Zombie Media: 2015

The video description gives only an approximate date: November 2015

Here's my transcription:

[On-screen text: Can you define the Zombies sound in 10 words?]

Rod: I'd say, um, "cool," uh, "sophisticated," uh, but with lots of energy and always interested in exploring harmonies and harmony- chord progressions.

Colin: I wasn't counting then, but was that ten?

Rod: That was, uh, eleven and a half words.

Colin: OK, great. Um, music that absorbs a wide range of, uh, influences, difficult to define, full of energy.

[On-screen text: There's a cool, jazzy quality to your sound within the context of the British R&B era of the 60s - is that intentional?]

Colin: I think that came from Rod Argent and Chris White's writing because before they were writing for the Zombies, we were a rhythm and blues band. We played rhythm and blues classics. But especially Rod's songs, you can hear his fascina- fascination and interest in jazz in his writing, so I think it comes from the writing, really.

Rod: Yeah, um, I, I think, I- one thing I would say is that we never, um, tried to consciously incorporate any of those influences, so we would never say, "Let's have, um, a little bit of this feeling here," you know, a little bit of jazz feeling here, or, or a little bit of classical something or other here. It was always what was naturally emanating from the writing, from the song, and, and, and what I would think if I- if it was me writing a song, I would think, "Hey, I love that chord sequence," you know? "And that could- that should lead to this. Yeah! Doesn't that sound good?" [vague noises meaning basically "And so on"] And, and then- I mean, when we did "She's Not There," for instance, I only ever thought that we were being the Beatles, you know? But when you listen back to it, it doesn't sound anything like that, and, um, I 'member Pat Metheny saying to me, to my complete amazement, that that was the- that "She's Not There" was the song that made him feel that he had a way ahead doing some of the things he wanted to do. And he said to me, "All those modal influences," uh, you know, which is what- all the stuff that sort of Miles Davis was doing that I'd, I'd listened to so much of, and I thought, "There were no modal influences; there's nothing modal on 'She's Not There,'" and I- and, and then I went back, and I, and I realized that what I thought was just simply like - I don't wanna get too technical - but like an A minor 7 to a D chord, um, which is what I had in my head, I actually played in a very modal way. I put this little modal sequence over it, but I didn't think about that. And I didn't think about Miles while I was doing it. And when we had the little, um, jazzy sort of improvised piano solo in, in the middle, which was genuinely improvised, I mean, you can listen to other takes of "She's Not There" we recorded at the time and it's a completely different solo. Um, all- it just felt natural. So we weren't thinking, "Oh, we've gotta put a bit of this here or a bit of that there." So, I mean, that's the one thing I always say: ne- never self-conscious.

[On-screen text: You grew up in St. Albans - did this affect your experience of the London music scene of the 1960s?]

Colin: Well, I think it did affect us in one way in that a lot of the big bands of that time came from Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, and because London was the centre of the music industry, they had to come and live in London, and I think there was a, a lot of camaraderie with those bands living away from home, living in London. We lived so close to London that we were never based in London at all, so, you know, we would come in for a day of promotion or for a concert or something, and we would always go back to St Albans, and it- in one way, I think we missed out a little bit on the camaraderie and the, you know, the influences that other bands could have on you if you spent hour upon hour with them. We only met them at concerts.

Rod: Uh, for instance, if we were- everyone was always playing all the time in those days, so you, you never came across people, um, because everyone was so pro- professionally involved all the time, so the only time you tended to meet them was on the Blue Boar on the way back on the, on the M1, which was the only service station that was open at that time. But, for instance, when, uh, some of these aforesaid, you know, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham bands, 'cause they were- had digs in London or they were staying in London, um, they often would get back from late gigs and want to wind down, and they, they'd go down to the Bag o' Nails or the Cromwellian or somewhere, and, and they'd hang out there, you know, for, for an hour between two or three in the morning or something like that, and because we were in St Albans, we would just go back to St Albans and stay there, and, and that was close enough to London to, to almost be a London base where you had to be, you know, professionally, uh, to take advantage of all the sort of things that were going on, uh, from a commercial point of view, but, um, we didn't live there as, as Colin really said, so we missed some of that late night, uh, hanging out, and we used to do it occasionally, didn't we?

Colin: Yeah.

Rod: We went to the Cromwellian, uh, sometimes, and, and, and saw one or two people.

[On-screen text: Tell us about your recent tour of Odessey & Oracle in the USA?]

