WKYC Channel 3

"Imagine the Swan" (Track by Track at Gibson)

[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"Imagine the Swan"

Rod:  'Imagine the Swan' came about because by that time, the band had broken up, uh, and 'Time of the Season', after a long period, had just been picked up and over a six months' period become a hit in America.  Uh, one DJ only in the whole of the States was playing it, in Idaho, and it gradually started, like ripples in a pond when someone throws a stone, and it's spreading out and becoming an enormous hit, and it became a number one.  By that time, I'd already formed Argent, with Chris White as a silent partner of Argent.  He didn't wanna play anymore, but, uh, he wanted to co-produce and, and be involved, and we'd already convinced Colin that we should do a solo album for him [One Year], which resulted in some big hits in, in Europe and the U.K., and so we had all these things on course, but our hearts weren't in, you know, to carrying on with the band [the Zombies] in its present form, but Al Gallico, our publisher, said, 'Look, you've got more than a million selling record in the States, you've- you can't just let this go; you've gotta do something', and in the end, we said, 'OK, we'll put a few tracks together', and very quickly, we did.  Now, I quite like this track, 'Imagine the Swan', but it- in a way, it was done as a response to pressure, and it doesn't mean that, that we weren't enthusiastic about doing it when we're doing it, and we gave it our best, but I sang it, um.

Colin:  I had nothing to do with this, this particular track.

Rod:  I think- weren't the members of Argent playing on that?

Colin:  I think it's actually-

Rod:  Or was it Hugh as well?  I can't remember.

Colin:  Well, I always remember it as actually being Argent with Rod singing, so Chris wrote it, [and] Rod sang it.

Rod:  Yeah.

Colin:  But the, the guys playing on it, I think, are Argent.*

Rod:  Very possibly.  It was a long time ago, so I can't quite remember.

Colin:  Yeah.

Rod:  But, um-

Colin:  But you know, there was never any talk amongst the band, uh, when 'Time of the Season' was a hit, probably nearly two years after the band finished, there was never any conversation about re-forming the band, but I s'ppose in a way this is as near as we got.

Rod:  I guess so, but, you know, it wasn't, uh, a permanent thought, but- and strangely enough, we left a huge void, so there was some fake Zombies going around, and the band that became ZZ Top, last year or the year before admitted in print that they went out as the fake Zombies, and that was, um, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard, the, the two guys from ZZ Top, and, uh, we only just found out about that, didn't we?

Colin:  Yeah, yeah.  Good luck to them, you know?

Rod:  Yeah.

Colin:  Good luck to them.

---

*The Zombie Heaven liner notes confirm that "Imagine the Swan" was played by Argent:  "With pressure upon Rod and Chris to capitalise on the unprecedented success of 'Time Of The Season', this new composition of Chris' was released as by the Zombies while in fact it featured the personnel of the soon-to-be named Argent:  Russ Ballard on guitar, Jim Rodford on bass and Bob Henrit on drums" (p. 53).  Along with providing the lead vocal, Rod played harpsichord and organ.

"If It Don't Work Out" (Track by Track at Gibson)

[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"If It Don't Work Out"

Rod:  'If It Don't Work Out' was a song that I wrote when we were on tour with Dusty Springfield, and Dusty really liked us on, on tour, and she came up to me one evening towards the end of one week and said, 'Will you write me a song?' and I said, 'Oh, G--, I'd be honoured to', you know, 'cause we loved her voice.  I went away that weekend, and I came up with a, a Motown-ish sort of feeling song.  At the beginning of the following week, I played it through to her, and she loved it, and she said, 'I'm gonna record this', and she wanted it to be a single.  She wanted me to play on it, but I was going away that week.  The tour was just finishing.  I couldn't play piano on it, and she had to get someone else to do it.  Um, but Madeline Bell sing[s] on it.  Madeline Bell loved it.  So it didn't in the end turn out to be a single, but it was the opening track on [the B-side of] Ev'rything's Coming Up Dusty, that album, and, um, I loved her singing on it.  It was just brilliant.  We recorded a version, didn't we?

Colin:  Yeah, absolutely.

Rod:  Yeah.

Colin:  We recorded a version, too, and I, um, I mean, I'm not comparing our version with her version.  Her version is great, you know, but I thought we did a pretty good job

Rod:  Mm.

Colin:  as well.

Rod:  Mm.

