September 24, 2021 • 52 mins
The lead singer of newly minted Rock 'n' roll Hall of Famers the Zombies joins Jordan to discuss the creation of the 1968 baroque-pop masterpiece 'Odessey and Oracle,' the 50th anniversary reissue of his cult-classic solo debut 'One Year,' and the band's unlikely journey from '60s obscurity to late-career headliners revered by the likes of Dave Grohl and Paul Weller. Blunstone also opened up about returning to Abbey Road for a special concert live stream — filmed just steps from where they recorded 'Odessey and Oracle' over half a century ago.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Inside the
Studio on iHeart Radio. My name is Jordan runt Dog.
But enough about me. I have so much to say
about my legendary guest. He's one of the most distinctive
voices in music. His ethereal velvety vocals helped make his
group The Zombies one of the most unique bands of
the British Invasion. Their unmistakable blend of Beatles, Bill Evans,
(00:23):
blues and baroque can be heard on sixties hits like
She's Not There, Tell Her No and Time of the Season. Now.
For years, those three titles basically summed up their creative reputation,
but the band has experienced an unprecedented popular resurgence and
the New Millennium thanks to an album that was basically
ignored upon its release. I'm talking, of course, about the
(00:43):
brilliant Odyssey and Oracle. It's a kaleidoscopic musical vision spanning cultures,
genres and moods. Released just after the band split in nine,
the album has risen from obscurity to be hailed as
a pop masterpiece, praised by the likes of Tom Petty,
Dave Grohl and Paul weller many so called lost albums
(01:04):
oh the rehabbed reputation to a film soundtrack or a
well chosen commercial placement. Not so with Odyssey an Oracle.
It's rediscovery relies purely on the strength of the songs.
In two thousand three, Rolling Stone placed it at number
one hundred on their list of the five dred Greatest
Albums of All Time, and in two thousand nineteen, the
band themselves were given a much delayed induction into the
(01:26):
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This renewed popularity helped
the Zombies rise from the dead over thirty years after
they're split, My Guests reunited with this bandmate, Rod Argent,
the Zombies organist and chief songwriter, and they begin touring
pretty much non stop, at least until the COVID crisis
put a stop to live music. Undeterred, they kept busy
(01:47):
with work on a new Zombies record, likely due out
in My Guests also helped oversee the fiftieth anniversary reissue
of his solo debut one year, complete with a bonus
disc of outtakes and unheard ms that'll be hitting shelves
on November five, until they can hit the road once again.
The Zombies are thrilling fans with their so called world tour.
(02:08):
In one night, a livestream concert held from the floor
of studio to London's iconic Abbey Roads Studios, the famous
room where the Beatles recorded the bulk of their work.
It was a fitting choice of venue. Odyssey and Oracle
and one year were recorded just a few steps down
the hall. Fans can watch the concert and the special
Q and A with veteran rock journalist David Frick on
(02:29):
demand through October three via vieps dot com. I'm so
thrilled the welcome one of my rock and roll heroes,
Colin Bloodstone. We started our talk discussing his return to
Abbey Road. It was really good fun and I mean
it's such an atmosphere there to be in studio to
the Beatles recorded the majority, the vast majority of their tracks.
(02:54):
Um and and also of course I've worked in there
with the Allen Posson's project. Allan was worked in that
studio although the Zombies and on my solo albums, we
worked in the studio just up the hall, Studio three,
which is the first studio you come to when you
when you walk through the front door the Zombies never
recorded in studio too. That was our first time playing
(03:17):
together in studio too. Wow. I mean just even just
being in that studio album and it must have just
as you say, packed with so many memories. I mean,
what a special night for you are. Absolutely, you know,
I found that when we first went there. I think
we might have gone there the day before we actually played.
And I was saying to all the guys who hadn't
been in Appy Road, I was saying, yea, this is
(03:37):
studio to where the Beatles recorded. This is Studio three
where we did honestly and oracles so much Historildren and
I had to stop because I was becoming emotional about
the whole thing, and I thought, no, no, they're gonna
have to work with out for themselves, because this is
something that effects on me. I don't know what it
was doing to them, but it was certainly having an
effect on me. Oh, I can only imagine me. I've
(03:59):
been lucky enough to stand in studio too, and there
is an energy. You're right, it's it's it really envelopes you. Yes, absolutely,
it doesn't intrigue me because it's the only studio I've
ever known where the control room is on the next
floor up, and so there's this flight of stairs up
the left hand side, and I've always sort of it
as the walk of shame when you've been down there
(04:22):
trying to do a vocal so as I was with
Alan Parsons, and you know, he wants to say, oh,
you know, you haven't really got hold of this and
there's a problem here. Would you like to come up
and have a chat? And you know, you clip clop up,
trudging up the stairs. There's nowhere to hide. You know.
I've never known another studio like that where you have
(04:44):
to go up this open staircase too to be told
where you're going wrong. It's such an incredible place. But
one of the details that I really loved about about
your your performance the other night was that you had
the stage crew dressed in the white lab coats. And
I don't know if that was intentional, but I felt
like a fitting nod to the days when Abbey Road
(05:06):
was treated like a laboratory and they had the engineers
dressed like scientists, but they did. It wasn't my idea,
but you're absolutely right they were dressed in like. What
happened was the engineers actually used to be dressed in jackets,
collars and ties that are looking at the pictures, it
reminds me of old sessions back in the day. They
(05:29):
had colors and ties. And then what we would call
the boffins of the technicians, who would you know, once
in a while things would go wrong and in a flash,
these guys would be up there. You didn't you didn't
phone out for somebody, there's there's a whole department that
looks after any any technical problems. They wore white coats
(05:49):
and then there was seemed to be an army of
guys who just moved things around um sort of loaders,
and they had brown coats, so it was in a
way it was quite regimented. It was a real contradiction
at Abbey Row because they made so many wonderful records
there and they had great, great engineers. We worked almost
(06:11):
exclusively with Peter Vince and Jeff Emerick and they were
absolutely wonderful. But they did have an old fashioned side
to it. They were very strict rules and I think
it changed when probably after Sergeant Pepper because the Beatles
were recording all night, but and before that there were
very strict rules. You started at ten, and you must
(06:33):
finish at one. That's your session. Then you started at
two and you went to a five and you had
to stop, and then you went from seven to ten,
and particularly in Studio three, you had to stop at
ten because the soundproofing wasn't very good in Studio three,
and it's built right next door to an apartment block,
and they used to complain about the noise, so you
(06:55):
had to finish at ten o'clock. It was. It was
quite strange, really wow, I mean, such a fascinating I mean,
as you say that to debt almost sort of regimented
mentality almost helped the sessions in a way because it
forced you to sort of really have the songs down
and really get in and get out and know exactly
what you wanted to do. In a way, it does,
(07:17):
and I mean, particularly with them obnestly an Oracle, we
had a very limited budget. We had a thousand plans,
so I mean, you know, it's not very much. It
wasn't very much then and it certainly isn't very much now,
of course, But to to have a thousand plans and
try and do an album in appy road, you're you're
up against it. So we rehearsed really extensively before we
(07:37):
went in to do Odesty an Oracle, and when we
got to the studio, we knew what songs we were doing,
we knew what keys we're going to do, and we
knew the arrangement. We're just looking for a performance and
we recorded very very fast, but there wasn't there was
that added element that we knew we could record from
center one and that was it. And on one occasion,
(07:57):
there's a song called changes on Odyesty an Oracle, and
it's the only song that we're all singing on. Everybody's
singing harmonies on that, and so we were all around
the piano, lovely Steinway piano in Studio three. There's a
red light on at the door, but because we're recording,
we're singing, and the hands of the clock just went
(08:18):
past one o'clock and these guys in brown coats came
in and we're singing around the piano and they took
the piano art and took it to another studio in
the middle of a take. Yes, well, and we just
kept singing, but we didn't dare stop because we just
didn't have any money to pay for those sessions. So
(08:38):
I've always liked to think that you can hear the
piano being moved out on that particular track, but I
think we had to do it again because I think
it was a bit noisy. I've listened, I can't hear
the piano being moved, but it did happen. It was
It was quite interesting. I was rather proud of us
that these guys I didn't know who they were. I've
(08:58):
never seen him before, and they walk in and take
the piano. They could have been stealing the piano for
all I knew, and we just kept singing. So I
was quite proud of us in that respect. I was
gonna say, that's professional right there, even though the rolling
pianos around you don't miss a note, it's professionally. It's
also desperation when you when you don't have any money
(09:19):
and the studio times running out, you just keep going,
you know. And so that's what we do well, despite
the sort of over zealous movers. Abbey Road then and
and now is such a technologically advanced place. How did
that the cutting edge of technology at the time, help
faster out of see an Oracle? Well, of course, they
(09:41):
just literally finished saga Pepper. I think the Beatles have
left two days before we went in, and famously John
Lennon left his melotron in Studio three and Rod used it.
And if you listen to Odessy an Oracle, it's melotron
all the way through it. It would have been a
different album if John hadn't have left his melo drown behind.
And they also left percussion instruments all on the floor
(10:03):
at tambourines, miracus and things, So we were picking up
the percussion instruments that the Beatles had left from Sergeant Pepper,
which was a big thrill for us because we're a
huge Beatles fans then and now. Um. But I say
that because just before that, the Beach Boys in America
have been using an eight track machine, but there was
(10:25):
no eight track machine in the UK. That John Lennon
said we wanted to use an eight track machine, there
wasn't one in the UK, and he just left the
engineers to sort that problem out. And what they came
up with was they actually attached to four track machines.
I mean they call it sort of, I don't know,
(10:46):
it's quite rough. I think they just put to four
track machines together, which in effect gave you seven tracks.
It didn't give you eight tracks. You lost one track
when you did this. But so the Beetles have been
using seven track recording and we inherited that from them
because we have used to recording on four tracks. In
the UK, everyone recorded on four tracks, and this game
(11:09):
is a lot of opportunities to try other things. For instance,
on time that the season the track was recorded, and
Rod got the idea of putting a ah and we've
got an extra track, so he just it was one take,
you know, he just went into the studio and he
put that on on on the track, and I mean
it wouldn't be the same song without that, and we
(11:31):
wouldn't have been able to do it if we'd only
had four tracks. So it did. It really did help
in many ways. It's so interesting to hear how how
you build these tracks up. I mean you mentioned Brian Wilson. Uh.
