August 22, 2024 • 51 mins
The penultimate episode finds us face to face with the band that inspired the imposter bands, The Zombies.
Lead singer Colin Blunstone and chief songwriter, Rod Argent discuss their 63 year partnership, their early impressions of the American rock scene and of course, The Fake Zombies.
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. Like and subscribe on the iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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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. A
note before we begin this episode. The same day that
this podcast debuted, The Zombies announced that the band's chief
songwriter and virtuoso keyboardist, Rod Argent suffered a stroke and
(00:20):
is retired from touring at age eighty. Anyone who's heard
The Zombies music knows Rod Argent's songs ranked among the
best ever written. Anyone who's ever seen The Zombies live
know that he was a force of nature, playing with
a tenacity and dedication that will be impossible to replicate.
We don't talk about keyboardists the way we talk about
guitar players, but if we did, Rod Argent would be
(00:41):
at the top of every best of all time list.
At the time of this writing, the future of The
Zombies is unclear, but Rod's contribution to the musical landscape
can't be diminished. We wish him a speedy recovery and
send our best to the Zombies family. Nineteen sixty nine
(01:05):
and nineteen seventy, the years of Fake Zombies toured, were
not particularly good ones for the Real Zombies. The band
had a hit in America, but were somehow unaware of
the fact. The successive time of the season on the
radio and the States was a total surprise. It would
take months for the band to catch wind of the
(01:26):
song's rides up the charts and the imposter group zigzagging
North America. When the Fake Zombies were touring at the
close of the sixties, living it up out on the road,
the real Zombies were breaking up. It looked like the end.
It almost was. This is the true story of the
(01:46):
Fake Zombies. I'm Daniel Ralston. Fifty five years ago. The
Zombies were, by all accounts, at the end of their rope.
(02:07):
It had been five years since their last Tait record,
and the album they released in nineteen sixty eight, Odyssey
an Oracle, was considered a flop. There was simply no
demand for the Zombies anymore. Internally, things weren't any better.
There was a huge disparity in the band's income, driving
(02:28):
a wedge between them. The guys who wrote the songs
had money and the other guys didn't. It created a divide.
It was time to move on. For some of the band,
including lead singer Colin Blunstone. That meant giving up on
music entirely Luckily, when the band found out about their
(02:52):
American guys impersonating us problem, it helped bring them back together.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Sobies, the Beatles may be the
biggest English band of all time, and the Stones and
the Who had more hits and more fame than the Zombies.
(03:16):
When it comes to who's the best British band of
all time, the Zombies are in the conversation. They made
some music that stands alongside the best of its era.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Well, no one told me about.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
No no no no no no.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
No no no no no no no no no no
no no no, no no no.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
It's all the.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
And for.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
The Zombies resurrection and reappraisal of the past five decades
can be directly credited to how much other artists love them.
First it was people like Tom Petty.
Speaker 6 (04:09):
Rod is one of the greatest keyboard players in the
history of rock, and Colin has a voice. If you've
heard the Zombies, you know that voice. Anytime it comes
along a fabulous singer one of my favorites ever.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Here's Tom's bandmate and the Heartbreakers, Mike Campbell.
Speaker 6 (04:27):
I was enamored with the British invasion, all those bands
in the Zombies were right the top.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
The next generation of artists discovered their music too, like
Post Malone and Harry Styles. Thanks to people like Mike
Campbell and Tom Petty preaching the gospel of the Zombies.
Speaker 7 (04:43):
They certainly didn't have the same commercial success that the
Beatles had.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
That's my friend Joe Wong. Joe is one of the
best drummers in the world and the leader of the
band Night Creatures.
Speaker 7 (04:55):
That kind of frames them as underdogs to a certain extent,
and so I think I think that that's what attracted
people like me to the Zombies. It's more fun to
champion in a band that is not widely perceived to
be the greatest rock band of all time.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Joe's an encyclopedia of information about music, specifically the kind
of dreamy, baroque pop music the Zombies make. When I
said that fellow musicians love the Zombies, I wasn't kidding.
They are your favorite band's favorite band.
Speaker 7 (05:26):
The Zombies are like the connoisseur's British invasion band your mind.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Joe makes big, complex, symphonic music. One of the reasons musicians,
really talented musicians love the Zombies is their song sounds simple,
but those hummable melodies and perfect choruses are found in
strange jazz chords and diminished knights. They have a gift
for originality.
Speaker 7 (05:55):
I think that their sound is more haunting. It's more
haunting and a little bit darker, you know. I can
think of other contemporaries that were piano driven to and
the Zombies still stand apart from those folks, you know,
they were on a different trajectory, a little bit more unique.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
In twenty nineteen, the Zombies achieved defeat that seemed impossible
during those dark days of nineteen sixty nine. They were
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In
this episode, Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone at the Zombies
tell us what it was like to learn about their
American impostors and how their collaboration, which started sixty three
years ago, continues to flourish. But first, I sit down
(06:41):
with Suzannah Hawks, lead singer, guitarist and songwriter in the Bengals,
who's the biggest Zombies fan I know, and the woman
responsible for inducting them into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame. I first met Suzannah Hawks a few years ago.
Directing a video series where I got artists to sing
(07:02):
their own songs in a karaoke bar. She said, Yes,
did an incredible version of the Bengals classic Eternal Flame
had a grimy karaoke joint in downtown Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I'm Susannah Hoffs from the Bengals. I'm in the mall
in downtown LA, and I'm about to sing Eternal Flame
at this karaoke bar you're watching.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Was it a life highlight? Yes, so is getting to
hear from her about a band. We both love the Zombies.
The music Susannah makes is steeped in the sound and
style of the British Invasion. It's in her DNA.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
I first heard the Zombies as a kid in the
backseat of a station wagon in LA. My mom always
had the radio playing.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Susannah is one of those musicians who helped bring the
Zombies back into the spotlight. She's been a fan most
of her life.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
My mom had a best friend who lived in the neighborhood,
who worked at Capitol Record, who had brought copies for
her kids and my mom. You know, my brothers and
I were all like Beatle fanatics around that same time.
It must have been that I first heard the Zombies
coming out of the Tinny Carr radio in the station wagon.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Zombies music pulled Susanna in left a lasting impression on her.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
I was instantly seduced by Collin's voice. He has a
singular voice. I mean, he's in the pantheon of great singers,
not only because he is fearless in emoting. And that
is something that has become like a lifelong obsession for
(08:45):
me as part of why I love music so much,
why I decided to become a musician. For some reason,
even as a very little girl, I was very moved
by the emotion in songs.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
She watches your families while lovers come and go to
give each other roses from but not the rose. There's
an undeniable sweetness about the music of the Zombies. It's
(09:22):
what sets them apart from their contemporaries. That and the
fact that the band members were and still are musical
savants even in the sixties. They could play circles around
every other band.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
It's extremely sophisticated. I mean a rose for Emily. This
is like a story. It's connecting to all sorts of
interesting traditions and literature and it's very intellectual, but yet
its beauty is unparalleled. The range of styles and flavors
(10:00):
that weave through the Zombies sound is extraordinary to me.
For such young boys, you know, to have tapped into that,
I mean, I think it was sort of wonderful that
Rod like unlike the Beatles, where it's like bass, two guitars, drums, vocals.
(10:22):
The element of his incredible expertise on piano and keyboards,
you know, brought a certain genesse qua to the Zombies sound.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
The Zombies have always had this best kept secret thing
going on. Sure they have huge, undeniable hit songs, but
they've always flown just below the radar. When musicians like
Susanna started citing the band as a key influence, it
led people to rediscover their sound. Their legacy kept growing,
and on March nineteen fifty eight years after they formed,
(11:09):
the Zombies were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame. Susannah had the honor of being on the
stage that day. The long, strange journey that led the
band to this moment, the gravity of it wasn't lost
on her.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
My heart was thumping like a cartoon bursting out of
my chest. It was very joyous, but at the same time,
probably one of the most nerve wracking moment. I was
standing backstage and I think Janelle Monet was inducting Janet Jackson.
You have to line up in the queue and then
(11:48):
you kind of are waiting while someone else is doing
some crazy magical charismatic thing on the stage, and you're going,
oh God, I'm next, I'm next, you know, but I
ah the screen. I'm remembering it now, the screen.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
As Susanna waited in the wings moments from taking the stage,
a video tribute to the Zombies flashed across the screen.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
In black and white of their childhoods and their early performances.
And I'm just like, I'm like a fan. I'm just
like a super fan watching and then I'm like, shit,
I got to walk out onto a stage and it's
like a sea of my peers and the music business
and other people, and I don't know, it's just like
a dream, and it's it's my great honor, a highlight
(12:37):
of my life to induct the Zombies into the rock
and roll hall and fair and then for them to
come up on the stage, and you know, I tear
it up as my little section ended, and just so
full of gratitude to even know them, to even know
them as human beings, and they're just such wonderful human beings,
(13:01):
but they're so humble. They really deserved that moment.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Susannah was tasked with summing up the band six decades
in her induction speech, which isn't an easy thing to do.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I mean, it was really daunting because I love the
Zombies so much, and it's hard to find words to
describe their artistry. What makes this song do its particular
brand of magic and cast spells over all of us.
