August 15, 2024 • 42 mins
Delta Promotions doubles down on their Fake Zombies scheme. We meet the second group of Americans who called themselves "The Zombies" in 1969. Later, we uncover a long-lost video of the imposter group performing on a Memphis television station. Got a Fake Zombies story to share? Get in touch with The True Story of The Fake Zombies at Fakezombiespod@gmail.com or @thefakezombies on TikTok.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The True Story of the Fake Zombies is a production
of iHeart Podcasts, Talk House and never Mind Media.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
We were a blues rock band from Texas, a band
with plenty of good looks better than the original Zombies.
What we didn't leave behind was a musical history of
our own. I think of that quite often, but that
was long ago, and have my memories the Texas Fake Zombies.
Most of those memories are dear to my heart. But
I went on and I followed a different path.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Imagine you're one of the Texas Zombies back in nineteen
sixty nine. You and your bandmates are tearing down the highway.
You just played a gig. You've got a little money
in your pocket, but you're dead tired. You're taking whatever
you can to stay awake. There's another gig tomorrow, and
(01:02):
another one the next day. You're playing these zombie shows anywhere.
The Bay City guys send you and the schedules relentless.
You gaze out the window, lost in thought as the
world flies by. In this imagined scenario, you suddenly see
a bus headed in the opposite direction, crossing paths with
(01:25):
your tour van on a long stretch of highway. You're
headed north. The bus is headed south. As it passes,
you notice a band name written on the side in
psychedelic lettering. You catch a glimpse in the window and
you realize it's a tour bus filled with young guys
just like you, barreling towards their next gig. As the
(01:47):
bus passes by, your heart sinks. You focus in on
that logo painted on the side of the tour bus.
It says the Zombies. You would know it couldn't possibly
be the real band. They're back in England, broken up.
You were hired to be the Zombies by two guys
(02:08):
in Bay City, Michigan, two guys who told you this
Zombies tour you're on is all above board, that they
own the rights to the Zombies music, and it was
all perfectly legal. You were simply filling a void. But
how would you feel when you found out those same
two guys in Michigan put together another Zombies and send
(02:28):
them on the road too.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Ovise for.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
This is the true story of the fake Zombies. I'm
Daniel Ralston. We're not saying our goodbyes to Mark Ramsey
and his bandmates and the Texas Zombies just yet. Before
we turn our attention to the second Fake Zombies. I
have elite on the origins of the group from Texas.
(03:01):
When I sat down with former Delta Promotions employee Tom
Hocott in twenty sixteen, he shared his memories of the
Fake Zombies operation with me. Tom was the first Delta
employee I met, and he played a huge role in
the early days of finding this story. When we met
at a Chili's outside Bay City, Tom brought along a
(03:22):
Manila envelope full of pictures of himself as a young man.
He showed me photos of himself with the bands he
managed on the Delta roster. Along with the photos, there
were flyers for concerts, including a Fake Zombies gig in California.
I didn't know it at the time, but the faces
(03:42):
and names in that envelope will become a part of
this story. Years later. There's Tom standing in a field
with Gordon Thayer and his brothers Rich and Phil from
the band Dick Rabbit, the openers for the Texas Zombies tour.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
I believe they're a pretty band on the road up
and down the East Coast for three months.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
In the background of Tom's photos from nineteen sixty nine,
it's Big Jim Atherton, road manager for the Fakes Obmys.
Without Tom, the names and the faces in this story
would have disappeared. I want to ask Tom about the
new names and new faces I've found, but Tom can't
(04:25):
communicate the way he used to due to a stroke
he suffered a few years back. Tom was a window
into the world of Delta Promotions. He watched Kehoe and
Atherton create bands, was charged with taking them out on
the road, but Tom left something out, a detail lost
(04:46):
to time. Before Mark Sieve, Frank and Dusty from Texas
were recruited into the Delta operation, Tom Hocott was asked
to create the first version of the Fakes Obbis. While
Delta Promotions had a small stable of bands and some
(05:07):
out of state connections to help them book tours, this
was still tiny little Bay City. Combine with the fact
that most bands didn't want to pretend to be another one,
Tom didn't have a lot of options. When it came
time to recruit. He called his teenage nephew.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
Okay, Tom Hocott. Tom is my uncle worked for Bill
Keho up in Bay City, Michigan.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
That's Tom's nephew, Dan Hocott. When I reached out to
him at his home in Indiana. It had been a
long time since anyone had mentioned the fake Zombies. Back
in nineteen sixty nine, Dan was eighteen and an aspiring
rock and roller when he got a call from his
uncle Tom.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
I lived in Northwest Indiana, right outside Chicago in June
of sixty nine. I had just graduated from high school.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Tom is only a decade older than Dan, and they've
always been close, bonded for life by their shared love
for rock music. Dan was a little naive to his
uncle's business up in Bay City, but he knew he
worked in the music industry. When Tom called in June
sixty nine, he offered his nephew Dan the chance to
audition for a band on the Delta Promotions roster.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
I got a call from Tom saying that he had
a opportunity for me if I wanted to travel with
a band for the summer. I said, sure, you know
it's you know that was my aspiration.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Anyway, for a teenager fresh out of high school. The
deal his uncle presented a summer gig and a touring
band was dream come true. Dan went straight to Michigan.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
I got on a flight, went to Bay City, Michigan,
and Tom explained to me that the group the Zombies
were doing an American tour and that they lost their
bass player or something to that effect and wanted me
to audition. So I went in there knowing only.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
That Dan passed the audition and he was suddenly a Zombie,
fresh out of high school and playing bass in a
band with a hit record. It seemed too good to
be true, which, of course it was. The first thing
Dan noticed about the Delsa operation. There wasn't a single
(07:30):
English musician and sight.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
I found out pretty quickly that there was no Zombies,
and that Bill Keyhole had put together a bunch of
stray musicians and tried to create a band with them,
myself and three other people keyboard, guitarist and drummer, none
of who knew each other.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Dan and his new bandmates had just met when they
found out they already had gigs lined up. He was
about to be on stage in front of crowds performing
as the Zombies with three complete strangers, none of whom
were British. Bill kehow assured them that everything was on
the level.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
Bill said he owned the American rights to the name Zombies,
as well as a few other groups, and he was
assembling bands and putting them on the road as those groups.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
This was not exactly what Dan had signed up for.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
It was horrible, quite frankly. It was just four guys
from four different avenues of music, never meeting each other before,
and they threw us on the road and we had
within a week job uped in I think Grand Haven, Michigan.
I think we knew a couple of Zombies songs, but
other than that, we just threw together a bunch of
(08:58):
blues tunes and that we could all learn. Within a week.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Dan's version of the Zombies only had a week to rehearse.
They couldn't possibly have sounded like the real thing, but
Delta didn't seem to mind. They booked more shows for
the Zombies.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
And that went on maybe two or three concerts around
the Michigan area, and then they decided to put us
on the road.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
After a week of rehearsal and a few trial runs
in Michigan, Dan and his bandmates were flown south, where
Delta Promotions had a considerably larger gig line up, supporting
a very real, very popular band.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
They were booking The Zombies into pretty big venues. I
remember one night we opened for Three Dog Night, the
real Three Dog Night. So they sent us off to Jacksonville, Florida,
and they put us up in a hotel and wanted
(09:57):
us to rehearse and get really tight.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
The All American Zombies spent another week hold up in
at Jacksonville hotel. Dan wishes he could say they got better,
but they didn't. The Fake Zombies bombed in Florida.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
We had no business being on that stage. We were horrible.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Dan saw the writing on the wall after that first
out of town show. It was all a big rus
He and his bandmates had been flown to Florida and
given brand new equipment. They were opening for one of
the most popular bands in their era, all on the
pretense that Dan and his American bandmates, who hadn't even
met two weeks earlier, were supposed to go up on
(10:40):
stage and be the Zombies, a five piece British rock
band with one of the hottest songs in the world.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
It just never jelled. It was a horrible situation because
nobody had played with each other.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
If it wasn't obvious, this Fake Zombies business wasn't for Dan,
but one of his bandmates in that first Fake Zombies,
A good looking guy with a shaggy rock and roll
mullet and a flying v guitar wanted to keep at it.