Colin:  I think that could have been a single.  I don't know why it wasn't, but I think it's a really strong track, but it never was [a single].

"Time of the Season" (Track by Track at Gibson)

[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"Time of the Season"

Rod:  'Time of the Season' was, uh, we, we were doing O-, you know, by this time, these are the Odessey and Oracle songs, so by this time, we were in Abbey Road.

Colin:  Studio 3.

Rod:  Producing ourselves, being knocked out with the fact that the songs were sounding like we wanted them to sound completely.  We had great engineers.  We, we moved into, um, Abbey Road just as the Beatles had moved out, having recorded Sgt. Pepper['s Lonely Hearts Club Band], and they'd left a lot of their stuff around the studio, including John [Lennon]'s Mellotron*, which I used without asking 'cause they were ju- it was just there.  With 'Time of the Season', we needed one more song.  We, we were running out of money.  They- CBS hadn't given us a lot of money to make this album.  We were running out.  Last track.**  And I remember, I shared a flat with Chris White.  We had a room each, and we would always play our songs to each other as we were writing.  I s-, I said to Chris, 'I think I've got the last song'.  I said, 'Come in and have a listen', and I said, 'I think this could be a hit, Chris', and, and he thought so, and, and we recorded it.  We were a bit pushed for time, and Colin was singing, and as is my wont, you know, as I was in the control room, Colin was putting the lead vocal on, and I was saying, 'Yeah, it sounds great, Col, but, um, could you just push that phrase a bit and, you know, just anticipate that note and anything', and he got so pissed off at this that in the end, he was saying, 'Oh, for God's sake'.  He said, 'If you're so f'ing good, you come in here and do it', and I said, 'Oh, come on, Colin.  This is the last track.  It sounds great.'  You know?  'It's, it's gonna be great'.  [Imitates Colin's grumbling noises]  Um, you know, 'cause I was saying, 'Look, you gotta do it.  Come on.  This is, you know, it sounds great, Colin.  You're the singer.  For goodness sake, just, just do it', and so [imitates grumbles again], and then he was singing, 'It's the time of the season for loving', you know?

Colin:  And while I'm singing that, we're having this re- real shout-out.

Rod:  [indistinct]

Colin:  Yeah.

Rod:  Yeah.

Colin:  Oh, it's always made me laugh, that, but we were really up against it, and as the mic was set up, there was a great big clock right in front of me.  I could see we were running out of time by the minute.  There was a big red light just to emphasise the mic's live, and, um, the song had only just been written, so to be honest, I didn't know it that well, and Rod was very kindly coaching me through it phrase by phrase, and, uh, I think I got a bit panicky, and we, we- it only lasted for an hour or so.  I mean, it was not like it was a life-changing argument, but we certainly did go at it while, uh, while we were recording this song, and then- I'm really glad I did stay there- 'cause I said to him, '[If] you know it so well, you come in, and you sing it', and, uh, he said, 'You're the lead singer; you stand there till you get it right', and I was really glad later on because it sold about about two million copies.

Rod:  'Cause you never heard that as a hit, did you?

Colin:  No, that one.  I mean, I hear some of the songs as hits, but that one I-

Rod:  You mean the ones that never get anywhere?

Colin:  Yes.  Most of the ones I hear as hits don't stand a chance, uh, but I didn't hear this one.  Rod, Rod did, but I didn't.

---

*Some sources claim that the Mellotron that the Beatles were using in Abbey Road at this time wasn't actually Lennon's, although he did own one.  solobeatlesstudios.com explains that this Mellotron was rented by Abbey Road directly from the company.

**According to the chronology in the Zombie Heaven liner notes, the last track recorded for Odessey and Oracle was "Changes" (on 7 November).  There's no specific date given for "Time of the Season," just "August," although this photo set from the session gives the date as "September."

"This Will Be Our Year" (Track by Track at Gibson)

[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"This Will Be Our Year"

Colin:  'This Will Be Year's written by Chris White.  I think- it's got a sort of a, a bit of an anthem feel about it now because I know that a lot of people like this song to be played when they get married, and, and I, I can see why.  It's- I think it's one of Chris's better songs.

Rod:  I think Chris was coming into, really, into a wonderful period.

Colin:  Yeah.  He, for about-

Rod:  This was Odessey and Oracle.

Colin:  Yeah, for about five or six years, Chris wrote so many great songs, and I think this is one of the, the best songs, and we play this, um-

Rod:  Yeah, we still do it every gig.

