Pat Healy: Welcome back to the Music Is My Life podcast from Berklee Online. I'm your host Pat Healy, and I hope you had a great summer. I know mine sure was eventful, and I am proud to welcome as the first guest of this brand new season Colin Blunstone. A Rock and Roll Hall of Famer as the lead singer of the Zombies, he began playing with that band as a teenager, and though that band had a long hiatus from the late sixties through the turn of the century, the Zombies have been playing together again for more than twenty years, which is, like, five times as long as they were together in their original incarnation. The Zombies are doing a special live stream on Veeps.com on Saturday September 18th. Visit thezombies.veeps.com for more info, but before you do that, take a listen to Colin Blunstone's fascinating life in music, which began with his uncles. Let's let him tell you all about it.
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Colin: When I was about ten or eleven, a lot of them emigrated, some to America, actually, some to Canada, some to New Zealand and Australia, but I remember those, those early days, particularly at Christmas, hearing my uncles all play. They were wonderful players and very good singers as well, harmony singers. They were absolutely spectacular, and I think it did make a big impression on me. Certainly, that's my earliest memory.
Pat: An- and how 'bout yourself? When did you start playing? You know, when, when did you sit at a piano and then, then open your mouth and say, "I, I have a gift for this, this whole singing thing"?
Colin: Well, in some ways, it came as a bit of a surprise, to be absolutely honest. I did have quite a good voice as a young child. I, I was picked on to sing a solo in, in school a, a few times. Then when my voice changed- music wasn't a big thing in, in my school, and I didn't think about it an awful lot, uh, until I, I got a guitar. I loved rock and roll: Elvis, Buddy Holly, Ricky Nelson, um, Eddie Cochran, all those people, Little Richard, Chuck Berry. And I managed to talk to my parents into buying me a guitar. It was a Framus Atlantis, I think it was called. It was an acoustic guitar. I think it was made in East Germany. Then I started picking out a few tunes, and that was the start of it all, really. I, I sang all the time, you know, when I was walking along to get the bus or going anywhere. People used to call me "the boy who sings." The neighbors [did]. They didn't know my name, but they knew I was the- I just used to sing all the time. My big break came when- at my school, we were- it was quite a strict school, and we had to sit in alphabetical order, and I sat next to a guy called Paul Arnold, his name being- starting with A, and me starting with B, and he lived in the next street to Rod Argent. This is so much chance in all this, you know? Paul Arnold lived in the next street to Rod Argent. Rod really wanted to put a band together. He'd been to see his cousin Jim Rodford play in the local big band. They were called the Bluetones, and they were really good, and as soon as he saw the Bluetones play, he knew he wanted to form a band. In quite a sort of strange sort of way, he approached four or five people. At school, they- at his school, at Rod Argent's school, they had an army corps, and he watched the drummers, the side-drummers, playing when they were marching, and he thought that Hugh Grundy was the best one, so he approached him. Hugh had never played a full set of drums. Remember we were fifteen years old at this point. There was a folk, uh, club there, and Paul Atkinson was playing there, and he [Rod] thought he [Paul] was the best guitarist. He approached him. Paul Arnold was his mate from home in the next street, and Paul was making a, an electric bass guitar in woodwork. He'd never played one. That's what got Paul in, and then Paul said to me one day- out of the blue, he said, "You've, you've got a guitar, haven't you? Haven't you got a-" and I said, "Yeah, I mean I've got a guitar," and he said, "Do you wanna be in a band?" and that was my audition for the Zombies.
Pat: That's so interesting that you were initially recruited as the guitarist.
Colin: I was, and there was a little bit of friction about this at the first, uh, our first rehearsal. All we played in our first rehearsal was an acoustic song called "Malagueña." Rod was gonna be the singer, so he didn't actually do anything in the first rehearsal until we had a coffee break halfway through, and he went over to a broken-down old piano in the corner of the room. If there hadn't been a piano there, we would have never known.
Pat: Wow.
Colin: He went over, and he- I remember it clear as day: he played "Nutrocker" by Bee Bumble and the Stingers, and, you know, he was a sensational keyboard player at fifteen years old. We were nowhere near, you know, his, his talent, nowhere near it, and I'd only just met him, and I just went over to him, and I said, "Rod, really" or "Whatever your name is" I've only just met him; I couldn't remember his name. I said, "Real- you should play keyboards in the band," and he said, "No, no, we want this to be a rock band; it's gotta be guitars," and, and that- it was left like that, and then at the end of the first rehearsal, I was just about to put my guitar away, and I just sang, to myself, I sang a Ricky Nelson song, and to this day, I can't remember which one it was, but it would probably be "Poor Little Fool" or "Hello Mary Lou," and I was just playing it to myself, and Rod said, "I'll tell you what: if you'll be the lead singer, I'll play keyboards," and that, essentially, is how the Zombies came together.