Colin: It was a tour that- the show was in two halves, so in the first half, we featured our touring band, and we played a lot of, uh, tracks from our brand new album Still Got That Hunger, and in the second half of the show, we featured the remaining original Zombies, so that would be Chris White, Hugh Grundy, and ourselves, our touring band, and Da-, uh, Da- Darian Sahanaja, uh, who's a wonderful keyboard player, so there was, there was sort of ten or twelve players on stage, so that we could replicate absolutely everything that was on Odessey and Oracle, and we got a sensational response in America.

Rod: To both halves of the show, I have to say.

Colin: Well, yes, to both halves, yeah.

Rod: Yeah.

Colin: Uh, I was thinking in particular of Odessey and Oracle because it does have an iconic status in America, and I can remember playing in New York, and there was a standing ovation after the first track, after, uh, "Care of Cell 44." They're all on their feet, and we had to stop, and I thought, 'Eh, this is gonna be a long evening if, if they get a- sta-" and they did actually; they stopped the show after each track. It could not have got- gone better; it was a wonderful, wonderful tour.

Rod: On that particular show, the New York one, which was an early show, we, we were knocked out because we, we had, um, uh, a fantastic review from someone that I have always respected a lot, uh, David Fricke from Rolling Stone, a well- very well-known journalist, and not only did he give us an absolutely stunning review for both halves, uh, of the show, but, uh, he obviously had listened to our new album, uh, quite intensely, and, and knew everything about the material, um, uh, a- a- and, and how we represented it on stage, um, it was, it was such a, a knowledgeable review, you know? So understanding of the material as well as everything else, but the reviews were stunning, and it wasn't just in New York, I mean, in L.A., in, um, in San Francisco, um, uh, Seattle. We got absolutely extraordinary reviews, and also the reviews for the new album, whi- which really is the, is the thing that excites me. I mean, it's great to get good reviews for Odessey and Oracle, but it- for me, that was forty years ago, and, and that's the past for me. I mean what excites me is, is, um, is the energy that you get from writing and recording new material. I mean, that, that to me is what's real, and the Odessey thing- I mean I still love doing the Odessey stuff; it's great, but, um, you know, the real reality of what we're doing, uh, and the vital, um, ingredient in what we're doing is, is, is the stuff that we're working on now because that's what we are now and that's what gives us life and energy, I think.

[On-screen text: The new album is called 'Still Got That Hunger'. Where did this title come from?]

Rod: "Still got that hunger" is actually a line in "Chasing the Past," a song called "Chasing the Past," which ironically is, is about not chasing the past; it's about, um, you know, uh, a look forward, really. Um, and it, it's got many dimensions to it, that song, really. It was, it's got some personal experience in there that I was writing about, but I also think that the, the things in there are universal enough for people to bring their own, um, feelings to and, and, and, and to let it reflect on their own lives. I think, you know, songs do that. They enable you to, um, correllate your own experiences with, um, whatever's being said, if that thing is be- is honest in the first place. Um, and when we were trying to think of a title for the album, um, I was just going through the lyrics of the songs, really, and I th- I thought 'still got that hunger' is, is true in so many ways, and we have. Uh, that's why we're doing it; we're doing it because when we, uh, play on stage, the years absolutely fall away, um, it, it feels exactly like it did when we were eighteen years old. The response that we get from the audience, which always has a young component, as well as people, obviously, of our age that have followed us all the way through, um, is incredibly energizing and revitalizing, and it feels like a real privilege to be at this point and be able to experience that. Um, and, you know, we're really lucky to be able to still feel that we've got a path ahead and, and to, uh, experience these feelings in the same way. I mean, we have to look after ourselves in many other ways. You know, when the, when the show finishes, the evening doesn't start, like it used to in the old days, but, you know, from a playing point of view, um, we still actually have got that hunger. We really have. That's why we're doing it. When we first went on the road in- particularly in America, we had to capitalise the first three tours ourselves; we didn't make a penny. We had to capitalise, but we were doing it because it felt like a, a real buzz just to be doing it.

[On-screen text: How did you reunite as The zombies after many years apart persuing [sic] your solo projects?]

