the
15:51
Speaker 2: Watford Borough Council to launch a contest called Hearts Beat
15:56
Speaker 2: Hearts being a play on the county of Hertfordshire. So
15:59
Speaker 2: they launched this contest called Heartspeed, which the Zombies decide
16:03
Speaker 2: to enter. Even though the Zombies they aren't really thinking
16:06
Speaker 2: of music as a professional career at this point. They're
16:09
Speaker 2: seeing themselves mostly as a local band. But I think
16:11
Speaker 2: Rod Argent and Chris White, who's in the band, by
16:13
Speaker 2: this point, we're sort of thinking, well, you know, maybe
16:16
Speaker 2: maybe we could go pro. So they enter heart Speed,
16:19
Speaker 2: they win, and that's launching pad to them turning professional.
16:24
Speaker 1: The deal that they sign, I don't think there's a
16:26
Speaker 1: better deal for a new band to sign, and that's
16:29
Speaker 1: thanks to a man named Ken Jones. Talk about Ken
16:32
Speaker 1: Jones and the least tape deal that he suggested to
16:35
Speaker 1: the band.
16:36
Speaker 2: Right, So when they won heart Speed, I think they
16:39
Speaker 2: got at least one offer right away. I think Paul
16:43
Speaker 2: Atkinson's recollection was that Dick Roe from Decca showed up
16:46
Speaker 2: in his suit and tie and handed them a contract
16:49
Speaker 2: and told them, you are now Decca Records. Artists didn't
16:52
Speaker 2: ask them, just told them, assuming that this would be
16:55
Speaker 2: a huge honor. But I think some of them were
16:57
Speaker 2: underage at the time, and also they weren't all desperate
17:02
Speaker 2: to become rock and roll stars. They had other options.
17:05
Speaker 2: I think three out of the five of them at
17:07
Speaker 2: least were planning to go to university, so they were
17:09
Speaker 2: able to sort of take a deep breath and step
17:11
Speaker 2: back and think about this before rushing to sign on
17:15
Speaker 2: the dotted line. Chris White had an uncle called Ted
17:19
Speaker 2: who had worked for the BBC, and so they asked
17:23
Speaker 2: Ted White and said, well, have you any advice for us?
17:25
Speaker 2: And Ted knew a guy called Ken Jones who was
17:28
Speaker 2: a musician, ranger, conductor. He did some film scoring and
17:31
Speaker 2: things like that, and wrote jingles as well for TV
17:34
Speaker 2: and radio ads. And he, in partnership with a guy
17:38
Speaker 2: called Joe Roancaroni, owned a company called Marquis Enterprises. It
17:42
Speaker 2: was a production company was also they also had a
17:44
Speaker 2: jingle company and a few other things. So the Zombies
17:46
Speaker 2: all go around and meet Ken at some point, either
17:50
Speaker 2: they ask or he offers, you know, maybe I could
17:53
Speaker 2: do something for you. I could produce you can't, explains
17:56
Speaker 2: to them. And he also suggested this least tape deal,
17:59
Speaker 2: where by the Zombies would record for Marquis Enterprises, with
18:03
Speaker 2: Ken Jones producing them, but Marquis would retain the ownership
18:07
Speaker 2: of the recordings and they would lease them to Decca
18:10
Speaker 2: for a certain period of time. And I think it
18:13
Speaker 2: was like Deca could say yay or nay, and then
18:15
Speaker 2: they would own me it. But if they said yay,
18:17
Speaker 2: they could own these recordings for a while, put them
18:19
Speaker 2: out on deck, et cetera, et cetera, but the rights
18:22
Speaker 2: would come back to the Zombies at the end. And
18:25
Speaker 2: it was a good deal. I mean, they stayed with
18:27
Speaker 2: Marquis until I think it was actually about only a
18:29
Speaker 2: couple of years ago that they actually transferred everything over,
18:32
Speaker 2: But until that point all their stuff still sat with Marquis,
18:36
Speaker 2: and all the way along they told me a couple
18:39
Speaker 2: of different times that they felt like they were one
18:41
Speaker 2: of the few groups who hadn't got ripped off and
18:44
Speaker 2: still got their royalties dispersed in a fair untimely manner
18:48
Speaker 2: because of that deal. So out of all the bad
18:51
Speaker 2: things that happened to them, as Chris White told me,
18:53
Speaker 2: that was the one thing that was fortuitous. This would
18:56
Speaker 2: least tape deal with Marquis and Ken Jones.
18:59
Speaker 1: Another great story of the band's first single, She's Not There,
19:02
Speaker 1: number two on bill Ward in the US, twelve in
19:04
Speaker 1: the UK, huge hit. Rod Argent basically whips this song
19:08
Speaker 1: up in a week. Can you talk about the basis
19:11
Speaker 1: of this song? The chords are from a song by
19:14
Speaker 1: Brian Hyland and had a few different working titles.
19:18
Speaker 2: That's right, I mean at this point the Zombies, when
19:21
Speaker 2: they got signed and when they did Heartspeat, they mostly
19:24
Speaker 2: did covers. I think they did a song that Rod
19:27
Speaker 2: had written called It's Alright with Me, which they later
19:29
Speaker 2: recorded themselves, of course, but they were mostly a covers band,
19:33
Speaker 2: and their their signature number was their version of Summertime,
19:36
Speaker 2: which was a big sensation when they played at Hearts
19:39
Speaker 2: Beeat the Heartspeat contest, and so it was assumed that
19:42
Speaker 2: Summertime was going to be the first single that they did,
19:45
Speaker 2: but Ken Jones, after they'd made the deal with Ken
19:48
Speaker 2: and Marquis. Ken said, okay, you've got a session. You're
19:51
Speaker 2: going to record a Decca Records recording studios in London.
19:54
Speaker 2: He said, this is the age of the Beatles and
19:57
Speaker 2: Stones and others. A lot more bands were writing their
19:59
Speaker 2: own material then perhaps previously, and so Ken Jones says
20:03
Speaker 2: to them, well, when you write something for the session. Now,
20:06
Speaker 2: I think three of them, probably Paul and Hugh and
20:08
Speaker 2: Colin either didn't want to or didn't think they could
20:11
Speaker 2: write something. But both Rod and Chris came up with
20:14
Speaker 2: a song. Chris wrote a song call You Made Me
20:16
Speaker 2: Feel Good, which is a really great, sort of circa
20:19
Speaker 2: sixty four British Invasion type number, really great. But then
20:24
Speaker 2: Rod goes away and comes up with something quite different.