In my mind, I've always associated honestly and Oracle Pet
and Pet Sounds as just for their sonic scope and
the rich harmonies and the lyrical maturity. And I think
(11:52):
about Brian using a sort of modular recording technique for
something like good Vibrations, where he would record segments of
songs and assemble them almost like movie scenes, because they
all had a very different and I listened to tracks
like something like Changes and Honestly and Oracle or even
Brief Candles, where it's there's such distinct musical moments and textures.
(12:13):
How would you go about assembling tracks like that? Did
you go instrument by instrument and build it up or
were the complete band performances opposite. We didn't have the
time to do things like that. I don't think it
even occurred, but we were recording really fast, and from memory,
all of those tracks would have all four guys in
(12:35):
the band playing at the same time in the same room.
That would be the basic track, and then I would
put a lead vocal on and Chris and Rock would
put harmonies on afterwards. That's as I remember it. Um
and occasionally then because we had these extra tracks. Again
(12:56):
using time of the season as an example, there are
two keyboards on, especially on the playout at the end,
that's there's two keyboards playing. They're both it's both Rod,
but he's just playing two organ solos at the end,
And there are probably one or two other instances of that.
And also we double tracked some of the harmonies which
we weren't able to do before. So it wasn't incredibly
(13:17):
complicated the things that we added. It's just that we
were able to sometimes overdub a keyboard and overdub harmonies
as well. But it really did help. And then once
or twice we would put an effect on like the
time of the season, handclap and breath. You just sopped
a mystery that I've been grappling with for years. I've
(13:37):
tried to play the outro solo. Never realized thing it
was for two keyboards, and I could never figure out
why I could never get it. Thank you for that.
But also another thing with our harmonies, which I think
it's probably puzzled people a little bit. We didn't do
harmonism in a way that most people did, where being
the lead singer, I would just sing the melody and
(13:59):
then we would have somebody sing a harmony above and
somebody singing a harmony blow. We didn't do things like
that because I was a fairly indisciplined vocalist. I had
no um classical background or at all, and Rod would
always say to me, you sing what you hear. This
would usually be in a chorus I'm thinking about more
(14:21):
than anything else. He would sing, say, you sing what
you hear as the melody, and because I've got quite
a high voice, I would often automatically go into the
top harmony. So having established that's what I heard, we
would we would play that four or five times with
me probably just rodding me on piano, and we played that,
did I've got that lot in my mind? And then
(14:43):
he would try and find a very easy harmony for Chris,
because Chris has got to play bass at the same
time as he's singing, So we try and find a
very easy harmony for Chris. And because of doing those
two things, Rod often would have an incredibly complex harmony
that he had to fill in all the holes that
(15:04):
we weren't achieving in in the harmony. So some of
our harmonies are really unusual. And if you just if
you tried to copy them, I think it would be well,
you'd be all right if you knew what I just said,
I've let the I've let the cat out of the back, haven't.
If you knew what I just said, it would be
a lot easier. But people try to copy them, and
of course they're thinking of somebody singing the top harmony,
(15:25):
somebody singing the bottom harmony, and somebody singing the melody.
But that's not sometimes that wasn't how we did it.
A few years back, you toured with with Brian Wilson
for the Something Great from sixty eight tour. What was
that like, the interplay between between you and m bri.
I mean, that must have been like a master class
on harmony that tour. It was incredible. I'm a huge
(15:48):
by a Wilson fan and and Beach Boys fan, you know,
and I always have been. I just think they're absolutely fantastic.
Is a master It was wonderful to two with him,
and of course he has an incredible band who we
got to know quite well. And one of the wonderful
moments was they would always have a warm up before
the show and they would usually they'd usually sing in
(16:10):
my room, just acapella. It was mind boggling beautiful. If ever,
if I had the chance, I would be there every
night if I could, and I'd just like to listen
to them sing. Absolutely fantastic and you really hear it
when it's just voices in a room, Um, you know
it's not it's got up on the stage with all
(16:31):
acoustic problems and whatever, You're right there in the middle
of it. Absolutely wonderful, great singers. And there's a version
that I've heard of you on stage with Brian singing
God only knows, and it brought tears to my eyes
and absolutely incredible parts. I'm always going to remember that
I only did it twice. I did it in Los
(16:52):
Angeles and I did it in Seattle, and I'll always
remember that. It was a wonderful experience. But it was
one of you know, it's one of the greatest contemporary
songs that's ever been written. So to have the opportunities
to sing that with the guy who wrote it, um,
it's a little intimidazing. It's a little intimidazing, but it was.
(17:14):
It was a great thrill. It was. It was wonderful.
I encourage everyone listening to to go go check that
out online and also check out the interview after the
Abbey Road live stream that that you and Rod did
with with the journalist David Frick and he he uh.
During that discussion, which was so illuminating and so interesting,
(17:34):
he mentioned, uh, you're singing parts as a full performance
and not sort of camping in. You know, a chorus here,
redoing a line or two there, and really wanting to
to sing complete takes start to finish. That's so interesting
to me. I wanted to ask you more about your
your process of completing vocal takes well, and particularly when
(17:55):
I'm working with Rod, which pretty much now is exclusively
what I'm doing. It really come from Rod. I mean,
I would prefer to do it that way anyway, but
Rod is adamant. You know, we do a whole performance
and we'll do four or five takes and then try
and try and pick a favorite one and then just
see if there's anything better that we you know, we're not.
(18:17):
I would say to Rod, I'm not proud. You know,
we need to catch something. That's fine by me, and
I'm more recently I'm quite pleased that. Um. You know,
as I've developed vocal technique a little bit, the takes
will be very very similar, so almost identical. So if
(18:37):
he wants to double track anything, it's there. If we've
done four or five takes, that he can just take
another take and there's your there's your double track if
you want to double and if you want a trouble track,
you know it's there. If you want to do it.
But yeah, it's as simple as that. Really. We always
do whole performances, um, and and then we'll do four
or five and then stop and see where. Or on
(19:14):
the topic of your incredible voice, I think I'm correct
in saying that you still perform these songs in their
regional key, which and you sound just as rich and
flawless as fifty five years ago. I think I speak
for all singers and vocal coaches listening right now. When
I asked, how do you do that? What is your secret?
(19:34):
Do you have a special tea or what have you?
How do you protect your voice? Well? I do do
singing exercises. Both Rod and I started with a singing
coach called Ian Adam in London is sadly no longer
with us, but um, he used to coach a lot
of the singers in the West End, which would be
like Broadway in America. And he never wanted to change
(19:55):
your voice, but he was trying to make it stronger
and more accurate because singers in the West End have
to sing night after nights after night, and you know
you have to have a fairly strong voice to do that.
And he just taught me a little bit about singing technique,
and he gave me a series of exercises, and when
we're on the road, I'll do those exercises before sound checks,
(20:18):
probably half an hour before sound check, and then I
do them again before the show. So I will have
sung in the sound check itself, maybe quite long. It
just depends. It's more dependent on technology than anything else.
If everything works, but I will have sung for an
hour before the show starts, but not but in two
(20:39):
half hour bursts, one before sound check from one before
the show. So hopefully my voice is warmed up. And
if I do it every day, it just makes it stronger.
I mean, I think people who don't practice are very
prime to losing their voice, and you often see that
where a band goes out on tour and then we
(21:00):
lead singer loses his voice after two or three nights,
and I just want to avoid that. And another thing
I often hear is singers will come off and they'll say,
you know, once my voice had warmed up after the
fourth office song and it's really great, and I don't
say anything, but I'm thinking, well, why didn't you warm
your before you went on? And then it would have
been great from the first song. I mean, I'm not
(21:21):
saying it always works, but it's it's worth a try. Yes,
that's so. That's that's all I do. Really, I try.
When we're on the road, I do try and eat
sensibly obviously, try and get as much sleep as possible.
I think you need to drink a lot of water.
Will always have water on stage. There's one occasion when
(21:43):
I thought I'd lost my voice in the middle of
the show. I honestly I thought it had gone completely,
and I drank some water. It just came back. Just
like that. Said, I would always say, have some water around.
I admire people who can do it, like a two
hour set with not drinking any water, but I'm not
quite sure how they do that. The other thing that
(22:04):
I've done is that I was always always like to
enjoy a consert night and we'd always have a few
drinks and you know, make a bit of a social
of it. But four or five years ago, it's four
and a half years ago, I gave up alcohol altogether.
And you know, that's that's a big, a big thing
(22:25):
to do. But if you think you perform better without alcohol,
it's worth considering. You know, if you're getting you a
bit sloppy. If you make mistakes and your intonation is
not on the button, it might be worth looking at
your alcohol consumption. I'm not saying people what to do.
I'm only telling you what I do. You know, actually
(22:46):
I'm going to have a drink. Talking about water are
amazing tips. I mean, you know your voice is so distinctive,
but it blows me away how many different styles you singing.
I mean, I'm thinking about your first album. You go
from Groce Win tunes to Smokey Robinson to Bo Diddley.
When you first started singing with their voice voices that
(23:07):
you wanted to emulate. Who are some of your your
your vocal heroes when you were first starting out as
a musician. Well, I'll tell you in a minute that
I only became a singer really by chance. But I'll
explain that in a minute. But for me, it was
always the greats of rock and roll, Chuck Berry, Elvis,
Little Richard. They were the people that I idolized and
(23:30):
then that encouraged me to buy My parents bought a guitar.
And it wasn't easy for them, you know, they bought
the guitar. I was eternally grateful and through that I
got an introduction to this band that was forming as
a guitarist, and I went along and it was our
first ever rehearsal, and you know, I didn't know Rod
(23:51):
at the time. I knew one guy who was in
this joining this band, and he was late. So I
kind of turned up and there were all these strangers there,
and it wasn't helped by the fact that I played
a lot of rugby and I just broken my nose
and I had two black eyes and taping across my face,
so I actually looked like a zombie when I turned up.
I think they're a bit afraid of me, actually, which
(24:13):
was lovely. Anyway, I was a rhythm guitarist. Didn't last long.
I was a rhymen guitarist and Rob was going to
be the lead vocalist. And at this first rehearsal we
played um. We played a song called malaguenan instrumental called
Mala It's an old classic Guene and Rob didn't because
(24:34):
it was instrumentally, didn't do anything because he was the singer.
And then we had a break and he went over
that just by chance, there was an old broken down
piano in the corner and he just started playing nut
rocker by be bumbling the stingers, which is it's quite
an accomplishment for say a fifteen year old boy to
play that with authority. And I went over to him, and,
(24:55):
as I said, I didn't really know him, so I
probably I probably didn't call him his name. I just said, boy,
you should play keyboards in this band. I don't know,
why aren't you playing keyboards? And he was adamant, you've said, no,
it's a rock and roll back. We want three guitars,
which was the fashion at the time, and the conversation ended.