Colin:  We play this every night.  Great song.

"The Way I Feel Inside" (Track by Track at Gibson)

[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"The Way I Feel Inside"

Rod:  OK, 'The Way I Feel Inside'.  This is one of the quickest songs I ever wrote.  We were on tour with the Isley Brothers, Dionne Warwick, and what used to happen:  the tour bus used to stop at a service station for a coffee break, and I suddenly had a gli- glimmering of an idea for a song, and so I went into the, the loo, into the toilet, and I had a piece of manuscript paper with me.  I sat on the loo, and I wrote this song.  Most of the lyrics - not all of the lyrics - [and] the whole melody of it just came to me, and I wrote it down on a piece of manuscript paper, nowhere near a keyboard or anything, and strangely enough, it was called 'The Way I Feel Inside', but that wasn't a commentary on, on the situation.  It really wasn't.  It was a very romantic song, but I- sorry to spoil people's illusions, you know, if they think of that as a lovely roman- romantic song.

Colin:  I'll, I'll, I'll always remember this.  The bus was ready to leave,

Rod:  Yeah.

Colin:  and we couldn't find Rod, and everyone went to look for him, and I found him in the loo with this manu- writing with this manuscript.  I thought, 'What on earth are you doing?' and he was writing this song.  It's a, it's a beautiful song, and we, we play this, don't we?

Rod:  We do play this, yeah.

Colin:  Yeah.

Rod:  We often do it as a, an unexpected encore.  We, we might end up the, the set with the, uh, the Argent hit 'God Gave Rock and Roll to You' and then completely bring it down and just do an- just a very quiet piano and Colin singing 'The Way I Feel Inside'.

"Indication" (Track by Track at Gibson)

[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"Indication"

Colin:  This was still produced by Ken Jones, but I think that there was a period here where 'Indication' was, uh, recorded that you can hear Rod and Chris's songs evolving in a way that was gonna climax with Odessey and Oracle.  You know, I've gone back and li- listened to the tracks of that era, and it just sounds as though something's coming, you know?  And I- especially with Chris.  This song was from that era.  We didn't record this at Decca Studios.  We recorded-

Rod:  Lansdowne.

Colin:  Lansdowne, didn't we?

Rod:  Yeah.

Colin:  Yeah, and of course, there's there big, uh, improvised thing at the end.

Rod:  But which Ken was very worried about so he submerged it into the mix and, and, and concentrated on the guitar.  This actually came out of the fact that we always used to do a blues song, a Jimmy Reed song called 'Got Me Running, Got Me Hiding, Baby, What You Want Me to Do', um, and strangely at the end, I went into this bizarre thing where I was playing 'God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen', and just all sorts of things were happening, and it used to go down a storm on stage, and we wanted to put a little bit of that into the track, and it is there if you, if you listen for it, but it was submerged a little becau- because they- Ken got a bit worried that this might be too avant garde, but like everybody else, like the Beatles particularly, we were tryna push the boundaries.  We were trying to be cutting edge in what we were doing, and this was one of the ways i- in which our feelings were portrayed at that time.  We actually were being a little bit experimental, but people got a bit worried about it and sort of held it down a bit, but it is there, and it's become a real favorite with people.  I know, uh, Little Steven plays it all the time; he loves this track.  Um, and, yeah, I'm, I'm fond of this, and I, I- and the, the B-side of the record as well.  'She Does Everything to Me' [sic]* I was really fond of as well.

Colin:  Oh, yes, yes.  We've played that a bit live as well.

Rod:  It's- yeah, occasionally, yeah.

Colin:  But I mean, you know, the thing is this battle with Ken Jones, our producer.  He was tryna do the best for us

Rod:  Oh, yeah!

Colin:  in his opinion, but he was tryna make everything in our- to our mind more ordinary, and he was thinking more commercial, whereas we were trying to make things different, so it's just a- it's two different ways of looking at recording, really, but it was a continual battle for the first two and a half years of our career.

Rod:  But it is still nice to go back and, after not hearing these tracks for a long time,

Colin:  Mm.

Rod:  hear them again, you know, and, and they have more going for them than, than we ever thought at the time, when you go back and say, 'Yeah, I really like that', you know?  And I do like 'Indication'.

---

*According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, "She Does Everything for Me" was actually the B-side to "Goin' out of My Head," the Zombies' last single for Decca.  The B-side to "Indication" was Colin's "How We Were Before."