20:26
Speaker 2: And again, if you go back to Rod's influences from
20:29
Speaker 2: when he's younger, in writing this song, he's sort of
20:31
Speaker 2: pulling things from all over the map, because you can
20:33
Speaker 2: hear a sort of a jazz influence. As you say,
20:37
Speaker 2: he's using a sort of playing off of a chord
20:40
Speaker 2: sequence that's in Brian Hiland's Sealed with a Kiss, And
20:43
Speaker 2: if you go and listen to that record closely, you
20:46
Speaker 2: can hear shades if She's Not There in some of
20:49
Speaker 2: the chord sequences, and so Rod sort of reworks that
20:51
Speaker 2: to his own ends. There's also a big blues influence
20:55
Speaker 2: in Rod's world. He takes the first line from an
20:58
Speaker 2: old John Lee Hooker song called no One Told Me,
21:02
Speaker 2: and that becomes the starting point for the lyrics, and
21:05
Speaker 2: the song then becomes called no One Told Me, or
21:08
Speaker 2: possibly nobody told Me or both, and this eventually becomes
21:12
Speaker 2: She's Not There. But he comes up the whole thing
21:14
Speaker 2: very quickly, within about a week. I think he'd even
21:16
Speaker 2: figured out what the drum part should sound like, that
21:18
Speaker 2: sort of broken drum riff, and what the bass should
21:21
Speaker 2: be doing. And the others I know, Colin I think
21:25
Speaker 2: told me that they were sort of amazed when he
21:27
Speaker 2: came back with this song after just a few days.
21:30
Speaker 1: The follow up single, Leave Me Be did not match
21:32
Speaker 1: the success If She's Not There, but third single Tell
21:36
Speaker 1: Her No, They're back on the charts, number six in
21:38
Speaker 1: the US, forty two in the UK. And I haven't
21:41
Speaker 1: asked about Chris White. He's so important to the zombies
21:43
Speaker 1: you write about him. Quote. Over the next couple of years,
21:46
Speaker 1: Argent and Chris White would develop quickly as writers with
21:48
Speaker 1: a constructive rivalry that would keep pushing them to greater heights.
21:52
Speaker 1: Talk about that rivalry and the contributions of Chris White.
21:56
Speaker 2: Well, I think if it was a rivalry, I think
21:58
Speaker 2: it was definitely a friendly one. I think it was
22:00
Speaker 2: one of those cases where you have two or more
22:02
Speaker 2: writers in a band together who sort of inspire each
22:06
Speaker 2: other and push each other. You know, here's my new song. Oh,
22:09
Speaker 2: I'm going to write something better than that. I don't
22:10
Speaker 2: know if it was as simple as that, but definitely
22:13
Speaker 2: I think the one, you know, would inspire the other
22:16
Speaker 2: to push themselves harder. And you really see that. And
22:20
Speaker 2: in the early Zombies singles, rod tended to write more
22:24
Speaker 2: the singles and more the hits, but Chris was writing
22:27
Speaker 2: some great stuff that appeared on B sides of singles,
22:30
Speaker 2: especially I Love You, which is a fantastic song. And
22:34
Speaker 2: again it's one of those things where you got why
22:37
Speaker 2: didn't they make that the A side of a single?
22:38
Speaker 2: It seems incredible that that song would have been a
22:40
Speaker 2: B side, but it was. But Chris is increasingly turning
22:44
Speaker 2: out this amazing material and even stuff that they recorded
22:47
Speaker 2: which actually amazingly wasn't released at the time. Hit songs
22:51
Speaker 2: like I Know She Will, I Think, Don't Cry for Me,
22:54
Speaker 2: I'll Call You Mine was another of his I Think
22:56
Speaker 2: that were just fantastic. It didn't even get released until
22:59
Speaker 2: a little bit later. But it's on Odyssey an Oracle
23:03
Speaker 2: that Chris really kind of hits his stride in it
23:07
Speaker 2: just a phenomenal way. He writes seven of the twelve
23:10
Speaker 2: songs on that album or by Chris, and some of
23:13
Speaker 2: the best ones just incredible songs. Beachwood Park, Brief, Candles Changes,
23:19
Speaker 2: and this will be Our Year, which is that song
23:22
Speaker 2: has become sort of a standard over the year. It
23:24
Speaker 2: has been covered many times by many people without really
23:27
Speaker 2: sort of becoming a hit in itself. It's sort of
23:29
Speaker 2: wheen of those songs. It's become a standard without really
23:31
Speaker 2: becoming a hit. And so Chris his contribution as a
23:35
Speaker 2: writer can't be overstated. It's no surprise that when Rod
23:38
Speaker 2: after the band broke up and Rod wanted to go
23:41
Speaker 2: on and form Argent, it's not surprising that he wanted
23:44
Speaker 2: to keep working with Chris as a writer and as
23:46
Speaker 2: co producer.
23:48
Speaker 1: Book on Rock podcast will be back after this. You
23:51
Speaker 1: must not see anybody want to talk to anybody, and
23:53
Speaker 1: if you do, cu have serious papercussions on future events.
23:58
Speaker 1: The band struggled to get back the charts after tell
24:01
Speaker 1: her no, it wasn't until time of the season in
24:03
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight they had a hit single on the charts.
24:05
Speaker 1: There were songs like Whenever You're Ready and is This
24:08
Speaker 1: the Dream that were to put the Zombies back on
24:11
Speaker 1: the charts, but no luck, you, quote Blunstone in the book.
24:14
Speaker 1: In an early nineteen sixty six BBC Radio Pop Profile interview,
24:18
Speaker 1: Blunstone said he felt the Zombies hadn't worked hard enough
24:21
Speaker 1: at promoting themselves. He said, quote, we made the hits
24:24
Speaker 1: and we didn't follow them up publicity, continual plugging and
24:28
Speaker 1: really working at building up an image. People should know
24:31
Speaker 1: what you look like, what you do and everything, and
24:33
Speaker 1: we haven't really worked hard enough at that. Do you
24:36
Speaker 1: feel that was the reason?