(25:18):
And then at the end of that first rehearsal, I
was just going to put my guitar in its case
and I just sang a Rocky Nelson song pretty much
to myself, just in the corner, which is having a
bit of fun. It was either Hello Mary Lou or
It's late. May would have been It's late. And Rod
came over. I wasn't singing to him. He just heard
it and he came over and you said, look, I'll
(25:39):
tell you what. If you'll be the lead singer in
the band, I'll play keyboards. And that essentially was how
the Zombies came together. Wow, maybe maybe he couldn't sing
and play at the same time back then, maybe he couldn't. Yeah,
I don't know whether he could or not, but that
was the beginning of it. When we were always slightly
(25:59):
differ in that we were a keyboard based band when
that was not the fashion at all, and we always
did three part harmony, you know, and very few other
bands we're doing three part harmony at the time, but
we always did it. It's so interesting to think about
how much R and B you are played early in
your career and a lot of British bands to him.
(26:20):
It got my mojo working road Runners, Sticks and Stones.
It's funny to think the Zombies re introducing this American
music two Americans in a lot of ways. At one time,
the Zombies were called the Zombies R and B because
that's what we played. What we dropped the R and B.
And of course I'm just before the first We won
(26:42):
a rock and roll competition which led to a contract
with Decca and we were introduced to a producer called
Ken Jennes who was going to produce that first session.
And about two weeks before the session, he said to us,
you know, sessions coming up in two weeks time. You
could write something for this session if you want. And
then he went on talking the other thing wasn't a
big deal, and Rod went away and he wrote She's
(27:03):
Not There, came back to us fourt year hours later
and played us a song. You know, we knew it
was a special song, and actually Chris White wrote a
great song as well, which was a B side, You
Made Me Feel Good. I didn't know either of them
could write songs. It was a huge surprise to me
and that changed everything because up until then we've been
(27:24):
playing predominantly R and B classics. But of course we
recorded She's Not There, and it was a huge hit
and people wanted more songs like that week. We also
used to play quite a lot of Beetles tunes as well,
but once we had a hit record, we couldn't play
Beetles tunes and people didn't really want the R and
(27:45):
B classics, so there was there was a problem because
Rod and Chris didn't have a backlog of songs. They
were the first two songs. Actually, Robs told me he
had written two songs before that um, but he didn't
have a backbob of some to Neither did Chris White,
and so it created a bit of a problem for us,
especially as Decca always put pressure on artists who had
(28:09):
a chart record to within six weeks to have a
follow up. It's six weeks. It's just it's just inviting
me to fail. I mean, we were working every night,
we were we were out ontour. There was no opportunity
to write. And so when the sort of dreaded six
weeks came up, roughly speaking, we had one song. Chris
(28:32):
White had got a song. It wasn't an aside. We
all knew, it wasn't an a side Leave me be,
it was cool. It was a very dark and depressing song.
It was all we had, and so Deca put it
out and of course it was a dismal failure. And
in the States we skipped that, and the follow up
to She's Not There in America was Telling Her Note,
(28:53):
which was quite a big hit, and it was a
small hit in the UK as well. But people away
seem to be so short sighted in these days. You know,
you have to have a follow up, regardless of whether
you've got a new material. They were just forced this
follow up, and it just seems like they're almost willing
you to fail and so they can get onto the
(29:15):
next new band, And in many cases that is what happened.
I mean, it's so I mean, you think about it,
The Zombies seem to fall prey to so many really
unfortunate music industry practices in the sixties, both creatively and financially.
I mean, the thing I think a lot of people
don't understand now is how could the Zombies break up
(29:35):
when you've just completed an album of spectacular as artsy
an oracle. In hindsight, it almost looks like you broke
up at the top of your game creatively, but obviously
there were so many more factors and forces of playing. Yeah,
I mean a hindsight, I completely agree with you. But
the fact is that we were very, very poorly managed.
(29:55):
And it's difficult to say how poorly managed without sort
of getting into legal terry blaming. Yeah, really really poorly managed,
and particularly the three guys who weren't writers. Thank heavens,
the writers income didn't go through our management company, so
One and Chris were actually doing quite well, and you know,
(30:18):
and that's wonderful because they were writing great songs and
they were being rewarded for it. But the three non writers.
We just weren't earning any money. I mean, we were
just broke, and we've been three years on the road
playing all the time. We just had a very challenging
tour into the Far East where we didn't realize it,
(30:39):
but when we got there we had sort of five
records in the top ten. We played at the Arenessa
Coliseum in the in the Manila or just outside of Manila,
Cason City, and we opened to twenty eight thousand people.
We had no idea this was happening. We did a
ten day residency. We played to fifteen thousand the matinee
on the Saturday after the and on the Saturday night
(31:02):
we played to thirty two thousand people. This basically went
on for ten nights. We were being paid eighty pounds
a night, which is it no and our manager and
our agents were taking of that. I mean, in a
(31:22):
in a way it's funny, but then we also think
about it. You know, we couldn't live. We just didn't
have any mind, and even we could see that that
was not right. And when we came back, we left
that manager and that agent, and I think he more
or less gave up on us. Really, I think he
knew that we knew what was going on, and so
(31:45):
we were free of him. But we couldn't find anyone
else who was interested. But we got this deal with
CBS for a small amount of money. As I said,
and especially Robn Chris wanted to make an album of
their songs that that that sounded how they envisioned, envisioned them.
Can't speak this aften and I don't know why, and
(32:08):
and so that's what we did. And then at the
end of it, we released a single in the UK
called Care of Self Well Before. It's the first track
from the album, and I think it's the most commercial
song on there actually myself. It's incredible. I still will
never understand why that was not a smash. That is
an amazing song. And at the time, of course, the
business was very singles orientated, so just a little bit
(32:31):
later it was more albums the end of the sixties
beginning of the semence. But the single was ignored, really
it did, wasn't played, and it didn't sell, and it
just seemed as so we'd we'd come to the end
of the road. And then actual fact, the band finished
before Honestly and Oracle was even released, and in a
(32:52):
way that that was a little silly, but it's just
it was the it was because of the year or
so before, or it just drained us, you know, and
nobody had any money. In particular Pull that conser a guitarists.
It just got married and he absolutely had no money.
And he'd been offered a job in a computer phone,
you know, really good money, and he you know, he
(33:16):
didn't want to take it, but there wasn't an alternative
for him, really, and so it just seemed that it
would be best that we just very amicably that the
band should should end. And that was it. And then
Al Cooper was over in London and he bought about
two hundred albums and he just said one of them
just really stood out to him. It was, honestly an oracle.
(33:39):
He had just taken a job with CBS as a
producer at CBS CBS and on his first day he
went to see Clive Davis and he said, we have
to buy this album. It doesn't matter what it costs.
We've got to get this album. Honestly an oracle. And
Clive Davis said to him, we owned that album. We
(33:59):
we weren't going to release it, you know, And our
Cooper fought for it, you know, we owe him so much.
He fought for it. And eventually the album was released,
and I think there were either three or four singles
released before one of them talk and that was Time
of the Season, and famously a DJ and Boise Idaho
(34:23):
would not stop playing Time of the Season and gradually
it spread from Boise out and it took months, you know,
and then it got right across the country and eventually
it was a huge hit, like that DJ the cinema
thank You code, I know, Well absolutely changed our lives,
(34:45):
you know, as did our Cooper. But it's a very
strange story. And even when Time of the Season was
a hit, obnessly an Oracle wasn't really in it. I
think it went into the bill Billboard top hundred once
for like two weeks, got to about really a hit.
But then ten years later people started talking about it,
(35:05):
and in particular Tom Petty in America and all Well
in the UK became champions of this album and of
the band, and they wouldn't stop promoting, you know. I mean,
it's a wonderful thing when you've got two internationally wonderful
artists like that who are acting as your promoters, you know,
(35:26):
and they wouldn't start promoting the album, and eventually it
started to really create a lot of interest. And I
think Rolling Stone and they do these charts every five
or eight years or something, but certainly in one of
the charts, we were in the top hundred albums of
all time. They do a top five hundred, but we
actually just got into the top hundred, which is incredible
(35:48):
for an album that's never really been a hit, although
year on year it just sells more and more. It's
it's a mystery. I cannot tell you how this has happened.
But really, sixty years later we're talking about this album.
There was never a hit, and and yet it's it's
meant so much to so many people as a work
(36:09):
of art. You know, people are inspired by it and
constantly write about it and talk about it. And it
was never a commercial success at the time, and most
people probably think it still isn't a commercial success, but
it sells quite considerable numbers. Now, I mean, that's what's
so precious about it is that, you know, most people
(36:31):
rediscover these albums through a movie soundtrack or a commercial
or something like that, but this just purely stands on
its own merit and word of mouth and people who
just pass it down and say this is really incredible,
check it out, and it just completely sells just based
on the strength of the songs and the music. Well, Paul,
if if he talks to you about honestly an oracle,
(36:53):
which and he talks to a lot of people about honestly,
and if you haven't got the album where you don't
know what he's talking about, he will buy you with
you even do it to you. Also, you just mentioned films,
(37:15):
and that's another I find quite intriguing thing that zombie
songs turn up in films a lot. We were we
were in the Disney film Cruella at the Summer and
the Canned Film Festival, a French film one the can
Film Festival called to Tame t I t A n
E and she's not there was in that. And there's
(37:39):
another film that's just come out called Where do You
Go To? Where do You Go to? Bernadette with Cape
and I always say her name on Cape blanchard Um.
She's a very very famous actress and that's got she's
not thearing it. So there's that's this summer, we've had
three songs and films. Plus there's a department store in
(37:59):
the States called colm Ko l H. And they used
a Zombies song over the summer. It was this will
be our year. But these songs, these songs are fifty
years old, sometime, some nearly sixty years old, and people
are using them in contemporary films and commercials. It's it's
(38:20):
I think it's fascinating. It's a huge mystery to me.
But but I mean, I don't mind about it now.
It's a mystery. I don't understand it, but it's wonderful
that these songs are being discovered after all this time.
I think they called that timeless. Do you know what?
I think A lot of zombie songs are timeless. You know,
people sometimes saying it, how do you feel about singing?