Speaker 5 (11:10):
So the guitar player his name was Seb Scab Meta
m E A d O R. I believe he was
from Texas.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Dan's bandmate, one of the guys he was matched up
with in Bay City and bombed with in Florida with
Seed Meta. This confirms that Seed, what was the rock
and roll Rebel, was the link between the Texas Zombies
and Delta promotions in Michigan. Dan didn't want to play
(11:53):
bass on the Zombies anymore. He was ready to head
back to his uncle's place in Bass City, but he
stuck around Florida long enough to meet a future rock legend.
He remembers Seb phoning up someone he knew in Texas, and.
Speaker 5 (12:07):
He happened to Noah, bass player that he had played
with for quite some time, so they brought him in.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Dan was there to meet the guy who would replace
him in the Fake Zombies.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Dusty had come up from Texas and they had one
rehearsal in a hotel room before they played the.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Gig from the Wings Dan watched Sebe and Dusty Hill
play as the Zombies for the first time again, opening
up for three Dog Night. Things didn't go any better
with the new lineup, and Dan was struck by just
how strange it all was.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
I mean, I felt like hiding my face.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Seebes Fake Zombies now had a bass player from Texas.
They'd call on two more friends, Mark Ramsey and Frank
Beard and head out on tour. Dan went back to
Michigan to hang out with his uncle Tom and the Delta.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Crew, and I stayed there for about a month.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Dan hung around Delta and watched as Keyho and Atherton
spun their wheels trying to figure out how to make
their fake Zombie scheme that they'd poured time and money
into work. After the disastrous shows in Jacksonville.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
They pretty quickly realized that they could not throw a
band together with any finesse and have them pull off
the Zombies.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Delta thought the problem lay in trying to assemble the
Zombies from scratch. They didn't have time to wait around
for the groups they assembled to find their sound. This
is why CEB and Dusty recruited their friends Mark Ramsey
and Frank Beard to fill out the Texas version of
the Zombies, but Kejo and Atherton didn't take any chances.
They went in search of another band that already had
(13:53):
a cohesive sound to become the second Fake Zombies.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
So they started to realize it would be better if
they drafted whole intact bands, so that's what they did.
They got a band. I believe they were from Flint, Michigan.
I don't remember the name, but they had been playing
together for quite some time and they were very good,
and they went on the road as the Zombies.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Dan played in the first Fake Zombies before it became
an all Texas outfit, and he watched his Delta promotions
found their second Fake Zombies. That Second Zombies band, made
up of local guys from Michigan, did something Dan and
the Texans couldn't do. They sounded like the real thing,
at least while they were singing.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Money Thank You.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Seb and Dusty recruited Frank Beard and Mark Ramsey into
the Fake Zombies and went out on the road. But
the Texas Zombies didn't exactly follow the brief. According to
Mark Ramsey, they played exactly one Zombie song, the big
hit that started all this time of the season. If
you went to see the Zombies and ended up seeing Frank,
(15:25):
Dusty seb and Mark, time of the season was all
you were going to get. The rest of those Zombies,
said Lists was hard fast blues, the kind they liked
to play back in Texas with the Texas Band. Delta
filled the Zombie shaped hole in America with something that
didn't quite fit. A blues band preoccupied with their own
(15:47):
distinctive style. It could never last. So what a Delta do.
They found another band, this one right in their own backyard,
and sent them out on the road as the Zombi
at the same damn time. When Delta started their new
version of the Zombies, it wasn't an unprecedented move. In
(16:12):
episode one, Joe Selvin, music writer, an expert on the
early days of the music industry, told me that having
multiple versions of the same act was standard practice in
the world of soul and R and B music.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
A group would have a hit record, and quickly they
would hire a bunch of guys to go out and
be the group, and sometimes they would send two or
three of the groups out at the same time. Eventually,
the Coasters had three different groups working. Two of them
had split the country western of the Mississippi, East the Mississippi,
and the third one just rampaged across the country and
(16:48):
they were all the coasters.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Delta Promotions needed a better Zombies, so they went looking
for a pre existing band that would hopefully be easier
to control. As luck would have it, Keyo and Atherton
found a band that actually sounded like the Zombies right
in their own backyard, Enter the Excels. Looking at pictures
(17:16):
of the Excels in the early sixties, it's pretty easy
to spot their musical influences and their promotional photos. The
Excel's five smiling faces and their striped Madra shirts, white
slacks and Kendall haircuts scream the Beach Boys. The band
met at Northern Michigan University, where the Excels actually started
(17:38):
as a Beach Boys cover band before incorporating original songs
into their repertoire. They became regulars on the Michigan Team
nightclub circuit, crossing paths with artists like Bob Seger and
question Mark in the Mysterians. After extensive tours in Michigan,
the Excels trekted Detroit in search of a recording contract.
(18:00):
They met with Motown and even got some FaceTime with
the Supremes, but an all white band with a heavy
Beach Boys influence wasn't exactly what Motown wanted. On the
same trip, the Excels cross paths with Ali McLaughlin, an
influential disc jockey in ann Arbor. In addition to being
one of Michigan's biggest DJs, McLaughlin had a record label,
(18:23):
Carlo Records. He signed the Excels and their song Little
Innocent Girl was a regional hit in Michigan, cracking the
top ten in Detroit, and there they stayed. They released
more singles with modest regional success. By nineteen sixty nine,
that success had flatlined. We pick up the story of
(19:00):
the Excels in nineteen sixty nine. Here's Gary Johnson from
the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Museum.
Speaker 6 (19:08):
When the original Excels kind of split. They split with
their lead singer, Clark Sullivan. The teen club scene, which
was basically the bread and butter of the Excels, was
fading out.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
The four remaining Excels were looking for a gig they
could still pull off those Beach Boys harmonies, and Delta
was looking for a tight vocal group to impersonate the Zombies.
In twenty nineteen, Gary Johnson tracked down to the Excels
and asked them how they transformed from a promising young
band into the second Fake Zombies.
Speaker 6 (19:45):
Clark Sullivan was their lead singer, the lead guitar player,
and really the principal songwriter, and he wanted to kind
of continue in the pop rock vein that the Excels
were so successful in the other four guys. After they
picked up a new league guitar player, you know, they're
kind of looking for a record deal and a way
(20:08):
to maybe transition away from the team clubs into you know,
the concerts scene.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
After replacing Clark Sullivan with John Herrick, the Excels became
the Zombies. One thing I've learned in researching this story
is not everybody wants to talk about it. The time
the Excels spent pretending to be another band cast a
shadow over the rest of their lives. The remaining members
(20:37):
of the Excels declined to talk to me for this podcast.
Gary's a local guy who reps hard for Michigan music.
Back in twenty nineteen, Gary got in touch with the
Excels about including them in his Michigan Rock and Roll
Legends Museum. While honoring them, he asked about their time
(20:58):
as a Delta Promotions act.