It was daunting, though, to try to put to words
this magical spell they cast over me, starting with my
(13:36):
childhood and as a grown lady and musician myself.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Her speech was beautiful, a love letter to a band
that shaped her world from the backseat of her mom's
station wagon all the way to the stage the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Everybody should know about the Zombies, and if they are
discovering them now through your podcast, they will fall in love.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
After the Break, I talked with the Zombies about their
unlikely late in life success and how the Fake Zombies
impacted their career more than a half century ago as
(14:35):
I followed the path of the Fake Zombies. One of
the best parts of this has been sharing what I
found with the real Zombies. So I'm gonna take you
guys through what I have here real quick.
Speaker 6 (14:45):
To start this, say, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
So these are the second fake Zombies. These are the
Michigan Boys. So these are the guys who could actually
play your music.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
How you're saying that there was two two lots, should
we say, two bands at.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
The same time from the same manager in.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
Michigan learning stuff today.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
That's Hugh Grundy and Chris White, the original rhythm section
in the Zombies. Unlike their bandmates Colin and Rod, Hugh
and Chris aren't touring anymore, their semi retired, only joining
the band on special occasions. I caught up with them
at south By Southwest in twenty twenty three, where The
Zombies were premiering their documentary Hung Up on a Dream.
(15:33):
Here's our boys. That is Dusty Hill here and Frank
Beard here, letting me as you can see, they didn't
quite have the equipment right here they are. That's their
fake Zombie stage attiring.
Speaker 6 (15:52):
I don't think we would have worn that no done.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
When it happened back in sixty nine. The Zombies had
no idea that there were actually two sets of American
guys pretending to be them, and that two of those
fake Zombies would go on to form Zzy Top, another
band with rock and Roll Hall of Fame status. It's
been fun and a little daunting to fill the band
in on this strange, almost unbelievable chapter in their history,
(16:19):
fifty five years after it happened. If you want to
know how the fake Zombies came to be, you need
to know a little about the real Zombies. When I
sit down with Rod Argent, world class keyboardist and chief
songwriter in the Zombies, it's immediately clear that he doesn't
hold any grudges towards Frank Dusty or any other of
(16:40):
their American impostors.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
My name is Rod Argent.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
I got the first first group of guys together, which
turned out to be the Zombies, with one change, and
that change wasn't a Dusty Hill or Frank beard On
Hasten Twad There.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
You Are.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Originally was the lead singer of the Zombies, and Colin Blunstone,
one of the greatest singers of all time, was just
the rhythm guitarist. After hearing Colin singer Ricky Nelson song
to himself at practice one day in nineteen sixty one,
Rod told Colin he absolutely had to be the front man.
Rod moved over to keyboards and the band developed their sound.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
I said, lasting harmonies, and I sort out with harmonies
and things and and ar piano, and then for ages,
we just rehearsed and rehearsed. We did what Dave Groh
suggested people do. We just got a group of friends together,
went into a garage, although this was a US club,
and sucked, and we did suck. For a few months.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
The band held their sound and became a local sensation
in their hometown of Saint Albans, a small city just
northwest of London.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Then we got good and we built an enormous following
instant Albans. And in fact, there was one the very
one of the very first gigs. There was a dance
band on that evening. It was probably thirty or forty
people there and we played in the interval for twenty
minutes and it went down the storm what we played
in the interval, playing rock and roll, and we got
(18:11):
booked back in a year they'd had to build a
marquee on the side of it, to take audiences of
four hundred people or more.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
That was our first success.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Rod was young and ambitious, and the fact that he
had the hardest band in town gave him a boost
of confidence, so he started writing songs. His first attempt
would change his and his bandmates lives forever.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
I went away and I wrote she Is Not There.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
And I came back and played it to the guys
and they were all flabber casting. But in my naivety
and ignorance, I thought, yeah, I can write a song
that's as good as the Beatles, because they just hear
the UK a couple of years before the US. It
was as easy as that. And we went and recorded
it and I thought, yeah, look come out and it'd
(19:00):
be a huge hit everywhere, blowing me down. It was,
and it was wonderfully exciting, but I sort of expected
it because I was so young and green.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Rod was right, She's Not There ofvaulted them from local
band to bona fide stars.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
I very soon came to my senses and realized that
things weren't always going to be like that.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
They wouldn't feel the effects until years later, but the
fact that Rod and bassist Chris White wrote She's Not
There and the rest of the Zombies early catalog created
an unseen divide in the band. Rod and Chris had
publishing money. The rest of the band had to survive
on their meager live performance fees.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
We were not managed in the best of ways, and
we had very honest publishers. So basically, from the publishing
point of view, the two songwriters in the band, and
particularly because I'd written the Hiss, were pretty well off
for money, so that was great as far as Chris
and I were concern.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
That financial divide would become more apparent When the band
came to America in nineteen sixty four, She's Not There
was a huge hit in the US. This was an
era whin singles mattered, so rather than tour of the
States alone, the Zombies found themselves on a big package
tour where they shared the stage with dozens of other
popular acts.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
From the actual performance point of view, when you considered
we'd had a number one record, we were the first
record after the Beatles for an English band to go
to number one with a self written composition, and we
were headlining these places where we're doing six shows a
day to thousands of people in the audience.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
The band's first US shows were anything but glamorous. These
package tours were tough business, even for a band with
a hit record. There were no deluxe hotel suites or
private planes, just a bus packed full of musicians traveling
from town to town, playing multiple sets almost every night.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
We used to travel in an ordinary passenger coach, no
beds or anything like that, and we only stayed in
the hotel every two nights, so the other nights we
would travel overnight to save money for these people that
were ripping us off.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Really, touring ended up being a zero sum game for
the band.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
I mean that bit was magical, but from the point
of view of money, no one earned a penny. When
we finally split up the first incarnation of the Zombies,
I think we'd broken even. We hadn't lost money, but
that was all from performance, although I'd got a very
good living indeed, because of my writing.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
By in eighteen sixty seven, that divide between Rod and Chris,
the songwriters and the rest of the band began to grow.
The Zombies were breaking apart, and the guys who didn't
write the songs were ready to move on to Day Japs.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
We thought, if we are going to break up, we've
got to try and produce an album ourselves. So if
it works or if it doesn't. We don't if it's
going to work, but at least we'll have given it
a shot.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
That last ditch effort would become the band's now legendary album,
Odyssey and Oracle. The band knew it was their last
and best shot. They were given a shoestring budget.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
They were willing to give us one thousand pounds to
do it, which even then was a very small amount
of money.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
The band assembled at Abbey Road, where the Beatles had
just completed Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. They worked
on Odyssey and Oracle in the studios off hours.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Even though it was recorded over a six month period
or something like that, we couldn't dedicate a lot of
time to each track.
Speaker 5 (22:34):
We were writing as we went along.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Basically, the time constraints in the studio forced the band
to practice heart.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
We would typically do a track in lesson three hours
we'd really prepared.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
The Zombies completed Odyssee in Oracle over a six month
period in nineteen sixty seven, and the album was released
on April nineteenth, nineteen sixty eight. Rod said CBS's release
of the album felt like an afterthought. Nothing illustrates the
band's status at their label more than the album cover itself.
The word Odyssey is misspelled, the first y replaced with
(23:11):
an E.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
It wasn't like they'd signed a wonderful new band or
anything like that. They put the album out, but it
wasn't like with the full weight of everything behind the company.
And then when the first single wasn't a hit, they
sort of lost interest.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
The first single and the second single flopped in the
UK and the US, but in nineteen sixty nine, the
third single, Time of the Season caught on in America.
The Zombies were such a low priority at their label,
no one bothered to tell the band, and that is
how we get the fake zombies. Do you remember when
(23:47):
you found out that Colin was dead.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Yes, but we managed to revive him and made him
do his exercises and he's pretty much back where he
was something.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Yeah, So I'm very pleased with that.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Because the way this whole scheme happens is this shady
manager starts telling people that Colin has tragically passed away.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
I know it's so funny.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
It is funny and strange and a trip to be
telling the story of the fake Zombies to the real Zombies.
Rod Argent wrote the songs, so even though the band's
star was fading, the money he'd made from publishing softened
the blow. Rod immediately parlayed his success with the Zombies
into his next band, Argent, which took the psychedelic and
(24:34):
prog rock elements of his first band and turned them
all the way up. He had another hit record with
Argent right out of the gate. It wasn't so easy
for Zombie singer Colin Bluntstone. There was no smooth transition
(24:56):
to the next band for Colin like there was for Rod.