(38:42):
Time of the season and she's not there every night
for years and years when you're on the road. But
they are the timeless classics. And I love singing and
quite honestly, they're slightly different every night when you play,
and I thoroughly enjoy its. Speaking of absolutely incredible albums.
Just down the hall from where you performed the other
(39:05):
night at Studio too, at Abbey Road, you recorded your
debut solo disc One Year, which is is absolutely staggering album,
one of my favorites, and I'm thrilled to hear that
it's getting a reissue with a bonus disc of some
unheard compositions and demos. Uh, can you take me back
to those sessions? What was it like during that that
(39:26):
one year? Well, I, you know, I think it's quite
interesting in that it's all there's definitely a connection with
Honestly and Oro because that was Rod Argent and Chris
White co producing me in Studio three with piece of
Vince Engineering, and he engineered the majority of Odessy an Oracle,
(39:46):
So there was huge It was a huge connection with
Honestly an Oracle, and it was great to get the
old team back together again and we introduced a wonderful
string arranger called Chris Gunning into the mix, and that
I just think it was he came up with things
that was just so different what he was saying to him.
(40:06):
I think this came from Rod more than anyone. Think
Bartok when you're doing think Bartok. And boy did he
come up with some great arrangements so unusual, and one
of them a song called say you Don't Mind which
is a Denny Lane song, was a huge hit in
the UK. Really took me by surprise because it's um
(40:28):
it wasn't actually a string quartet, but it's written as
if it was for a string caute. But it's actually
a twenty one piece string orchestra, but no rhythm track,
no other instrument, just strings. And it was a hit
in the UK, but it never it didn't make an
impact at the time in the States. It's a little
bit the opposite to the Zombies because the Time of
(40:50):
the Season was a big hit in America. The Time
of the Season was never a hit in the UK.
It was a hit everywhere else but not in the UK.
But from my first album, Say Don't was a hit
in the UK but not in the States. Exactly the opposite,
but an incredible track. I mean you mentioned bar talk.
I think of the string break in Misty Roses, which
(41:12):
I mean for me, that's a definitive version of of
I know Tim Harden wrote it, but that's your version
of Misty Roses, the definitive version of that song. For me,
that is an incredible track. Well, it's funny because I'm
a huge fan of Tim Harden and um, I think
he did an incredible version, but so I would never
say one was better than the other. Hopefully people have
(41:34):
been able to both of them, you know, I think
they're both worth to listen. And you know, I'm a
huge fan of Tim Harden and but particularly that song.
It's such a beautiful song. And the original songs that
that you wrote during these sessions and Caroline Goodbye, that
You're Far Away, I mean, they're my favorites on the
album as well. I mean, I know you contributed, um
(41:56):
just out of Reach to the Zombies can and uh
may to be with hearing these songs that you've written more.
I mean, did any of the one year tracks date
back to the Zombie's era. I don't think so. No,
I think I did write one other Zombie Tunit's first
song I ever wrote is called how We Were Before.
(42:17):
It's very romantic, simple tune. Um. But you know, I
was sort of watching Rod and Chris and seeing them
developers writers, and as I said before, I didn't know
they could write before She's Not There and the B
side you make Me Feel Good We're written. I had
no idea. I thought songwriters came from a different part
of the business too. Performing artists. I didn't realize. And
(42:41):
I think there's another thing that we owe the Beatles
that they made us realize that you could write your
own material. There seemed to be an unwritten law that
bands didn't write their own material, but they changed all that.
And watching Rod and Chris developers writers, it just encouraged
me to have a go and I just developed slowly
(43:01):
over the years. And and also I went to live
in a flat with a couple of guys who were
in the music business, and one was a manager. One
was a singer songwriter called Duncan Brown and if you
ever check out his stuff, Duncan Broun. He had one
hit in this country called Journey, but he made several
(43:22):
really really good albums, and he was also in a
band called Metro, which was really good as well. So
I lived in this flat with these two guys, and
Duncan was a wonderful classical guitarist, and I just sat
mesmerized by his playing, and all three of us played guitar.
Duncan was by father best and we would play through
the night. And they showed an interest in my writing
(43:45):
that I wasn't aware of before. I wasn't aware that
anyone was particularly interested in my writing, and they encouraged me.
And that's why I called my second album and as
More because we lived in this flat apartment in a
place called enns More Gardens in London, which is right
behind the Albert Hall, so it's a lovely area of London,
(44:06):
and I thought that that's in some ways that's when
my songwriting started. In that flat in Ender's More Gardens.
I just started to get the idea of of becoming
a writer as well as a as a singer, and
they really encouraged me. So I always remember Duncan Brown.
(44:26):
Do check him out. He's really really good. And you
have the album Journey too, right, I think I think
it was an album. It's called Journey keep the Curtains
Closed Today and the gorgeous songs. I wish i'd recorded
more with him. In fact, I've got some demos of
me and him, and I mentioned it's someone the other
(44:46):
day and it's very you've got but they're on a
real to real tape. You know. I've got to I've
got to have it transferred professionally because otherwise it might
just disintegrate. But when I mentioned that to someone actually
in America. You've got to get that onto either CD
or or on you know, onto something so that people
would be really interested to hear that. And we were
(45:08):
just mucking around. But it's funny how time sort of
makes it changes how people view what you were thinking
of as quite a lighthearted musical romp. It's just having fun.
And you know, after fifty years, people are saying, man,
this is history. You know, you've got to do something
(45:30):
with this. So that's what's happened with the One Year album.
It's kind of strange. Chris White's two sons. Uh, we're
working on all his black catalog and Chris has written
many many songs and also he has produced a lot
of people, and so they're putting out a series of
CDs called Chris White Experience. And they were going through
(45:50):
his attic looking at cassette cassette real too real and
what happened And they found some real to reel of
songs of mine and sort of phone me up really excitedly, saying,
we found all these songs and when I listened to them,
it's the most extraordinary feeling that because they're so old,
I just certainly did not remember the sessions at all
(46:14):
and some of the songs I don't well, I didn't
remember them then that they are a vague memory. Now
I've played them a few times. But most of these
are just me sitting down with a guitar, and I
would call them sort of rough ideas of songs. They're
almost sort of pre demos a lot of them, really,
but they do they do show what kind of area
(46:36):
I was I was writing in and the record company
got to hear of these tracks and then it was
sort of taking out of my hands then and it's
now a double album and I don't My input in
that wasn't very much except I sang the tracks in
the beginning. Chris White's sons found the tape and the
record company took the tapes on the on the CD.
(46:59):
I hope people and will enjoy them. I mean it
they I think they do have some some value. Oh
the song that that's out there now that I've heard,
I Won't Let You Down, which is available for for
for preview, is absolutely stunning. It is I cannot wait
to hear the rest. It is gorgeous. I mean, it
makes me wish that it was a double album to
start with. It is an absolutely incredible song. Then you've
(47:21):
picked up on that and it's so funny. I mean
the Yeah, there are thirteen other songs like that, you know,
some have a story and some some don't. I mean,
there was there's one on there and it was written
because there were some phony Zombies growing up and playing.
I think there were three phony Zombie bands. I think
(47:44):
those guys in zz Tapper and one of them. Yeah,
that's true. Yeah, And because the Zombies had finished and
sort of nearly two years later, time in the season
was a big hit in the States, there was a
huge vacuum. You know, there was all this work and
no band, and so a lot of managers start thinking, well, listen,
we don't like black cubes. We've got to fill it.
And so they these bands started playing. And on one occasion,
(48:09):
Chris White was in the offices of Rolling Stone and
they said, look, we've got the phone number of the
manager of one of these bands. So we want you,
Chris White, original base baron the Zombies, to phone um up,
but pretend that you're from Rolling Stone and get the story.
So you phoned up the guy and the guy said, well,
(48:31):
the thing is, we wanted to honor the life of
the lead singer of the Zombes who was killed in
a car crash. And this is why we put the
band together. And this is in Rolling Stone. Actually, I
think this article is printed at least in part on
the sleeve of the double album that's coming out. And
so I wrote. One of the songs that I wrote
(48:52):
is Yesterday and Rolling Stone a man said I'm dead,
and that's that's not the start, because it was a
very strange feeling to have it in a major you know,
a major outlet. But you're dead, You're dead, you know,
I mean, news of my death is rather rather premature.
(49:13):
I'm afraid of famous statement, not mine. Um. Yeah, it
was kind of weird, and that got me an idea
for one of the songs, sing your own song. It
is no I haven't I've I've read. I'm looking forward
to hearing them, but I haven't had a chance to
hear him yet, so they are quite rough. You know,
what would be really exciting if there was a general
(49:35):
interest in these songs and we could expand them, and
you know, there's enough material there to to record an album.
Wouldn't that be extraordinary? After fifty or sixty years, we
take these very primitive demos and make them into actual tracks.
That would be a thrill. Yes, it would, Yes that
(49:56):
that would I would love that, and I know that
that many people would too. I mean, I know that
you and Rod and the band right now are are
hard at work on a new new Zombies album, but
perhaps perhaps after that. Yeah, we're sort of halfway through
a Zombies album. We probably started seven tracks, but some
(50:17):
of them are not finished, and hopefully we can we
can wrap that up certainly before the end of the year,
and I would hope that we'll have a new album
early next year. It's just with the situation as it
is at the moment, it's difficult to get everyone together.
We the last album and this album, we've decided we
want everyone in the studio at the same time playing.
(50:39):
You know, in some ways it's almost like a live
album within a studio setting. But we find that people
play differently if they're all in the same room at
the same time. There's an energy that you don't get
if you record your parts separately and layer the track.
Um So on the last album still got that hunger.
(51:00):
Everyone was in the studio at the same time. We
kept the solos from the live versions and we kept
the lead vocals. We only over dubbed harmonies vocal harmonies.
Otherwise it's it's like a live album. That was a
highlight of your concert at Abbey Road. Just hearing some
some new some of the new songs that are coming
(51:21):
out soon with an incredible stringer company meant they're absolutely
gorgeous and when they're wonderful players, really good, so wonderful.
I hope we can work some more with that quartet.
They're called Q Strings, really really good. It was, it
was such it was such a treat to hear, you know,
get a tease of the the upcoming album. I can't
wait to hear the rest of it. I think it's
(51:44):
going to be good. I'm really too ah well, call
your music has meant the world demanded is touched me
from many, many, many years, has brought me so much
joy to me and my loved ones. I am so
grateful for that, and I'm so grateful for your time today.
Thank you so much, thank you. It's been a pleasure.