24:37
Speaker 2: Not necessarily. It's an interesting thing that you mentioned that quote,
24:41
Speaker 2: because it actually made me go back and think about
24:44
Speaker 2: that a little bit further. Now we know the band
24:46
Speaker 2: have spoken a great deal about the fact that early
24:49
Speaker 2: on in their career they got stuck with the image
24:52
Speaker 2: of that they were the educated band. The brainy band,
24:55
Speaker 2: the group of the brain Power and all that stuff,
24:57
Speaker 2: sort of this nerdy image glasses and everything, and that
25:00
Speaker 2: they felt that that hurt them in terms of image,
25:04
Speaker 2: especially if you compare them with somebody like The Stones
25:06
Speaker 2: or The Who or the Kinks, right, And also I
25:08
Speaker 2: think some of the issues they had with Visa not
25:11
Speaker 2: being able to tour America right away, and then when
25:13
Speaker 2: they did, they spend a lot of time in America
25:15
Speaker 2: and then sort of felt like they perhaps hadn't promoted
25:17
Speaker 2: themselves in the UK enough. So it's really hard to
25:19
Speaker 2: put your finger on the exact reason why. But that
25:22
Speaker 2: quote from Colin I think is an example of why
25:26
Speaker 2: I tried to include a number of sort of period
25:28
Speaker 2: quotes in the book, because that is something that I've
25:31
Speaker 2: never really heard any of them really sort of offer
25:33
Speaker 2: up as an opinion. The Zombies have never really struck
25:38
Speaker 2: me as slackers. These guys worked very hard, and I
25:42
Speaker 2: kind of feel like when Colin said that in sixty six,
25:45
Speaker 2: by that point, I think the band was starting to
25:47
Speaker 2: get pretty demoralized, and my sense is that perhaps he
25:51
Speaker 2: was just kind of looking trying to second guess what
25:53
Speaker 2: they'd done and trying to find a reasonable Why what's
25:56
Speaker 2: going on? Why are the Kinks always on the front
25:58
Speaker 2: cover of the melody make we aren't? You know? Where
26:01
Speaker 2: are we getting ignored? Maybe it's something we did, maybe
26:04
Speaker 2: we didn't do enough. So that's kind of in a
26:06
Speaker 2: way what I think about that. But there's also a
26:08
Speaker 2: quote from again from the same period, from Chris White
26:10
Speaker 2: where he has a slightly different perspective. He said, because
26:13
Speaker 2: again they're asking him about the image or of the
26:16
Speaker 2: group or lack thereof, and Chris said, he said, well,
26:19
Speaker 2: it's not really until you have hits that the image
26:22
Speaker 2: becomes a factor. He said, well, you've had a bunch
26:24
Speaker 2: of hits, then people want to know about you. So
26:27
Speaker 2: his take was you need more hits, then worry about
26:30
Speaker 2: the image. So it's a strange question if you look
26:33
Speaker 2: at the UK music press from the time. Were the
26:36
Speaker 2: Walker Brothers that much more interesting than the Zombies were
26:40
Speaker 2: Manfred Mann? And yet they're all over the papers and
26:43
Speaker 2: the Zombies are often in a tiny little column at
26:45
Speaker 2: the bottom of the page somewhere. So were they that
26:48
Speaker 2: much more interesting? Did they have more hits? Did the
26:50
Speaker 2: other groups have better management or publicists? It's one of
26:54
Speaker 2: the great Mysteries of the Zombies, as I think Colin
26:57
Speaker 2: Blunstone might say.
26:59
Speaker 1: With nineteen sixty eight's Odyssey and Oracle, the Zombies create
27:04
Speaker 1: what is considered one of the greatest albums of rockets,
27:06
Speaker 1: ranked one hundred on Rolling Stones five hundred Greatest Albums
27:09
Speaker 1: of all Time Time of the Season, would rise to
27:12
Speaker 1: number three on Billboard, and it's become probably the most
27:15
Speaker 1: iconic track. What was it that the banded differently on
27:18
Speaker 1: this album that made the difference. There were some changes.
27:21
Speaker 1: It was a label change, there was a producer changed,
27:24
Speaker 1: the songwriting due of Rod Origent and Chris White. They
27:27
Speaker 1: were also at the top of their game. I mean
27:28
Speaker 1: all those things combined.
27:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean definitely, Rod and Chris were both the
27:33
Speaker 2: peak of their powers in terms of writing. The materials
27:36
Speaker 2: just incredible. And from their perspective, they finally got a
27:41
Speaker 2: chance to produce themselves because over the previous few years
27:44
Speaker 2: they increasingly felt dissatisfied with the way Ken Jones was
27:48
Speaker 2: producing them. They didn't feel like he was quite capturing
27:51
Speaker 2: their sound the way they heard it or the way
27:52
Speaker 2: they were live. So they with Odyssey an Oracle, they
27:55
Speaker 2: had a chance to produce themselves. And to prove themselves,
27:58
Speaker 2: and they certainly did. They also had Abby Road or
28:02
Speaker 2: EMI Studios better known as Abbey Road, and they had
28:06
Speaker 2: several of the same engineers who had worked with the
28:08
Speaker 2: Beatles on Sergeant Pepper and other things. And they also,
28:12
Speaker 2: I think, courtesy of the Beatles, had access to eight
28:15
Speaker 2: tracks to record on, which was unusual at the time,
28:17
Speaker 2: at least in Britain. And I think what it really
28:19
Speaker 2: was was two four track machines sort of hooked up
28:22
Speaker 2: together with cables, but it essentially gave them seven or
28:25
Speaker 2: eight tracks to work with instead of four. Having said that,
28:28
Speaker 2: though they also had a very very tight budget. I
28:30
Speaker 2: mean Odyssey and Artcle I think cost something like to
28:33
Speaker 2: it was either one or two thousand pounds to record,
28:35
Speaker 2: where something like Sergeant Pepper I think it was like
28:37
Speaker 2: fifty thousand pounds. But Odyssey and Arka was a fraction
28:40
Speaker 2: of what other major albums were going for probably at
28:42
Speaker 2: the time, in terms of recording costs. But even that
28:46
Speaker 2: they managed to. I think they turned it to their
28:47
Speaker 2: advantage because they were very well prepared in terms of
28:51
Speaker 2: rehearsal and in terms of choosing the best songs. But
28:55
Speaker 2: at the end of the day. I think they had
28:57
Speaker 2: something to prove. They'd been pretty beaten down, you know,
29:00
Speaker 2: in terms of how their career had gone over the
29:02
Speaker 2: previous couple of years, and so they had something to prove,
29:05
Speaker 2: and they did it. Just took a little while for
29:08
Speaker 2: everyone else to notice.
29:10
Speaker 1: Robin Platz, he's the author of Times and Seasons, the
29:12
Speaker 1: Rise and Fall and Rise of the Zombies. So let's
29:15
Speaker 1: talk about Time of the Season and Rod Argent how
29:18
Speaker 1: he came up with the song. He misheard a lyric
29:22
Speaker 1: from another song.
29:23
Speaker 2: That's right. He wrote the song part way through sort of.
