Colin Blunstone Discusses The Zombies' New Album and 50th Anniversary

Well, this year's the fiftieth anniversary of the Zombies, and it came to quite a- as quite a shock to us really, when we were just reminiscing about how the band got together, meeting one Saturday afternoon outside the Blacksmith's Arms in St Albans, and we realized it was 1961, fifty years ago.  I, I don't know where the time's gone.  And we decided to celebrate that fiftieth anniversary with a new album, which is called Breathe Out, Breathe In and with lots of touring all over the world this year.  We're- we're extremely fortunate at this time in our lives to- to be able to go and play wonderful concerts, uh, in America, the Far East, in Europe, um, playing the kind of music we love playing and playing with great musicians, um, and it's very difficult to actually work it out in your mind that it's fifty years since we first started playing.

With this incarnation of the Zombies, it's the same thing; we've had a very, uh, tight-knit band that's stayed almost unchanged, uh, and, from 2000 un- until now, but, uh, Keith Airey, who's a, a wonderful player and a great character, uh, he decided that he wanted to concentrate on his, uh, solo career, and we were very sad to see him go, but in his place, Tom Toomey's come in, doin' a great job, and, uh, it's been a joy for me because he's, uh, been on two or three of my last albums, so we've been working together for the last fifteen years, and he's fitted in extremely well with the band, and, uh, it's, it's great to play with Tom.  He's doin' a great job.

Jim Rodford, the bass player in our band, was nearly in the original band.  He was asked to be in the band, but he was in a very big local band called the Bluetones in St Albans, and we were just starting out, so, um, he declined our offer, but, uh, luckily we managed to talk him into joining this incarnation of the band, and-  He always makes me laugh 'cause he says, 'Colin, we're so lucky to be doin' this at this time in our lives,' and I- we all agree.  It's, it's just such a great adventure, uh, in the autumn of our careers - late autumn in my case - um, to be playing all round the world.  This year we'll be playing in Japan, Greece, America, Holland.  [Of] course, we're playing in the U.K., and we're playing with our mates the kind of music we love to play.  We're very fortunate boys.  Jim Rodford is quite right.

NAMM Oral History - Rod Argent

NAMM Oral History - Rod Argent

Transcription (with slight editing):

Because I had such an interest in jazz, I was knocked out with what Jimmy Smith was doing around the late 50s and 60s, early 60s, things like "Walk on the Wild Side," "The Jewel," and some of the other things.  I still love his playing now when I hear it.  You know, it's got so much energy; it's fleet, and, you know, I've always played quite fast, naturally.  It just feels like a natural thing to me to do.  And I just loved all that, so I was very keen on, as soon as I could afford it....  I mean, Hammond organs were way out of my price range for a long time, but when I could afford one, I got one, and "Time of the Season" was the first time I used it.  I didn't realize the difference between some of the models at the time, and while I've got an affection for the L-100, which is what I used on "Time of the Season," I much preferred the C-3, or the B-3, it's the equivalent to the U.S. B-3.  But they're the same.  It's just a different case; they're the same organs, really.  And I... that's my favorite sound, so I always aspired towards having one of those.

I liked the sound of things like the Moog synthesizer when it came out, but....  I loved it for what it could do, but I'm always very frustrated and bored and have a low boredom threshold about reading manuals and finding out how to use all these things.  Really, I'm happiest when I'm just sitting behind a piano.  I mean, my lovely Steinway concert grand here, which is my pride and joy, I'm just happy sitting behind there and playing, really.  I mean, that's what I really like to do.  But I do like what the technology can achieve, you know, once you get through the headache of working out the manual, you know.

Did you experiment a little bit with some of the electronics, like you were talking about the Moog and stuff?

Yeah, I did.  I mean, the thing was... when we did... at the end of the original Zombies' existence, and we were only professional for three years, that was it.  We actually made Odessey and Oracle in 1967, even though "Time of the Season" came out in '69 in the States and Canada and was number one over there, but....  We made it in '67, and when we started making the album, the Beatles hadn't yet released Sgt. Pepper.  They were just about to release Sgt. Pepper, but they'd just recorded Sgt. Pepper in Abbey Road Studios.  And almost, you know, sort of a week after the Beatles had walked out of Abbey Road Studios, we walked in to do Odessey and Oracle.  Now, it was very unusual at the time for a band that wasn't signed to EMI to be able to work at Abbey Road Studios, and strangely enough, it was our previous producer who somehow engineered that for us.  I don't know how he got it to happen, but he did.  Now, my point in saying this is that....  My memory is, and you have to remember this is a long time ago now, but my memory was that some of the recording techniques that the Beatles had just developed with Sgt. Pepper were available to us and also some of the instruments that they used on Sgt. Pepper, my memory is, were still hanging around the studio.  So, my memory is... now again, this might not a hundred percent right, but this is how I remember it.  I remember a mellotron being there, and I remember using the mellotron and being knocked out with it.  Suddenly these sounds of strings, and I thought of it at the time as being....  There's no way we could afford an orchestra, but this was my way of being able to use string sounds.  Now, it's a double bonus because in the end, the sort of... the sound, which is peculiar to itself of a mellotron, you know....  It's got its own sound, obviously, which to me is much more interesting that just putting an orchestra on something.  So, I'm so glad in retrospect that we couldn't afford an orchestra and that we used the mellotron because it has such a singular sound, you know.  It's such a great sound.  And using those....  I mean, I only used the basic settings that are on there.  Basically, flutes and strings, but it just sounded fantastic to me, and that's... really, that was my exploration of those things.  They were lying around, basically.  And I think there was a celeste in the studio that I used on something.  But they were things that were there.

We did use... Chris White... I shared... by this time, I was sharing a flat with Chris White, the original bass player in the Zombies, and he had an 1896 Victorian American organ, pedal organ, in his flat.  And I loved the sound of that.  Chris had written this song called "Butcher's Tale," which was on Odessey and Oracle.  And I loved....  I suggested that we did that on his American organ, so we hauled that into the studio from his flat.  And, in fact, when we... when we did the concert... when we did Odessey and Oracle live for the very first time just two years ago, on the 40th anniversary of Odessey and Oracle....  Stuff had never, ever been played live by all us original players, et cetera.  I bought another model very similar to Chris's organ, which is now in my studio, but we took it along to the gigs, as well as everything else.  And all the gigs that we played, you know, we replicated every note that was on the same album.

So, anyway, on Odessey and Oracle, we also used the, you know....  I mean, if you can call that exploratory because you're talking about something which existed, you know, nearly a hundred years before, so....

But, you know, really, I'm not... not in the way that Keith Emerson explored the Moog sounds from nothing, I didn't do that.  I just took what was there, and I was interested in it, but basically I was bored and impatient with the process needed to....  I'm not a technical guy, basically.  I mean, I'm the sort of guy that opens the bonnet of a car, my eyes glaze over.  I'm a bit like that when I open a manual for an instrument.  I think, "Oh, I've gotta go through this before I can actually get a sound out of it."  The minute I can get a sound, I forget the instrument, and I start playing things, you know.  I just wanna play, really.