There were no royalty checks for the songs that made
the Zombies famous, and in nineteen sixty nine, Colin found
out about a rumor circulating in America shared by Delta Promotions,
that he was dead. When we return talk with the
(25:17):
man himself, Colin Blunstone.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
The music industry likes to be able to categorize bands,
and I think that radio and the media in general,
magazines and so forth, found it difficult to categorize as
zumbas because we didn't play music like anybody else.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
The first thing you notice when you become a Zombies
fan is that voice, that unmistakable, heartbreaking voice. Amazingly, at
age seventy nine, Colin Blunstone still sounds the same. His
voice has an age to day, and he still sings
their songs from the sixties and their original keys, something
true of almost no other frontman from their era. But
(26:20):
despite having one of the world's most beautiful voices, Colin
wasn't seeking out the spotlight when the Zombies formed.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
When we got together in nineteen sixty one, in our
first rehearsal, Rod was going to be the lead singer
and I was going to be a rhythm guitarist. And
in my mind's eye, I imagine me right at the
back of the stage rhythm guitarists looking at my shoes.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Even though they were just kids, Colin and Rod saw
something in each other that the other couldn't see and
brought it to the surface. At their first rehearsal, Colin
knew Rod had something special.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
He went over to this broken down piano in the
corner of the rehearsal room and he played not rocker
by Bumbling the Stingers, which is you've got to be
an accomplished keyboard player to play It's a rock take
on a classical piece. And I was absolutely stunned. He
was in a completely different musical class to the rest
(27:16):
of us.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Rod saw something great in Colin too.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
At the end of the rehearsal, I was just putting
my guitar away and I just started singing to myself.
I swear to you, I was not auditioning for the
Giga lead singer. I was just putting my guitar away
and I sang a Ricky Nelson song which I think
was It's Late. And Rod heard me and he said,
(27:53):
I'll tell you what. If you'll be the lead singer,
I'll play keyboards, And essentially that.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Was the Zombies.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Naturally soft spoken and reserved, Colin reluctantly became the voice
of the Zombies. She's not their hit and the band
became part of the British Invasion wave. When the band
came to America for the first time, they were already
rock stars, something Colin was clearly taken abackground.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
We came over in the first place and we played
the Murray the k Christmas Show at the Brooklyn Fox.
We stayed in a hotel quite near to the Brooklyn Fox,
and I remember there were crowds around the block. We
couldn't go out in the daytime because the British invasion
had arrived and all that kind of thing. And Paul Atkinson,
our guitarists, went out through the stage door once and
(28:45):
he was pushed up against the play class window and
his shirt was ripped off in and the police came
and got him and said, look, we'll do this once.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
That's it. Those early US gigs were a crash course
in performing live for the band. They played all day,
but somehow it never resulted in the band seeing any money.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
The irony was that we had to stay in the
building all day, and the first show was very early
in the day. We played like six shows a day,
but you only played a couple of songs, so they're
like fourteen acts. But what it was struck me as
funny was that at the end of the day the
crowds had all gone. We didn't have any money.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Colin was young and incredibly green. Suddenly he was in
New York with no money, trying to navigate a strange
American city.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
So you know, we couldn't go out at all in
the day, and that we would go home on the
Brooklyn Subway, which at the time we were told was
quite dangerous to do.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
The truly great part of those early US dates for
Colin was learning from the incredible slate of artists on
those six show a day bills.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
Some of the people that were on the bill with us,
but Deal Morrick, the Shangri Las, Benny King, the Cherells.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
These packaged tours were wildly diverse, and the zombies were
sharing the stage with artists they'd idolized when they were
kids back in England. Their minds were blown regularly.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
The one who was for us, the real star, Patty
LaBelle and the Blue Bells were on and they were
very kind to us. Remember some of us were eighteen
and to come to America, the home of rock and roll,
the home of the blues, the home of jazz, it
was a huge deal for us. It's where every British
(30:32):
musician wants to come and play. But it's a bit
of are inspiring to get up on a stage and
share the stage with these wonderful artists.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Colin was in heaven and he was listening when these
legends shared their time with him and his bandmates.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Patty LaBelle and the Blue Bells gave us a lot
of their time and they were really good and suggesting
you should try this new kid on the block, Aretha Franklin,
just she's just starting out, and maybe you should look
up for Nina Simone, the the two I remember from
our conversations, and of course we did. But we had
(31:10):
to follow Patti LaBelle and the Blue Bells, and I
have to tell you they were absolutely fabulous and they
brought the house down for every show.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
It was daunting performing with people you considered gods.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
There was a degree of anxiety, I think in the
wings before we went on, but the audiences were very kind,
and I mean we were helped by the fact that
we had the national number one record at the time,
so I mean that does help.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
The Zombie second trip Stateside was for another package tour.
This time they left New York and hit the road.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
We came back in nineteen sixty five and we were
on Dick Clark Caravan and Stars.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
It was on that Dick Clark tour that Tom Petty
and his bandmate Mike Campbell saw the real Zombies play
in Jacksonville, Florida. Seeing places like Florida the rest of
the American South was a real culture shock for Colin
and his bandmates.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
It's difficult to tell because we were in and out
so quickly, but I saw strange signs that were very
alien to someone from England, you know, like white restaurants
and colored restrooms and things which seemed really strange. We
(32:30):
couldn't stay in some hotels, and because it was a
basically black tool and we couldn't go into some restaurants,
so it got a bit hairy sometimes. I remember coming
into a hotel and I had my arm around the
shoulder of Carolyn Gill, who was the lead singer in
(32:50):
the Valvelette, who were a wonderful tambler girl group, very underrated,
fantastic and our too. Manager came over to me said, Litten,
and I've just been told you have to move away
from Ky and Gil or you're going to get shot.
I never heard language like that before. I've never seen
a gun before I came to America. It was yeah,
(33:11):
focused your mind a little bit.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
We know how the next few years go for the band.
The package tour phenomenon ends and the Zombies fall out
of favor with audiences in the US and back home
in England. Like Rod Argent said, by the time the
band got together to record Odissy and Oracle in nineteen
sixty seven, they knew it was their last shot, and Colin,
who didn't write the songs, was feeling the pressure.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
Well, of course, you know, I only ever write a
couple of songs when the Zombies were together, and I
didn't write anything for Odissey and Oracle.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
When the band came back together to record the album,
they had exactly enough material for a full length LP.
No more, no less.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
There are twelve songs on audis and Oracle. I don't
think there was a thirteenth song. I can't remember it. You,
speaking as someone as a bit of an outsider in
the songwriter department, I think there's just twelve fabulous songs.
There are no fillers on that album.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Sonically, the band tried to match the quality of the
songs with inventive production. They had the house engineers at
Abbey Road, the best in the business, helping.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
Them, using Peter Vince and Jeff Emmerick as recording engineers
who had just been working with the Beatles, They were
firstly lovely people, but also amongst the best recording engineers
in the world. We were so lucky to be in
Abbey Road at that time with those engineers that they
made it very easy, you know, to get a sound.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
The album sounded incredible and it still does, but their label,
CBS felt that the Zombies were past their expiration point.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I don't think they were particularly enthusiastic. They issued a
first single, which was care of Cell forty four, which
I thought was the most commercial track on the album.
So never ask me to pick singles because I'm always wrong,
and it's actually got a very sad they're right, but
I just think it really works and I would have
(35:16):
thought that's a sure fire hit myself, but nothing happened.
And by this point we weren't managed, we didn't have
an agent, we weren't getting any enthusiasm from the record company.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Care of Cell forty four, the story of a man
writing to his lover from prison, is one of the
most beautiful songs in the Zombies catalog. It's one of
the most beautiful songs ever. A great songs don't always
find their audience.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
When people talk in such hallowed terms about the Zombies now.
But if they were there then, I can remember we
lost our agent. I remember us going and seeing another
agent and he really wasn't interested. He really wasn't. There
was just nothing happening.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Care of CEL. Forty four came and went. The Zombies
were ready to throw in the towel.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
We'd had several big disappointments before that that the band
were going through a difficult time. And when the single
didn't happen, we got together for you know, the meeting.
I think we all knew that something was going to happen,
but Paul Atkinson said, guys, you know I've just got married.
(36:30):
He was very bright, Paul, and he'd been offered a
job in a computer factor. This is nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
A quick note. Paul Atkinson is the only original Zombie
no longer with us. He would eventually leave the computer
business and return to music as an A and R man,
signing up and coming bands. He was pretty good at
his job. He signed Arbor now back to Carmen on Writers.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
So Paul Atkinson, Hugh Grandier and myself from the live work,
we had never made any I don't mean any money
at all. We're having trouble just eating, you know, existing,
and Rod said, well, if Paul's leaving, I think the
band should finish. And I remember I wish I had
(37:16):
said something, but I didn't say anything at all and
left this meeting and I had no plan b at all.
I didn't know what I was going to do, and
I drove home. I was still living with my parents.
I had no money and no idea of what I
was going to do. I just didn't know what to do.