Colin: Um, well, if I can say that how we got back together again, we remember it in a different way, so I'll, I'll tell you how I remember it. Um, but Rod and I have been in contact the whole time. There's- the original Zombies finished in 1967, but by about 1970, Rod was co-producing my first and my second solo album[s], uh, he contributed songs to my third album, and he sang harmonies on my next three albums, so we've been in contact all the way through one way or another, and sometimes I would be playing in a charity concerts [sic] for Rod, and so we remained friends, uh, the whole time. In 1999, uh, I was touring as a solo artist, and I had a wonderful keyboard player in the band, but he had an Achilles heel, and that was that if anybody asked him to play in a wedding or a coffee bar or anything and they said, 'And we want you to play some of your songs,' he couldn't resist it, and so I'd have him booked for a tour, and the slightest thing came up where he could play his songs, and he would disappear, and I found I didn't have a keyboard player, and this had been going on for some time, and I played a particularly disastrous concert in London where I had a brand new keyboard player, uh, a new drummer, and a new guitarist. Only the bass player knew the set, and me, and my heart rate when we came offstage- I thought I was gonna die because no one knew the set, and I thought, 'I just wonder if Rod would consider doing some shows,' and I called him. I had six concerts, uh, booked, and he was interested but specifically for the six shows.

Rod: Yeah, we thought that it, yeah.

Colin: Yeah, he, he said, "I'll, I'll do the six shows, but that's it," but we had such a ball, you know, playing the shows that that was in 1999, and here we are in 2015, and, uh, we kept going, and we've recorded I think four studio albums, uh, two or three live albums, a couple of DVDs, you know, we've, and we've toured extensively all over the world in, in those sixteen years; it's been fantastic. Very, very exciting and the more so because it's so unexpected. We, we neither of us expected to be playing live at this time in our, in our careers, and we didn't really expect to be playing with one another in this sort of context.

Rod: Absolutely, I mean, I, I think that's all absolutely, a hundred percent true. I mean, I wi- also, I think, I think, certainly as far as I was concerned, the catalyst was when I did, um, a charity show for John Dankworth, uh, at the Stables, who I used to be, uh, uh, you know, a pretty good friend with, um, before he passed away, um, and on that show, Colin was in the audience, and he got up and sang "She's Not There" and "Time of the Season," and, uh, with all the background that Colin had in his mind, he called me after that, uh, because that felt as if, honestly, as if we'd been playing a few weeks before rather than thirty years or what- whatever it was at the time. It really did; it felt, it's, it's like the old clich of riding a bike, you know? I mean, it, it just, we just fell into the same feeling and the same relationship, and it, and it, and it felt really nice. It was years before we actually started to embrace the Zombies canon, and I was very against that at the beginning 'cause I thought, "That's not real. That's not honest," you know? "This is just doing something for the sake of it," but actually within the space of us playing together on stage, we started to say, "Do you remember that old song? You know, we never did that on stage, did we?" "What? You mean this one? [vague noises]" You know? And, "Let's, let's, why don't we try that?" "D'you know? That sounds really good." And, and we started to really discover and investigate the Zombies catalogue, and suddenly, it started to feel real, and we started to take on some of the feelings and standards that we had quite naturally 'cause it was the two of us together, me writing songs, Colin singing them, um, and it started to feel as if it's, it, it started to get a momentum and a natural development of its own. This new album, I really feel, uh, has some real connections with, with- I mean we were not tryin' to make it like an old album at all, but we were trying to record it like an old album, in, in the way of us all playing together with the band in one room at the same time, with Colin singing, doing everything as lively- as live as possible, which is the way we used to record in the old days, um, and so some of those old standards and focal points have become the same, quite naturally, and because it's a natural development, it feels honest to me, and, and, and that's why I honestly feel that, that the new stuff is, is really working beautifully: because it feels so natural.

[On-screen text: Tell us abouot [sic] the album opener: 'Moving On']

Rod: "Moving On" was a song which ac- actually had its genesis in 1977 when, um, Elvis died, and along with many other my- of my contemporaries, that was my way into rock and roll music, was early Elvis. I mean I've still- I've got a jukebox at home, and I've still got, uh, Elvis's first three years' stuff on my jukebox. He still sounds absolutely transcendent, his voice to me, at that time, and I always find it very interesting that the- all the Elvis impersonators never impersonate that period. They always impersonate the period which is much easier to sing when his voice went down a couple of octaves and became very sort of Las Vegas to my ears and, you know, whereas that, that wonderful, black-feeling- I always feel like it was a black music by proxy for me. It was my way into rhythm and blues and blues and, and, and a whole raft of music. Well, when he died, it felt like someone had, had grabbed a central stem of my youth and just pulled it away, and I couldn't belive it, and, and I immediately wrote a couplet, which was 'I'm moving on,' um, 'like a ship sailing windblown,' and then the second line: 'August moon, won't you,' uh, 'tell me where I'm-' uh, 'ca-' uh, 'can you tell me where I'm bound,' and, um, that- I, I, I forgot it then, but, but it was always in the back of my mind, and when we started writing this album, that, that couplet came back to me, and I thought, 'I'm gonna develop that, uh, musically and lyrically,' and the whole song is new. It came from those opening two lines, and it was, it's, it's no longer about Elvis anymore. It's about, uh, being able to move on after a trauma but maybe not letting that trauma define your life, you know. Uh, you have to move on with your life and, and, and trying to gather strength from what has happened, but moving on basically. That's what that song's about. Um, but I loved the way it turned out. It was the first song that we did, and it was the first song we ever did live on stage. Um, and, uh, I just loved the way it, it, it was the- Was it the first song we recorded? Might well have been.