Johann Sebastian Bach

St Matthew Passion was written & first performed here by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1727. Over 2 centuries later a 12 year old Rod Argent’s life was changed forever when he sang this oratorio in the boys choir at the St Albans Abbey! Thanks to the Bach Museum for the tour! pic.twitter.com/SJwBmuWRQ5

— The Zombies (@TheZombiesMusic) November 15, 2018

"Is This the Dream" (Track by Track at Gibson)

[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"Is This the Dream"

Rod:  'Is This the Dream' was perhaps of all those tracks that we did was the one that at the time disappointed us the most because before it was mixed, we heard the monitor playback and we thought, 'This sounds great!  Really steaming, really stonking' and we were made to go away to the pub while it was mixed, and it was all mixed very quickly in those days, wasn't it?

Colin:  Yeah.

Rod:  Everything was mixed in a couple of hours.

Colin:  Well, um, Rod and I just went and had a couple of pints

Rod:  Yeah.

Colin:  at the top of the road in a pub.

Rod:  Yeah.

Colin:  And then we came back.

Rod:  And we thought, 'Where's our track gone?' bec-

Colin:  Uh, and he [presumably Ken Jones, the Zombies' producer] played it, and I thought maybe- in my mind's eye, I thought maybe he got someone else in to play an alternative version.  I couldn't work out what we were listening to.  It bare- it had no relationship to, uh, what we'd done.

Rod:  Because when we did it, it had a bit of a, a rough edge to it, which we really liked.  Colin sang it great.  Um, it was a very uncharacteristic [electric] piano solo.  I mean all, all the solos were always improvised, you know?*  I, I, I never constructed them.  If you listen to different, um, takes of our songs, you'll hear a completely different solo on each one, and this was no exception, and I started hitting a little contrapuntal thing, two-handed thing, and I- it was just on the spur on the moment.  I loved the way it came out.  It sounded quite rough, but in a good way, quite biting, and when we came back to listen to it, everything was really smoothed out, and, and for the whole band, it actually lost some of the excitement.  We, we've never done this on stage, have we?

Colin:  No.

Rod:  I mean we did it- I remember we played with the Who, and Pete Townshend liked it very much, and he, he went out front to listen, and, at the time, and he, he said, 'Oh, I couldn't hear what you were doing in the, in, in the solo' 'cause he, he liked the, the quirkiness, you know, of, of, of, of what happened in that solo, um, but I was fond of the track at the time, and we all thought it sounded great before the mix.  We, we were probably a little bit too hung up on all of this because we knew the track so well, um, and sometimes we wanted it to, um, in our mind's eye, to be as good as it could be, and, and so we tended to discount what we ended up with, and, and actually sometimes going back and listening to them, it's much more attractive than we thought at the time, you know?  What was in our head.  So I still think it's worth listening to, but I think this was the, you know, one of the tracks that we thought had lost again.

---

*The solo in "I'll Keep Trying" seems to be an exception to this.  There's very little difference between the solo in the demo version (available as a bonus track on Begin Here) and the solo in the final version.  Obviously, there was some degree of planning since the electric piano and electric guitar play basically the same notes (with slight differences in articulation).

"Just out of Reach" (Track by Track at Gibson)

[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"Just out of Reach"

Rod:  This is one of Colin's, and, uh, it w- was it your first real [song]?

Colin:  I think it was my second song that I wrote.*

Rod:  'Just out of Reach'.

Colin:  Yes.

Rod:  Yeah.

Colin:  I mean, we had to write for a deadline.  We'd been asked to write some music for Otto Preminger's film-

Rod:  Oh, Bunny Lake Is Missing.

Colin:  Bunny Lake Is Missing, and the way the deal was put together, they wanted three new songs written and recorded in about ten days.**  They had to be new songs, and, again, Rod and Chris didn't have a great backlog of songs, and so, uh, you know, I, I'd always been really intrigued and impressed by the way they wrote songs, and these were- this is one of the times when I thought, 'Well, at least I'll have a try', and so I wrote this song really for a deadline.  I mean, sometimes people say, 'How do you write a song?' and, and the answer would be:  you get the phone call, and, and that's what happened:  we got the phone call 'We need three songs written and recorded in ten days', so, um, I had a go, and this is the result of it, and-

Rod:  I, I think 'Just out of Reach' is a great snapshot of what sixties singles or records should sound like.  It's very sixties, very characteristic, but it was very naturally done.  I think it works great, and we often still do it on stage.