(37:38):
Rod and Chris wanted to stay in music, but they
developed careers as songwriters. They were successful songwriters. There was
no interest in me as an artist. I mean, I'm
embarrassed to say. The phone did not ring.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Colin had hit records and international tours under his belt,
but those don't exactly for good resume material.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
I was just sitting at home nothing. I just had
to try and get a job. And I went to
three interviews, and on the third interview, I got this
job in an office not selling insurance. What do I
know about insurance? I didn't know anything about insurance, but
I did have to answer the phone, and by sort
(38:25):
of the middle of the afternoon, I'd been introduced to
everyone in this huge office, and I was just sitting
at this desk by myself, and the phone rang in
front of me. Sorry, this makes me laught. Now I
had to answer it. I couldn't spell insurance. But I mean,
(38:45):
if the music business teaches you anything, it teaches you
how to bluff.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
So we did just that. This was fifty five years ago,
so now the truth can be known. Colin was not
a very good insurance agent.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
One of the richest men in the country. We ensured
the home of his daughter, who was also incredibly wealthy,
and she had statues and wonderful paintings. So I'm sitting
there adding up a money to a Dega to Picasso.
The first time it came at it twenty five million,
(39:26):
so I thought, well, I better add it up again.
It's fifteen million the next time, best of three, and
it's a completely different figure. So in the end, I
just took something in the middle. She either got away
with a very light premium, or she may it may
have been a bit expensive. I'm not quite sure, but
(39:48):
I wasn't made for insurance. I bluff for about nine months,
and then a very strange thing happened.
Speaker 5 (39:58):
Without al Cooper.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
None of what happened with that album would.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
Have happened.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Al Cooper in nineteen sixty nine. Nobody had more cloud,
nobody had more sway in the music industry than Al Cooper.
If you don't know his name, you probably know his
work as a musician. That's him playing organ on Bob
Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone. Cooper moonlighted as an A
and R man for CBS Columbia Records when he wasn't
(40:28):
playing with Dylan, The Rolling Stones or Jimi Hendrix. On
a trip to England, Cooper picked up a stack of
albums by undersung British bands, hoping to find a diamond
in the rough. He happened to pick up a copy
of Odyssey in Oracle.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
There's so much chance in the story of it, seems
to me. Al Cooper went back to New York. On
his first day of work. He went to see Clive Davis,
mister big in the music business, and he said, I
found this album, and what ever it costs, we have
to get this album.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
It turned out Columbia CBS already owned it.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
And Clive Davis said to him, we owned that album.
We weren't even going to release it.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Cooper dug in his heels.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
And how Cooper said, you have to release it.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
At first, it looked like how Cooper was wrong and
the Zombie Star would continue to fade.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
The CBS chose two singles. I think the first one
was Butcherstow, which is a kind of an unlikely track
as a single. I think they thought of it as
a song about Vietnam. It's about war, the horrors of war,
but it's more specifically about the First World War.
Speaker 7 (41:54):
Yes, that was right.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
The second single released in America was care Ofsel forty four,
and just like in England, it didn't move the needle. Luckily,
Cooper was persistent.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
Al Cooper went back again and said, you have to
release a third single.
Speaker 5 (42:17):
They didn't want to.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
That third single, the Zombiees' last chance at success, would
change everything for Colin and his band.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
He said, you have to release Time of the Season.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Time of the Season, a song that would go on
to define the era and become a classic, almost didn't
make it to the airwaves of American radio. When it
did get released, it didn't exactly set the world on fire.
Speaker 4 (42:41):
Even then, there wasn't an immediate reaction. I mean, when
DJ in boyse the Idaho started playing the record and
he wouldn't stop. And in those days you could get
a ripple effect where he kept playing it and other
stations picked up Time of the Season and over a
period of months, I mean I got one or two
phone calls from the States. People were saying Time of
(43:02):
the Season is being played, you know, and you think
I can't be true, that people have just been nice.
Speaker 5 (43:08):
I didn't believe.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
It, and that is how we end up with the
fake Zombies. Those months when Time of the Season spread
from city to city, the station to station will create
the perfect conditions for adults promotions to assemble their touring
versions of a band that didn't exist. Time of the
(43:49):
Season was a hit in America, and the fake Zombies
were getting paid more than the real Zombies ever did
to perform. Colin, back in England was still going to
work at the insurance office, but after nine months of
answering phones and filing paperwork, he was ready to get
back in front of a microphone.
Speaker 4 (44:06):
So after insurance, I would go to Olympic Studios in Bonds,
that's the southwest of London, and the Stones had been recording.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
The encouraged by producer Mike Hurst, Colin went solo.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
It was very much driven by him, and you know,
thank Cambers. It was because I didn't even know if
I wanted to get back into the music business. But
he had this idea of re recording She's Not There,
which seemed a little bit strange, but it was a
way to get back into the studio. And then someone
decided I should change my name, probably because we were
(44:43):
re recording She's Not There.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
I saw.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Sign Chin contriam on.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Colin re recorded She's Not There, the Zombie's first big hit,
including version in Italian. Colin's cover if She's Not There
is truly incredible. It's a harder, more psychedelic version with
a swagger that the original doesn't quite achieve. It's worth
seeking out. And in a twist worthy of the Fake Zombies,
(45:15):
he would no longer be known as Colin Blunstone. He
became Neil MacArthur.
Speaker 4 (45:21):
I was going to be James MacArthur. And then like
the day before the record was going to be pressed,
they discovered that there was an actor in Hawaii Fi
I called James MacArthur, and so so arbitrary, you're not
James macarthor anymore. You're Neil MacArthur, and you know, I'm
just getting fine fine. So I became Neil MacArthur for
(45:43):
a year and that first record, if She's Not There,
by Neil MacArthur. It was top thirty single took everyone
by surprise, most of all me, and I was back
in the music business.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Did you tour as Neil MacArthur?
Speaker 4 (45:58):
No, No, I didn't. Actually, poor Neil, he had three singles.
The other two singles were conspicuous by their lack of
chart success.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
The Neil MacArthur experience was short lived, but it got
Colin back in the studio. He would soon reconnect with
his old bandmates, who helped him regain his confidence.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
I was coming home from a party with Chris White
and he said to me, you know, Rod and I
have got a production company together forget Neil MacArthur, you know,
to get all that. Why didn't you.
Speaker 5 (46:37):
Come and record with us?
Speaker 4 (46:39):
And I just thought it sounded like a really great idea.
And remember I was the guy who wanted to stand
at the back of the stage looking at his shoes.
I wasn't born to be a lead singer, and now
suddenly I'm a solo singer.
Speaker 5 (46:53):
This is getting serious.
Speaker 4 (46:55):
And it was great to be back with Rod and
Chris producing my first set of album with them.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
By the time Colin reconnected with his Zombies bandmates, the
time of the season was a smash in America. It
went to number three on the Billboard charts and number
one on cash Box. The band still had no idea
they had to hit until they got a call from
Rolling Stone magazine. And at some point in this process,
(47:22):
a journalist from Rolling Stone gets in touch with the
band and tells you some a piece of news about yourself.
Do you remember what he might have told you?
Speaker 4 (47:32):
Yes, oh, I remember very well. Chris White was in
New York at the time and he'd gone to the
offices of Rolling Stone and they said that there were
at least two bands touring as the Zombies and the
Rolling Stone people in the office got Chris White, original
(47:53):
base player, to ring the manager of one of these
bands to engage them in conversation and see what he
had to say. And the manager said to Chris, well, yes,
we've started up as Zombies in honor of Colin Blunstone,
the lead singer from the band, who was tragically killed
in a car crash. And this was reported in Stone.
(48:17):
I mean they knew I hadn't been killed in a
car crash. For years, I carried that clipping around with me.
I've lost it now. I'm not sure it's really healthy
to carry your own obituary around with you, but I've
got it somewhere. But it was in a guitar case
I used to carry around. So that was this guy's
story that I'd been killed in a car crash, and
(48:41):
fortunately I hadn't. Fortunately for me anyway.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
They say you shouldn't meet your heroes. Colin Blunstone disproves
that rule. He's gracious and humble on and off stage.
Listening to that voice, counting a faded memory of something
that happened fifty five years ago, I can't help but
feel incredibly lucky. The Zombies' music is soundtracked some of
the biggest moments of my life. Feels like a weird dream.
(49:12):
My favorite singer on a hotel bad across from me,
recalling the time when some kids in America pretended to
be him. I picture Bill Keho sitting in the Delta
Promotions offices one night, listening to the radio. In time
of the season drifted across the airwaves, he heard Colin's
(49:35):
voice and a light bulb went off. Not long after,
he'd create two versions of the Zombies filled with young
talented kids from Texas and Michigan. The tale of the
fake Zombies is about as unlikely as they come, but
the story of the real Zombies feels pretty unlikely too.
(49:58):
The zombies have always been in it for the music.