Colin: Yeah, it could have been, yeah.

Rod: And I love the way it turned out on the record.

[On-screen text: Can you tell us about the recording sessions at State Of The Arc studios & working with Chris Potter?]

Colin: With this album, we worked with an outside producer for the first time in many, many years. We were lucky to work with Chris Potter, who's a wonderful producer. He's made many fine recordings with the Verve, the Rolling Stones, and, and many other big artists, and he took so much of the weight of responsibility off our shoulders, in particular, off of Rod's shoulders. Um, he just took care of the who- everything to do with the studio. He introduced us to two wonderful, um, independent studios, one in Richmond, State of the Arc, and the other one in Wandsworth, which is called Sugar Cane, I think.

Rod: Sugar Cane, yeah.

Colin: Yeah.

Rod: Yeah.

Colin: Two great studios, not, not particularly big, you know, quite intimate, but wonderful studios, and in particular State of the Arc is built in a way that favors playing live, which is what we wanted to do. Um, we thought, 'Why don't we go back to specifically how we recorded Odessey and Oracle?' We had a very small recording budget, so we had to rehearse extensively and just get, get into the studio and record quickly. Now with Chris Potter in the producer's chair taking har- care of all the recording side of things, we meanwhile rehearsed extensively. All we were looking for was a performance. We didn't have to worry about anything else.

Rod: Capturing that moment, yeah.

Colin: That's it.

Rod: Yeah.

Colin: We just got into the studio, and we weren't worried about getting sounds, just from the first minute we got in there. Chris Potter had got electrifying sounds straight away, and, uh, it was just a really good fun, uh, process. We played live together so that we were influenced by what everyone else was playing; every little nuance that anyone else played affected everyone else, and I certainly would like to keep recording like that so that we're all in the same room at the same time and working off of one another. Originally, they asked me to just sing guide vocals, but I, you know, I got so into what was happening, we kept those vocals, and the- and those vocals are the recorded vocals that you hear on the record.

[On-screen text: Time and the passing of time seems to be a recurring theme throughout - was this a concept for the album?]

Rod: There was, there was no concept of writing about time. Um, uh, it was a collection of songs, really, but I guess in some way or other, even if you're writing about a made-up story, what is in the song is aut- autobiographical to some degree, you know. It has to be, really, 'cause it's always a reflection of, uh, of a, a bit of your personal experience or a mood or something you're capturing in your mind or thinking about. Um, and I dunno. Um, you're right; there, th- there is quite a bit about time on there. There are a couple of things which are definite, um, recollection[s] of, o-, of certain things and certain times and a thought about the past or a thought about time moving on. Um, "New York" is, is an obvious one because "New York" is a thumbnail sketch of when we first started to play the Murray the- uh, when we first stepped into America and we played the Murray the K Christmas Show, uh, and, and we stepped into that theater for the first show at eight o'clock in the morning, um, on Christmas Day in 1964, and we had ten days', uh, experience there, playing with people like Patti LaBelle, people like Ben E. King and the Drifters, Dionne Warwick, the Shirelles. I mean, some real, real icons for us, which scared us silly, but it's, it's really, that, that's a thumbnail sketch of our feelings and our experiences then, so that is a very definite look into the past, um, and a feeling of how, uh, our first feelings of New York, um, developed into, um, I was overwhelmed when I first saw New York, personally. That was my personal feeling, but I, I really came to love it because I, I came to love the, the honesty and the energy of it, which is what I say in the song as well. Um, so that- there's that song. Um, "And We Were Young Again" actually, uh, strangely enough, was, um, it came out of- My wife and I have been married for forty-three years, um, still very happily married, and when I go away, she tends to hide a few cards, uh, that I find when I get, you know, to my last layer of socks or, or whatever it is, and, um, and she, she writes little humorous messages or things that she's found somewhere, and, and it's just really, really nice, you know, and I opened a card one day, and there was this what I thought was a poem 'cause she sometimes finds, you know, from anthologies of poetries and whatever, uh, books of poetry, and, and she puts little passages in, and I, and I said, when I phoned her, I said, "Where did you get that fantastic poem?" and she said, "Well, I thought you realized I wrote that," you know? And I thought- and it was based on a, a little personal incident, you know, which I don't have to explain because again, I think people can read their own interpretation into it, but that was a real moment, and that was about reflecting on time, the passing of time, to some degree, so there you are. I'll agree with that. "Chasing the Past" is sort of saying, "Well, you know, I, I'm really very happy where I am now, and I don't wanna reflect on the past. Let, let, let it go because there's sometimes, um, uh, a possibility of, of dwelling on the past, you know, in an unconstructive way," so it's sort of about that. I mean, I, I don't mean to make a big, heavy thing out of it. It's just, it's a feeling and, and an emotion and, and, and I just put that down in the song, but you're right: that's about that as well, so I don't know. I mean, maybe when you get to a certain age then, you know, it, it has to be that, that you, that these things come into your consciousness. I don't know.