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*If I'm not mistaken, the first was "How We Were Before."

**The other two Zombies songs in the film are "Nothing's Changed" and "Remember You," both written by Chris White.

"I Love You" (Track by Track at Gibson)

[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"I Love You"

Rod:  'I Love You' is a, is a track that we still do on stage now, and I, I think it's, uh- Colin always had a little bit of troub- um, a problem with- when he first heard the lyrics, you know, 'I love you.  I love you.  I love you,' um, but I think it's a terrifically constructed song.  This is one of Chris's early songs that I really, really like 'cause it's so dramatic, and you've got that really high bit where the band stops and Colin sings, 'I don't know what to do.'  We opened the set for ages, in this incarnation, so often with this, with this track, and it's a great little concise example of what the Zombies are in a way, and that's why I love it as an opener.  We've opened for so long with it that we don't open with it now, but we may, may go back to doing it at some point, uh, because it's got, um, three-part harmony.  It's got Colin singing really at the top of his register, which he still does on stage; we do everything in the original keys.  It's got a short but quite jazzy electric piano solo in the middle.  It, it's a sort of concise way of looking [at] what the Zombies had distinctively at that time, and, uh, I'm really fond of it.

Colin:  I, I was always a little concerned that we opened with that number 'cause it's got a top B and, um, it's easier to do it in the middle of the set, but it is, it is a good opening tune, but, you know, I've gotta be ready to get that note.

"Whenever You're Ready" (Track by Track at Gibson)

[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"Whenever You're Ready"

Rod:  'Whenever You're Ready' was, um- we'd discovered bands like the Impressions, and I wanted something with that sort of feeling.  What did, what did we used to do on stage by the Impressions?  I can't remember.

Colin:  'I'm- I'm Alright'?

Rod:  'It's Alright'* and also 'People Get Ready'.

Colin:  OK.

Rod:  Used to do that, didn't we?  And it was my attempt to do something slightly in that style.

Colin:  There was an ongoing battle with our producer.  Lovely guy, very talented bloke, but there was an ongoing battle with him, really for the whole time we were recording till we got to Odessey and Oracle, about the kind of sound he was putting on the records, but he was very, uh, he was very strict.

Rod:  Very autocratic, wasn't he?

Colin:  Very autocratic.  We didn't go to the mix sessions at all.  He insisted that he did that without us there, and def- this was one of the songs that we were definitely, uh, unhappy with, not the song, I hasten to add, but the sound of the record.

---

*A live recording of 'It's Alright' is included on various collections of BBC sessions the Zombies did, along with a cover of the Impressions' 'You Must Believe Me'.

"I Want You Back Again" (Track by Track at Gibson)

[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"I Want You Back Again"

Colin:  Well, 'I Want You Back Again', it's, um, an interesting song in that it's one of the songs that we sort of rediscovered in this incarnation of the band.  I think we'd probably forgotten about it to some degree, and then we heard a- Tom Petty did a live version of-

Rod:  And used to talk about it for about ten minutes on stage before he did it.

Colin:  And we listened to this live version by Tom Petty, and we thought, 'Sounds pretty good.'

Rod:  'Why aren't we doing this?'

Colin:  Yes.

Rod:  Yeah.

Colin:  So I, I often say on stage [that] we're doing a cover version of Tom Petty doing a cover version of us, and this is the song:  'I Want You Back Again.'

"She's Coming Home" (Track by Track at Gibson)

[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"She's Coming Home"

Rod:  'She's Coming Home' was a single.  In America, it was a, a small hit, but I always thought this could have been a big hit record, and we were very disappointed with the actual- the balls, if you like on, on, on the record.  We, we, we thought it was a little bit tame in its recording.  I think that the producer was looking too much for a particular - in inverted commas - 'gimmicky' sound rather than just being honest about the essence of the song.  It was actually covered, I think, by Brenda Holloway, at, at one point.  I know she certainly did it live on a big TV show, and I thought it was great, um, to hear her do that, but I was never quite happy with that [the production on the Zombies' version], and I think if it had sounded exactly, just simple and honest, I think it could have been a really big hit, so we were a bit disappointed, but I still love the song.  Um, I can say that, can't I?  It's one of mine, but, um, we still do it on stage sometimes, and I like- I prefer the way we do it on stage now and the actual sound to the original record.  'She's Coming Home.'