Pat: That's amazing. So how was rehearsal number two? Wha- was it with that reconfigured lineup?
Colin: It was. It was a bit tragic to be honest because dear old Jim Rodford, who was, uh, Rod Argent's cousin, and Jim spent twenty years in the Kinks; he played with the Animals; he, he was- he's a wonderful player, and he arranged for us to use all the gear, mostly Vox amplifiers but, um, you know, proper, sophisticated kit, for that first rehearsal. His band, the Bluetones, had all this wonderful equipment, and we used that in the first rehearsal, and even though we were fairly average, we sounded quite good with all this gear, but at our second rehearsal, we had to use just what we had, and I'm afraid it was, it was a bit grim. It really was. Hugh only had a pair of drumsticks, so he had to play on- we had one homemade amplifier and with a homemade speaker, and Hugh played drums on the wooden cabinet of the speaker, and everyone else plugged in to this homemade amplifier. It was, it was a little bit heartbreaking, really, but we stuck at it, and I think we rehearsed- we could only rehearse at weekends, usually on a Sunday, and we would rehearse every Sunday for a year, and then we played our first gig. I've gotta be honest: when we first got together, I wasn't sure we would ever play an actual concert. Well, "concert" may be a bit grand, actually. We played at a local youth club. I wasn't sure we would ever play, but, but we did, and it, and it took about a year.
Pat: Wow. And tell me about either the support or wha- what kind of vibes were your family sending out? Were they over the moon that you were getting involved in music like this, or were they nervous that this would lead to some sort of dead end, or?
Colin: No, I, I- it, it's, it's always surprised me, but especially when we first started out, I think everyone's parents were very supportive, and, um, we played as an amateur band for about three years, from 1961 to 1964, and even when we got the chance to become a professional band, all the parents - except one set of parents weren't too keen, but most of the parents were really supportive and ce- certainly my parents were, and I, I think they felt it was something that we needed to get out of our systems and, and it would be good to do that while we're young, and looking back, I'm, I'm quite surprised how understanding and supportive they were, but they, they really were.
Pat: Yeah, who, who'd've thought we'd be talking about it sixty years later, right?
Colin: I know! No one's more surprised than me. I think that most people in those days thought that a career in music would usually be two or three years. You can, you can hear clips of John Lennon and, and Mick Jagger saying exactly the same thing, and that's kind of what I thought. In 1964, when we made our first record, I, I thought this would be a wonderful adventure. I'm not putting it down; I, I thought it was breathtakingly brilliant, but I thought it would probably be a two- or three-year adventure. Eventually, we, we built up a local following, and we won quite a big rock and roll competition in 1964, which led to a, a record contract with Decca. Uh, from memory, I think it was probably only for one single, and we were introduced to a, a wonderful producer called Ken Jones. He was having a talk to us about two weeks before the big day in Decca studios, and he said, "You know, you could always write something for this session." We- I think we were gonna do- we had this kind of jazz/waltz arrangement on Gershwin's "Summertime." We were definitely gonna do that, and we probably would have done some kind of rhythm and blues classic alongside it, but he made this suggestion about writing something, and Rod and Chris White went away, and two or three days later, they'd come back with both having written a song, and Rod had written "She's Not There," which I think we all knew was a special song right from the beginning, and we recorded "She's Not There" in that first session, and we recorded Chris's song, which was "You Make Me Feel Good," which went on to be the B-side. That record went on to be number one in Cashbox in America and probably about number two in Billboard or something like that, so it all happened- although we'd been playing for three years locally, the record side of it happened quite quickly, and I always think that you should accept any success that you have, of course, gratefully, and you, you should, uh- it's wonderful when you have a bit of success, but if you have [the] choice, I think it might have been better if it'd come a little bit later for us because when we recorded "She's Not There," Rod and I were eighteen, and, um, it, it's a little bit young, and we'd already decided the band was gonna be a professional band, and I would have liked to have seen us play those London clubs like the Yardbirds and the [Rolling] Stones did, um, like the Marquee and, uh, Klooks Kleek and some of the wonderful clubs that were around at that time, and, and I think it would have helped us a lot to prepare for having a hit record. We were slightly thrown in at the deep end, really, and "She's Not There" almost didn't get recorded because when we went to the studio, it was fashionable in those days to have a[n] evening or nighttime session, and we arrived about seven o'clock, and the engineer - we'd never met before - was a very good engineer, but unfortunately, he'd been at a wedding all day, and he was incredibly drunk and also very, very aggressive. It makes me laugh now when I think back, having been in the business for about sixty years, after twenty minutes in the Decca studio with this crazy man, I thought, "This is not for me. I- this is definitely not for me," but we, you know, we had a bit of luck. He, he passed out.