I've really enjoyed having a chat. Thanks for having to
(52:05):
be on the show. We hope you enjoyed this episode
of Inside the Studio. A production of I Heart Radio.
For more episodes of Inside the Studio or other fantastic shows,
check out the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or
(52:26):
wherever you listen to your favorite podcast.
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Inside the
Studio on iHeart Radio. My name is Jordan runt Dog.
But enough about me. I have so much to say
about my legendary guest. He's one of the most distinctive
voices in music. His ethereal velvety vocals helped make his
group The Zombies one of the most unique bands of
the British Invasion. Their unmistakable blend of Beatles, Bill Evans,
(00:23):
blues and baroque can be heard on sixties hits like
She's Not There, Tell Her No and Time of the Season. Now.
For years, those three titles basically summed up their creative reputation,
but the band has experienced an unprecedented popular resurgence and
the New Millennium thanks to an album that was basically
ignored upon its release. I'm talking, of course, about the
(00:43):
brilliant Odyssey and Oracle. It's a kaleidoscopic musical vision spanning cultures,
genres and moods. Released just after the band split in nine,
the album has risen from obscurity to be hailed as
a pop masterpiece, praised by the likes of Tom Petty,
Dave Grohl and Paul weller many so called lost albums
(01:04):
oh the rehabbed reputation to a film soundtrack or a
well chosen commercial placement. Not so with Odyssey an Oracle.
It's rediscovery relies purely on the strength of the songs.
In two thousand three, Rolling Stone placed it at number
one hundred on their list of the five dred Greatest
Albums of All Time, and in two thousand nineteen, the
band themselves were given a much delayed induction into the
(01:26):
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This renewed popularity helped
the Zombies rise from the dead over thirty years after
they're split, My Guests reunited with this bandmate, Rod Argent,
the Zombies organist and chief songwriter, and they begin touring
pretty much non stop, at least until the COVID crisis
put a stop to live music. Undeterred, they kept busy
(01:47):
with work on a new Zombies record, likely due out
in My Guests also helped oversee the fiftieth anniversary reissue
of his solo debut one year, complete with a bonus
disc of outtakes and unheard ms that'll be hitting shelves
on November five, until they can hit the road once again.
The Zombies are thrilling fans with their so called world tour.
(02:08):
In one night, a livestream concert held from the floor
of studio to London's iconic Abbey Roads Studios, the famous
room where the Beatles recorded the bulk of their work.
It was a fitting choice of venue. Odyssey and Oracle
and one year were recorded just a few steps down
the hall. Fans can watch the concert and the special
Q and A with veteran rock journalist David Frick on
(02:29):
demand through October three via vieps dot com. I'm so
thrilled the welcome one of my rock and roll heroes,
Colin Bloodstone. We started our talk discussing his return to
Abbey Road. It was really good fun and I mean
it's such an atmosphere there to be in studio to
the Beatles recorded the majority, the vast majority of their tracks.
(02:54):
Um and and also of course I've worked in there
with the Allen Posson's project. Allan was worked in that
studio although the Zombies and on my solo albums, we
worked in the studio just up the hall, Studio three,
which is the first studio you come to when you
when you walk through the front door the Zombies never
recorded in studio too. That was our first time playing
(03:17):
together in studio too. Wow. I mean just even just
being in that studio album and it must have just
as you say, packed with so many memories. I mean,
what a special night for you are. Absolutely, you know,
I found that when we first went there. I think
we might have gone there the day before we actually played.
And I was saying to all the guys who hadn't
been in Appy Road, I was saying, yea, this is
(03:37):
studio to where the Beatles recorded. This is Studio three
where we did honestly and oracles so much Historildren and
I had to stop because I was becoming emotional about
the whole thing, and I thought, no, no, they're gonna
have to work with out for themselves, because this is
something that effects on me. I don't know what it
was doing to them, but it was certainly having an
effect on me. Oh, I can only imagine me. I've
(03:59):
been lucky enough to stand in studio too, and there
is an energy. You're right, it's it's it really envelopes you. Yes, absolutely,
it doesn't intrigue me because it's the only studio I've
ever known where the control room is on the next
floor up, and so there's this flight of stairs up
the left hand side, and I've always sort of it
as the walk of shame when you've been down there
(04:22):
trying to do a vocal so as I was with
Alan Parsons, and you know, he wants to say, oh,
you know, you haven't really got hold of this and
there's a problem here. Would you like to come up
and have a chat? And you know, you clip clop up,
trudging up the stairs. There's nowhere to hide. You know.
I've never known another studio like that where you have
(04:44):
to go up this open staircase too to be told
where you're going wrong. It's such an incredible place. But
one of the details that I really loved about about
your your performance the other night was that you had
the stage crew dressed in the white lab coats. And
I don't know if that was intentional, but I felt
like a fitting nod to the days when Abbey Road
(05:06):
was treated like a laboratory and they had the engineers
dressed like scientists, but they did. It wasn't my idea,
but you're absolutely right they were dressed in like. What
happened was the engineers actually used to be dressed in jackets,
collars and ties that are looking at the pictures, it
reminds me of old sessions back in the day. They
(05:29):
had colors and ties. And then what we would call
the boffins of the technicians, who would you know, once
in a while things would go wrong and in a flash,
these guys would be up there. You didn't you didn't
phone out for somebody, there's there's a whole department that
looks after any any technical problems. They wore white coats
(05:49):
and then there was seemed to be an army of
guys who just moved things around um sort of loaders,
and they had brown coats, so it was in a
way it was quite regimented. It was a real contradiction
at Abbey Row because they made so many wonderful records
there and they had great, great engineers. We worked almost
(06:11):
exclusively with Peter Vince and Jeff Emerick and they were
absolutely wonderful. But they did have an old fashioned side
to it. They were very strict rules and I think
it changed when probably after Sergeant Pepper because the Beatles
were recording all night, but and before that there were
very strict rules. You started at ten, and you must
(06:33):
finish at one. That's your session. Then you started at
two and you went to a five and you had
to stop, and then you went from seven to ten,
and particularly in Studio three, you had to stop at
ten because the soundproofing wasn't very good in Studio three,
and it's built right next door to an apartment block,
and they used to complain about the noise, so you
(06:55):
had to finish at ten o'clock. It was. It was
quite strange, really wow, I mean, such a fascinating I mean,
as you say that to debt almost sort of regimented
mentality almost helped the sessions in a way because it
forced you to sort of really have the songs down
and really get in and get out and know exactly
what you wanted to do. In a way, it does,
(07:17):
and I mean, particularly with them obnestly an Oracle, we
had a very limited budget. We had a thousand plans,
so I mean, you know, it's not very much. It
wasn't very much then and it certainly isn't very much now,
of course, But to to have a thousand plans and
try and do an album in appy road, you're you're
up against it. So we rehearsed really extensively before we
(07:37):
went in to do Odesty an Oracle, and when we
got to the studio, we knew what songs we were doing,
we knew what keys we're going to do, and we
knew the arrangement. We're just looking for a performance and
we recorded very very fast, but there wasn't there was
that added element that we knew we could record from
center one and that was it. And on one occasion,
(07:57):
there's a song called changes on Odyesty an Oracle, and
it's the only song that we're all singing on. Everybody's
singing harmonies on that, and so we were all around
the piano, lovely Steinway piano in Studio three. There's a
red light on at the door, but because we're recording,
we're singing, and the hands of the clock just went
(08:18):
past one o'clock and these guys in brown coats came
in and we're singing around the piano and they took
the piano art and took it to another studio in
the middle of a take. Yes, well, and we just
kept singing, but we didn't dare stop because we just
didn't have any money to pay for those sessions. So
(08:38):
I've always liked to think that you can hear the
piano being moved out on that particular track, but I
think we had to do it again because I think
it was a bit noisy. I've listened, I can't hear
the piano being moved, but it did happen. It was
It was quite interesting. I was rather proud of us
that these guys I didn't know who they were. I've
(08:58):
never seen him before, and they walk in and take
the piano. They could have been stealing the piano for
all I knew, and we just kept singing. So I
was quite proud of us in that respect. I was
gonna say, that's professional right there, even though the rolling
pianos around you don't miss a note, it's professionally. It's
also desperation when you when you don't have any money
(09:19):
and the studio times running out, you just keep going,
you know. And so that's what we do well, despite
the sort of over zealous movers. Abbey Road then and
and now is such a technologically advanced place. How did
that the cutting edge of technology at the time, help
faster out of see an Oracle? Well, of course, they
(09:41):
just literally finished saga Pepper. I think the Beatles have
left two days before we went in, and famously John
Lennon left his melotron in Studio three and Rod used it.
And if you listen to Odessy an Oracle, it's melotron
all the way through it. It would have been a
different album if John hadn't have left his melo drown behind.
And they also left percussion instruments all on the floor
(10:03):
at tambourines, miracus and things, So we were picking up
the percussion instruments that the Beatles had left from Sergeant Pepper,
which was a big thrill for us because we're a
huge Beatles fans then and now. Um. But I say
that because just before that, the Beach Boys in America
have been using an eight track machine, but there was
(10:25):
no eight track machine in the UK. That John Lennon
said we wanted to use an eight track machine, there
wasn't one in the UK, and he just left the
engineers to sort that problem out. And what they came
up with was they actually attached to four track machines.
I mean they call it sort of, I don't know,
(10:46):
it's quite rough. I think they just put to four
track machines together, which in effect gave you seven tracks.
It didn't give you eight tracks. You lost one track
when you did this. But so the Beetles have been
using seven track recording and we inherited that from them
because we have used to recording on four tracks. In
the UK, everyone recorded on four tracks, and this game
(11:09):
is a lot of opportunities to try other things. For instance,
on time that the season the track was recorded, and
Rod got the idea of putting a ah and we've
got an extra track, so he just it was one take,
you know, he just went into the studio and he
put that on on on the track, and I mean
it wouldn't be the same song without that, and we
(11:31):
wouldn't have been able to do it if we'd only
had four tracks. So it did. It really did help
in many ways. It's so interesting to hear how how
you build these tracks up. I mean you mentioned Brian Wilson. Uh.
In my mind, I've always associated honestly and Oracle Pet
and Pet Sounds as just for their sonic scope and
the rich harmonies and the lyrical maturity. And I think
(11:52):
about Brian using a sort of modular recording technique for
something like good Vibrations, where he would record segments of
songs and assemble them almost like movie scenes, because they
all had a very different and I listened to tracks
like something like Changes and Honestly and Oracle or even
Brief Candles, where it's there's such distinct musical moments and textures.