"Leave Me Be" (Track by Track at Gibson)

[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"Leave Me Be"

Colin:  Well, 'Leave Me Be' is, uh, an interesting song because it was written by Chris White, and Decca Records were very keen on, uh, a new single every six weeks, so the pressure was on; after 'She's Not There', the pressure was on to have a, a follow-up, and really this was about the only song that had been written at that time; we didn't have a great backlog of songs because Rod and Chris were just finding their way as writers, so when Decca heard this song, they decided it would be the follow up to 'She's Not There', and none of us in the band, including Chris who wrote it, thought that this was a hit single, but in the U.K., it was put out as a follow-up to 'She's Not There', and I'm afraid it, it, it wasn't a hit.  You know, it didn't happen.  I think it's, it's a good song, but I, you know, I don't think it would ever be a single, and I don't think Chris would mind me saying that; I think he feels the same way.

Rod:  We also hated the production on it, which- we, we had a few issues with production on some of our singles, which in the end- I'm going way forward, but in the end, that's why we desperately wanted to produce an album ourselves, which became Odessey and Oracle, but that's in the future, but I think that was the first one where we thought- the very first session we'd done sounded great, all the four tracks we did on it.  'Summertime', 'It's Alright with Me', 'She's Not There' of course, and 'You Make Me Feel Good' all sounded great, but after that, sometimes we had issues with the way- we, we would often demo things, wouldn't we?

Colin:  Yeah.

Rod:  And-

Colin:  And sometimes the demo would sound better than the master.

Rod:  At least more whole to our ears, yeah.

Colin:  Mm.

"Tell Her No" (Track by Track at Gibson)

[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"Tell Her No"

Colin:  Well, 'Tell Her No', we were, we were touring ex- extensively, and again we were recording very late in, in the evening, and, and they'd recorded about four or five backing tracks, and they just, you know, there would be four of them in the studio; they would just do the backing track, and I was in the control room, and I fell asleep.  Uh, we'd been working very hard, but I'm- I've always found it very easy to sleep anyway, but, uh, they woke me up to go and do the lead vocal on 'Tell Her No' and I- this is what I always remember about it is that I mumbled through the second chorus, but I kept going, and I thought, 'Well, we can put that right'.  You know, we'll- I'll just drop in on it.

Rod:  [mumbles in imitation of record]

Colin:  [also mumbles in imitation of record] and put the-

Rod:  People have been trying to work out what those words are, for years.

Colin:  And the producer said, 'Oh, don't worry about that; that's fine'.

Rod:  That was recording in those days.

Colin:  Yeah, so, 'Tell Her No' went on to sell nearly a million copies; it was a top five single in the States; and it has a, a mumbled second chorus, but I-

Rod:  I do remember also that we had a phone call halfway through that session from America; that was a big deal in those days.  Our American publisher Al Gallico was on the, on the line.  He said, 'I just want you guys to know that "She's Not There"s number one in Cashbox'.  We thought, 'Wow', you know.

Colin:  It was fantastic.

Rod:  Here we were eighteen years old, you know, and we had the number one in this hallowed land of America.  It was fantastic.

"You Make Me Feel Good" (Track by Track at Gibson)

[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"You Make Me Feel Good"

Rod:  'You Make Me Feel Good' was the, um, the first track ever written by, um, Chris White that we recorded.  I was a huge fan of Chris.  Um, I think, generally speaking, he came into his own a little bit later and became a- an absolutely wonderful writer, but he always had that spark of originality, um, but sometimes, you have to fashion things a little bit, but we all worked together on everything anyway, and we would take an initial idea and say, 'Well, why don't we make that minor chord a major chord?'  You know?  Things like that.  And this was one that we, we did that on.  It turned out so well that it was a toss up whether 'She's Not There' or 'You Make Me Feel Good' was gonna be the first single.  In the end, thank you very much 'cause I wrote it, 'She's Not There' was, but it could easily have been 'You Make Me Feel Good,' and 'You Make Me Feel Good' - in our opinion - should have been the follow-up, but in those days, they just threw everything out, and, um, it wasn't.

Colin:  It was-

Rod:  It was on the B-side.

Colin:  It was the B-side, yeah.

Rod:  Yeah.  But I still- we occasionally do it still on, on stage, and I still enjoy it.  'You Make Me Feel Good', Chris's first song. 