Pat: Wow.
Colin: Flat on the floor, and we had to carry him out, um, up two flights of stairs and put him in a black, uh, London taxi, and actually, I never saw him again to be honest, and his assistant engineer took over, and his name was Gus Dudgeon, and that was Gus Dudgeon's first session ever, and it was our first session ever, and of course, Gus went on to record Elton [John], Kiki Dee, David Bowie, many, many huge artists, but that was Gus Dudgeon's first session.
Pat: I like to think about how everything that happens, all the extenuating circumstances of any recording add to something, and, and it's almost when you tell me that story I can sense the tension and nervousness oozing out of that recording. That snap of that beat is so perfect, and, and do you think all that was going, the chaos, added to preserving something different than what would've been preserved with a smooth session?
Colin: It, it could well be. It could well be. I, I do know that sessions and albums and tours never go smoothly. You've, you've got to be adaptable, you know? You've, you've gotta be able to make the best of what's going on, and, and sometimes it can add, you know. There is an energy that comes out of a chaos.
Pat: Mm-hm.
Colin: And, um, really, I think it's one of the important things about being a professional musician: if you wanna be in it as a career, you've gotta just buckle down and, and stay calm, and when people are going crazy, just ignore them.
Pat: Mm-hm.
Colin: Just ignore them.
Pat: That's great advice. How long did it take before you kind of found that Zombies sound because, you know, from the public's perspective, you arrived fully formed because "She's Not There" has all of the elements of what would become the sound?
Colin: Yeah, it's true. I think it was fairly early on. I mean, I would just say that, um, when we recorded "She's Not There," the guys are playing very basic instruments. Um, Chris White was playing a, uh, a homemade electric bass
Pat: Wow.
Colin: and Paul Atkinson was playing a, a, a very- quite inexpensive guitar that had just had a pick-up stuck on it
Pat: Wow.
Colin: you know? Uh, Rod was playing, uh, a Hohner Pianet, which was- I think actually Hugh had a, a fairly good drum kit, although he did get another one after "She's Not There," but the Hohner Pianet was kind of the key to everything for us because, uh, to start with, Rod was playing keyboards. We just used to put a mic into whatever piano was at the venue when we arrived there, and very often, you couldn't really hear him very well, and he used to have to really hammer the keys re- very aggressively, and I could sometimes judge how good the, the evening had gone because at the end of the evening, his thumb would be bleeding, and I would gauge the evening on how much, how much his thumb was bleeding! But then, um, eventually, he bought this Hohner Pianet. It was a wonderful little electric piano, and from then on, from that moment, people could really hear him properly, and I think the sound was there then, and it- and also it was add- added to the fact that we always did three-part harmonies, and it wasn't very fashionable at that time. I know later on, of course, '63 the, the Beatles exploded onto the world and they always used harmonies, but we started before that. We started in '61, so if you're going to try and put the Zombies' sound in a nutshell, it's, it's very much a, a keyboard-based band that features harmonies, I would've thought, and that came very early on.
Pat: And there's an act that I don't know if you're familiar with. It's like a modern rock group called Car Seat Head Rest, and they nailed the Zombies', like, harmony on one of their songs, and I was- it's a song called "Something Soon" by Car Seat Head Rest. It's really terrific. I feel like no other act ever really did that.
Colin: Well, I tell you that the, the secret for us was that Rod was in a cathedral choir for many years, and, and sometimes we would pick him up after Evensong at the cathedral
Pat: Wow.
Colin: and, and take him to a rock venue and, uh, to play with the Zombies, and Rod really understands harmony. A lot of it, yeah, comes from him because we're not just playing thirds and fifths or things like that. They're, they're very specific harmonies. Also with the Zombies, he had to work with the- with what he was given. I was a little bit of an ill-disciplined vocalist so he would say to me, "You sing what you think is the melody," more specifically when we came to the choruses with the- "You sing what you think is the melody," and quite often, I would take the top harmony 'cause I've got quite a high voice. So we would try and set that. We'd do it a few times so that I've got that in my mind. Then he would try and give Chris a very simple harmony 'cause Chris has gotta play bass at the same time, and unfortunately, this would often leave Rod with a very complex harmony 'cause he had to fill all the holes, and that's why sometimes it's quite difficult to work out what the Zombie harmonies are: it's because we didn't do harmonies in a way that a lot of other people did. We, we had to, to work with the voices that we've got.