When the impetus for the creation of a band's primarily
to make money and make it fast, well, it's a
lot harder to have any longevity whatsoever, as Delta Promotions
would soon find out. On the next and final episode
of the true Story of the Fake Zombies, Delta and
(50:18):
their whole fake band operation comes to a crashing end
when they try to start a fake version of a
cartoon band. Do the words sugar, sugar, honey, honey mean
anything to you? If you want to get in touch
about the Fake Zombies, We've set up an email address,
(50:40):
Fake Zombiespod 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
production support from Cooper Malt in Los Angeles. Additional recording
(51:01):
by Joey Armin in Dallas, Texas. 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, 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. A
note before we begin this episode. The same day that
this podcast debuted, The Zombies announced that the band's chief
songwriter and virtuoso keyboardist, Rod Argent suffered a stroke and
(00:20):
is retired from touring at age eighty. Anyone who's heard
The Zombies music knows Rod Argent's songs ranked among the
best ever written. Anyone who's ever seen The Zombies live
know that he was a force of nature, playing with
a tenacity and dedication that will be impossible to replicate.
We don't talk about keyboardists the way we talk about
guitar players, but if we did, Rod Argent would be
(00:41):
at the top of every best of all time list.
At the time of this writing, the future of The
Zombies is unclear, but Rod's contribution to the musical landscape
can't be diminished. We wish him a speedy recovery and
send our best to the Zombies family. Nineteen sixty nine
(01:05):
and nineteen seventy, the years of Fake Zombies toured, were
not particularly good ones for the Real Zombies. The band
had a hit in America, but were somehow unaware of
the fact. The successive time of the season on the
radio and the States was a total surprise. It would
take months for the band to catch wind of the
(01:26):
song's rides up the charts and the imposter group zigzagging
North America. When the Fake Zombies were touring at the
close of the sixties, living it up out on the road,
the real Zombies were breaking up. It looked like the end.
It almost was. This is the true story of the
(01:46):
Fake Zombies. I'm Daniel Ralston. Fifty five years ago. The
Zombies were, by all accounts, at the end of their rope.
(02:07):
It had been five years since their last Tait record,
and the album they released in nineteen sixty eight, Odyssey
an Oracle, was considered a flop. There was simply no
demand for the Zombies anymore. Internally, things weren't any better.
There was a huge disparity in the band's income, driving
(02:28):
a wedge between them. The guys who wrote the songs
had money and the other guys didn't. It created a divide.
It was time to move on. For some of the band,
including lead singer Colin Blunstone. That meant giving up on
music entirely Luckily, when the band found out about their
(02:52):
American guys impersonating us problem, it helped bring them back together.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Sobies, the Beatles may be the
biggest English band of all time, and the Stones and
the Who had more hits and more fame than the Zombies.
(03:16):
When it comes to who's the best British band of
all time, the Zombies are in the conversation. They made
some music that stands alongside the best of its era.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Well, no one told me about.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
No no no no no no.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
No no no no no no no no no no
no no no, no no no.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
It's all the.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
And for.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
The Zombies resurrection and reappraisal of the past five decades
can be directly credited to how much other artists love them.
First it was people like Tom Petty.
Speaker 6 (04:09):
Rod is one of the greatest keyboard players in the
history of rock, and Colin has a voice. If you've
heard the Zombies, you know that voice. Anytime it comes
along a fabulous singer one of my favorites ever.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Here's Tom's bandmate and the Heartbreakers, Mike Campbell.
Speaker 6 (04:27):
I was enamored with the British invasion, all those bands
in the Zombies were right the top.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
The next generation of artists discovered their music too, like
Post Malone and Harry Styles. Thanks to people like Mike
Campbell and Tom Petty preaching the gospel of the Zombies.
Speaker 7 (04:43):
They certainly didn't have the same commercial success that the
Beatles had.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
That's my friend Joe Wong. Joe is one of the
best drummers in the world and the leader of the
band Night Creatures.
Speaker 7 (04:55):
That kind of frames them as underdogs to a certain extent,
and so I think I think that that's what attracted
people like me to the Zombies. It's more fun to
champion in a band that is not widely perceived to
be the greatest rock band of all time.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Joe's an encyclopedia of information about music, specifically the kind
of dreamy, baroque pop music the Zombies make. When I
said that fellow musicians love the Zombies, I wasn't kidding.
They are your favorite band's favorite band.
Speaker 7 (05:26):
The Zombies are like the connoisseur's British invasion band your mind.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Joe makes big, complex, symphonic music. One of the reasons musicians,
really talented musicians love the Zombies is their song sounds simple,
but those hummable melodies and perfect choruses are found in
strange jazz chords and diminished knights. They have a gift
for originality.
Speaker 7 (05:55):
I think that their sound is more haunting. It's more
haunting and a little bit darker, you know. I can
think of other contemporaries that were piano driven to and
the Zombies still stand apart from those folks, you know,
they were on a different trajectory, a little bit more unique.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
In twenty nineteen, the Zombies achieved defeat that seemed impossible
during those dark days of nineteen sixty nine. They were
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In
this episode, Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone at the Zombies
tell us what it was like to learn about their
American impostors and how their collaboration, which started sixty three
years ago, continues to flourish. But first, I sit down
(06:41):
with Suzannah Hawks, lead singer, guitarist and songwriter in the Bengals,
who's the biggest Zombies fan I know, and the woman
responsible for inducting them into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame. I first met Suzannah Hawks a few years ago.
Directing a video series where I got artists to sing
(07:02):
their own songs in a karaoke bar. She said, Yes,
did an incredible version of the Bengals classic Eternal Flame
had a grimy karaoke joint in downtown Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I'm Susannah Hoffs from the Bengals. I'm in the mall
in downtown LA, and I'm about to sing Eternal Flame
at this karaoke bar you're watching.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Was it a life highlight? Yes, so is getting to
hear from her about a band. We both love the Zombies.
The music Susannah makes is steeped in the sound and
style of the British Invasion. It's in her DNA.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
I first heard the Zombies as a kid in the
backseat of a station wagon in LA. My mom always
had the radio playing.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Susannah is one of those musicians who helped bring the
Zombies back into the spotlight. She's been a fan most
of her life.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
My mom had a best friend who lived in the neighborhood,
who worked at Capitol Record, who had brought copies for
her kids and my mom. You know, my brothers and
I were all like Beatle fanatics around that same time.
It must have been that I first heard the Zombies
coming out of the Tinny Carr radio in the station wagon.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Zombies music pulled Susanna in left a lasting impression on her.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
I was instantly seduced by Collin's voice. He has a
singular voice. I mean, he's in the pantheon of great singers,
not only because he is fearless in emoting. And that
is something that has become like a lifelong obsession for
(08:45):
me as part of why I love music so much,
why I decided to become a musician. For some reason,
even as a very little girl, I was very moved
by the emotion in songs.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
She watches your families while lovers come and go to
give each other roses from but not the rose. There's
an undeniable sweetness about the music of the Zombies. It's
(09:22):
what sets them apart from their contemporaries. That and the
fact that the band members were and still are musical
savants even in the sixties. They could play circles around
every other band.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
It's extremely sophisticated. I mean a rose for Emily. This
is like a story. It's connecting to all sorts of
interesting traditions and literature and it's very intellectual, but yet
its beauty is unparalleled. The range of styles and flavors
(10:00):
that weave through the Zombies sound is extraordinary to me.
For such young boys, you know, to have tapped into that,
I mean, I think it was sort of wonderful that
Rod like unlike the Beatles, where it's like bass, two guitars, drums, vocals.
(10:22):
The element of his incredible expertise on piano and keyboards,
you know, brought a certain genesse qua to the Zombies sound.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
The Zombies have always had this best kept secret thing
going on. Sure they have huge, undeniable hit songs, but
they've always flown just below the radar. When musicians like
Susanna started citing the band as a key influence, it
led people to rediscover their sound. Their legacy kept growing,
and on March nineteen fifty eight years after they formed,
(11:09):
the Zombies were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame. Susannah had the honor of being on the
stage that day. The long, strange journey that led the
band to this moment, the gravity of it wasn't lost
on her.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
My heart was thumping like a cartoon bursting out of
my chest. It was very joyous, but at the same time,
probably one of the most nerve wracking moment. I was
standing backstage and I think Janelle Monet was inducting Janet Jackson.
You have to line up in the queue and then
(11:48):
you kind of are waiting while someone else is doing
some crazy magical charismatic thing on the stage, and you're going,
oh God, I'm next, I'm next, you know, but I
ah the screen. I'm remembering it now, the screen.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
As Susanna waited in the wings moments from taking the stage,
a video tribute to the Zombies flashed across the screen.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
In black and white of their childhoods and their early performances.
And I'm just like, I'm like a fan. I'm just
like a super fan watching and then I'm like, shit,
I got to walk out onto a stage and it's
like a sea of my peers and the music business
and other people, and I don't know, it's just like
a dream, and it's it's my great honor, a highlight
(12:37):
of my life to induct the Zombies into the rock
and roll hall and fair and then for them to
come up on the stage, and you know, I tear
it up as my little section ended, and just so
full of gratitude to even know them, to even know
them as human beings, and they're just such wonderful human beings,
(13:01):
but they're so humble. They really deserved that moment.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Susannah was tasked with summing up the band six decades
in her induction speech, which isn't an easy thing to do.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I mean, it was really daunting because I love the
Zombies so much, and it's hard to find words to
describe their artistry. What makes this song do its particular
brand of magic and cast spells over all of us.