Speaker 6 (21:00):
They played Role Air, which was an outdoor facility in
the summertime. They made contact with Keyo and he invited
them to Delta Promotions, you know, apparently to discuss them
becoming the Zombies.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Delta told the Excels they wanted a vocal band that
could duplicate the zombies sound, and that the Excels would
be a perfect fit. The van ditched their striped shirts
and clean cut look. In their Delta promotional materials, the
Michigan Zombies are dressed like extras from Easy Rider, sporting
flowing shirts, tight pants, and swayed vests. Their keyboardist, Howard
(21:38):
you Linnen, has a giant beard and a David Crosby
style cape. These are the clothes you'd wear if you
wanted to look psychedelic. Not exactly a perfect match for
the well tailored zombies, but close enough. These Zombies hit
the road, and.
Speaker 6 (21:54):
Of course they traveled in a van with the zombies
printed on the side aides.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Like the Texas Zombies, the Excels were sold on the
idea of becoming the Zombies, because according to Delta, it
was all perfectly legal. Delta shot official promo photos for
both of their Zombies. It's important to note that the
Texas band were called the original Zombies and their glossy
black and white photos and the shots of the Michigan Zombies.
(22:28):
The name at the bottom next to the Delta address
just says the Zombies. That would prove to be an
important distinction when it came time to hit the road.
Suddenly it was more than just playing zombie songs. The
Michigan Zombies were told to actually pretend to be the band,
English accents and all.
Speaker 6 (22:48):
They adopted British accents to do radio interviews. Gerry Stott
Cairo is very upfront above the Delta promotions publicity photo
and the write ups that presented them as the original
British band that had the hits like She's Not There.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
In time of the season, the Excels were too well
known in Michigan to play zombie shows in their home state.
They played in all the teen night clubs and had
a hit record just a few years earlier, so Kehoe
and Atherton had to send them further afield, where they
wouldn't be recognized.
Speaker 6 (23:25):
It's just kind of hard to believe, you know, that
they could pull this thing off, you know, and especially
in big answers.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Stacaro told Gary Johnson that there were ten thousand people
at one of their shows. That is by far the
biggest known fake Zombie's performance. At that point, Delta Promotions
must have been thrilled. Gary Johnson was able to track
down another member of the Excels, Terry Quirk. Strangely, Terry
(23:55):
Quirk is also the name of the graphic artists who
designed the cover of the Zombies' classic album Odyssey and
All Oracle. This is a different guy also named Terry Quirk.
Here's Gary on Terry.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
You know Terry Quirk. When I spoke to him, and
I've spoke to him several times on the phone, you know,
he told me that they fell for a keyhose line
to quote him, hook line and sinker.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
The Excel signed on and the Michigan Zombies came to life.
This was nothing like the blues rock boogie of the
Texas version. Delta had found their authentic sounding zombies.
Speaker 6 (24:32):
You know, according to all accounts, they sounded great and
they could do all the Zombies hits, you know, much
better than the apparently than the Texas Zombies did.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
While the Michigan Zombies were more successful than the Texas guys,
playing to a crowd of ten thousand in Utah and
making it to the whiskey of Go Go in La,
it wasn't exactly a lucrative endeavor for the band, even
though the money wasn't particularly good. Harrow Quirk and the
Michigan Zombies continue to tour the US from nineteen sixty
(25:04):
nine into nineteen seventy until that Rolling Stone article written
by Ben Fong Torres, exposed out of promotions and their
fake band scheme. In nineteen seventy, Rolling Stone was still
printed on newspaper with a horizontal fold. Its low five
charm made it a favorite spot for emerging writers at
(25:25):
the time like Hunter S. Thompson and Kurt Vonneger. When
Ben Fong Torres wrote his story on the fake Zombies,
he was the senior editor at the Coolest newspaper in
the World. The picture that ran above the fold on
that issue was of the Michigan Zombies with the headline
fake Zombies, fake animals. Oh my, here's Ben Fong Torres
(25:47):
reading from his story.
Speaker 7 (25:48):
None of the groups being hunted down is real. They're
all phonies, tenth rate bands using names of well known,
technically non existent groups to pull the wool over the
public's collective eyes and ears.
Speaker 6 (26:06):
They were exposed as frauds nationally, and you know, it
served to tarnish the reputation of the Excels as a
very good band and the most successful band ever to
come out of the Upper Peninsula.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Terry Quirk felt so bad after the Rolling Stone story
dropped that he even tried to contact the real Zombies.
Speaker 6 (26:26):
They were, you know, deeply embarrassed. I think Terry tried
to reach out to them and was unsuccessful if I
remember correctly.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Soon everyone would know that the Zombies touring America weren't
the original group, no matter how much they sounded like them.
They were just five guys from Michigan calling themselves the Zombies.
It was the end for the Michigan Zombies, and it
would also be the end for the Excels.
Speaker 6 (26:55):
Quirk said, you know, it made him lose faith in
the entire year music business. He stopped playing for a
number of years after that happened. Eventually he got back
into it, as did Gary Staguero.
Speaker 7 (27:12):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
He ended up rejoining with a couple of the other Excels,
and you know, they played in Flint for quite a
few years.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
The Excels were a local Michigan band caught up in
the world of Delta promotions. They accepted Keho's offer thinking
they were simply taking the next step in their career.
It would be their owndoing. But while they were still
performing as the Zombies, the Excels left something behind.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
We talked that with that accent, English accent or a
British accent.
Speaker 8 (27:50):
British accent.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Picturing these guys getting up there in front of an
audience and pretending to be British. It took fifty five
years to see the light of day, but the Michigan
Fake Zombies gave an interview on TV. The Excels were
(28:34):
inducted into Gary Johnson's Rock and Roll Legends Museum in
Bay City, Michigan in twenty nineteen, and I thought Terry
Quirk and Gary Stacarro recalling their stories was as close
as I would ever get to them. Then about a
year ago, this video appeared of Gary Staco, Terry Quirk,
(28:56):
and the rest of the Michigan zombies on television, but
getting our hands on it, that's a story unto itself.
This happened so long ago. There are important people in
this story who were gone before I even went looking
for it, like Bill Keho and Seed Metter, and even
(29:21):
more who've passed on since, like Dusty Hill and Mark Ramsey.
Then they're the guys like the Excels, who just don't
want to talk. So you go looking anywhere you can,
hoping to find a lost piece of history floating in
the ether. When I found out there was a video
(29:42):
of the Michigan zombies out there, I had to see it.
I've never seen the fake zombies in action, and I
always hoped there might be some footage of them somewhere.
My producer Nick and I both saw an advanced screening
of a documentary directed by Robert Schwartzmann about the zombies
called Hung Up on a Dream. Suddenly they show a clip.
(30:05):
I have a bunch of guys on screen pretending to
be the zombies. They actually found a clip of the
fake zombies. Nick and I recognized them immediately. It was
the Michigan guys and they were being interviewed. How could
I have not known that this video was out there
the whole time we needed this clip. Luckily, Nick, it's
(30:27):
really good at his job. So we started digging.
Speaker 8 (30:31):
I kind of dug through the credits to see where
all the archival came from, and then worked There were
probably two different archival seat of companies that could have
licensed it for this film, and so I kind of
dug up their numbers and started calling. And the first
number that I called, I speak to this guy, and
(30:51):
I say.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
This guy runs an archive a film and TV clips.
They have a massive impressive collection of strange shit that
aired on TV in the sixties and seventies. We were
looking for one of those odd ball clips.
Speaker 8 (31:04):
And I say, this is a strange question, but do
you have any archival footage connected to the zombies? And
he's like, no, they're really hard to get anything on,
but we do have something on the fake zombies. But
obviously you're not interested in that.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
But of course Nick actually was interested in the fake zombies.