29:26
Speaker 2: I think they were almost towards the end of the
29:28
Speaker 2: recording sessions for Odyssey and Oracle, and this went back
29:31
Speaker 2: to Smokey Robinson's Tracks of My Tears, which was a
29:35
Speaker 2: song Rod loved, but he misheard one of the lyrics
29:38
Speaker 2: in the song. There's a part of the song where
29:40
Speaker 2: Smokey sings, if you look closer, it's easy to trace
29:44
Speaker 2: the Tracks of My Tears. And instead of look closer
29:47
Speaker 2: it's easy, Rod heard the close of the season and
29:51
Speaker 2: he thought that's a good line. The close of the Season.
29:53
Speaker 2: And I think at some point Rod discovers he must
29:55
Speaker 2: have seen a lyric sheet or something, and realizing he
29:58
Speaker 2: got it wrong, but he liked this line of the season,
30:00
Speaker 2: so he tweaked that and turned it into time of
30:03
Speaker 2: the Season. And he also as he's writing the lyrics,
30:06
Speaker 2: he also plays off Summertime, their big fan favorite signature
30:10
Speaker 2: number from early on in their career, which has the
30:12
Speaker 2: line your daddy's rich, and so Rod changes that to
30:16
Speaker 2: be you know who's your daddy? Is he rich? Like me?
30:19
Speaker 2: In Time of the Season. And it was written fairly quickly.
30:21
Speaker 2: He told me again, it's fascinating that the two biggest
30:25
Speaker 2: hits were just knocked off quite quickly. And Rod, he
30:29
Speaker 2: told me, he said he thought this song was a hit.
30:33
Speaker 2: He thought it had some of the magic that they'd had,
30:35
Speaker 2: which she's not there. But as with Odyssey an article,
30:38
Speaker 2: it took a while for the public and even his
30:41
Speaker 2: bandmates to see it that way.
30:44
Speaker 1: Right, Colin Blumstone, he didn't think the song was all
30:47
Speaker 1: that great. And then when it came time to do
30:49
Speaker 1: his vocals, he and Rod got into a huge argument.
30:51
Speaker 1: What was that about, Yes, they did.
30:53
Speaker 2: They got into an argument there. According to some reports,
30:56
Speaker 2: there were even some f bombs being dropped in the
30:58
Speaker 2: studio and Alin has been perfectly honest about the fact
31:02
Speaker 2: that he did not like the song originally when he
31:05
Speaker 2: heard it and they were in the studio, Collins doing
31:08
Speaker 2: his vocal and I think Rod was offering him some
31:10
Speaker 2: advice about how he should sing the song, which in
31:13
Speaker 2: that moment Colin was not terribly receptive to. And so
31:17
Speaker 2: Colin is shouting at him, if you're so good, when
31:20
Speaker 2: do you come in here and sing it? So they
31:22
Speaker 2: didn't like it, and Paul Atkinson as well is on
31:25
Speaker 2: the record as saying that he thought the song was
31:27
Speaker 2: a bit of an afterthought and he thought it was
31:29
Speaker 2: one of the weaker songs on the album. But wow,
31:32
Speaker 2: as we all know it, it became the breakthrough that
31:36
Speaker 2: saved them a little bit too late.
31:38
Speaker 1: It's such a recognizable song right from the start too,
31:43
Speaker 1: which I wanted to ask you about the handclap before
31:46
Speaker 1: the backbeat in the a cappella chorus. How does Argent
31:49
Speaker 1: come up with that?
31:50
Speaker 2: Well, this is again goes back to what I was
31:52
Speaker 2: saying a few minutes ago about the fact that they
31:54
Speaker 2: now have eight tracks to work with instead of four.
31:58
Speaker 2: Rod has explained that this gave them, you know, it
32:01
Speaker 2: was like three or four tracks more of freedom. So
32:04
Speaker 2: rather than just recording the band and the vocals, that's
32:06
Speaker 2: great because they're listening to the playback, Rod would sometimes
32:09
Speaker 2: hear something else and now they had the freedom to
32:12
Speaker 2: add that extra part that Rod heard in his head.
32:15
Speaker 2: And in the case of time of the season, he said,
32:18
Speaker 2: what about a handclap here? And what about a little
32:20
Speaker 2: sort of vocal kind of sound in there? Right, a
32:24
Speaker 2: little sigh. Because they've got the extra tracks, they're able
32:27
Speaker 2: to easily add those on, and of course that is
32:29
Speaker 2: a massive part of the song, sort of hoofs. Yeah,
32:33
Speaker 2: we take it away, so you've still got a great song.
32:35
Speaker 2: But it's one of those little icing on the cake
32:38
Speaker 2: touches that really just pushes it that bit further. And
32:41
Speaker 2: as soon as you put the needle on the record,
32:44
Speaker 2: that comes on and wow, book.
32:46
Speaker 1: On rock podcasts. We'll be back after this. Come out,
32:49
Speaker 1: Come out wherever you are. There's a story behind the
32:55
Speaker 1: misspelling of Odyssey. It's spelled O D E S S
32:59
Speaker 1: E Y. Was that intentional or a mistake? What's the
33:02
Speaker 1: real story?
33:03
Speaker 2: Well, there's been a couple of different stories about this,
33:06
Speaker 2: one true one less. So the cover art for the
33:09
Speaker 2: album was done by a guy called Terry Kirk, who
33:11
Speaker 2: was Rod Argent Chris White's roommate in the period leading
33:14
Speaker 2: up to him during Odyssey and Arcyle. And Terry was
33:17
Speaker 2: an artist and he had, among other things, he had
33:20
Speaker 2: done that sort of an elaborate heaven and Hell paint
33:23
Speaker 2: job on Rod's mini car, which Rod reportedly referred to
33:27
Speaker 2: as the last judgment on wheels. Now, I do think
33:30
Speaker 2: of a yeah, a bit like the John Lennon psychedelic
33:33
Speaker 2: rolls Royce. So Terry had done a similar kind of
33:35
Speaker 2: a job on Rod's car, and they asked him to
33:38
Speaker 2: do the cover for Odyssey and Arkle, and he did
33:40
Speaker 2: a fantastic job with the cover art, apart from one
33:44
Speaker 2: tiny detail, which is that he spelt Odyssey wrong. When
33:47
Speaker 2: I actually first spoke with Rod, which was late nineteen
33:51
Speaker 2: ninety four, he said that when this happened that they
33:54
Speaker 2: put out this story at the time that it was
33:57
Speaker 2: actually a play on words. It was spelled Ode because
33:59
Speaker 2: it was a play on the word ode, and it
34:02
Speaker 2: was meant to have this kind of poetic meaning and
34:04
Speaker 2: blah blah blah blah blah whatever. And of course this
34:07
Speaker 2: was the era of you know, bands, like the Birds
34:09
Speaker 2: with a Y and things like that. There were lots
34:12
Speaker 2: of kind of fanciful spellings in the late sixties era,
34:16
Speaker 2: so it probably seemed plausible enough. But Rod admitted at
34:19
Speaker 2: the time he said it was just a spelling era.