It was daunting, though, to try to put to words
this magical spell they cast over me, starting with my
(13:36):
childhood and as a grown lady and musician myself.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Her speech was beautiful, a love letter to a band
that shaped her world from the backseat of her mom's
station wagon all the way to the stage the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Everybody should know about the Zombies, and if they are
discovering them now through your podcast, they will fall in love.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
After the Break, I talked with the Zombies about their
unlikely late in life success and how the Fake Zombies
impacted their career more than a half century ago as
(14:35):
I followed the path of the Fake Zombies. One of
the best parts of this has been sharing what I
found with the real Zombies. So I'm gonna take you
guys through what I have here real quick.
Speaker 6 (14:45):
To start this, say, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
So these are the second fake Zombies. These are the
Michigan Boys. So these are the guys who could actually
play your music.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
How you're saying that there was two two lots, should
we say, two bands at.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
The same time from the same manager in.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
Michigan learning stuff today.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
That's Hugh Grundy and Chris White, the original rhythm section
in the Zombies. Unlike their bandmates Colin and Rod, Hugh
and Chris aren't touring anymore, their semi retired, only joining
the band on special occasions. I caught up with them
at south By Southwest in twenty twenty three, where The
Zombies were premiering their documentary Hung Up on a Dream.
(15:33):
Here's our boys. That is Dusty Hill here and Frank
Beard here, letting me as you can see, they didn't
quite have the equipment right here they are. That's their
fake Zombie stage attiring.
Speaker 6 (15:52):
I don't think we would have worn that no done.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
When it happened back in sixty nine. The Zombies had
no idea that there were actually two sets of American
guys pretending to be them, and that two of those
fake Zombies would go on to form Zzy Top, another
band with rock and Roll Hall of Fame status. It's
been fun and a little daunting to fill the band
in on this strange, almost unbelievable chapter in their history,
(16:19):
fifty five years after it happened. If you want to
know how the fake Zombies came to be, you need
to know a little about the real Zombies. When I
sit down with Rod Argent, world class keyboardist and chief
songwriter in the Zombies, it's immediately clear that he doesn't
hold any grudges towards Frank Dusty or any other of
(16:40):
their American impostors.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
My name is Rod Argent.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
I got the first first group of guys together, which
turned out to be the Zombies, with one change, and
that change wasn't a Dusty Hill or Frank beard On
Hasten Twad There.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
You Are.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Originally was the lead singer of the Zombies, and Colin Blunstone,
one of the greatest singers of all time, was just
the rhythm guitarist. After hearing Colin singer Ricky Nelson song
to himself at practice one day in nineteen sixty one,
Rod told Colin he absolutely had to be the front man.
Rod moved over to keyboards and the band developed their sound.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
I said, lasting harmonies, and I sort out with harmonies
and things and and ar piano, and then for ages,
we just rehearsed and rehearsed. We did what Dave Groh
suggested people do. We just got a group of friends together,
went into a garage, although this was a US club,
and sucked, and we did suck. For a few months.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
The band held their sound and became a local sensation
in their hometown of Saint Albans, a small city just
northwest of London.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Then we got good and we built an enormous following
instant Albans. And in fact, there was one the very
one of the very first gigs. There was a dance
band on that evening. It was probably thirty or forty
people there and we played in the interval for twenty
minutes and it went down the storm what we played
in the interval, playing rock and roll, and we got
(18:11):
booked back in a year they'd had to build a
marquee on the side of it, to take audiences of
four hundred people or more.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
That was our first success.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Rod was young and ambitious, and the fact that he
had the hardest band in town gave him a boost
of confidence, so he started writing songs. His first attempt
would change his and his bandmates lives forever.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
I went away and I wrote she Is Not There.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
And I came back and played it to the guys
and they were all flabber casting. But in my naivety
and ignorance, I thought, yeah, I can write a song
that's as good as the Beatles, because they just hear
the UK a couple of years before the US. It
was as easy as that. And we went and recorded
it and I thought, yeah, look come out and it'd
(19:00):
be a huge hit everywhere, blowing me down. It was,
and it was wonderfully exciting, but I sort of expected
it because I was so young and green.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Rod was right, She's Not There ofvaulted them from local
band to bona fide stars.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
I very soon came to my senses and realized that
things weren't always going to be like that.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
They wouldn't feel the effects until years later, but the
fact that Rod and bassist Chris White wrote She's Not
There and the rest of the Zombies early catalog created
an unseen divide in the band. Rod and Chris had
publishing money. The rest of the band had to survive
on their meager live performance fees.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
We were not managed in the best of ways, and
we had very honest publishers. So basically, from the publishing
point of view, the two songwriters in the band, and
particularly because I'd written the Hiss, were pretty well off
for money, so that was great as far as Chris
and I were concern.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
That financial divide would become more apparent When the band
came to America in nineteen sixty four, She's Not There
was a huge hit in the US. This was an
era whin singles mattered, so rather than tour of the
States alone, the Zombies found themselves on a big package
tour where they shared the stage with dozens of other
popular acts.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
From the actual performance point of view, when you considered
we'd had a number one record, we were the first
record after the Beatles for an English band to go
to number one with a self written composition, and we
were headlining these places where we're doing six shows a
day to thousands of people in the audience.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
The band's first US shows were anything but glamorous. These
package tours were tough business, even for a band with
a hit record. There were no deluxe hotel suites or
private planes, just a bus packed full of musicians traveling
from town to town, playing multiple sets almost every night.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
We used to travel in an ordinary passenger coach, no
beds or anything like that, and we only stayed in
the hotel every two nights, so the other nights we
would travel overnight to save money for these people that
were ripping us off.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Really, touring ended up being a zero sum game for
the band.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
I mean that bit was magical, but from the point
of view of money, no one earned a penny. When
we finally split up the first incarnation of the Zombies,
I think we'd broken even. We hadn't lost money, but
that was all from performance, although I'd got a very
good living indeed, because of my writing.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
By in eighteen sixty seven, that divide between Rod and Chris,
the songwriters and the rest of the band began to grow.
The Zombies were breaking apart, and the guys who didn't
write the songs were ready to move on to Day Japs.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
We thought, if we are going to break up, we've
got to try and produce an album ourselves. So if
it works or if it doesn't. We don't if it's
going to work, but at least we'll have given it
a shot.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
That last ditch effort would become the band's now legendary album,
Odyssey and Oracle. The band knew it was their last
and best shot. They were given a shoestring budget.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
They were willing to give us one thousand pounds to
do it, which even then was a very small amount
of money.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
The band assembled at Abbey Road, where the Beatles had
just completed Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. They worked
on Odyssey and Oracle in the studios off hours.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Even though it was recorded over a six month period
or something like that, we couldn't dedicate a lot of
time to each track.
Speaker 5 (22:34):
We were writing as we went along.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Basically, the time constraints in the studio forced the band
to practice heart.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
We would typically do a track in lesson three hours
we'd really prepared.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
The Zombies completed Odyssee in Oracle over a six month
period in nineteen sixty seven, and the album was released
on April nineteenth, nineteen sixty eight. Rod said CBS's release
of the album felt like an afterthought. Nothing illustrates the
band's status at their label more than the album cover itself.
The word Odyssey is misspelled, the first y replaced with
(23:11):
an E.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
It wasn't like they'd signed a wonderful new band or
anything like that. They put the album out, but it
wasn't like with the full weight of everything behind the company.
And then when the first single wasn't a hit, they
sort of lost interest.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
The first single and the second single flopped in the
UK and the US, but in nineteen sixty nine, the
third single, Time of the Season caught on in America.
The Zombies were such a low priority at their label,
no one bothered to tell the band, and that is
how we get the fake zombies. Do you remember when
(23:47):
you found out that Colin was dead.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Yes, but we managed to revive him and made him
do his exercises and he's pretty much back where he
was something.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Yeah, So I'm very pleased with that.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Because the way this whole scheme happens is this shady
manager starts telling people that Colin has tragically passed away.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
I know it's so funny.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
It is funny and strange and a trip to be
telling the story of the fake Zombies to the real Zombies.
Rod Argent wrote the songs, so even though the band's
star was fading, the money he'd made from publishing softened
the blow. Rod immediately parlayed his success with the Zombies
into his next band, Argent, which took the psychedelic and
(24:34):
prog rock elements of his first band and turned them
all the way up. He had another hit record with
Argent right out of the gate. It wasn't so easy
for Zombie singer Colin Bluntstone. There was no smooth transition
(24:56):
to the next band for Colin like there was for Rod.