In fact, other than me, he's the only other person
in the world looking for it.
Speaker 8 (31:27):
And I start to sort of try and move toward us,
you know, getting to see this and potentially licensing it.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
We really wanted the Michigan Zombies audio for this episode.
I wanted you to hear those voices, to bring the
whole thing to life.
Speaker 8 (31:43):
Unfortunately, when he asked what it was for, I said
it was for podcast, and he became almost completely nonverbal
after that.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
I should mention that the guy at the video archive
Nick's talking to is extremely grizzled. I'm talking Tom Waite's
level of grizzle here, and for some reason, when Nick
said the word podcast, he just shut it down.
Speaker 8 (32:10):
I tried to be as charming as I could, tried
the whole British thing, and it is to no avail.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
According to Nick, most Americans go for the British accent thing,
not this guy. So Nick offered to pay him.
Speaker 8 (32:23):
It wouldn't be something that we would expect to get
for free. We would pay a reasonable price, and he
basically just stopped responding to things I was saying and
hung up on me.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Eventually, that was it, no quote, no negotiation, he just
hung up. This guy really hates podcasts. Why would this
clip be so closely guarded? We tried another route.
Speaker 8 (32:50):
Our colleague, excellent colleague, Melissa swooped in fortunately and sort
of came at it from a different angle did not
use the word podcast when she reached out about this,
and was able to get a sort of preview for
like a water marked audio water marked version of this
clip so that we could actually see it.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Thanks to Melissa Nick and I actually got to see it,
the fake zombies doing time of the season and giving
an interview on TV with fake British accents.
Speaker 8 (33:23):
Maybe I'm spoiling this bad. As you will hear from this,
it seems like the British accent duties were finally sort
of allocated to just one person, which is something of
a mercy.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Hearing their voices and seeing the expressions on the faces
of these young guys hired to be the zombies, it
just made it real for me.
Speaker 8 (33:42):
It was real that there is some footage of it.
The clip itself is just just makes the whole thing
orpen up way wider.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
This is the part where I should be playing you
the clip. But when we asked to use the audio
from it, they quoted us a price that I assumed
had to be a typo. You could buy a starter
house in Bay City for this price. For some reason,
this footage of the fake zombies, the only footage of them,
is a hot commodity.
Speaker 8 (34:13):
It felt like it was a price that was quoted
to us with the express purpose of us not being
able to pay it because it was so huge.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
We asked our partners at talk House, never mind an
iHeart for the money surprise. They said no.
Speaker 8 (34:34):
But fortunately we're resourceful people, and so there's another way.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Always in the spirit of this story about impersonation, we
also recreated the only interview with the fake zombies so
you can hear little snatches of what it sounds like.
Just as much as our lawyers said was okay without
us being liable for legal.
Speaker 8 (34:54):
Action, I think it's what Bill Keihowa wanted.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
So let me tell you about what Nick and I
saw when we watched the tape. After a few seconds
of static and fading signal, a band appears on the screen.
We recognize them immediately. It's the Michigan Zombies. Is They're
(35:26):
scattered across the sound stage of a TV show called
Talent Party in Memphis, Tennessee. The host of the show
is George Klein, a local Memphis DJ and TV star
best known for being part of the Memphis Mafia, Elvis
Presley's tight knit crew of handlers and advisors. Klein was
childhood friends with Elvis, and the King was the best
(35:46):
man at his wedding. The Michigan Zombies are lip syned
to the Real Zombies version at the time of the season.
These zombies look calm and collected, miming along to a
(36:09):
song they've been performing out on tour, and hey, at
least there are five guys on stage. Despite the fact
that Delta wanted its bands to keep a low profile,
the Michigan Zombies couldn't resist the bright lights of Talent Party.
As the song comes to a close, George Klein approaches
the drummer Gary Stacaro, and the interview portion of the
(36:32):
show begins. George Klein asks toa Caro about the pop
festival thing and whether he enjoys playing for bigger crowds,
whether because it's his first time on TV or because
he's pretending to be a British guy in a band
that no longer exists. Stacaro seems kind of nervous and
struggling for an answer, before settling on a kind of
hippieish answer by noting that at festivals you.
Speaker 6 (36:55):
Can move around a bit. You got a little freedom.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
I guess that's what it's all about. I guess Staco,
the band's drummer, has been charged with the hardest task
of any fake zombie pretending he's a member of the
real band from England. By this point, the Michigan Zombies
had given up the pretense that they were all original
members from England on talent party. Stacaro is the only
one still pretending. How many people in the group are
(37:19):
from actually from England? Just yoursell for anybody else, I'm
the only one. Klein then turns his attention towards rhythm
guitarist Terry Quirk, who he talks to about the band's
magic bus, which Quirk says is.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
The magic wreck right now.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
He continues to explain that.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
Traveling is a constant hassle and you always run into
these kind of problems, you know, and they did seem
to follow us around, especially.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
He explains that the bus currently has no reverse and
has no ford usually, though exactly what he means is unclear.
After Quirk then introduces each of the other band members
one by one, he says they're off to Texas and
then Canada, where apparently the band are but for two
days at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival Festival, where
John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band was due to play their
(38:06):
first ever gig. Klein told the band what a pleasure
it was to have them on the show, invited them
to come back whenever they were in the area, and
then cut to a message from Doctor Pepper. The Fake
Zombies would never make another appearance on that or any
other TV show. They were nearing the end of the line.
(38:29):
Was the story about their broken down bus true? Or
was it just an attempt to make the band seem
like scrappy underdogs to the audience who might be questioning
their bono fides. Were they really on their way to
play in Toronto opening up for John Lennon at the
Plastic Ono Band's first live gig, or was that just
something they told the host to seem more legit. And
(38:51):
why do they decide that only one of the band
members needed to be English to pull off this elaborate
con These are questions that can only be answered by
the guys who lived it, and fifty five years later,
they still aren't talking. It must have been tough to
be in Excel after the fake Zombies were exposed. One minute,
(39:15):
you're a promising young band making a name for yourself
in Michigan. The next your picture is in Rolling Stone
magazine and you're being called an imposter. The Michigan Zombies,
the guys who called themselves the Zombies and pretended to
be them, became the poster boys for Delta shady operation.
Their counterparts from Texas made it out unscathed, allowing two
(39:37):
of those Zombies to rise above this strange chapter in
their lives and become Rock Royalty and Zezy Top. The Excels,
Michigan's answer to the Beach Boys, from promising pop back
to rock and roll con men in the course of
one year, all thanks to this outrageous scheme brought to
(39:57):
you by the good folks at Delta Promotions. Whether you
see the Excels as willing participants or naive pawns and
Keyho and Atherton's plan depends on your perspective. Whatever you
might think of their actions, there's a silver lining at
the end of this story. The only true victims of
this con were the band the other guys were trying
(40:19):
to be, and fifty five years later, the real Zombies
aren't holding any grudges. On the next episode of the
True Story of the Fake Zombies. I talked to the
Real Zombies and find out how it feels to be
the band that inspired one of the strangest cons in
rock and roll history. If you want to get in
(40:53):
touch about the Fake Zombies, we've set up an email address,
Fake Zombies pod at gmail dot com. This podcast was
written by Daniel Ralston. Executive produced by Ian Wheeler, Melissa
Locker and Daniel Ralston. Produced by Anna McClain and Nick Dawson. Score,
original music and additional audio engineering by Robin Hatch. Additional
(41:16):
production support from Cooper Malt in Los Angeles. The Fake
Fake Zombies are Josh Agren, Brian mcalese, and Joey Devine.