34:21
Speaker 2: They were embarrassed by it, and he said it was
34:24
Speaker 2: too late to do anything about it. And I think
34:26
Speaker 2: that was the first time he had sort of actually
34:28
Speaker 2: revealed that, because just actually a few years ago, I'd
34:31
Speaker 2: read an interview with Colin from I think nineteen ninety
34:34
Speaker 2: five or ninety six, and he said, well, I didn't
34:36
Speaker 2: didn't know anything about this until this story of the
34:38
Speaker 2: piece that I wrote, gold Mine in the came out
34:41
Speaker 2: in ninety five. He said he wasn't aware of it
34:43
Speaker 2: until he read that article. So that was I think
34:45
Speaker 2: I broke the misspelling story all those years ago.
34:48
Speaker 1: The album considered a classic, but it did suffer poor
34:50
Speaker 1: sales at the time, in time of the season actually
34:53
Speaker 1: needed time to become the song that it's become. It
34:56
Speaker 1: was a hit in nineteen sixty nine, going to number three,
34:58
Speaker 1: but by this time the band was Chapter sixteen, titled
35:01
Speaker 1: The Rose in the Garden of Weeds, had you write
35:04
Speaker 1: quote in March nineteen sixty eight, even before Odyssey and
35:07
Speaker 1: Oracle came out and the Zombie split was announced, Rod
35:10
Speaker 1: Argent and Chris White were plotting their next move. What
35:13
Speaker 1: led to the breakup, Well, the.
35:15
Speaker 2: Whole story of who wanted to break up and when
35:18
Speaker 2: was one of the things that took me a little
35:20
Speaker 2: while to sort of unravel in the book, because different
35:23
Speaker 2: people had different recollections. But what I sort of figured
35:26
Speaker 2: out in the end was that before they made Odyssey
35:29
Speaker 2: an Oracle, that Rod and Chris had sort of decided
35:32
Speaker 2: they thought the group was finished, but that they would
35:35
Speaker 2: just make this one last album, do it their own way,
35:38
Speaker 2: and just to kind of prove themselves and just to
35:40
Speaker 2: get it out of their system, whereas the other three
35:43
Speaker 2: Hugh and Colin and Paul, were still keen to go
35:46
Speaker 2: on with the group. And I think that changed over
35:49
Speaker 2: the few months they spent working on the album, whereby
35:51
Speaker 2: Rod and Chris got more and more enthusiastic because they're
35:54
Speaker 2: creating these incredible recordings. But at the same time as
35:58
Speaker 2: that's going on, the group's games are sort of dwindling,
36:01
Speaker 2: and they're getting less gigs, perhaps slightly less prestigious gigs
36:06
Speaker 2: as time goes by, and this was less of an
36:08
Speaker 2: issue for Rod and Chris because they've both written hit songs.
36:11
Speaker 2: Rod had written She's Not There and Tell Her No,
36:14
Speaker 2: and Chris had written I Love You, which turned out
36:16
Speaker 2: to be a hit, especially in America for a group
36:19
Speaker 2: called people. I think in sixty seven, I think that
36:22
Speaker 2: was a hit. So they're both doing fine from their
36:24
Speaker 2: royalty monies. Meanwhile, Paul and Colin and Hugh are struggling
36:29
Speaker 2: a bit because their only real income is from whatever
36:32
Speaker 2: gigs the group is getting, and that's less and less,
36:35
Speaker 2: so that's starting to grow a bit of tension around
36:38
Speaker 2: the money stuff. And then also they put out as
36:41
Speaker 2: a single in advance of the album, they put out
36:43
Speaker 2: care of Cell forty four, and I think Colin in
36:46
Speaker 2: particular has said he really thought that was going to
36:48
Speaker 2: be a hit and get them back on the charts,
36:50
Speaker 2: but it wasn't. And it's funny if you listen to
36:52
Speaker 2: care of Cell forty four now you think, well, why
36:55
Speaker 2: wasn't that a hit? Right? What was wrong with DJs
36:58
Speaker 2: in Britain that they weren't? He asked why didn't CBS
37:03
Speaker 2: plug it?
37:03
Speaker 1: More?
37:03
Speaker 2: See I'm second guessing too. Now what did somebody do
37:06
Speaker 2: wrong that didn't happen? But it didn't, So the disappointment
37:10
Speaker 2: is growing. And in October, I think it was October
37:12
Speaker 2: sixty seven, Paul Atkinson gets married, and I think this
37:16
Speaker 2: might have been the straw that broke the camel's back
37:18
Speaker 2: for him, because now being married, I think suddenly the
37:23
Speaker 2: lack of money and prospects becomes even more acute as
37:27
Speaker 2: a newly married man. And Paul's reached the point now
37:30
Speaker 2: where he said, he said, I don't know what I
37:31
Speaker 2: wanted to do, but he said I was a pretty
37:33
Speaker 2: good guitar player, But he said, I, you know, I
37:35
Speaker 2: wasn't back or clapped, and I knew my limitation. So
37:39
Speaker 2: he's decided he's not going to make fame and fortune
37:41
Speaker 2: as a guitarist. And so at some point towards the
37:44
Speaker 2: end of sixty seven, they're having a band practice or
37:46
Speaker 2: a meeting or something, and Paul says, you know, I
37:49
Speaker 2: think that's it for me, and nobody really says anything,
37:52
Speaker 2: and then Rod Argent says, well, you know what, if
37:54
Speaker 2: Paul is going to leave, I think we should just
37:56
Speaker 2: fold the band. And at this point nobody argues there's
38:00
Speaker 2: no great pushback I mean they've it's been a decline
38:03
Speaker 2: for several years now. I think they're all fairly demoralized,
38:06
Speaker 2: even having made these great recordings. They're very dispirited. And
38:10
Speaker 2: so they split around the end of sixty seven even
38:12
Speaker 2: and this is about three months before Audissey and Article
38:15
Speaker 2: came out. And I think they might still change their
38:18
Speaker 2: mind if Audissey and Oracle had become a hit, or
38:21
Speaker 2: if Time of the Season had because the first Time
38:23
Speaker 2: of the Season came out as a single in Britain
38:25
Speaker 2: I think in April sixty eight, around the same time
38:28
Speaker 2: as an Article came out. But again that bombed, and
38:31
Speaker 2: again what was wrong with DJs or the music industry
38:36
Speaker 2: that that wasn't a hit?