(12:13):
How would you go about assembling tracks like that? Did
you go instrument by instrument and build it up or
were the complete band performances opposite. We didn't have the
time to do things like that. I don't think it
even occurred, but we were recording really fast, and from memory,
all of those tracks would have all four guys in
(12:35):
the band playing at the same time in the same room.
That would be the basic track, and then I would
put a lead vocal on and Chris and Rock would
put harmonies on afterwards. That's as I remember it. Um
and occasionally then because we had these extra tracks. Again
(12:56):
using time of the season as an example, there are
two keyboards on, especially on the playout at the end,
that's there's two keyboards playing. They're both it's both Rod,
but he's just playing two organ solos at the end,
And there are probably one or two other instances of that.
And also we double tracked some of the harmonies which
we weren't able to do before. So it wasn't incredibly
(13:17):
complicated the things that we added. It's just that we
were able to sometimes overdub a keyboard and overdub harmonies
as well. But it really did help. And then once
or twice we would put an effect on like the
time of the season, handclap and breath. You just sopped
a mystery that I've been grappling with for years. I've
(13:37):
tried to play the outro solo. Never realized thing it
was for two keyboards, and I could never figure out
why I could never get it. Thank you for that.
But also another thing with our harmonies, which I think
it's probably puzzled people a little bit. We didn't do
harmonism in a way that most people did, where being
the lead singer, I would just sing the melody and
(13:59):
then we would have somebody sing a harmony above and
somebody singing a harmony blow. We didn't do things like
that because I was a fairly indisciplined vocalist. I had
no um classical background or at all, and Rod would
always say to me, you sing what you hear. This
would usually be in a chorus I'm thinking about more
(14:21):
than anything else. He would sing, say, you sing what
you hear as the melody, and because I've got quite
a high voice, I would often automatically go into the
top harmony. So having established that's what I heard, we
would we would play that four or five times with
me probably just rodding me on piano, and we played that,
did I've got that lot in my mind? And then
(14:43):
he would try and find a very easy harmony for Chris,
because Chris has got to play bass at the same
time as he's singing, So we try and find a
very easy harmony for Chris. And because of doing those
two things, Rod often would have an incredibly complex harmony
that he had to fill in all the holes that
(15:04):
we weren't achieving in in the harmony. So some of
our harmonies are really unusual. And if you just if
you tried to copy them, I think it would be well,
you'd be all right if you knew what I just said,
I've let the I've let the cat out of the back, haven't.
If you knew what I just said, it would be
a lot easier. But people try to copy them, and
of course they're thinking of somebody singing the top harmony,
(15:25):
somebody singing the bottom harmony, and somebody singing the melody.
But that's not sometimes that wasn't how we did it.
A few years back, you toured with with Brian Wilson
for the Something Great from sixty eight tour. What was
that like, the interplay between between you and m bri.
I mean, that must have been like a master class
on harmony that tour. It was incredible. I'm a huge
(15:48):
by a Wilson fan and and Beach Boys fan, you know,
and I always have been. I just think they're absolutely fantastic.
Is a master It was wonderful to two with him,
and of course he has an incredible band who we
got to know quite well. And one of the wonderful
moments was they would always have a warm up before
the show and they would usually they'd usually sing in
(16:10):
my room, just acapella. It was mind boggling beautiful. If ever,
if I had the chance, I would be there every
night if I could, and I'd just like to listen
to them sing. Absolutely fantastic and you really hear it
when it's just voices in a room, Um, you know
it's not it's got up on the stage with all
(16:31):
acoustic problems and whatever, You're right there in the middle
of it. Absolutely wonderful, great singers. And there's a version
that I've heard of you on stage with Brian singing
God only knows, and it brought tears to my eyes
and absolutely incredible parts. I'm always going to remember that
I only did it twice. I did it in Los
(16:52):
Angeles and I did it in Seattle, and I'll always
remember that. It was a wonderful experience. But it was
one of you know, it's one of the greatest contemporary
songs that's ever been written. So to have the opportunities
to sing that with the guy who wrote it, um,
it's a little intimidazing. It's a little intimidazing, but it was.
(17:14):
It was a great thrill. It was. It was wonderful.
I encourage everyone listening to to go go check that
out online and also check out the interview after the
Abbey Road live stream that that you and Rod did
with with the journalist David Frick and he he uh.
During that discussion, which was so illuminating and so interesting,
(17:34):
he mentioned, uh, you're singing parts as a full performance
and not sort of camping in. You know, a chorus here,
redoing a line or two there, and really wanting to
to sing complete takes start to finish. That's so interesting
to me. I wanted to ask you more about your
your process of completing vocal takes well, and particularly when
(17:55):
I'm working with Rod, which pretty much now is exclusively
what I'm doing. It really come from Rod. I mean,
I would prefer to do it that way anyway, but
Rod is adamant. You know, we do a whole performance
and we'll do four or five takes and then try
and try and pick a favorite one and then just
see if there's anything better that we you know, we're not.
(18:17):
I would say to Rod, I'm not proud. You know,
we need to catch something. That's fine by me, and
I'm more recently I'm quite pleased that. Um. You know,
as I've developed vocal technique a little bit, the takes
will be very very similar, so almost identical. So if
(18:37):
he wants to double track anything, it's there. If we've
done four or five takes, that he can just take
another take and there's your there's your double track if
you want to double and if you want a trouble track,
you know it's there. If you want to do it.
But yeah, it's as simple as that. Really. We always
do whole performances, um, and and then we'll do four
or five and then stop and see where. Or on
(19:14):
the topic of your incredible voice, I think I'm correct
in saying that you still perform these songs in their
regional key, which and you sound just as rich and
flawless as fifty five years ago. I think I speak
for all singers and vocal coaches listening right now. When
I asked, how do you do that? What is your secret?
(19:34):
Do you have a special tea or what have you?
How do you protect your voice? Well? I do do
singing exercises. Both Rod and I started with a singing
coach called Ian Adam in London is sadly no longer
with us, but um, he used to coach a lot
of the singers in the West End, which would be
like Broadway in America. And he never wanted to change
(19:55):
your voice, but he was trying to make it stronger
and more accurate because singers in the West End have
to sing night after nights after night, and you know
you have to have a fairly strong voice to do that.
And he just taught me a little bit about singing technique,
and he gave me a series of exercises, and when
we're on the road, I'll do those exercises before sound checks,
(20:18):
probably half an hour before sound check, and then I
do them again before the show. So I will have
sung in the sound check itself, maybe quite long. It
just depends. It's more dependent on technology than anything else.
If everything works, but I will have sung for an
hour before the show starts, but not but in two
(20:39):
half hour bursts, one before sound check from one before
the show. So hopefully my voice is warmed up. And
if I do it every day, it just makes it stronger.
I mean, I think people who don't practice are very
prime to losing their voice, and you often see that
where a band goes out on tour and then we
(21:00):
lead singer loses his voice after two or three nights,
and I just want to avoid that. And another thing
I often hear is singers will come off and they'll say,
you know, once my voice had warmed up after the
fourth office song and it's really great, and I don't
say anything, but I'm thinking, well, why didn't you warm
your before you went on? And then it would have
been great from the first song. I mean, I'm not
(21:21):
saying it always works, but it's it's worth a try. Yes,
that's so. That's that's all I do. Really, I try.
When we're on the road, I do try and eat
sensibly obviously, try and get as much sleep as possible.
I think you need to drink a lot of water.
Will always have water on stage. There's one occasion when
(21:43):
I thought I'd lost my voice in the middle of
the show. I honestly I thought it had gone completely,
and I drank some water. It just came back. Just
like that. Said, I would always say, have some water around.
I admire people who can do it, like a two
hour set with not drinking any water, but I'm not
quite sure how they do that. The other thing that
(22:04):
I've done is that I was always always like to
enjoy a consert night and we'd always have a few
drinks and you know, make a bit of a social
of it. But four or five years ago, it's four
and a half years ago, I gave up alcohol altogether.
And you know, that's that's a big, a big thing
(22:25):
to do. But if you think you perform better without alcohol,
it's worth considering. You know, if you're getting you a
bit sloppy. If you make mistakes and your intonation is
not on the button, it might be worth looking at
your alcohol consumption. I'm not saying people what to do.
I'm only telling you what I do. You know, actually
(22:46):
I'm going to have a drink. Talking about water are
amazing tips. I mean, you know your voice is so distinctive,
but it blows me away how many different styles you singing.
I mean, I'm thinking about your first album. You go
from Groce Win tunes to Smokey Robinson to Bo Diddley.
When you first started singing with their voice voices that
(23:07):
you wanted to emulate. Who are some of your your
your vocal heroes when you were first starting out as
a musician. Well, I'll tell you in a minute that
I only became a singer really by chance. But I'll
explain that in a minute. But for me, it was
always the greats of rock and roll, Chuck Berry, Elvis,
Little Richard. They were the people that I idolized and
(23:30):
then that encouraged me to buy My parents bought a guitar.
And it wasn't easy for them, you know, they bought
the guitar. I was eternally grateful and through that I
got an introduction to this band that was forming as
a guitarist, and I went along and it was our
first ever rehearsal, and you know, I didn't know Rod
(23:51):
at the time. I knew one guy who was in
this joining this band, and he was late. So I
kind of turned up and there were all these strangers there,
and it wasn't helped by the fact that I played
a lot of rugby and I just broken my nose
and I had two black eyes and taping across my face,
so I actually looked like a zombie when I turned up.
I think they're a bit afraid of me, actually, which
(24:13):
was lovely. Anyway, I was a rhythm guitarist. Didn't last long.
I was a rhymen guitarist and Rob was going to
be the lead vocalist. And at this first rehearsal we
played um. We played a song called malaguenan instrumental called
Mala It's an old classic Guene and Rob didn't because
(24:34):
it was instrumentally, didn't do anything because he was the singer.
And then we had a break and he went over
that just by chance, there was an old broken down
piano in the corner and he just started playing nut
rocker by be bumbling the stingers, which is it's quite
an accomplishment for say a fifteen year old boy to
play that with authority. And I went over to him, and,
(24:55):
as I said, I didn't really know him, so I
probably I probably didn't call him his name. I just said, boy,
you should play keyboards in this band. I don't know,
why aren't you playing keyboards? And he was adamant, you've said, no,
it's a rock and roll back. We want three guitars,
which was the fashion at the time, and the conversation ended.