The True Story of the Fake Zombies is a production
of iHeart Podcasts, Talk House and Nevermind Media. For more
podcasts from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(41:39):
or wherever you get your podcasts.
The True Story of the Fake Zombies is a production
of iHeart Podcasts, Talk House and never Mind Media.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
We were a blues rock band from Texas, a band
with plenty of good looks better than the original Zombies.
What we didn't leave behind was a musical history of
our own. I think of that quite often, but that
was long ago, and have my memories the Texas Fake Zombies.
Most of those memories are dear to my heart. But
I went on and I followed a different path.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Imagine you're one of the Texas Zombies back in nineteen
sixty nine. You and your bandmates are tearing down the highway.
You just played a gig. You've got a little money
in your pocket, but you're dead tired. You're taking whatever
you can to stay awake. There's another gig tomorrow, and
(01:02):
another one the next day. You're playing these zombie shows anywhere.
The Bay City guys send you and the schedules relentless.
You gaze out the window, lost in thought as the
world flies by. In this imagined scenario, you suddenly see
a bus headed in the opposite direction, crossing paths with
(01:25):
your tour van on a long stretch of highway. You're
headed north. The bus is headed south. As it passes,
you notice a band name written on the side in
psychedelic lettering. You catch a glimpse in the window and
you realize it's a tour bus filled with young guys
just like you, barreling towards their next gig. As the
(01:47):
bus passes by, your heart sinks. You focus in on
that logo painted on the side of the tour bus.
It says the Zombies. You would know it couldn't possibly
be the real band. They're back in England, broken up.
You were hired to be the Zombies by two guys
(02:08):
in Bay City, Michigan, two guys who told you this
Zombies tour you're on is all above board, that they
own the rights to the Zombies music, and it was
all perfectly legal. You were simply filling a void. But
how would you feel when you found out those same
two guys in Michigan put together another Zombies and send
(02:28):
them on the road too.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Ovise for.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
This is the true story of the fake Zombies. I'm
Daniel Ralston. We're not saying our goodbyes to Mark Ramsey
and his bandmates and the Texas Zombies just yet. Before
we turn our attention to the second Fake Zombies. I
have elite on the origins of the group from Texas.
(03:01):
When I sat down with former Delta Promotions employee Tom
Hocott in twenty sixteen, he shared his memories of the
Fake Zombies operation with me. Tom was the first Delta
employee I met, and he played a huge role in
the early days of finding this story. When we met
at a Chili's outside Bay City, Tom brought along a
(03:22):
Manila envelope full of pictures of himself as a young man.
He showed me photos of himself with the bands he
managed on the Delta roster. Along with the photos, there
were flyers for concerts, including a Fake Zombies gig in California.
I didn't know it at the time, but the faces
(03:42):
and names in that envelope will become a part of
this story. Years later. There's Tom standing in a field
with Gordon Thayer and his brothers Rich and Phil from
the band Dick Rabbit, the openers for the Texas Zombies tour.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
I believe they're a pretty band on the road up
and down the East Coast for three months.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
In the background of Tom's photos from nineteen sixty nine,
it's Big Jim Atherton, road manager for the Fakes Obmys.
Without Tom, the names and the faces in this story
would have disappeared. I want to ask Tom about the
new names and new faces I've found, but Tom can't
(04:25):
communicate the way he used to due to a stroke
he suffered a few years back. Tom was a window
into the world of Delta Promotions. He watched Kehoe and
Atherton create bands, was charged with taking them out on
the road, but Tom left something out, a detail lost
(04:46):
to time. Before Mark Sieve, Frank and Dusty from Texas
were recruited into the Delta operation, Tom Hocott was asked
to create the first version of the Fakes Obbis. While
Delta Promotions had a small stable of bands and some
(05:07):
out of state connections to help them book tours, this
was still tiny little Bay City. Combine with the fact
that most bands didn't want to pretend to be another one,
Tom didn't have a lot of options. When it came
time to recruit. He called his teenage nephew.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
Okay, Tom Hocott. Tom is my uncle worked for Bill
Keho up in Bay City, Michigan.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
That's Tom's nephew, Dan Hocott. When I reached out to
him at his home in Indiana. It had been a
long time since anyone had mentioned the fake Zombies. Back
in nineteen sixty nine, Dan was eighteen and an aspiring
rock and roller when he got a call from his
uncle Tom.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
I lived in Northwest Indiana, right outside Chicago in June
of sixty nine. I had just graduated from high school.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Tom is only a decade older than Dan, and they've
always been close, bonded for life by their shared love
for rock music. Dan was a little naive to his
uncle's business up in Bay City, but he knew he
worked in the music industry. When Tom called in June
sixty nine, he offered his nephew Dan the chance to
audition for a band on the Delta Promotions roster.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
I got a call from Tom saying that he had
a opportunity for me if I wanted to travel with
a band for the summer. I said, sure, you know
it's you know that was my aspiration.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Anyway, for a teenager fresh out of high school. The
deal his uncle presented a summer gig and a touring
band was dream come true. Dan went straight to Michigan.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
I got on a flight, went to Bay City, Michigan,
and Tom explained to me that the group the Zombies
were doing an American tour and that they lost their
bass player or something to that effect and wanted me
to audition. So I went in there knowing only.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
That Dan passed the audition and he was suddenly a Zombie,
fresh out of high school and playing bass in a
band with a hit record. It seemed too good to
be true, which, of course it was. The first thing
Dan noticed about the Delsa operation. There wasn't a single
(07:30):
English musician and sight.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
I found out pretty quickly that there was no Zombies,
and that Bill Keyhole had put together a bunch of
stray musicians and tried to create a band with them,
myself and three other people keyboard, guitarist and drummer, none
of who knew each other.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Dan and his new bandmates had just met when they
found out they already had gigs lined up. He was
about to be on stage in front of crowds performing
as the Zombies with three complete strangers, none of whom
were British. Bill kehow assured them that everything was on
the level.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
Bill said he owned the American rights to the name Zombies,
as well as a few other groups, and he was
assembling bands and putting them on the road as those groups.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
This was not exactly what Dan had signed up for.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
It was horrible, quite frankly. It was just four guys
from four different avenues of music, never meeting each other before,
and they threw us on the road and we had
within a week job uped in I think Grand Haven, Michigan.
I think we knew a couple of Zombies songs, but
other than that, we just threw together a bunch of
(08:58):
blues tunes and that we could all learn. Within a week.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Dan's version of the Zombies only had a week to rehearse.
They couldn't possibly have sounded like the real thing, but
Delta didn't seem to mind. They booked more shows for
the Zombies.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
And that went on maybe two or three concerts around
the Michigan area, and then they decided to put us
on the road.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
After a week of rehearsal and a few trial runs
in Michigan, Dan and his bandmates were flown south, where
Delta Promotions had a considerably larger gig line up, supporting
a very real, very popular band.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
They were booking The Zombies into pretty big venues. I
remember one night we opened for Three Dog Night, the
real Three Dog Night. So they sent us off to Jacksonville, Florida,
and they put us up in a hotel and wanted
(09:57):
us to rehearse and get really tight.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
The All American Zombies spent another week hold up in
at Jacksonville hotel. Dan wishes he could say they got better,
but they didn't. The Fake Zombies bombed in Florida.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
We had no business being on that stage. We were horrible.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Dan saw the writing on the wall after that first
out of town show. It was all a big rus
He and his bandmates had been flown to Florida and
given brand new equipment. They were opening for one of
the most popular bands in their era, all on the
pretense that Dan and his American bandmates, who hadn't even
met two weeks earlier, were supposed to go up on
(10:40):
stage and be the Zombies, a five piece British rock
band with one of the hottest songs in the world.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
It just never jelled. It was a horrible situation because
nobody had played with each other.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
If it wasn't obvious, this Fake Zombies business wasn't for Dan,
but one of his bandmates in that first Fake Zombies,
A good looking guy with a shaggy rock and roll
mullet and a flying v guitar wanted to keep at it.