38:37
Speaker 1: Hence squat.
38:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you go back and read some of the
38:40
Speaker 2: reviews in the music press at the time that single
38:42
Speaker 2: came out, several of the people knowledgeable music journalists at
38:46
Speaker 2: the time in the UK, So it's not going to
38:49
Speaker 2: be a hit. It's too complicated for the charts. This
38:51
Speaker 2: won't get played on the radio. Incredible with hindsight, But
38:55
Speaker 2: so that was it. They split. The album came out.
38:58
Speaker 2: I don't think CBS exactly went overboard and plugging it
39:01
Speaker 2: pres because the band had already split up, but it
39:04
Speaker 2: came and went without much notice. And even before it
39:07
Speaker 2: came out, rod was already starting to work on the
39:09
Speaker 2: seeds of what would become the group Argent.
39:12
Speaker 1: Right because in nineteen sixty nine, the last lineup of
39:15
Speaker 1: the Zombies, Rod Argent, Russ Baller, Jim Rodford and Bob
39:19
Speaker 1: Henry began working under the name Argent with Chris White
39:22
Speaker 1: as a non performing songwriter. They had the hits hold
39:25
Speaker 1: Your Head Up, Tragedy, God Gave Rock and Roll to You. Meanwhile,
39:29
Speaker 1: there were fake zombies popping up you write quote. Between
39:33
Speaker 1: September nineteen sixty eight nineteen seventy, at least four groups
39:37
Speaker 1: purporting to be the Zombie surfaced in Britain and America,
39:41
Speaker 1: and one included two members of zz Top. I believe
39:45
Speaker 1: it was Dusty Hill and Frank Beard.
39:47
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, Yeah, that was it. Yeah.
39:49
Speaker 1: Who was behind these bands? And how were they able
39:52
Speaker 1: to get away with this? And was any legal action taken?
39:56
Speaker 2: There was certainly some legal action taken against them, but
39:59
Speaker 2: it's seemed like it didn't necessarily work. These bands were
40:02
Speaker 2: sort of zombie like, I think in themselves, and that
40:04
Speaker 2: they were shut down and then rise from the dead
40:08
Speaker 2: and show up in Mississippi or wherever playing at some
40:13
Speaker 2: small club. And I think, especially in those days, I mean,
40:16
Speaker 2: I think we forget almost how pre Internet, pre social
40:20
Speaker 2: media and stuff, how isolated from each other we were
40:23
Speaker 2: compared to how things are today. So I think it
40:25
Speaker 2: was a lot easier to get away with stuff like that.
40:28
Speaker 2: And what was interesting that in researching the book, I
40:31
Speaker 2: mean the thing with the two sort of most well
40:33
Speaker 2: known bands which were put together by a group called
40:35
Speaker 2: Delta Promotions out of Michigan, and they had two I
40:38
Speaker 2: think they had two fake zombie bands that they were running.
40:41
Speaker 2: One was one was out of Michigan, of course, which
40:44
Speaker 2: had former members of a Michigan band called the Excels,
40:47
Speaker 2: including a guitarist whose name was Terry Quirk, which was
40:50
Speaker 2: very strange, same as the Audisty and Oracle Artists, complete
40:54
Speaker 2: coincidence as far as I can tell. And yeah, another
40:56
Speaker 2: one from Texas, the Texan Zombies with Dusty Hill and
40:59
Speaker 2: Frank Beard. But in researching the book, some of this
41:02
Speaker 2: stuff is very hard to document because it's so long ago,
41:04
Speaker 2: and being in a phony band is not something anyone
41:07
Speaker 2: probably really wants to put on their resume or their
41:10
Speaker 2: Lincoln or whatever. But I did find that even yeah,
41:14
Speaker 2: back as far as September sixty eight through the end
41:17
Speaker 2: of sixty eight, there were ads for the zombies from
41:21
Speaker 2: England playing gigs in different places in the United States,
41:25
Speaker 2: which the real zombies most certainly were not doing and
41:28
Speaker 2: they didn't exist places like Rayne, Louisiana, Tulsa, Iowa City.
41:33
Speaker 2: One of my favorites is the Healand High School Press
41:36
Speaker 2: Club dance in Sioux City.
41:38
Speaker 1: Wow.
41:39
Speaker 2: Prestigious gig. And It's funny because in researching the fake
41:43
Speaker 2: band stuff, I was in touch with a guy named
41:44
Speaker 2: Gary Johnson who has a website called Michigan Rock and
41:48
Speaker 2: Roll Legends, and he knew a lot about the Delta
41:50
Speaker 2: Promotions bands being from Michigan himself. But as I was
41:55
Speaker 2: digging around, I found an ad for one of these
41:57
Speaker 2: December nineteen sixty eight by one of these fake Zombies bands,
42:01
Speaker 2: and they actually had a photograph of the band in it.
42:04
Speaker 2: I hadn't no idea who was and I sent it
42:05
Speaker 2: to Garrey and I said, so, you know who recognized
42:07
Speaker 2: any of these guys in this photo? And he emails
42:09
Speaker 2: me back and says, well, actually I do. He said,
42:12
Speaker 2: that's a group called the boss Men, And I wasn't
42:15
Speaker 2: familiar with the boss Men. But the boss Men were
42:17
Speaker 2: a Michigan band who were active in the mid sixties
42:20
Speaker 2: up till sixty seven, I think, and whose lineup included
42:23
Speaker 2: Mark Farner, whose name I did recognize as the singer
42:27
Speaker 2: guitarist of Grand Funk Grand Funk Railroad. So this was
42:31
Speaker 2: odd because The Bossman had already broken up by sixty eight.
42:35
Speaker 2: So I did actually reach out to Mark Farner and
42:38
Speaker 2: he said he had no recollection of being in a
42:41
Speaker 2: zombies band. But what's interesting is that Farner was in
42:45
Speaker 2: a band in late sixty eight early sixty nine. He
42:47
Speaker 2: was in a band called The Pack, and the Pack
42:50
Speaker 2: were for a time had as their booking agent Delta Promotions,
42:54
Speaker 2: which is the same band that was handling fake zombie band.