[On-screen text: Tell us about the ideas & inspiration behind the album cover design?]

Colin: Well, Terry Quirk's a very old fa-, uh, friend of, uh, Rod and mine, and, and the original band. In fact, uh, Rod shared a flat with him at one point in the-

Rod: And Chris White, yeah.

Colin: And Chris White in, in the '60s.

Rod: Yeah.

Colin: And he, uh, was the artist responsible for the artwork on Odessey and Oracle, which is, has become an iconic, uh, cover. I mean, firstly it's a beautiful cover, but famously, there's a spelling mistake, uh, on the cover, which I think enhances the whole thing, and we thought it would be a great idea to, to, uh, revisit, um, Terry Quirk's work. He's a wonderful artist and a great character as well, and he came up with this idea. He's very interested in graffiti, and there, there is a graffiti, uh, theme to the artwork of, of the, uh, CD. I think it works extremely well, and I'm, I'm really pleased that we, uh, brought him into the project, and it was great re-meeting him again. As I say, he's a wonderful character, and I really enjoyed working with him again.

[On-screen text: Tell us about the song 'Maybe Tomorrow' and the significant role Paul McCartney played with this song?]

Rod: Well, 'Maybe Tomorrow' really is just, um, is just a song about, um, um, about a quarr- about a couple that has a quarrel, basically, and I'm sure we've all been through situations where quarrels come out of nowhere, and you think, 'Where has this come from, and how did it get so vitriolic,' you know, 'during the day? It's just risen from nowhere,' um, and you get very frustrated, and, uh, towards the end of the, the whole process, you think, 'Oh, G--, I just wish it wasn't today. I wish this was yesterday. We could just go back,' you know 'and, and forget all that's happened,' and that was the song, really, um, just about something like that, just a, a, a mythical episode, you know, in, in some couple's life, and then at the end of it, I thought as, um, just an affectionate, uh, nod in the direction of the Beatles, who I still think are, you know, the most wonderfully creative and fantastic group, um, in, in, in every way. I, I, I, I, I, I thought if Colin sings at the end, 'And just like the Beatles used to say, "I believe in yesterday,"' I thought that would be a, a, a nice little amusing, ironic thing, just to have at the end of the song, and I thought no more about it, and then, just about a week before the album went to manufacture, um, we got a phone call from Sony, who, who look- looked after the Beatles' st- who look after the Beatles' stuff, saying, 'We have a blanket policy never to allow anything like this, you know, Colin singing at the end, um, a phrase from"Yesterday," and it's quite obvious it's a phrase from "Yesterday," you know, [sings] "I believe in yesterday," so you can't do it. Sorry, you're gonna have to take the track off the album.' We thought, 'What!?' You know, 'What are we gonna do? Sh--, that's gonna be absolutely- it's gonna stop the, the whole process of manufacture, and we're at that time of year where, as you know very well, um, if you miss your, your point, they might give you another date two months in the future, so we thought, 'What are we gonna do?' and we- the, the first idea we had was to say, um, 'Well, OK, maybe if, if we have Colin singing, "Just like the Beatles used to say" and then just play the last few chords of 'Yesterday,' but not sing anything, uh, then people would put that, that whole thing in themselves, so that, you know, that, that was almost nicer, you know. I thought, 'Well, that, that, that'll work if we have to.' Um, but we couldn't do that because, um, the guy who had the files, Chris Potter, was quite willing to do it, but he was coming back from a holiday abroad, and he'd be back one day too late to do it, and we would have still have missed the manufacturing deadline, so, um, we said, 'I don't know what we're gonna do. We're gonna have to take it off the, the album. It's, it's a, a nightmare.' And then, our American management company, TCI, wrote, uh, without knowing the people, but wrote to, uh, MPL, um, Paul McCartney's production company, to his personal manager, and to his publisher, and saying, 'I don't know if there's anything you can do about this. We quite understand the position, you know, that they've taken, but, um, this is our position, and I, I just don't know if there's anything you can do about it.' And, d'you know what? Uh, because we said to them, 'If, if you can do something, we've only got till the end of the week for the deadline, so you've got two or three days to come back to us, and that's it, and after that it'd be too late,' and, and within that two days, Paul McCartney had, had downloaded, um, the track, said, 'This is great,' you know, um, 'Go ahead. I give my personal approval,' um, and that was- it, I, I really felt touched. I, I had a little feeling in my stomach, you know. I thought, 'What a great guy' because he's, he's done it so quickly, and he's done it in time for us not to miss our deadlines. He's understood the thing. He's taken the trouble with everything else that's going on in his life to do this, and I thought that was, you know, just the most generous thing for him to do, so I was really touched by that.