Speaker 5 (11:10):
So the guitar player his name was Seb Scab Meta
m E A d O R. I believe he was
from Texas.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Dan's bandmate, one of the guys he was matched up
with in Bay City and bombed with in Florida with
Seed Meta. This confirms that Seed, what was the rock
and roll Rebel, was the link between the Texas Zombies
and Delta promotions in Michigan. Dan didn't want to play
(11:53):
bass on the Zombies anymore. He was ready to head
back to his uncle's place in Bass City, but he
stuck around Florida long enough to meet a future rock legend.
He remembers Seb phoning up someone he knew in Texas, and.
Speaker 5 (12:07):
He happened to Noah, bass player that he had played
with for quite some time, so they brought him in.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Dan was there to meet the guy who would replace
him in the Fake Zombies.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Dusty had come up from Texas and they had one
rehearsal in a hotel room before they played the.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Gig from the Wings Dan watched Sebe and Dusty Hill
play as the Zombies for the first time again, opening
up for three Dog Night. Things didn't go any better
with the new lineup, and Dan was struck by just
how strange it all was.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
I mean, I felt like hiding my face.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Seebes Fake Zombies now had a bass player from Texas.
They'd call on two more friends, Mark Ramsey and Frank
Beard and head out on tour. Dan went back to
Michigan to hang out with his uncle Tom and the Delta.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Crew, and I stayed there for about a month.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Dan hung around Delta and watched as Keyho and Atherton
spun their wheels trying to figure out how to make
their fake Zombie scheme that they'd poured time and money
into work. After the disastrous shows in Jacksonville.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
They pretty quickly realized that they could not throw a
band together with any finesse and have them pull off
the Zombies.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Delta thought the problem lay in trying to assemble the
Zombies from scratch. They didn't have time to wait around
for the groups they assembled to find their sound. This
is why CEB and Dusty recruited their friends Mark Ramsey
and Frank Beard to fill out the Texas version of
the Zombies, but Kejo and Atherton didn't take any chances.
They went in search of another band that already had
(13:53):
a cohesive sound to become the second Fake Zombies.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
So they started to realize it would be better if
they drafted whole intact bands, so that's what they did.
They got a band. I believe they were from Flint, Michigan.
I don't remember the name, but they had been playing
together for quite some time and they were very good,
and they went on the road as the Zombies.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Dan played in the first Fake Zombies before it became
an all Texas outfit, and he watched his Delta promotions
found their second Fake Zombies. That Second Zombies band, made
up of local guys from Michigan, did something Dan and
the Texans couldn't do. They sounded like the real thing,
at least while they were singing.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Money Thank You.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Seb and Dusty recruited Frank Beard and Mark Ramsey into
the Fake Zombies and went out on the road. But
the Texas Zombies didn't exactly follow the brief. According to
Mark Ramsey, they played exactly one Zombie song, the big
hit that started all this time of the season. If
you went to see the Zombies and ended up seeing Frank,
(15:25):
Dusty seb and Mark, time of the season was all
you were going to get. The rest of those Zombies,
said Lists was hard fast blues, the kind they liked
to play back in Texas with the Texas Band. Delta
filled the Zombie shaped hole in America with something that
didn't quite fit. A blues band preoccupied with their own
(15:47):
distinctive style. It could never last. So what a Delta do.
They found another band, this one right in their own backyard,
and sent them out on the road as the Zombi
at the same damn time. When Delta started their new
version of the Zombies, it wasn't an unprecedented move. In
(16:12):
episode one, Joe Selvin, music writer, an expert on the
early days of the music industry, told me that having
multiple versions of the same act was standard practice in
the world of soul and R and B music.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
A group would have a hit record, and quickly they
would hire a bunch of guys to go out and
be the group, and sometimes they would send two or
three of the groups out at the same time. Eventually,
the Coasters had three different groups working. Two of them
had split the country western of the Mississippi, East the Mississippi,
and the third one just rampaged across the country and
(16:48):
they were all the coasters.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Delta Promotions needed a better Zombies, so they went looking
for a pre existing band that would hopefully be easier
to control. As luck would have it, Keyo and Atherton
found a band that actually sounded like the Zombies right
in their own backyard, Enter the Excels. Looking at pictures
(17:16):
of the Excels in the early sixties, it's pretty easy
to spot their musical influences and their promotional photos. The
Excel's five smiling faces and their striped Madra shirts, white
slacks and Kendall haircuts scream the Beach Boys. The band
met at Northern Michigan University, where the Excels actually started
(17:38):
as a Beach Boys cover band before incorporating original songs
into their repertoire. They became regulars on the Michigan Team
nightclub circuit, crossing paths with artists like Bob Seger and
question Mark in the Mysterians. After extensive tours in Michigan,
the Excels trekted Detroit in search of a recording contract.
(18:00):
They met with Motown and even got some FaceTime with
the Supremes, but an all white band with a heavy
Beach Boys influence wasn't exactly what Motown wanted. On the
same trip, the Excels cross paths with Ali McLaughlin, an
influential disc jockey in ann Arbor. In addition to being
one of Michigan's biggest DJs, McLaughlin had a record label,
(18:23):
Carlo Records. He signed the Excels and their song Little
Innocent Girl was a regional hit in Michigan, cracking the
top ten in Detroit, and there they stayed. They released
more singles with modest regional success. By nineteen sixty nine,
that success had flatlined. We pick up the story of
(19:00):
the Excels in nineteen sixty nine. Here's Gary Johnson from
the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Museum.
Speaker 6 (19:08):
When the original Excels kind of split. They split with
their lead singer, Clark Sullivan. The teen club scene, which
was basically the bread and butter of the Excels, was
fading out.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
The four remaining Excels were looking for a gig they
could still pull off those Beach Boys harmonies, and Delta
was looking for a tight vocal group to impersonate the Zombies.
In twenty nineteen, Gary Johnson tracked down to the Excels
and asked them how they transformed from a promising young
band into the second Fake Zombies.
Speaker 6 (19:45):
Clark Sullivan was their lead singer, the lead guitar player,
and really the principal songwriter, and he wanted to kind
of continue in the pop rock vein that the Excels
were so successful in the other four guys. After they
picked up a new league guitar player, you know, they're
kind of looking for a record deal and a way
(20:08):
to maybe transition away from the team clubs into you know,
the concerts scene.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
After replacing Clark Sullivan with John Herrick, the Excels became
the Zombies. One thing I've learned in researching this story
is not everybody wants to talk about it. The time
the Excels spent pretending to be another band cast a
shadow over the rest of their lives. The remaining members
(20:37):
of the Excels declined to talk to me for this podcast.
Gary's a local guy who reps hard for Michigan music.
Back in twenty nineteen, Gary got in touch with the
Excels about including them in his Michigan Rock and Roll
Legends Museum. While honoring them, he asked about their time
(20:58):
as a Delta Promotions act.