Pat: That's amazing. And was "The Zombies" your first choice for a name?
Colin: No, it wasn't. Uh, we were a bit desperate. I mean, it seems so silly to talk about names for a band, but it's important, you know. To start with, we were "The Mustangs," which lasted about two weeks. We realized there were many other bands called "The Mustangs," and then I think I came up with the idea of "The Sundowners" because there was a film called The Sundowners, and that- it's- I came up with the idea, and even I think that's terrible, and then Paul Arnold, the original bass player, who sat next to me at school, he ca- he came up with the idea of "The Zombies," and I'll be honest: I don't think I knew what a zombie was. There was no zombie culture in those days
Pat: Right.
Colin: you know. It was- there were no zombie TV programs or films or anything. I, I don't think I really understood what a zombie was, but it seemed snappy. It stuck. Everybody liked it, probably except me. I wasn't very keen on it. It, it just stuck, and we became the Zombies, and Paul Arnold who thought of the name, he's the only guy who ever left the original band. He wanted to be a doctor, and his studies wouldn't allow him to rehearse with the band, so he had to make a choice, and he chose to leave the band, and Chris White took his place, and Paul went on to be a doctor as well. He's, he now lives in Edmonton in Canada, and he, and he always comes to see us if we're anywhere near Edmonton, and we always, you know, get him to stand up and get some applause, get the spotlights on him, but he thought of the name "The Zombies."
Pat: It's especially interesting to speak with you for the context of this podcast because we've done about sixty episodes, and most of the people we speak to, their starting point is the Beatles and the British Invasion, and that's you. I mean, you're, you're the second band of the British Invasion. Tell me about what it was like to go to America for the first time at, what?, eighteen, right?
Colin: I think by the time we got to America, we were just nineteen. We came in Christmas of 1964 to play the Murray the K Christmas show at the Brooklyn Fox. Well, you know, first of all, you have to say that all British musicians want to come to America because it's where the blues started. It's where jazz started. It's where rock and roll started. I mean, everyone I've ever met, they're- one of their main aims in life is to come to America to play and, and to see America and, and to research the places where all this wonderful music started, so it was incredibly exciting for us. I, I can't describe it, and of course, we were very fortunate because we arrived- the week we arrived, "She's Not There" was number one in the charts, so, you know, doors were obviously gonna be open for us, so that was fantastic. We played at the, the Brooklyn Fox, and we opened on Christmas Day, and I think there were about fourteen acts on the bill. In those days, it was fashionable to have many acts just playing one or two songs. I remember Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, the Shirelles. The Nashville Teens were on there. Uh, the Shangri-Las. There were lots of wonderful artists, and we had to follow Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, and they were sensational, and they brought the house down every show. We played, um, eight shows a day. You, you just did a couple of songs, and then the rest of the guys came, and it- so it went through the whole day, and every time, Patti LaBelle brought the house down, and we had to follow them, and this is our first time in the States, so there was a little bit of anxiety in the wings before we went on, but it was OK, you know. We did alright.
Pat: So you get back, and then you, you know, it's probably all systems go with recording again, right?
Colin: Well, it is. I mean... to be honest- I have to choose my words very carefully here, but we were very poorly managed, absolutely terribly managed, and one of the things that happened is that we were, we were playing all the time, and at the same time trying to write and, and record, and Decca really put the pressure on. They wanted singles every six weeks.
Pat: Wow.
Colin: And in a way, it's so short-sighted because if you haven't got the material, why put the single out, you know? You're- in those days, it was a very singles-orientated [sic] market, and if you, if you had a single out that wasn't a hit, that could be the end of your career
Pat: Mmhm.
Colin: but they would really put this pressure on you to, um, to get singles out, and in fact, in the U.K., the singles went in a different order to the States. They forced us to record the only song that anyone had got. It was called "You Make Me Feel..." "Good"? "Bad"?* Whatever it was! It wasn't very memorable, and, um, it wasn't a hit, but in America, we skipped that one, so it went from "She's Not There" to "Tell Her No," and, and of course, that was quite successful, but Decca never stopped pushing to get singles all the time, and, and we were working the whole time. It's so hard to write and to get into the studio when you're just going from one tour to another, so it was quite tough, and because we were very young, you know, we were, we were very naïve [and] we weren't protected by a management company, they were absolutely dreadful. Um...