[On-screen text: Who is in the current lineup of The Zombies, and what do the different members bring to the band in 2015?]

Colin: Um, the other band members, I mean, we, we gotta start off with Jim Rodford.

Rod: Yeah.

Colin: Who, as Rod often says, is the first guy who was asked to be in the original Zombies.

Rod: In 1961.

Colin: 1961. But he was in one of the big local bands; there's no reason why he should have left, uh, the Bluetones, but they were the big band in St Albans, to join us. We were just starting out, and, um, he, he is a consummate professional, he really is. He's, uh, after the Bluetones, he, he joined Argent. He was a founding member of Argent, and then for eighteen years, he was a member of the Kinks, uh, during a time when probably they were at their most successful in America.

Rod: On a recording context as well.

Colin: Yeah, absolutely.

Rod: Yeah.

Colin: Yeah.

Rod: Yeah.

Colin: And he's also a guy who really, really loves to play. When we come home from tour, often - I'll be honest - I'm exhausted. Jim will be out the next night playing with a local band, and, you know, he'll play, he just, he plays for the love of it, you know, and, uh, he's a wonderful character, great bass player, but also a very, very good harmony singer, and I've also noticed that if we have a difficult moment on stage - all bands have, you know, what they call a train crash coming - Jim is very good at rescuing a band. He's, uh, he's, uh, a very good guy to have around at times of, uh, musical problems, um, so Jim Rodford, he's someone, definitely an asset to the band. On drums, we've actually got Jim's son [Steve Rodford], who is a great drummer, my favorite drummer of any drummer I've ever played with. Um, he's, he's worked in a va-, uh, a wide variety of things, in commercials and, and writing film music, not particularly played in many name bands. He's been in, in different areas of music, really. On guitar, Tom Toomey, um, great, uh, acoustic player as well as an, uh, electric guitarist, and he first played with me on a solo album in 1995, and I always remembered him as such a great player, and our previous- we knew our previous guitarist [Keith Airey] was leaving, and I suggested Tom come up from the country and play with us, and he never looked back. He- I think he really, really fits in with, uh, the music that we play. He, he really adds something to the band, another great harmony singer, too.

[On-screen text: How does the recording process today differ to back in the 1960s?]