"She's Not There" (Track by Track at Gibson)

[Obviously, the videos in this Track by Track series were all filmed the same day, but for easier indexing, I'm putting them under the dates they were posted.]

Rod:  This is, uh, Rod Argent here from the Zombies.

Colin:  It's Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, and this is Track by Track at Gibson, and we're on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

"She's Not There"

Colin:  This is the track that changed our lives completely, and I- as I remember it, we were talking to our then-producer called Ken Jones, and he was giving us a pep talk before our first session in Decca Studios, West Hampstead in London, and he said, 'You know, you could always write something for this session.'  Rod picked up on it, and he went away and wrote this song.  I didn't know he could write songs, and he came back with this song, and it was 'She's Not There,' and we all knew it was a special song, immediately.

Rod:  And the extraordinary thing is, our very first session, um, and because we had absolutely no knowledge of all the pitfalls that can happen, you know:  the engineer couldn't get the right sound maybe or, um, maybe on the day, the band wasn't gelling, you know, when things were recorded.  We didn't know any of that.  We just thought, 'Yeah!'  I thought, 'Colin's gonna sound great singing it, and, uh, the harmonies are gonna be brilliant, and the band's gonna sound exciting, and it's gonna come out, and it's gonna be a huge hit,' and it was.

Colin:  But it wasn't all smooth going.  I'll just sort of say about the session for 'She's Not There':  it was considered the, the, the cool thing to do to record in the evening and into the night, so we started at about seven o'clock, and the engineer, who was a great engineer, but he'd been at a wedding all day, and he was extremely drunk when we got there, but worse than that, he was very aggressive as well, and I kind of thought- it just makes me laugh:  we've been in the business for fifty years [but] after twenty minutes in the studio, I thought, 'This is not for me.'  This guy was screaming at us, really screaming at us, but then we had a bit of luck, and he collapsed, and we carried the engineer out of the studio, up three flights of stairs, and we put him in a London taxi, and we never saw him again, and his assistant took over, and he was called Gus Dudgeon, and he went on to be one of the most successful producers in the world ever.  He did all of Elton [John]'s early stuff, David Bowie, many, many huge records, and that was Gus Dudgeon's first session, and it was our first session, and he never forgot that.  Uh, so 'She's Not There,' it had its moments.

Rod:  Had its moments, and everything was done very quickly, and that, all that drama was compressed into a short space of time, but it was dramatic, and, you know, we ended up with a hit after a day's recording.

WKYC Channel 3

Rod Argent - The Zombies' Co-Founder on The Beatles, Chick Corea, and His Love for the Piano

Rod Argent - The Zombies' Co-Founder on The Beatles, Chick Corea, and His Love for the Piano
Keyboard Magazine
By Kristi York Wooten

Photo by Dennis Beentjes

The Zombies are back on tour this fall, and co-founder Rod Argent is excited to be out on the road doing what he does best - reaching new audiences with mesmerizing keyboard solos on classic tracks including "Time of the Season" and "Hold Your Head Up."  Last year, the Zombies celebrated the 50th anniversary of their beloved 1967 album Odessey and Oracle with TV appearances and shows on the East Coast.  Original Zombies members Argent and lead vocalist Colin Blunstone (along with a full band) are on a run of West Coast dates beginning at the legendary Fillmore in San Francisco September 7.  Keyboard chatted with Rod Argent about his storied history as a rock composer and performer - and his love for the keys.

In the 20th century, pianos sold by the hundreds of thousands per year, but now, people can't wait to get rid of them.  There are even specific "graveyards" for the traditional wooden piano.  It's hard to believe, isn't it?

Small keyboards are portable and controllable and you never have to tune them.  So, in a way I understand why the piano is dying out.  I use keyboards on stage, but when Colin (Blunstone) and I do the occasional acoustic performance, I will always try to use an acoustic piano.  Even though you're mic-ing it up, every time you play a sequence or combination of notes and chords, the sympathetic vibrations from the other notes in the piano give a slightly different timbre to what you're playing, and that's something you cannot get out of a sample.

You're best known for organ and electronic keyboard sounds, but me tell me a little bit more about your enduring fascination with the acoustic instrument.