42:57
Speaker 2: So there's sort of this connection. Don't know if Delta
43:01
Speaker 2: just got their hands on an old photo of the
43:03
Speaker 2: Bossman and sent it out to clubs with their fake
43:05
Speaker 2: zombies bands, thinking well, who's going to know or care
43:08
Speaker 2: who's in the photo? Right, but very strange. And then
43:10
Speaker 2: there was another band in the UK. Another thing that
43:13
Speaker 2: I came up with that I hadn't known previously was
43:15
Speaker 2: that there was a band in Bristol, UK called Mark
43:18
Speaker 2: Roman and the kind kind spelled with a y again,
43:21
Speaker 2: who decided to change their name to the Zombies in
43:24
Speaker 2: early nineteen sixty nine for I don't know. It was
43:26
Speaker 2: a publicity stunt get attention, so they called themselves the
43:30
Speaker 2: Zombies and started playing gigs and the Zombies management.
43:34
Speaker 1: It's like a scary movie. There's zombies popping up.
43:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and apparently they.
43:39
Speaker 1: Are coming to get you. Bar Yeah.
43:41
Speaker 2: They were doing okay for a while. They were quoting
43:43
Speaker 2: the lead singer of that band saying, it's great. We
43:45
Speaker 2: go out there and we start playing She's not there
43:47
Speaker 2: and the crowd grows wild. But legal action they were
43:50
Speaker 2: shut down, and I think there were probably some others,
43:52
Speaker 2: but again it's not the kind of thing that people
43:54
Speaker 2: are going to be inclined to brag about. But this
43:57
Speaker 2: was an ongoing thing. I think season desist orders. There's
44:00
Speaker 2: the UK music press, and maybe in America too. There
44:02
Speaker 2: were notices published. Rolling Stone I think did a couple
44:05
Speaker 2: of different expos a pieces in America letting people know
44:09
Speaker 2: these if you see an ad for the Zombies. It's
44:11
Speaker 2: not the Zombies.
44:13
Speaker 1: Booked on rock Podcasts. We'll be back after this.
44:16
Speaker 2: There will be an intermission.
44:19
Speaker 1: You go into great depth as to what the members
44:21
Speaker 1: of the band were doing, the projects that they were
44:23
Speaker 1: involved in post Zombies. As we get to the eighties
44:26
Speaker 1: and the nineties, interest in the Zombies is growing, and
44:29
Speaker 1: fans of old also those who weren't around to see
44:32
Speaker 1: the band were hoping maybe a reunion is going to happen.
44:34
Speaker 1: So let's skip ahead to chapter thirty six, and it's
44:37
Speaker 1: titled all right, just six gigs. Then you lead with quote.
44:41
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety eight, despite the success of the Zombie,
44:44
Speaker 1: having box and renewed interest in the band, a Zombies
44:47
Speaker 1: reunion seemed as unlikely as ever. While luting the box set,
44:51
Speaker 1: Rod Argent stuck to his guns on the subject of
44:54
Speaker 1: reviving the band, telling the Tampa Tribune that the Zombies
44:57
Speaker 1: sixties career seemed like a perfect little circle. I wouldn't
45:00
Speaker 1: touch it. Now. What ultimately leads to this Zombies reunion
45:05
Speaker 1: in two thousand and four, Well.
45:07
Speaker 2: It's funny and I was just as you said that.
45:09
Speaker 2: As you're reading that, it made me think because for myself,
45:12
Speaker 2: by ninety eight. By this point I had spoken and
45:15
Speaker 2: interviewed and written about the Zombies a fair amount by
45:18
Speaker 2: that point, and if you had asked me the odds
45:20
Speaker 2: of a Zombies reunion happening at that point, I would say,
45:23
Speaker 2: it's not going to happen. Rod will never do it.
45:25
Speaker 2: Rod does not want to do it, So it's not
45:26
Speaker 2: going to happen. And Rod had always resisted this idea.
45:29
Speaker 2: Rod's always been pushing forward. And even when there was
45:32
Speaker 2: a time in eighty nine when Colin and Hugh and
45:35
Speaker 2: Chris got back together to make a Zombies album, which
45:38
Speaker 2: was in response to yet another fake Zombie band touring
45:43
Speaker 2: America in nineteen eighty eight, that's a whole other story.
45:45
Speaker 1: So we'll say another one. Okay, another one.
45:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a whole other chapter. So they'd made that
45:51
Speaker 2: album and Rod very reluctantly, I think maybe appeared on
45:54
Speaker 2: one track, but he wasn't really into the idea at all,
45:57
Speaker 2: and so Rod kept doing his own thing. He had
46:00
Speaker 2: a bit of success as a producer in the eighties
46:02
Speaker 2: and nineties and doing his own thing, made a classical
46:05
Speaker 2: album and assorted other things, and in late in ninety eight,
46:09
Speaker 2: his friend John Dankworth asked him if you would perform
46:12
Speaker 2: a benefit concert for his Stables theater in Milton Keynes
46:16
Speaker 2: in England, and so Rodd's is great do a show,
46:18
Speaker 2: and so Rod puts a little program together. I think
46:20
Speaker 2: some of it's Rod playing some jazz piano. There's a
46:24
Speaker 2: reunion of the group argent for part of it. But
46:26
Speaker 2: then at the end of the show, Colin Blunstone is
46:29
Speaker 2: in the audience and Rod invites Colin up on stage
46:33
Speaker 2: to do a couple of numbers and they do. She's
46:35
Speaker 2: not there in time of the season, and both of
46:38
Speaker 2: them have said that when that happened, the chemistry just
46:41
Speaker 2: clicked once again, and felt like they stopped working together
46:45
Speaker 2: just a few weeks earlier rather than many years. They
46:48
Speaker 2: just slotted in. And now Rod and Colin have slightly
46:52
Speaker 2: differing recollections of what happened after that. Rod's recollection is
46:56
Speaker 2: that after that happened that he wanted to get together
47:00
Speaker 2: and start working together again as a regular thing. Colin's
47:03
Speaker 2: recollection was that Colin had a keyboard player in his
47:06
Speaker 2: group who had a tendency to not show up for gigs,
47:09
Speaker 2: and therefore he asked Rod to fill in. But whatever
47:12
Speaker 2: the case, He and Rod decided to go out and
47:13
Speaker 2: play a few gigs early in ninety nine, and that
47:16
Speaker 2: was sort of the starting point for all of it.