Rod: Well, technically, um, you've got a world of opportunity open to you when you're recording these days. I mean, you've got unlimited number of tracks. You've got many ways of recording. There's the whole sampling thing. Uh, but, d'you know, um, I've, I've produced quite a few records in my time. I've had some success with them. I did the first Tanita Tikaram album, for instance, which was enormously successful, um, in my little studio in the house that I, I, I was at the time, recorded and mixed there, but, but m- many of the techniques that are used in recording these days are layering techniques, where you will start with an instrument and then focus, you know, your whole energy on maybe the bass and then, you know, on the piano or you maybe put the drum track down first or, or what- whichever way round you do it, um, and you can make a good record that way, of course. Um, you have things open to you now like the whole sampling thing where you can actually download a drum loop or a drum and bass loop that sounds great immediately, and you can put a couple of lick on top of that, and sometimes you've got a record, and, and it- because it, it, it sounds so attractive to the ear immediately. That's all well and good, but I think that in the old days when you recorded, there was only one way of recording. You didn't have any of these techniques. Theref- and you only had four tracks when we started recording. Um, therefore the only way you could make something work was to really work on the structure of the song so the actual structure really worked and that's what satisfied the ear because it took you on a journey which meant something and reached a climax and satisfied you when you heard it, and because of that, I think that's, uh, why often these days, th- there's a, a whole young population that still likes to rediscover the sixties and, and, and the sort of music that was around then because the structure of what was done was so strong. There was no other way of doing it. Um, that's one way in which the recording process has changed now. Um, we had this very much in our mind when we recorded the new album because we wanted to go back but, you know, not in a dogmatic way. We weren't- you know, we wanted to use as many tracks as we needed to use. That's fine. I mean, we- nothing against that at all, and we recorded digitally. We weren't trying to record in an analogue way, but we wanted to go to that wh-, back to that whole process of recording a band all at once, with minimal overdubs, because we wanted to, to put a little bit of space back into the record and make it feel real, and we wanted something where we could actually, um, reproduce anything that we'd done on stage, which we can, um, because we've, we've overdubbed almost nothing. I mean, we have put little bits of percussion on, and we, we overdubbed the harmonies afterwards because, you know, we wanted to concentrate on that in a, in a different way. Um, but the essence of the record was recorded in a very similar way, um, to the essence of how the records used to be recorded back in the sixies, um, and we've loved doing that, and, so the answer to the question, really, how rec- recording techniques changed: they've changed as much as you want them to change. You, you can still go back to the essense of how things were recorded, but you can have the luxury of as many tracks as you, as you want, so if you've got a great live recording, um, but you feel, 'We've just messed it up in that one little bit,' you can go back, and you can repair it in [an] easy way now. Edit, editing is extremely easy now; you do it digitally. In the old days, there used to be bits of tape, um, all over the studio, and sometimes- I know with the, with some of the Beatles' music, some of that, uh, meant exploring different areas of sound because I know that one piece of tape was, by mistake in one of their sessions, put back the wrong way up, and you suddenly got a backwards guitar solo, and after that, um, someone who worked with the Beatles said to me they didn't want to do anything else any, any other way for about the next four weeks! Everything wanted to be ba- they wanted everything to be backwards, you know, all the time! But, um, you know, out of those, uh, mistakes you, you, you, you get some happenstance, you know, as well. Um, but it's become technically much, much easier to do anything, but sometimes you can lose the essence of that whole thing which I think recording has always been about and should always be about, which is the capturing of a performance, you know, and, and even if you are layering things - and you can do that, obviously - then, then you should record something as a whole, and you should record it as if it's the only chance that singer or whatever has got ever to record that track, not say, 'Oh, well, we've got all day to do this.' That never works. You know, you gotta go at it if you're playing a line or a solo or a voice as if it's the only time you're ever gonna get to record that.

[On-screen text: Colin, you wrote one track on the album called 'I Know I'll Never Get Over You' - can you tell us about that song?]

Colin: Absolutely, yeah. I actually recorded it once before [on the album The Ghost of You and Me] with a, with a string quintet in a, you know, a totally different way, obviously, um, but Rod liked the song, and the idea of the song actually came to me when I, you know, just thinking about when musicians come home from a long tour, and it's quite difficult to adjust to home life, and it's difficult for your partner to adjust to you being at home as well, and so for the first week or perhaps ten days, there, there can be, um, there can be tense moments, and there can be stresses and strains, and that's where the idea of the song came to me, that-

Rod: Are you talking about your fourth wife or your fifth?

Colin: Don't give away all my secrets.

Rod: OK.

Colin: Um, uh, that, you know, you can have these difficulties, but you do know that now you'll never get over this person, so it's a temporary problem, and that was the, that was the idea behind this song.

[On-screen text: 'I Want You Back Again' is an old song from your catalogue that you have revisited & re-recorded - how did this come about?]

Colin: Uh, we heard a Tom Petty cover of this song, 'I Want You Back Again,' and we thought it sounded great. It's, it was on a live album. We thought it sounded fantastic, and we asked ourselves a question: 'Well, why aren't we doing it?' You know? It's a really good song.

Rod: And we never played it live

Colin: I don't think we did.

Rod: first time 'round.

Colin: No.

Rod: No.