There were no royalty checks for the songs that made
the Zombies famous, and in nineteen sixty nine, Colin found
out about a rumor circulating in America shared by Delta Promotions,
that he was dead. When we return talk with the
(25:17):
man himself, Colin Blunstone.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
The music industry likes to be able to categorize bands,
and I think that radio and the media in general,
magazines and so forth, found it difficult to categorize as
zumbas because we didn't play music like anybody else.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
The first thing you notice when you become a Zombies
fan is that voice, that unmistakable, heartbreaking voice. Amazingly, at
age seventy nine, Colin Blunstone still sounds the same. His
voice has an age to day, and he still sings
their songs from the sixties and their original keys, something
true of almost no other frontman from their era. But
(26:20):
despite having one of the world's most beautiful voices, Colin
wasn't seeking out the spotlight when the Zombies formed.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
When we got together in nineteen sixty one, in our
first rehearsal, Rod was going to be the lead singer
and I was going to be a rhythm guitarist. And
in my mind's eye, I imagine me right at the
back of the stage rhythm guitarists looking at my shoes.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Even though they were just kids, Colin and Rod saw
something in each other that the other couldn't see and
brought it to the surface. At their first rehearsal, Colin
knew Rod had something special.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
He went over to this broken down piano in the
corner of the rehearsal room and he played not rocker
by Bumbling the Stingers, which is you've got to be
an accomplished keyboard player to play It's a rock take
on a classical piece. And I was absolutely stunned. He
was in a completely different musical class to the rest
(27:16):
of us.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Rod saw something great in Colin too.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
At the end of the rehearsal, I was just putting
my guitar away and I just started singing to myself.
I swear to you, I was not auditioning for the
Giga lead singer. I was just putting my guitar away
and I sang a Ricky Nelson song which I think
was It's Late. And Rod heard me and he said,
(27:53):
I'll tell you what. If you'll be the lead singer,
I'll play keyboards, And essentially that.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Was the Zombies.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Naturally soft spoken and reserved, Colin reluctantly became the voice
of the Zombies. She's not their hit and the band
became part of the British Invasion wave. When the band
came to America for the first time, they were already
rock stars, something Colin was clearly taken abackground.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
We came over in the first place and we played
the Murray the k Christmas Show at the Brooklyn Fox.
We stayed in a hotel quite near to the Brooklyn Fox,
and I remember there were crowds around the block. We
couldn't go out in the daytime because the British invasion
had arrived and all that kind of thing. And Paul Atkinson,
our guitarists, went out through the stage door once and
(28:45):
he was pushed up against the play class window and
his shirt was ripped off in and the police came
and got him and said, look, we'll do this once.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
That's it. Those early US gigs were a crash course
in performing live for the band. They played all day,
but somehow it never resulted in the band seeing any money.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
The irony was that we had to stay in the
building all day, and the first show was very early
in the day. We played like six shows a day,
but you only played a couple of songs, so they're
like fourteen acts. But what it was struck me as
funny was that at the end of the day the
crowds had all gone. We didn't have any money.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Colin was young and incredibly green. Suddenly he was in
New York with no money, trying to navigate a strange
American city.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
So you know, we couldn't go out at all in
the day, and that we would go home on the
Brooklyn Subway, which at the time we were told was
quite dangerous to do.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
The truly great part of those early US dates for
Colin was learning from the incredible slate of artists on
those six show a day bills.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
Some of the people that were on the bill with us,
but Deal Morrick, the Shangri Las, Benny King, the Cherells.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
These packaged tours were wildly diverse, and the zombies were
sharing the stage with artists they'd idolized when they were
kids back in England. Their minds were blown regularly.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
The one who was for us, the real star, Patty
LaBelle and the Blue Bells were on and they were
very kind to us. Remember some of us were eighteen
and to come to America, the home of rock and roll,
the home of the blues, the home of jazz, it
was a huge deal for us. It's where every British
(30:32):
musician wants to come and play. But it's a bit
of are inspiring to get up on a stage and
share the stage with these wonderful artists.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Colin was in heaven and he was listening when these
legends shared their time with him and his bandmates.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Patty LaBelle and the Blue Bells gave us a lot
of their time and they were really good and suggesting
you should try this new kid on the block, Aretha Franklin,
just she's just starting out, and maybe you should look
up for Nina Simone, the the two I remember from
our conversations, and of course we did. But we had
(31:10):
to follow Patti LaBelle and the Blue Bells, and I
have to tell you they were absolutely fabulous and they
brought the house down for every show.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
It was daunting performing with people you considered gods.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
There was a degree of anxiety, I think in the
wings before we went on, but the audiences were very kind,
and I mean we were helped by the fact that
we had the national number one record at the time,
so I mean that does help.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
The Zombie second trip Stateside was for another package tour.
This time they left New York and hit the road.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
We came back in nineteen sixty five and we were
on Dick Clark Caravan and Stars.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
It was on that Dick Clark tour that Tom Petty
and his bandmate Mike Campbell saw the real Zombies play
in Jacksonville, Florida. Seeing places like Florida the rest of
the American South was a real culture shock for Colin
and his bandmates.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
It's difficult to tell because we were in and out
so quickly, but I saw strange signs that were very
alien to someone from England, you know, like white restaurants
and colored restrooms and things which seemed really strange. We
(32:30):
couldn't stay in some hotels, and because it was a
basically black tool and we couldn't go into some restaurants,
so it got a bit hairy sometimes. I remember coming
into a hotel and I had my arm around the
shoulder of Carolyn Gill, who was the lead singer in
(32:50):
the Valvelette, who were a wonderful tambler girl group, very underrated,
fantastic and our too. Manager came over to me said, Litten,
and I've just been told you have to move away
from Ky and Gil or you're going to get shot.
I never heard language like that before. I've never seen
a gun before I came to America. It was yeah,
(33:11):
focused your mind a little bit.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
We know how the next few years go for the band.
The package tour phenomenon ends and the Zombies fall out
of favor with audiences in the US and back home
in England. Like Rod Argent said, by the time the
band got together to record Odissy and Oracle in nineteen
sixty seven, they knew it was their last shot, and Colin,
who didn't write the songs, was feeling the pressure.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
Well, of course, you know, I only ever write a
couple of songs when the Zombies were together, and I
didn't write anything for Odissey and Oracle.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
When the band came back together to record the album,
they had exactly enough material for a full length LP.
No more, no less.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
There are twelve songs on audis and Oracle. I don't
think there was a thirteenth song. I can't remember it. You,
speaking as someone as a bit of an outsider in
the songwriter department, I think there's just twelve fabulous songs.
There are no fillers on that album.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Sonically, the band tried to match the quality of the
songs with inventive production. They had the house engineers at
Abbey Road, the best in the business, helping.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
Them, using Peter Vince and Jeff Emmerick as recording engineers
who had just been working with the Beatles, They were
firstly lovely people, but also amongst the best recording engineers
in the world. We were so lucky to be in
Abbey Road at that time with those engineers that they
made it very easy, you know, to get a sound.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
The album sounded incredible and it still does, but their label,
CBS felt that the Zombies were past their expiration point.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I don't think they were particularly enthusiastic. They issued a
first single, which was care of Cell forty four, which
I thought was the most commercial track on the album.
So never ask me to pick singles because I'm always wrong,
and it's actually got a very sad they're right, but
I just think it really works and I would have
(35:16):
thought that's a sure fire hit myself, but nothing happened.
And by this point we weren't managed, we didn't have
an agent, we weren't getting any enthusiasm from the record company.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Care of Cell forty four, the story of a man
writing to his lover from prison, is one of the
most beautiful songs in the Zombies catalog. It's one of
the most beautiful songs ever. A great songs don't always
find their audience.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
When people talk in such hallowed terms about the Zombies now.
But if they were there then, I can remember we
lost our agent. I remember us going and seeing another
agent and he really wasn't interested. He really wasn't. There
was just nothing happening.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Care of CEL. Forty four came and went. The Zombies
were ready to throw in the towel.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
We'd had several big disappointments before that that the band
were going through a difficult time. And when the single
didn't happen, we got together for you know, the meeting.
I think we all knew that something was going to happen,
but Paul Atkinson said, guys, you know I've just got married.
(36:30):
He was very bright, Paul, and he'd been offered a
job in a computer factor. This is nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
A quick note. Paul Atkinson is the only original Zombie
no longer with us. He would eventually leave the computer
business and return to music as an A and R man,
signing up and coming bands. He was pretty good at
his job. He signed Arbor now back to Carmen on Writers.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
So Paul Atkinson, Hugh Grandier and myself from the live work,
we had never made any I don't mean any money
at all. We're having trouble just eating, you know, existing,
and Rod said, well, if Paul's leaving, I think the
band should finish. And I remember I wish I had
(37:16):
said something, but I didn't say anything at all and
left this meeting and I had no plan b at all.
I didn't know what I was going to do, and
I drove home. I was still living with my parents.
I had no money and no idea of what I
was going to do. I just didn't know what to do.