Speaker 6 (21:00):
They played Role Air, which was an outdoor facility in
the summertime. They made contact with Keyo and he invited
them to Delta Promotions, you know, apparently to discuss them
becoming the Zombies.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Delta told the Excels they wanted a vocal band that
could duplicate the zombies sound, and that the Excels would
be a perfect fit. The van ditched their striped shirts
and clean cut look. In their Delta promotional materials, the
Michigan Zombies are dressed like extras from Easy Rider, sporting
flowing shirts, tight pants, and swayed vests. Their keyboardist, Howard
(21:38):
you Linnen, has a giant beard and a David Crosby
style cape. These are the clothes you'd wear if you
wanted to look psychedelic. Not exactly a perfect match for
the well tailored zombies, but close enough. These Zombies hit
the road, and.
Speaker 6 (21:54):
Of course they traveled in a van with the zombies
printed on the side aides.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Like the Texas Zombies, the Excels were sold on the
idea of becoming the Zombies, because according to Delta, it
was all perfectly legal. Delta shot official promo photos for
both of their Zombies. It's important to note that the
Texas band were called the original Zombies and their glossy
black and white photos and the shots of the Michigan Zombies.
(22:28):
The name at the bottom next to the Delta address
just says the Zombies. That would prove to be an
important distinction when it came time to hit the road.
Suddenly it was more than just playing zombie songs. The
Michigan Zombies were told to actually pretend to be the band,
English accents and all.
Speaker 6 (22:48):
They adopted British accents to do radio interviews. Gerry Stott
Cairo is very upfront above the Delta promotions publicity photo
and the write ups that presented them as the original
British band that had the hits like She's Not There.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
In time of the season, the Excels were too well
known in Michigan to play zombie shows in their home state.
They played in all the teen night clubs and had
a hit record just a few years earlier, so Kehoe
and Atherton had to send them further afield, where they
wouldn't be recognized.
Speaker 6 (23:25):
It's just kind of hard to believe, you know, that
they could pull this thing off, you know, and especially
in big answers.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Stacaro told Gary Johnson that there were ten thousand people
at one of their shows. That is by far the
biggest known fake Zombie's performance. At that point, Delta Promotions
must have been thrilled. Gary Johnson was able to track
down another member of the Excels, Terry Quirk. Strangely, Terry
(23:55):
Quirk is also the name of the graphic artists who
designed the cover of the Zombies' classic album Odyssey and
All Oracle. This is a different guy also named Terry Quirk.
Here's Gary on Terry.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
You know Terry Quirk. When I spoke to him, and
I've spoke to him several times on the phone, you know,
he told me that they fell for a keyhose line
to quote him, hook line and sinker.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
The Excel signed on and the Michigan Zombies came to life.
This was nothing like the blues rock boogie of the
Texas version. Delta had found their authentic sounding zombies.
Speaker 6 (24:32):
You know, according to all accounts, they sounded great and
they could do all the Zombies hits, you know, much
better than the apparently than the Texas Zombies did.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
While the Michigan Zombies were more successful than the Texas guys,
playing to a crowd of ten thousand in Utah and
making it to the whiskey of Go Go in La,
it wasn't exactly a lucrative endeavor for the band, even
though the money wasn't particularly good. Harrow Quirk and the
Michigan Zombies continue to tour the US from nineteen sixty
(25:04):
nine into nineteen seventy until that Rolling Stone article written
by Ben Fong Torres, exposed out of promotions and their
fake band scheme. In nineteen seventy, Rolling Stone was still
printed on newspaper with a horizontal fold. Its low five
charm made it a favorite spot for emerging writers at
(25:25):
the time like Hunter S. Thompson and Kurt Vonneger. When
Ben Fong Torres wrote his story on the fake Zombies,
he was the senior editor at the Coolest newspaper in
the World. The picture that ran above the fold on
that issue was of the Michigan Zombies with the headline
fake Zombies, fake animals. Oh my, here's Ben Fong Torres
(25:47):
reading from his story.
Speaker 7 (25:48):
None of the groups being hunted down is real. They're
all phonies, tenth rate bands using names of well known,
technically non existent groups to pull the wool over the
public's collective eyes and ears.
Speaker 6 (26:06):
They were exposed as frauds nationally, and you know, it
served to tarnish the reputation of the Excels as a
very good band and the most successful band ever to
come out of the Upper Peninsula.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Terry Quirk felt so bad after the Rolling Stone story
dropped that he even tried to contact the real Zombies.
Speaker 6 (26:26):
They were, you know, deeply embarrassed. I think Terry tried
to reach out to them and was unsuccessful if I
remember correctly.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Soon everyone would know that the Zombies touring America weren't
the original group, no matter how much they sounded like them.
They were just five guys from Michigan calling themselves the Zombies.
It was the end for the Michigan Zombies, and it
would also be the end for the Excels.
Speaker 6 (26:55):
Quirk said, you know, it made him lose faith in
the entire year music business. He stopped playing for a
number of years after that happened. Eventually he got back
into it, as did Gary Staguero.
Speaker 7 (27:12):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
He ended up rejoining with a couple of the other Excels,
and you know, they played in Flint for quite a
few years.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
The Excels were a local Michigan band caught up in
the world of Delta promotions. They accepted Keho's offer thinking
they were simply taking the next step in their career.
It would be their owndoing. But while they were still
performing as the Zombies, the Excels left something behind.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
We talked that with that accent, English accent or a
British accent.
Speaker 8 (27:50):
British accent.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Picturing these guys getting up there in front of an
audience and pretending to be British. It took fifty five
years to see the light of day, but the Michigan
Fake Zombies gave an interview on TV. The Excels were
(28:34):
inducted into Gary Johnson's Rock and Roll Legends Museum in
Bay City, Michigan in twenty nineteen, and I thought Terry
Quirk and Gary Stacarro recalling their stories was as close
as I would ever get to them. Then about a
year ago, this video appeared of Gary Staco, Terry Quirk,
(28:56):
and the rest of the Michigan zombies on television, but
getting our hands on it, that's a story unto itself.
This happened so long ago. There are important people in
this story who were gone before I even went looking
for it, like Bill Keho and Seed Metter, and even
(29:21):
more who've passed on since, like Dusty Hill and Mark Ramsey.
Then they're the guys like the Excels, who just don't
want to talk. So you go looking anywhere you can,
hoping to find a lost piece of history floating in
the ether. When I found out there was a video
(29:42):
of the Michigan zombies out there, I had to see it.
I've never seen the fake zombies in action, and I
always hoped there might be some footage of them somewhere.
My producer Nick and I both saw an advanced screening
of a documentary directed by Robert Schwartzmann about the zombies
called Hung Up on a Dream. Suddenly they show a clip.
(30:05):
I have a bunch of guys on screen pretending to
be the zombies. They actually found a clip of the
fake zombies. Nick and I recognized them immediately. It was
the Michigan guys and they were being interviewed. How could
I have not known that this video was out there
the whole time we needed this clip. Luckily, Nick, it's
(30:27):
really good at his job. So we started digging.
Speaker 8 (30:31):
I kind of dug through the credits to see where
all the archival came from, and then worked There were
probably two different archival seat of companies that could have
licensed it for this film, and so I kind of
dug up their numbers and started calling. And the first
number that I called, I speak to this guy, and
(30:51):
I say.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
This guy runs an archive a film and TV clips.
They have a massive impressive collection of strange shit that
aired on TV in the sixties and seventies. We were
looking for one of those odd ball clips.
Speaker 8 (31:04):
And I say, this is a strange question, but do
you have any archival footage connected to the zombies? And
he's like, no, they're really hard to get anything on,
but we do have something on the fake zombies. But
obviously you're not interested in that.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
But of course Nick actually was interested in the fake zombies.
In fact, other than me, he's the only other person
in the world looking for it.