I do have a love of the piano as an instrument. It was a dream of mine, my whole life really, to acquire a Steinway Model D Concert Grand, particularly the German one.  I did that about nine years ago, and I play it every day.  I absolutely love it.  I'm self-taught, like lots of people, but in 1999 when I decided to walk away from production and before I got back together with Colin to play live (as The Zombies) again, a very dear friend of mine who is a classical musician suggested I do a piano album called Rod Argent, Classically Speaking.  I didn't think I could do it, but he persuaded me, and I played the music on a Steinway, a Bosendorfer, and others.  Three tracks were my own compositions but the rest included Chopin studies, Ravel, and some of my favorite pieces.  There's no way that recording could have been made on a sampled instrument.  To get the nuances and the timbre, you can't beat an acoustic piano.

The Zombies feature piano, organ, Mellotron, harpsichord and all sorts of sounds.  How did you decide which to use?

When I first started out back then, there was nothing else available except an acoustic piano. [Although I love it], I couldn't wait to leave that scenario.  Generally, the pianos that were available for practice or in venues in the early days were a semitone down from concert pitch, which threw all sorts of curves into our performances.  Secondly, you couldn't hear me onstage unless I did a sort of Jerry Lee Lewis lift.  My vanity meant that I was doing that all night long, and the quick of my nail would be completely bleeding.  I'd put plaster on it halfway through the evening and Colin would always judge how good the gig was by the amount of blood!

Photo by Dennis Beentjes

That's what led you to electronic instruments?

That's when I discovered the Hohner Pianet (Mk 1), a fantastic instrument.  It had sticky pads that hit the tine, stuck to it, and the pressure would become too much and the tine would break away like "boooong," and that was the way the note was produced.  You could hear me onstage for the first time.  Mine [used on the Zombies' classic, "She's Not There"] was played so often it lost its stickiness action and bits of hair would get caught in there and also moisture.  I would have to take the top of the piano off and blow it dry with a hair dryer before going on stage.  That instrument was used all over the early Zombies records, it was very biting.  Manfred Mann had one, and I think even The Beatles used those instruments in the early days, too.  Even with the band Argent, I still used [the Mk1 occasionally].  I loved the sound of it, but today I can't find one that sounds the same.  I always remember in the 1970s when Argent supported Chick Corea on tour.  One night, Chick walked into the dressing room and I was in the middle of drying my keys with a hair dryer.  [Laughs] I had to talk him through what I was doing.  He was lovely about it.

What other gear did you love?

After the Pianet, I got a Vox Continental.  But by that time, I'd already heard Jimmy Smith on "Walk on the Wild Side" and was just blown away with the grit and the soul and the excitement of the Hammond B-3.  Years later, the Mellotron came about when we started recording Odessey and Oracle [at EMI Studios, now known as Abbey Road].  We walked in virtually the day after the Beatles walked out after having finished Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.  We used studio 3, and we had the same engineers.  Without asking anyone, we just used the instruments which had been left lying around.  The Mellotron was there, and in my head at that moment it seemed like a cheaper alternative to a string section, which we couldn't have afforded at that point.  That instrument had its own character completely [listen to The Zombies' "Changes"].  Recording with the Mellotron at Abbey Road was a great piece of happenstance I'm still pleased about.

Photo by Dennis Beentjes

Soloing is a lost art.  Instrumental solos aren't found in the structure of most rock and pop songs today.  Did you always compose your solos ahead of time or was it more organic and improvisational?  And how does it feel to play those solos onstage in 2018?

If you play all the alternative takes of our studio recordings of [The Zombies'] "She's Not There" and "Time of the Season" and [Argent's] "Hold Your Head Up," you'll hear that they are totally different.  They were all completely improvised.  It's an inevitable process.  When you play something many times, an improvisation seems to gradually coalesce into something which is not identical but has the same sort of signposts.  That used to worry me, but I read an article by one of my heroes, Bill Evans, who said exactly the same thing: a solo is improvised the first time it happens and that's the joy of it, and then it takes a shape [thereafter].  It's important that playing solos should be a natural reaction to whatever's going on around you in the moment.  This is one of the musical things that is a joy for me [on tour right now]: I get to keep things fresh.  Having done "Time of the Season" a million times, night after night, I throw something different in there to keep the other guys on their toes.  They react, and we can suddenly go somewhere else in the song.  If, in one night out of five, you're able to go to a completely different place in the moment, that feels great.

Rod Argent's Studio

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In honour of #NationalMusicDay, here’s a look inside Rod’s studio! What’s your favourite Zombies track? 🎶

A post shared by The Zombies (@thezombiesofficial) on Jun 21, 2018 at 3:07pm PDT