Colin: So I mean, I, it, it sort- mildly amuses me that we're doing a cover of a Tom Petty version of them doing a cover of us, so it gets a bit complicated, but, uh, mostly- I think we, we were influenced by the Tom Petty version, but mostly we've kind of re-worked our own original version of this song, but that- I know Rod said earlier on, this has been one of the wonderful things about this incarnation of the Zombies is that we, as musicians, have re-discovered a lot of the music that we originally recorded in the sixties which we've completely forgotten, and this is a very good example.

Rod: I mean, I think the reason that we actually also that, that we actually thought, 'Why will we put it on this record?' was that having started to do it on stage, we, we, we had a real ball with it, and, and because we'd never played it live the first time 'round even though we started off with a, a, a pretty faithful, um, e-, uh, example of the character of the original Zombies record, we took it a couple of steps further, um, just, just by playing it night after night, and, and we thought it would be great just for posterity to, to, to get this down, you know, because, um, and it also gave me a chance that I, I, I treated myself to a wonderful, uh, concert grand Steinway piano about four or five years ago, which is the love of my life, um, and, um, I, I thought it'd be great to g-, to get that on the record as well, and it enabled me to, to actually, and we did. We, we, we used that piano. That's the one overdubbed solo. As Colin's, uh, vocals are all live, all the solos on the album are live except for that one, which we did overdub with, with, with my piano.

[On-screen text: Your last album 'Breathe In Breathe Out' [sic] was released in 2011. Is this one a continuation of that, a progression or a completely separate entity?]

Rod: I think it's actually, it's, it's, it's all of those things. I, um, I, I think this is the first album that's, that, that where we've revisited truly the spirit of, of, of, of what we were doing originally because, just because of what all the way that we've been talking about how we recorded the album. Um, it, uh, and, and as Colin said, we prepared for it, um, by rehearsing and, and working the harmonies and, and, and, uh, um, ev- every aspect of the song within the rehearsal period, so it all worked as a whole, and then we recorded it organically as one thing, so that's the first time we've done that, so I think it's a progression in that, in that way of deciding it, it, it, it, it makes it the most group record that we've done, I think. Um, but also, we always write in the same way, and we always rehearse in the same way. We always write by tryin' to make an idea work, and, and that wi-, with the idea that if you can actually make something work, then you stand a chance of, if you ca-, if you can touch yourself to some, uh, degree with, with what you've done, then you stand a chance of reaching out and touching somebody else to some, some degree, and therefore, the process of writing on Odessey and Oracle or on Breathe Out, Breathe In or on this one is always the same. It's always working with a musical idea just until it clicks and starts to make you excited about something, so I think in some ways, it's a natural progression, it, and in some ways, it, you know, the process is the same, um. [to Colin] I don't know if you've got any other thoughts about all that.

Colin: No, I think you covered most of it. Yeah, I mean, uh, it's... I, I don't really, really know what to say, um. We've always recorded in the same- actually, it's very, very basic, the way we record. We, we kinda come to the conclusion that it's time to record. We collect the ten best songs we've got, and we record them in the best way we can.

Rod: And make them work, yeah.

Colin: And try and make them work.

Rod: Yeah.

Colin: And often people read a lot more into it, you know, um, a lot more depth than perhaps was intended. It's just, usually, it's a collection of ten songs played to the best of our ability, and it's as simple as that.

[On-screen text: How do you see the future for The Zombies?]

Colin: Well, I'd, um, personally, I'd like us to play on as we are, um, hopefully growing, you know, it's, you ne-

Rod: Getting better.

Colin: You never stop learning, you know. A lot of people, they're probably get in their late twenties and, and they think they've arrived, you know, and they never, they never keep trying to improve. Um, I'd like us to keep trying to improve, keep trying to learn more about our craft, and I'd like us to play live and record for as long as we possibly can. We realize we're coming into an area of our lives where we probably can't take, um, extensive touring for granted, but, but while we can, and everybody is fit and strong in the band at the moment, while we can, I hope that we can just play on with the intensity that we are at the moment, both in performance and the intensity of actually of our, our concert program through the year, so I hope just more of the same, really.

Rod: Yeah. Hear hear. No, I agree with that.

Zombie Media

Friday, December 11, 2015

BuzzTV

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

"Chasing the Past"

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

This Will Be Our Year: The Zombies on Revisiting Odessey and Oracle

Sunday, November 1, 2015

The Story of the Zombies

YouTube Creator Sessions

Thursday, October 15, 2015

At the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Thursday, October 8, 2015

NPR Music Front Row

Sunday, October 4, 2015

In Province Town Hall

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Off the Avenue

"Edge of the Rainbow"

"I Want You Back Again"