Pat: If th- if that, if that's you choosing your words carefully, I don't know- I don't wanna know what you'd have to say without choosing them carefully.
Colin: I probably could end up in court very easily, um, if I were to say what I really think. They weren't very good. Eventually, the hit - you know, as with all bands, I suppose - the hits stopped coming, and it, it got a bit tougher, but we'd already established a fan base all around the world, so we were very fortunate that we could play- we didn't have to just play in the U.K. and the States. We could play all around the world, and it's one of the things when the band finished: we realized that we always had a hit somewhere.
Pat: Hmm.
Colin: But there was no internet in those days.
Pat: Right.
Colin: It was hard to find out what was going on around the world. Maybe if you had a good management company, they, they could find out, you know, but
Pat: Right.
Colin: but we didn't, and it was after the band finished [that] we realized, you know, we always had a hit somewhere.
Pat: So then, when you get down to the business of recording the full-length, which is so interesting- I mean, everybody loves these stories of, "Well, there was-" criminally overlooked in its time, but when you were recording that album, did you all have a sense of purpose and, and kind of realize the quality of the material that you were laying down at that point? And, and the production, it sounds beautiful.
Colin: Well, I must say that we pro- I think we all remember that album a - or those times - a little bit differently. I've been amazed when I've been with all the founding members - surviving fou- founding members of the band - doing an interview and realize that we all remember things very differently. We were really fortunate to be in Abbey Road at that time. It, it was the best studio in the world, I would've thought. We were working with incredible engineers: Peter Vince and Geoff Emerick. They'd both actually just been working with the Beatles, but particularly Geoff Emerick. We followed the Beatles into Abbey Road. They'd just finished Sgt. Pepper['s Lonely Hearts Club Band], and there'd been a lot of upgrades in the studio to satisfy the Beatles' demands. They wanted- you- you know, they weren't- they were- in a, in a friendly way, I think, they were competing with the Beach Boys, and so it- "We want more tracks. We gotta have more tracks," and up until then, everyone had been recording on four-track machines, and in the States, they had eight-track machines, and they managed in Abbey Road to, in effect - it's not a technical term, this - lash two four-track machines together, which gave you seven tracks, and so we were benefitting from some of the innovations that the, the Beatles had brought into Abbey Road, so we were very fortunate to be recording there at that time, but we had an incredibly tight recording budget, so we had to record very quickly, and how we got 'round this was: we rehearsed really extensively before we went into the studio, and it amazes me- I mean, I've been involved in lots of projects where the rehearsing goes on in the studio.
Pat: Right.
Colin: And it amazes me that more people don't do that. You know, we, we knew- when we went into the studio, we knew the songs. We knew the key. We knew the arrangement. We're just looking for a perfor- the perfor- the performance.
Pat: Mmhm.
Colin: That's all. So we recorded very quickly, and my feelings at the end of the album was [sic] that we'd done the best we possibly could. That's, that's how I felt about it, regardless of, uh, uh, critical acclaim or, or, or no critical acclaim and- or commercial success or anything like that. I just felt it was the best we could possibly do, which made it kind of tough when the first single was released and it didn't make any impression. In the U.K., this is. It was "Care of Cell 44." I think eventually in America, they released three singles. Either the third or the fourth was "Time of the Season." It was a real struggle, and even when "Time of the Season" was a big hit, Odessey and Oracle wasn't. It went into the Billboard charts for two weeks at around 98 and then disappeared, and something magical happened: over a s- like, ten-year period, people just started talking about this album. No one was promoting it. No one was marketing it. It was just word of mouth, and in America, people like Tom Petty and more recently Dave Grohl, and in the U.K. in particular, Paul Weller has really supported this album, and if he's, Pau- if Paul Weller's talking to someone and the subject of music comes up and they haven't heard this album, he'll go and buy them a copy.
Pat: Wow.
Colin: And I know that because he's told me. It just was a word-of-mouth thing, and it, it just came about that Rolling Stone actually named it as the hundredth best album of all time, and when you look at the albums that are around there, you know, it's all- it's Beatles, Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, Simon & Garfunkel
Pat: Yeah.