(37:38):
Rod and Chris wanted to stay in music, but they
developed careers as songwriters. They were successful songwriters. There was
no interest in me as an artist. I mean, I'm
embarrassed to say. The phone did not ring.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Colin had hit records and international tours under his belt,
but those don't exactly for good resume material.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
I was just sitting at home nothing. I just had
to try and get a job. And I went to
three interviews, and on the third interview, I got this
job in an office not selling insurance. What do I
know about insurance? I didn't know anything about insurance, but
I did have to answer the phone, and by sort
(38:25):
of the middle of the afternoon, I'd been introduced to
everyone in this huge office, and I was just sitting
at this desk by myself, and the phone rang in
front of me. Sorry, this makes me laught. Now I
had to answer it. I couldn't spell insurance. But I mean,
(38:45):
if the music business teaches you anything, it teaches you
how to bluff.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
So we did just that. This was fifty five years ago,
so now the truth can be known. Colin was not
a very good insurance agent.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
One of the richest men in the country. We ensured
the home of his daughter, who was also incredibly wealthy,
and she had statues and wonderful paintings. So I'm sitting
there adding up a money to a Dega to Picasso.
The first time it came at it twenty five million,
(39:26):
so I thought, well, I better add it up again.
It's fifteen million the next time, best of three, and
it's a completely different figure. So in the end, I
just took something in the middle. She either got away
with a very light premium, or she may it may
have been a bit expensive. I'm not quite sure, but
(39:48):
I wasn't made for insurance. I bluff for about nine months,
and then a very strange thing happened.
Speaker 5 (39:58):
Without al Cooper.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
None of what happened with that album would.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
Have happened.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Al Cooper in nineteen sixty nine. Nobody had more cloud,
nobody had more sway in the music industry than Al Cooper.
If you don't know his name, you probably know his
work as a musician. That's him playing organ on Bob
Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone. Cooper moonlighted as an A
and R man for CBS Columbia Records when he wasn't
(40:28):
playing with Dylan, The Rolling Stones or Jimi Hendrix. On
a trip to England, Cooper picked up a stack of
albums by undersung British bands, hoping to find a diamond
in the rough. He happened to pick up a copy
of Odyssey in Oracle.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
There's so much chance in the story of it, seems
to me. Al Cooper went back to New York. On
his first day of work. He went to see Clive Davis,
mister big in the music business, and he said, I
found this album, and what ever it costs, we have
to get this album.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
It turned out Columbia CBS already owned it.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
And Clive Davis said to him, we owned that album.
We weren't even going to release it.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Cooper dug in his heels.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
And how Cooper said, you have to release it.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
At first, it looked like how Cooper was wrong and
the Zombie Star would continue to fade.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
The CBS chose two singles. I think the first one
was Butcherstow, which is a kind of an unlikely track
as a single. I think they thought of it as
a song about Vietnam. It's about war, the horrors of war,
but it's more specifically about the First World War.
Speaker 7 (41:54):
Yes, that was right.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
The second single released in America was care Ofsel forty four,
and just like in England, it didn't move the needle. Luckily,
Cooper was persistent.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
Al Cooper went back again and said, you have to
release a third single.
Speaker 5 (42:17):
They didn't want to.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
That third single, the Zombiees' last chance at success, would
change everything for Colin and his band.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
He said, you have to release Time of the Season.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Time of the Season, a song that would go on
to define the era and become a classic, almost didn't
make it to the airwaves of American radio. When it
did get released, it didn't exactly set the world on fire.
Speaker 4 (42:41):
Even then, there wasn't an immediate reaction. I mean, when
DJ in boyse the Idaho started playing the record and
he wouldn't stop. And in those days you could get
a ripple effect where he kept playing it and other
stations picked up Time of the Season and over a
period of months, I mean I got one or two
phone calls from the States. People were saying Time of
(43:02):
the Season is being played, you know, and you think
I can't be true, that people have just been nice.
Speaker 5 (43:08):
I didn't believe.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
It, and that is how we end up with the
fake Zombies. Those months when Time of the Season spread
from city to city, the station to station will create
the perfect conditions for adults promotions to assemble their touring
versions of a band that didn't exist. Time of the
(43:49):
Season was a hit in America, and the fake Zombies
were getting paid more than the real Zombies ever did
to perform. Colin, back in England was still going to
work at the insurance office, but after nine months of
answering phones and filing paperwork, he was ready to get
back in front of a microphone.
Speaker 4 (44:06):
So after insurance, I would go to Olympic Studios in Bonds,
that's the southwest of London, and the Stones had been recording.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
The encouraged by producer Mike Hurst, Colin went solo.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
It was very much driven by him, and you know,
thank Cambers. It was because I didn't even know if
I wanted to get back into the music business. But
he had this idea of re recording She's Not There,
which seemed a little bit strange, but it was a
way to get back into the studio. And then someone
decided I should change my name, probably because we were
(44:43):
re recording She's Not There.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
I saw.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Sign Chin contriam on.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Colin re recorded She's Not There, the Zombie's first big hit,
including version in Italian. Colin's cover if She's Not There
is truly incredible. It's a harder, more psychedelic version with
a swagger that the original doesn't quite achieve. It's worth
seeking out. And in a twist worthy of the Fake Zombies,
(45:15):
he would no longer be known as Colin Blunstone. He
became Neil MacArthur.
Speaker 4 (45:21):
I was going to be James MacArthur. And then like
the day before the record was going to be pressed,
they discovered that there was an actor in Hawaii Fi
I called James MacArthur, and so so arbitrary, you're not
James macarthor anymore. You're Neil MacArthur, and you know, I'm
just getting fine fine. So I became Neil MacArthur for
(45:43):
a year and that first record, if She's Not There,
by Neil MacArthur. It was top thirty single took everyone
by surprise, most of all me, and I was back
in the music business.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Did you tour as Neil MacArthur?
Speaker 4 (45:58):
No, No, I didn't. Actually, poor Neil, he had three singles.
The other two singles were conspicuous by their lack of
chart success.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
The Neil MacArthur experience was short lived, but it got
Colin back in the studio. He would soon reconnect with
his old bandmates, who helped him regain his confidence.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
I was coming home from a party with Chris White
and he said to me, you know, Rod and I
have got a production company together forget Neil MacArthur, you know,
to get all that. Why didn't you.
Speaker 5 (46:37):
Come and record with us?
Speaker 4 (46:39):
And I just thought it sounded like a really great idea.
And remember I was the guy who wanted to stand
at the back of the stage looking at his shoes.
I wasn't born to be a lead singer, and now
suddenly I'm a solo singer.
Speaker 5 (46:53):
This is getting serious.
Speaker 4 (46:55):
And it was great to be back with Rod and
Chris producing my first set of album with them.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
By the time Colin reconnected with his Zombies bandmates, the
time of the season was a smash in America. It
went to number three on the Billboard charts and number
one on cash Box. The band still had no idea
they had to hit until they got a call from
Rolling Stone magazine. And at some point in this process,
(47:22):
a journalist from Rolling Stone gets in touch with the
band and tells you some a piece of news about yourself.
Do you remember what he might have told you?
Speaker 4 (47:32):
Yes, oh, I remember very well. Chris White was in
New York at the time and he'd gone to the
offices of Rolling Stone and they said that there were
at least two bands touring as the Zombies and the
Rolling Stone people in the office got Chris White, original
(47:53):
base player, to ring the manager of one of these
bands to engage them in conversation and see what he
had to say. And the manager said to Chris, well, yes,
we've started up as Zombies in honor of Colin Blunstone,
the lead singer from the band, who was tragically killed
in a car crash. And this was reported in Stone.
(48:17):
I mean they knew I hadn't been killed in a
car crash. For years, I carried that clipping around with me.
I've lost it now. I'm not sure it's really healthy
to carry your own obituary around with you, but I've
got it somewhere. But it was in a guitar case
I used to carry around. So that was this guy's
story that I'd been killed in a car crash, and
(48:41):
fortunately I hadn't. Fortunately for me anyway.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
They say you shouldn't meet your heroes. Colin Blunstone disproves
that rule. He's gracious and humble on and off stage.
Listening to that voice, counting a faded memory of something
that happened fifty five years ago, I can't help but
feel incredibly lucky. The Zombies' music is soundtracked some of
the biggest moments of my life. Feels like a weird dream.
(49:12):
My favorite singer on a hotel bad across from me,
recalling the time when some kids in America pretended to
be him. I picture Bill Keho sitting in the Delta
Promotions offices one night, listening to the radio. In time
of the season drifted across the airwaves, he heard Colin's
(49:35):
voice and a light bulb went off. Not long after,
he'd create two versions of the Zombies filled with young
talented kids from Texas and Michigan. The tale of the
fake Zombies is about as unlikely as they come, but
the story of the real Zombies feels pretty unlikely too.
(49:58):
The zombies have always been in it for the music.
When the impetus for the creation of a band's primarily
to make money and make it fast, well, it's a
lot harder to have any longevity whatsoever, as Delta Promotions
would soon find out. On the next and final episode
of the true Story of the Fake Zombies, Delta and
(50:18):
their whole fake band operation comes to a crashing end
when they try to start a fake version of a
cartoon band. Do the words sugar, sugar, honey, honey mean
anything to you? If you want to get in touch
about the Fake Zombies, We've set up an email address,
(50:40):
Fake Zombiespod 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
production support from Cooper Malt in Los Angeles. Additional recording
(51:01):
by Joey Armin in Dallas, Texas. 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, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
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