Speaker 8 (31:27):
And I start to sort of try and move toward us,
you know, getting to see this and potentially licensing it.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
We really wanted the Michigan Zombies audio for this episode.
I wanted you to hear those voices, to bring the
whole thing to life.
Speaker 8 (31:43):
Unfortunately, when he asked what it was for, I said
it was for podcast, and he became almost completely nonverbal
after that.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
I should mention that the guy at the video archive
Nick's talking to is extremely grizzled. I'm talking Tom Waite's
level of grizzle here, and for some reason, when Nick
said the word podcast, he just shut it down.
Speaker 8 (32:10):
I tried to be as charming as I could, tried
the whole British thing, and it is to no avail.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
According to Nick, most Americans go for the British accent thing,
not this guy. So Nick offered to pay him.
Speaker 8 (32:23):
It wouldn't be something that we would expect to get
for free. We would pay a reasonable price, and he
basically just stopped responding to things I was saying and
hung up on me.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Eventually, that was it, no quote, no negotiation, he just
hung up. This guy really hates podcasts. Why would this
clip be so closely guarded? We tried another route.
Speaker 8 (32:50):
Our colleague, excellent colleague, Melissa swooped in fortunately and sort
of came at it from a different angle did not
use the word podcast when she reached out about this,
and was able to get a sort of preview for
like a water marked audio water marked version of this
clip so that we could actually see it.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Thanks to Melissa Nick and I actually got to see it,
the fake zombies doing time of the season and giving
an interview on TV with fake British accents.
Speaker 8 (33:23):
Maybe I'm spoiling this bad. As you will hear from this,
it seems like the British accent duties were finally sort
of allocated to just one person, which is something of
a mercy.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Hearing their voices and seeing the expressions on the faces
of these young guys hired to be the zombies, it
just made it real for me.
Speaker 8 (33:42):
It was real that there is some footage of it.
The clip itself is just just makes the whole thing
orpen up way wider.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
This is the part where I should be playing you
the clip. But when we asked to use the audio
from it, they quoted us a price that I assumed
had to be a typo. You could buy a starter
house in Bay City for this price. For some reason,
this footage of the fake zombies, the only footage of them,
is a hot commodity.
Speaker 8 (34:13):
It felt like it was a price that was quoted
to us with the express purpose of us not being
able to pay it because it was so huge.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
We asked our partners at talk House, never mind an
iHeart for the money surprise. They said no.
Speaker 8 (34:34):
But fortunately we're resourceful people, and so there's another way.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Always in the spirit of this story about impersonation, we
also recreated the only interview with the fake zombies so
you can hear little snatches of what it sounds like.
Just as much as our lawyers said was okay without
us being liable for legal.
Speaker 8 (34:54):
Action, I think it's what Bill Keihowa wanted.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
So let me tell you about what Nick and I
saw when we watched the tape. After a few seconds
of static and fading signal, a band appears on the screen.
We recognize them immediately. It's the Michigan Zombies. Is They're
(35:26):
scattered across the sound stage of a TV show called
Talent Party in Memphis, Tennessee. The host of the show
is George Klein, a local Memphis DJ and TV star
best known for being part of the Memphis Mafia, Elvis
Presley's tight knit crew of handlers and advisors. Klein was
childhood friends with Elvis, and the King was the best
(35:46):
man at his wedding. The Michigan Zombies are lip syned
to the Real Zombies version at the time of the season.
These zombies look calm and collected, miming along to a
(36:09):
song they've been performing out on tour, and hey, at
least there are five guys on stage. Despite the fact
that Delta wanted its bands to keep a low profile,
the Michigan Zombies couldn't resist the bright lights of Talent Party.
As the song comes to a close, George Klein approaches
the drummer Gary Stacaro, and the interview portion of the
(36:32):
show begins. George Klein asks toa Caro about the pop
festival thing and whether he enjoys playing for bigger crowds,
whether because it's his first time on TV or because
he's pretending to be a British guy in a band
that no longer exists. Stacaro seems kind of nervous and
struggling for an answer, before settling on a kind of
hippieish answer by noting that at festivals you.
Speaker 6 (36:55):
Can move around a bit. You got a little freedom.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
I guess that's what it's all about. I guess Staco,
the band's drummer, has been charged with the hardest task
of any fake zombie pretending he's a member of the
real band from England. By this point, the Michigan Zombies
had given up the pretense that they were all original
members from England on talent party. Stacaro is the only
one still pretending. How many people in the group are
(37:19):
from actually from England? Just yoursell for anybody else, I'm
the only one. Klein then turns his attention towards rhythm
guitarist Terry Quirk, who he talks to about the band's
magic bus, which Quirk says is.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
The magic wreck right now.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
He continues to explain that.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
Traveling is a constant hassle and you always run into
these kind of problems, you know, and they did seem
to follow us around, especially.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
He explains that the bus currently has no reverse and
has no ford usually, though exactly what he means is unclear.
After Quirk then introduces each of the other band members
one by one, he says they're off to Texas and
then Canada, where apparently the band are but for two
days at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival Festival, where
John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band was due to play their
(38:06):
first ever gig. Klein told the band what a pleasure
it was to have them on the show, invited them
to come back whenever they were in the area, and
then cut to a message from Doctor Pepper. The Fake
Zombies would never make another appearance on that or any
other TV show. They were nearing the end of the line.
(38:29):
Was the story about their broken down bus true? Or
was it just an attempt to make the band seem
like scrappy underdogs to the audience who might be questioning
their bono fides. Were they really on their way to
play in Toronto opening up for John Lennon at the
Plastic Ono Band's first live gig, or was that just
something they told the host to seem more legit. And
(38:51):
why do they decide that only one of the band
members needed to be English to pull off this elaborate
con These are questions that can only be answered by
the guys who lived it, and fifty five years later,
they still aren't talking. It must have been tough to
be in Excel after the fake Zombies were exposed. One minute,
(39:15):
you're a promising young band making a name for yourself
in Michigan. The next your picture is in Rolling Stone
magazine and you're being called an imposter. The Michigan Zombies,
the guys who called themselves the Zombies and pretended to
be them, became the poster boys for Delta shady operation.
Their counterparts from Texas made it out unscathed, allowing two
(39:37):
of those Zombies to rise above this strange chapter in
their lives and become Rock Royalty and Zezy Top. The Excels,
Michigan's answer to the Beach Boys, from promising pop back
to rock and roll con men in the course of
one year, all thanks to this outrageous scheme brought to
(39:57):
you by the good folks at Delta Promotions. Whether you
see the Excels as willing participants or naive pawns and
Keyho and Atherton's plan depends on your perspective. Whatever you
might think of their actions, there's a silver lining at
the end of this story. The only true victims of
this con were the band the other guys were trying
(40:19):
to be, and fifty five years later, the real Zombies
aren't holding any grudges. On the next episode of the
True Story of the Fake Zombies. I talked to the
Real Zombies and find out how it feels to be
the band that inspired one of the strangest cons in
rock and roll history. If you want to get in
(40:53):
touch about the Fake Zombies, we've set up an email address,
Fake Zombies pod at gmail dot com. This podcast was
written by Daniel Ralston. Executive produced by Ian Wheeler, Melissa
Locker and Daniel Ralston. Produced by Anna McClain and Nick Dawson. Score,
original music and additional audio engineering by Robin Hatch. Additional
(41:16):
production support from Cooper Malt in Los Angeles. The Fake
Fake Zombies are Josh Agren, Brian mcalese, and Joey Devine.
The True Story of the Fake Zombies is a production
of iHeart Podcasts, Talk House and Nevermind Media. For more
podcasts from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(41:39):
or wherever you get your podcasts.
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