(25:18):
And then at the end of that first rehearsal, I
was just going to put my guitar in its case
and I just sang a Rocky Nelson song pretty much
to myself, just in the corner, which is having a
bit of fun. It was either Hello Mary Lou or
It's late. May would have been It's late. And Rod
came over. I wasn't singing to him. He just heard
it and he came over and you said, look, I'll
(25:39):
tell you what. If you'll be the lead singer in
the band, I'll play keyboards. And that essentially was how
the Zombies came together. Wow, maybe maybe he couldn't sing
and play at the same time back then, maybe he couldn't. Yeah,
I don't know whether he could or not, but that
was the beginning of it. When we were always slightly
(25:59):
differ in that we were a keyboard based band when
that was not the fashion at all, and we always
did three part harmony, you know, and very few other
bands we're doing three part harmony at the time, but
we always did it. It's so interesting to think about
how much R and B you are played early in
your career and a lot of British bands to him.
(26:20):
It got my mojo working road Runners, Sticks and Stones.
It's funny to think the Zombies re introducing this American
music two Americans in a lot of ways. At one time,
the Zombies were called the Zombies R and B because
that's what we played. What we dropped the R and B.
And of course I'm just before the first We won
(26:42):
a rock and roll competition which led to a contract
with Decca and we were introduced to a producer called
Ken Jennes who was going to produce that first session.
And about two weeks before the session, he said to us,
you know, sessions coming up in two weeks time. You
could write something for this session if you want. And
then he went on talking the other thing wasn't a
big deal, and Rod went away and he wrote She's
(27:03):
Not There, came back to us fourt year hours later
and played us a song. You know, we knew it
was a special song, and actually Chris White wrote a
great song as well, which was a B side, You
Made Me Feel Good. I didn't know either of them
could write songs. It was a huge surprise to me
and that changed everything because up until then we've been
(27:24):
playing predominantly R and B classics. But of course we
recorded She's Not There, and it was a huge hit
and people wanted more songs like that week. We also
used to play quite a lot of Beetles tunes as well,
but once we had a hit record, we couldn't play
Beetles tunes and people didn't really want the R and
(27:45):
B classics, so there was there was a problem because
Rod and Chris didn't have a backlog of songs. They
were the first two songs. Actually, Robs told me he
had written two songs before that um, but he didn't
have a backbob of some to Neither did Chris White,
and so it created a bit of a problem for us,
especially as Decca always put pressure on artists who had
(28:09):
a chart record to within six weeks to have a
follow up. It's six weeks. It's just it's just inviting
me to fail. I mean, we were working every night,
we were we were out ontour. There was no opportunity
to write. And so when the sort of dreaded six
weeks came up, roughly speaking, we had one song. Chris
(28:32):
White had got a song. It wasn't an aside. We
all knew, it wasn't an a side Leave me be,
it was cool. It was a very dark and depressing song.
It was all we had, and so Deca put it
out and of course it was a dismal failure. And
in the States we skipped that, and the follow up
to She's Not There in America was Telling Her Note,
(28:53):
which was quite a big hit, and it was a
small hit in the UK as well. But people away
seem to be so short sighted in these days. You know,
you have to have a follow up, regardless of whether
you've got a new material. They were just forced this
follow up, and it just seems like they're almost willing
you to fail and so they can get onto the
(29:15):
next new band, And in many cases that is what happened.
I mean, it's so I mean, you think about it,
The Zombies seem to fall prey to so many really
unfortunate music industry practices in the sixties, both creatively and financially.
I mean, the thing I think a lot of people
don't understand now is how could the Zombies break up
(29:35):
when you've just completed an album of spectacular as artsy
an oracle. In hindsight, it almost looks like you broke
up at the top of your game creatively, but obviously
there were so many more factors and forces of playing. Yeah,
I mean a hindsight, I completely agree with you. But
the fact is that we were very, very poorly managed.
(29:55):
And it's difficult to say how poorly managed without sort
of getting into legal terry blaming. Yeah, really really poorly managed,
and particularly the three guys who weren't writers. Thank heavens,
the writers income didn't go through our management company, so
One and Chris were actually doing quite well, and you know,
(30:18):
and that's wonderful because they were writing great songs and
they were being rewarded for it. But the three non writers.
We just weren't earning any money. I mean, we were
just broke, and we've been three years on the road
playing all the time. We just had a very challenging
tour into the Far East where we didn't realize it,
(30:39):
but when we got there we had sort of five
records in the top ten. We played at the Arenessa
Coliseum in the in the Manila or just outside of Manila,
Cason City, and we opened to twenty eight thousand people.
We had no idea this was happening. We did a
ten day residency. We played to fifteen thousand the matinee
on the Saturday after the and on the Saturday night
(31:02):
we played to thirty two thousand people. This basically went
on for ten nights. We were being paid eighty pounds
a night, which is it no and our manager and
our agents were taking of that. I mean, in a
(31:22):
in a way it's funny, but then we also think
about it. You know, we couldn't live. We just didn't
have any mind, and even we could see that that
was not right. And when we came back, we left
that manager and that agent, and I think he more
or less gave up on us. Really, I think he
knew that we knew what was going on, and so
(31:45):
we were free of him. But we couldn't find anyone
else who was interested. But we got this deal with
CBS for a small amount of money. As I said,
and especially Robn Chris wanted to make an album of
their songs that that that sounded how they envisioned, envisioned them.
Can't speak this aften and I don't know why, and
(32:08):
and so that's what we did. And then at the
end of it, we released a single in the UK
called Care of Self Well Before. It's the first track
from the album, and I think it's the most commercial
song on there actually myself. It's incredible. I still will
never understand why that was not a smash. That is
an amazing song. And at the time, of course, the
business was very singles orientated, so just a little bit
(32:31):
later it was more albums the end of the sixties
beginning of the semence. But the single was ignored, really
it did, wasn't played, and it didn't sell, and it
just seemed as so we'd we'd come to the end
of the road. And then actual fact, the band finished
before Honestly and Oracle was even released, and in a
(32:52):
way that that was a little silly, but it's just
it was the it was because of the year or
so before, or it just drained us, you know, and
nobody had any money. In particular Pull that conser a guitarists.
It just got married and he absolutely had no money.
And he'd been offered a job in a computer phone,
you know, really good money, and he you know, he
(33:16):
didn't want to take it, but there wasn't an alternative
for him, really, and so it just seemed that it
would be best that we just very amicably that the
band should should end. And that was it. And then
Al Cooper was over in London and he bought about
two hundred albums and he just said one of them
just really stood out to him. It was, honestly an oracle.
(33:39):
He had just taken a job with CBS as a
producer at CBS CBS and on his first day he
went to see Clive Davis and he said, we have
to buy this album. It doesn't matter what it costs.
We've got to get this album. Honestly an oracle. And
Clive Davis said to him, we owned that album. We
(33:59):
we weren't going to release it, you know, And our
Cooper fought for it, you know, we owe him so much.
He fought for it. And eventually the album was released,
and I think there were either three or four singles
released before one of them talk and that was Time
of the Season, and famously a DJ and Boise Idaho
(34:23):
would not stop playing Time of the Season and gradually
it spread from Boise out and it took months, you know,
and then it got right across the country and eventually
it was a huge hit, like that DJ the cinema
thank You code, I know, Well absolutely changed our lives,
(34:45):
you know, as did our Cooper. But it's a very
strange story. And even when Time of the Season was
a hit, obnessly an Oracle wasn't really in it. I
think it went into the bill Billboard top hundred once
for like two weeks, got to about really a hit.
But then ten years later people started talking about it,
(35:05):
and in particular Tom Petty in America and all Well
in the UK became champions of this album and of
the band, and they wouldn't stop promoting, you know. I mean,
it's a wonderful thing when you've got two internationally wonderful
artists like that who are acting as your promoters, you know,
(35:26):
and they wouldn't start promoting the album, and eventually it
started to really create a lot of interest. And I
think Rolling Stone and they do these charts every five
or eight years or something, but certainly in one of
the charts, we were in the top hundred albums of
all time. They do a top five hundred, but we
actually just got into the top hundred, which is incredible
(35:48):
for an album that's never really been a hit, although
year on year it just sells more and more. It's
it's a mystery. I cannot tell you how this has happened.
But really, sixty years later we're talking about this album.
There was never a hit, and and yet it's it's
meant so much to so many people as a work
(36:09):
of art. You know, people are inspired by it and
constantly write about it and talk about it. And it
was never a commercial success at the time, and most
people probably think it still isn't a commercial success, but
it sells quite considerable numbers. Now, I mean, that's what's
so precious about it is that, you know, most people
(36:31):
rediscover these albums through a movie soundtrack or a commercial
or something like that, but this just purely stands on
its own merit and word of mouth and people who
just pass it down and say this is really incredible,
check it out, and it just completely sells just based
on the strength of the songs and the music. Well, Paul,
if if he talks to you about honestly an oracle,
(36:53):
which and he talks to a lot of people about honestly,
and if you haven't got the album where you don't
know what he's talking about, he will buy you with
you even do it to you. Also, you just mentioned films,
(37:15):
and that's another I find quite intriguing thing that zombie
songs turn up in films a lot. We were we
were in the Disney film Cruella at the Summer and
the Canned Film Festival, a French film one the can
Film Festival called to Tame t I t A n
E and she's not there was in that. And there's
(37:39):
another film that's just come out called Where do You
Go To? Where do You Go to? Bernadette with Cape
and I always say her name on Cape blanchard Um.
She's a very very famous actress and that's got she's
not thearing it. So there's that's this summer, we've had
three songs and films. Plus there's a department store in
(37:59):
the States called colm Ko l H. And they used
a Zombies song over the summer. It was this will
be our year. But these songs, these songs are fifty
years old, sometime, some nearly sixty years old, and people
are using them in contemporary films and commercials. It's it's
(38:20):
I think it's fascinating. It's a huge mystery to me.
But but I mean, I don't mind about it now.
It's a mystery. I don't understand it, but it's wonderful
that these songs are being discovered after all this time.
I think they called that timeless. Do you know what?
I think A lot of zombie songs are timeless. You know,
people sometimes saying it, how do you feel about singing?
(38:42):
Time of the season and she's not there every night
for years and years when you're on the road. But
they are the timeless classics. And I love singing and
quite honestly, they're slightly different every night when you play,
and I thoroughly enjoy its. Speaking of absolutely incredible albums.