47:19
Speaker 2: But it was just six gigs at the start, and
47:21
Speaker 2: then it sort of grew. I think they enjoyed it
47:24
Speaker 2: so much, but Rod still resisted using the Zombies name
47:29
Speaker 2: because for the first few years they did this, they
47:32
Speaker 2: called themselves Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent or Rod Argent
47:35
Speaker 2: Colin Blunstone. It wasn't the Zombies, even though obviously people
47:38
Speaker 2: knew who they were and stuff like that. And then
47:40
Speaker 2: I think when they were making an album together as
47:43
Speaker 2: far as I can see, this iss two thousand and four,
47:47
Speaker 2: two thousand and three, and Rod actually told me he
47:50
Speaker 2: said he had a dream. He had a dream one
47:53
Speaker 2: night that they had this album they were making that
47:56
Speaker 2: it set the Zombies on the cover, and he tells Colin,
47:59
Speaker 2: and Colin can't believe this, because you know, he knows
48:01
Speaker 2: Rod's have been vehemently opposed to this all these years.
48:05
Speaker 2: But now I had Rod has a dream, and they
48:08
Speaker 2: start using the Zombies name and go on to spend
48:11
Speaker 2: the next nearly twenty years touring as the Zombies, both
48:15
Speaker 2: with the new lineup that includes Rod and Colin and
48:18
Speaker 2: also playing some gigs that also feature Hugh Grundy and
48:21
Speaker 2: Chris White, and on one occasion with Paul Atkinson as well,
48:25
Speaker 2: right before Paul passed away. So yeah, the rest is history,
48:29
Speaker 2: and it's only really in the past year or so
48:32
Speaker 2: that they finally retired. But amazing. I mean, I saw
48:35
Speaker 2: them back in I think it was two thousand and
48:37
Speaker 2: seven or two thousand and eight, and I remember thinking
48:40
Speaker 2: at the time. I remember thinking I've got to go
48:42
Speaker 2: and see them because they're not going to keep doing
48:43
Speaker 2: this for long. But they actually they stuck with it
48:45
Speaker 2: and had great success touring over the past two decades
48:48
Speaker 2: or so.
48:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, So where they end now? So there's no more Zombies?
48:51
Speaker 1: Does Rod Argent still perform?
48:53
Speaker 2: My understanding is that Rod had a stroke and I
48:56
Speaker 2: think the decision was that he didn't want to or
49:00
Speaker 2: didn't feel like he should be touring anymore. I don't
49:02
Speaker 2: think they've ruled out making more recordings as the Zombies,
49:06
Speaker 2: because they've made records that have done quite well. I've
49:09
Speaker 2: been back in the billboard charts and things in the
49:11
Speaker 2: past number of years, so I think that's still an option.
49:14
Speaker 2: I don't know that they've officially broken up. I think
49:16
Speaker 2: the door is still open for more recordings for sure.
49:18
Speaker 1: Why do you think people still have such admiration for
49:21
Speaker 1: the Zombies in twenty twenty five.
49:23
Speaker 2: The easy answer, I guess is just to say that
49:25
Speaker 2: the music is great, But I think there's I think
49:28
Speaker 2: there's more to it than that in a way. And
49:30
Speaker 2: even if you go back to the mid sixties era,
49:33
Speaker 2: after they'd stopped having hits in the UK press and
49:37
Speaker 2: maybe in America too, probably in America too, there was
49:39
Speaker 2: always a contingent of people rooting for them. In the UK.
49:43
Speaker 2: You had Penny Valentine, who was a journalist from music
49:46
Speaker 2: Press there, and Kenny Everett, who was a DJ. These
49:49
Speaker 2: people would sort of champion the Zombies, and I think
49:51
Speaker 2: there's something compelling about that. I think anyone that's a
49:55
Speaker 2: real music lover will often have a particular artist or
50:00
Speaker 2: and that they love to tell people about it that
50:03
Speaker 2: people won't have heard of and oh you've got to
50:05
Speaker 2: hear this, you got it, And I think the Zombies
50:07
Speaker 2: is that band for a lot of people. And I
50:10
Speaker 2: go back to whim, you know, when I first discovered them,
50:13
Speaker 2: the sort of origin story of how that happened. The
50:15
Speaker 2: Susannah Hoffs in the forward to the book talks about
50:18
Speaker 2: hearing them when she was a kid in her mom's
50:20
Speaker 2: station wagon, and yet they never quite seemed mainstream when
50:24
Speaker 2: I first got into them, and even when I was
50:27
Speaker 2: a teenager and stuff, it always felt like you were
50:29
Speaker 2: part of this little club that knew about this band,
50:32
Speaker 2: and that you were slightly outside the mainstream. And yet
50:35
Speaker 2: but you're also overjoyed to be able to share it
50:37
Speaker 2: with people too. So I think there's been that element
50:39
Speaker 2: too about having this group sort of just outside of
50:43
Speaker 2: beetles and Stones type of territory, but that are just fantastic.
50:47
Speaker 2: And then I think that that's only been supported by
50:50
Speaker 2: them fact that they've been touring over the past twenty years,
50:52
Speaker 2: so not only are people discovering them, and of course
50:55
Speaker 2: with Spotify, Youtubeca, et cetera, that's probably just led to
50:58
Speaker 2: whole new general of people being able to discover them,
51:02
Speaker 2: but now, or at least over the past twenty years,
51:04
Speaker 2: they could also go and see them live. So I
51:06
Speaker 2: think that's my best guess as to what's going on.
51:09
Speaker 1: And people can get the complete history of this band
51:12
Speaker 1: through this book Times and Seasons, The Rise and Fall
51:14
Speaker 1: and Rise of the Zombies. It's out now. You can
51:17
Speaker 1: find it wherever books are sold. It's through Hozak Books.
51:20
Speaker 2: I have to say I have to give props again
51:22
Speaker 2: to Hoseak because I'd seen as we were working on this,
51:25
Speaker 2: I'd seen a few different sort of proofs PDF proofs
51:28
Speaker 2: on my computer as we were going through the latter
51:31
Speaker 2: stages of the process. But when I opened the box
51:33
Speaker 2: and actually got my hands on a hard copy of
51:35
Speaker 2: the book, it's nice. It looks nice, it feels nice.
51:38
Speaker 2: So kudos to Todd and the team at Hozak. It's
51:41
Speaker 2: just a nice thing to open your hands. So and you, sir,
51:44
Speaker 2: have been a great host for my first podcast appearance,
51:46
Speaker 2: so hats off to you as well.
51:48
Speaker 1: Thank you, Ah, you're welcome, and thank you Robin Platz,
51:51
Speaker 1: thanks so much.
51:52
Speaker 2: Thanks.
52:01
Speaker 1: That's it. It's in the books.