The only accompanying information for this article is an approximate date: October 1973.
I added some details in brackets. The article claims that Argent "didn't turn his talents to the organ till the latter years of the Zombies, around 1968." Presumably, this refers only to the Hammond organ, which he first used on Odessey and Oracle in 1967. He'd played Vox Continental since 1964.
Rod Argent - Aiming for 8 Keyboards on Stage!
What's been happening to Argent lately? They had two consecutive hit singles, Hold Your Head Up and God Gave Rock and Roll To You, but they failed to gain a hat-trick with It's Only Money (Part 2) and their excellent last album [In Deep] failed to gain the sales and attention it deserved.
One of the reasons for this sudden subsidence in their success could be that they have spent so much of this year out of the country. It was with this in mind that they cancelled last month's tour of the States in favour of a whirlwind tour of Britain.
When B.I. met Rod Argent recently, the first thing we asked him was just how much does success in Britain mean to the group. 'We put off the States because we thought it was very important that we did a tour of England,' he replied. 'We hadn't done one since before last Christmas and we definitely have neglected this country. Not by choice, though, it's just the way things have worked out. I think we rather lost the last album over here because we hadn't been playing in this country.'
Was this the main reason for the 'failure' of the latest single, we wondered, or was it due more to the fact that taking two singles off the same album was a bit too much? 'I don't think that putting out two singles from the album was necessarily a good idea,' was Rod's reply. 'But the fact was that we haven't got any album products coming out in the near future and we hadn't been in the country for a while, so the record company just wanted to keep our name going. I don't really think it was a very wise decision and I think we'll probably be laying off singles for a while.'
Singles
One problem that Argent had with the last two singles, and one that's shared with a lot of groups who release album tracks as singles, is that of editing down.
The songs had to be cut from about seven or eight minutes to about three or four and often songs lose quite a lot in that editing, which is a shame. [']We do the editing ourselves,' Rod explained, 'but there's simply no way you can keep everything in. It becomes a different song completely, because the construction of it changes so radically.'
Many of Argent's songs are written by Rod, either individually or in conjunction with his co-producer, Chris White. Lead guitarist, Russell Ballard, is also a prolific writer. Rod had his first self-penned hit way back in 1964, with She's Not There.
'That was only the third song I ever wrote,' he told us. 'The first was in collaboration with Chris, just before we turned professional. It wasn't very good, and the second ["It's Alright with Me"] was on an E.P. which was released just after She's Not There.'
Classical
Although he enjoys writing, Rod does find he has to discipline himself. 'If I didn't sit down every day and say right, now I'm going to write, I wouldn't get anything done at all! My inspiration tends to come in the form of fragments and ideas, but I have to sit down and do some hard work to put them all together. I usually get the musical thing in my head first and write the lyrics afterwards.'
Music has been part of Rod's life since he was six years old and had his first piano lessons. 'I never took any exams or anything,' he confessed, 'and really I think I'm largely self-taught. I was in the St. Albans cathedral choir, too. It was a very good choir and we used to broadcast on Radio 3. That was a very good musical education.'
Rod thinks that his early classical training was a good foundation, but he soon grew out of that kind of music. 'I only really liked classical music till I heard Bill Haley, which freaked me out, and then Elvis, which freaked me out even more!'
In 1963 he took up electric piano, but didn't turn his talents to the organ till the latter years of the Zombies, around 1968. Since then, he's added a whole galaxy of keyboard instruments to his stage act, which, at the moment, comprises electric piano, mellotron, Moog, grand piano and organ. Rod also intends to use a church organ on a couple of numbers on the new album [Nexus], which they are recording at the moment.
Some performers may feel tied down by having to sit or stand at the keyboard, but not Rod. He quite frequently plays one instrument with the left hand and another with his right, then dashes round the lot to play a few bars on the grand piano.
And he's not stopping there! 'I'll probably be getting another mellotron and a Fender electric piano and possibly another Moog on stage shortly,' he said.
He finds that the Hammond organ suits his purposes best. 'I think it's the best one for playing on the road and I use it for recordings as well. The electric piano's a Hohner [Pianet N] and I use the grand piano with an excellent pick-up I got from a guy in Texas called Charlie Helpenstall. There's just a few of them in the country. I know Elton John's got one. I got mine in the States because the guy came to one of our concerts.'
The next American tour will probably take place in November, when Argent have finished the new album. We were curious to know just what kind of bread the band were earning over here, and Rod pulled a wry face. 'You can gross quite a lot. On the last tour we grossed about 90,000 dollars but the expenses came to so much that we made virtually nothing in the end. The expenses were enormous, incredible.'
The new album should be released early next year and Argent will probably do another British tour to coincide with it. 'I think we're going to forget about singles for a time and concentrate on the albums,' Rod explained. 'I hope the new album's an extension of the last one. I think that was the best one we've made and I hope we can build on it.'