Just down the hall from where you performed the other
(39:05):
night at Studio too, at Abbey Road, you recorded your
debut solo disc One Year, which is is absolutely staggering album,
one of my favorites, and I'm thrilled to hear that
it's getting a reissue with a bonus disc of some
unheard compositions and demos. Uh, can you take me back
to those sessions? What was it like during that that
(39:26):
one year? Well, I, you know, I think it's quite
interesting in that it's all there's definitely a connection with
Honestly and Oro because that was Rod Argent and Chris
White co producing me in Studio three with piece of
Vince Engineering, and he engineered the majority of Odessy an Oracle,
(39:46):
So there was huge It was a huge connection with
Honestly an Oracle, and it was great to get the
old team back together again and we introduced a wonderful
string arranger called Chris Gunning into the mix, and that
I just think it was he came up with things
that was just so different what he was saying to him.
(40:06):
I think this came from Rod more than anyone. Think
Bartok when you're doing think Bartok. And boy did he
come up with some great arrangements so unusual, and one
of them a song called say you Don't Mind which
is a Denny Lane song, was a huge hit in
the UK. Really took me by surprise because it's um
(40:28):
it wasn't actually a string quartet, but it's written as
if it was for a string caute. But it's actually
a twenty one piece string orchestra, but no rhythm track,
no other instrument, just strings. And it was a hit
in the UK, but it never it didn't make an
impact at the time in the States. It's a little
bit the opposite to the Zombies because the Time of
(40:50):
the Season was a big hit in America. The Time
of the Season was never a hit in the UK.
It was a hit everywhere else but not in the UK.
But from my first album, Say Don't was a hit
in the UK but not in the States. Exactly the opposite,
but an incredible track. I mean you mentioned bar talk.
I think of the string break in Misty Roses, which
(41:12):
I mean for me, that's a definitive version of of
I know Tim Harden wrote it, but that's your version
of Misty Roses, the definitive version of that song. For me,
that is an incredible track. Well, it's funny because I'm
a huge fan of Tim Harden and um, I think
he did an incredible version, but so I would never
say one was better than the other. Hopefully people have
(41:34):
been able to both of them, you know, I think
they're both worth to listen. And you know, I'm a
huge fan of Tim Harden and but particularly that song.
It's such a beautiful song. And the original songs that
that you wrote during these sessions and Caroline Goodbye, that
You're Far Away, I mean, they're my favorites on the
album as well. I mean, I know you contributed, um
(41:56):
just out of Reach to the Zombies can and uh
may to be with hearing these songs that you've written more.
I mean, did any of the one year tracks date
back to the Zombie's era. I don't think so. No,
I think I did write one other Zombie Tunit's first
song I ever wrote is called how We Were Before.
(42:17):
It's very romantic, simple tune. Um. But you know, I
was sort of watching Rod and Chris and seeing them
developers writers, and as I said before, I didn't know
they could write before She's Not There and the B
side you make Me Feel Good We're written. I had
no idea. I thought songwriters came from a different part
of the business too. Performing artists. I didn't realize. And
(42:41):
I think there's another thing that we owe the Beatles
that they made us realize that you could write your
own material. There seemed to be an unwritten law that
bands didn't write their own material, but they changed all that.
And watching Rod and Chris developers writers, it just encouraged
me to have a go and I just developed slowly
(43:01):
over the years. And and also I went to live
in a flat with a couple of guys who were
in the music business, and one was a manager. One
was a singer songwriter called Duncan Brown and if you
ever check out his stuff, Duncan Broun. He had one
hit in this country called Journey, but he made several
(43:22):
really really good albums, and he was also in a
band called Metro, which was really good as well. So
I lived in this flat with these two guys, and
Duncan was a wonderful classical guitarist, and I just sat
mesmerized by his playing, and all three of us played guitar.
Duncan was by father best and we would play through
the night. And they showed an interest in my writing
(43:45):
that I wasn't aware of before. I wasn't aware that
anyone was particularly interested in my writing, and they encouraged me.
And that's why I called my second album and as
More because we lived in this flat apartment in a
place called enns More Gardens in London, which is right
behind the Albert Hall, so it's a lovely area of London,
(44:06):
and I thought that that's in some ways that's when
my songwriting started. In that flat in Ender's More Gardens.
I just started to get the idea of of becoming
a writer as well as a as a singer, and
they really encouraged me. So I always remember Duncan Brown.
(44:26):
Do check him out. He's really really good. And you
have the album Journey too, right, I think I think
it was an album. It's called Journey keep the Curtains
Closed Today and the gorgeous songs. I wish i'd recorded
more with him. In fact, I've got some demos of
me and him, and I mentioned it's someone the other
(44:46):
day and it's very you've got but they're on a
real to real tape. You know. I've got to I've
got to have it transferred professionally because otherwise it might
just disintegrate. But when I mentioned that to someone actually
in America. You've got to get that onto either CD
or or on you know, onto something so that people
would be really interested to hear that. And we were
(45:08):
just mucking around. But it's funny how time sort of
makes it changes how people view what you were thinking
of as quite a lighthearted musical romp. It's just having fun.
And you know, after fifty years, people are saying, man,
this is history. You know, you've got to do something
(45:30):
with this. So that's what's happened with the One Year album.
It's kind of strange. Chris White's two sons. Uh, we're
working on all his black catalog and Chris has written
many many songs and also he has produced a lot
of people, and so they're putting out a series of
CDs called Chris White Experience. And they were going through
(45:50):
his attic looking at cassette cassette real too real and
what happened And they found some real to reel of
songs of mine and sort of phone me up really excitedly, saying,
we found all these songs and when I listened to them,
it's the most extraordinary feeling that because they're so old,
I just certainly did not remember the sessions at all
(46:14):
and some of the songs I don't well, I didn't
remember them then that they are a vague memory. Now
I've played them a few times. But most of these
are just me sitting down with a guitar, and I
would call them sort of rough ideas of songs. They're
almost sort of pre demos a lot of them, really,
but they do they do show what kind of area
(46:36):
I was I was writing in and the record company
got to hear of these tracks and then it was
sort of taking out of my hands then and it's
now a double album and I don't My input in
that wasn't very much except I sang the tracks in
the beginning. Chris White's sons found the tape and the
record company took the tapes on the on the CD.
(46:59):
I hope people and will enjoy them. I mean it
they I think they do have some some value. Oh
the song that that's out there now that I've heard,
I Won't Let You Down, which is available for for
for preview, is absolutely stunning. It is I cannot wait
to hear the rest. It is gorgeous. I mean, it
makes me wish that it was a double album to
start with. It is an absolutely incredible song. Then you've
(47:21):
picked up on that and it's so funny. I mean
the Yeah, there are thirteen other songs like that, you know,
some have a story and some some don't. I mean,
there was there's one on there and it was written
because there were some phony Zombies growing up and playing.
I think there were three phony Zombie bands. I think
(47:44):
those guys in zz Tapper and one of them. Yeah,
that's true. Yeah, And because the Zombies had finished and
sort of nearly two years later, time in the season
was a big hit in the States, there was a
huge vacuum. You know, there was all this work and
no band, and so a lot of managers start thinking, well, listen,
we don't like black cubes. We've got to fill it.
And so they these bands started playing. And on one occasion,
(48:09):
Chris White was in the offices of Rolling Stone and
they said, look, we've got the phone number of the
manager of one of these bands. So we want you,
Chris White, original base baron the Zombies, to phone um up,
but pretend that you're from Rolling Stone and get the story.
So you phoned up the guy and the guy said, well,
(48:31):
the thing is, we wanted to honor the life of
the lead singer of the Zombes who was killed in
a car crash. And this is why we put the
band together. And this is in Rolling Stone. Actually, I
think this article is printed at least in part on
the sleeve of the double album that's coming out. And
so I wrote. One of the songs that I wrote
(48:52):
is Yesterday and Rolling Stone a man said I'm dead,
and that's that's not the start, because it was a
very strange feeling to have it in a major you know,
a major outlet. But you're dead, You're dead, you know,
I mean, news of my death is rather rather premature.
(49:13):
I'm afraid of famous statement, not mine. Um. Yeah, it
was kind of weird, and that got me an idea
for one of the songs, sing your own song. It
is no I haven't I've I've read. I'm looking forward
to hearing them, but I haven't had a chance to
hear him yet, so they are quite rough. You know,
what would be really exciting if there was a general
(49:35):
interest in these songs and we could expand them, and
you know, there's enough material there to to record an album.
Wouldn't that be extraordinary? After fifty or sixty years, we
take these very primitive demos and make them into actual tracks.
That would be a thrill. Yes, it would, Yes that
(49:56):
that would I would love that, and I know that
that many people would too. I mean, I know that
you and Rod and the band right now are are
hard at work on a new new Zombies album, but
perhaps perhaps after that. Yeah, we're sort of halfway through
a Zombies album. We probably started seven tracks, but some
(50:17):
of them are not finished, and hopefully we can we
can wrap that up certainly before the end of the year,
and I would hope that we'll have a new album
early next year. It's just with the situation as it
is at the moment, it's difficult to get everyone together.
We the last album and this album, we've decided we
want everyone in the studio at the same time playing.
(50:39):
You know, in some ways it's almost like a live
album within a studio setting. But we find that people
play differently if they're all in the same room at
the same time. There's an energy that you don't get
if you record your parts separately and layer the track.
Um So on the last album still got that hunger.
(51:00):
Everyone was in the studio at the same time. We
kept the solos from the live versions and we kept
the lead vocals. We only over dubbed harmonies vocal harmonies.
Otherwise it's it's like a live album. That was a
highlight of your concert at Abbey Road. Just hearing some
some new some of the new songs that are coming
(51:21):
out soon with an incredible stringer company meant they're absolutely
gorgeous and when they're wonderful players, really good, so wonderful.
I hope we can work some more with that quartet.
They're called Q Strings, really really good. It was, it
was such it was such a treat to hear, you know,
get a tease of the the upcoming album. I can't
wait to hear the rest of it. I think it's
(51:44):
going to be good. I'm really too ah well, call
your music has meant the world demanded is touched me
from many, many, many years, has brought me so much
joy to me and my loved ones. I am so
grateful for that, and I'm so grateful for your time today.
Thank you so much, thank you. It's been a pleasure.
I've really enjoyed having a chat. Thanks for having to
(52:05):
be on the show. We hope you enjoyed this episode
of Inside the Studio. A production of I Heart Radio.
For more episodes of Inside the Studio or other fantastic shows,
check out the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or
(52:26):
wherever you listen to your favorite podcast.
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