Colin: and it's, it's just phenomenal that this album was pretty much forgotten at the time and then rediscovered years later. It seems almost as though it's had a life-force of its own because it, it sort of baffled through all on its own without anybody really helping, except I must just say that Al Kooper, he was in his first day as a producer at CBS, and he'd brought this album back from England. He'd just been in England. It was very courageous of him: he went to Clive Davis on his first day working at CBS, and he said, "We have to release this album. Forget everything else. We have to release this album," and Clive Davis said, "Well, it's fine. We- actually, we own that album, but we were just gonna pass on it. We weren't even gonna release it," but it, it's only because of Al Kooper fighting [in] our corner that the album was ever released [in America].
Pat: Right, and, and there's- I, you know, I never know what to trust about the information that's out there on, on the web, and Wikipedia has an anecdote about you, you, you weren't even that keen on "Time of the Season" when, uh, it first came out. Is that true?
Colin: It is true. It wasn't one of my favorite tracks on the album. To be honest, I think to me at the time, the most commercial track was "Care of Cell 44," I think. Also, "Time of the Season" was the last track we recorded**, and it was recorded in a slightly pressured environment because we were running out of money. Rod had only finished the song in the morning
Pat: Wow.
Colin: and in the afternoon, I, I hadn't really got the phrasing right, and, you know, bless him, he was coaching me from the, from the control room. He was being really, really patient, but I'd got a- it's i- ironic, I've got a red light in front of me and a big clock, and I could see we were running out of time, and so he's going, "No, can you put this- can you put that on the beat? Can you push this phrase?" and it got very heated between Rod and I. I couldn't tell you the language. It wasn't good. And of course, 'cause I'm talking through the mic, this is going to all the engineers and all the Abbey Roa- Abbey Road staff - there's a crew and everything there - and all the band, it- quite a forceful argument going on, and it's always struck me as ironic that while we were arguing, the lyric to the song is "It's the time of the season for loving." An hour later, it was all forgotten, but there certainly was a, a verbal battle going on while "Time of the Season"- while the lead vocal was going down.
Pat: That's amazing. It- wi- er- time for- time of the season for finishing the album.
Colin: Yea- absolutely, yes! That's what it was. CBS Records gave us a thousand pounds to record the album, and I know, you know, money's different now, but even in those days, to be in Abbey Road and have just a thousand pounds, you had to record fast. You really did.
Pat: One thing I wondered about that song, which is strange, but, I mean, you know, there's the, the, the line "Who's your daddy" which has come to, come to mean something different in pop culture, and do you think that the song led to that?
Colin: Um, it certainly could have, yeah, and I think Rod got the idea of that line- it's, it's sort of a nod towards Gershwin's "Summertime."
Pat: Right.
Colin: That-
Pat: Right, right.
Colin: There is a line in there.
Pat: Right, "Your daddy's rich." That's so interesting.
Colin: And that was one of the first songs that we ever played, way back- you know, we recorded it in our, our first session
Pat: Mmhm.
Colin: when we recorded "She's Not There." We recorded "Summertime" as well. Uh, I mentioned it earlier on. We, we had this sort of jazz/waltz arrangement of it, and I think that was the idea of it: it was just sort of a nod to "Summertime," and I, I know that it has come to be quite a popular phrase, and maybe it did come from the song. I, I'd like to think it did.
Pat: Right. It, it's so interesting, too, because the way it's presented is so different from "Summertime," but when you say it, it makes sense, and I love the cockiness of that: "Is he rich like me?" and, and were you ev- you weren't even rich at the time, were you?
Colin: My goodness, no. Um, the- as often happens with bands, the three non-writers, uh, were in a completely different financial situation to the main writers. I always think, you know, if you haven't got a good song, you can all pack up and go home. It's the song's, uh, the, the cornerstore of everything. We were very fortunate to have two sophisticated writers in the band, and I'm really glad that they were- their- the financial stream didn't go through our manager's office. It was- they were paid direct, and so, um, I'm really glad it worked out that way for them, but it was quite tough for the other guys in the band. For Hugh Grundy, Paul Atkins- Atkinson, and myself. We certainly didn't have any money, no, and, I mean, that was, again, one of the reasons why the band finished. In fact, um, Paul Atkinson had just got married. He just felt [that] as he just got married, he had to try and get some money together, and that was one of the main reasons that, that the band finished.
Pat: You do the album, and then you break up, and then- did you have any awareness of what was going on in the States with all these fake Zombies bands going around?
Colin: I did a little bit, yeah. Uh, it, it did filter back to us, and in particular, I know Chris White was in New York at one point, and he was in Rolling Stone's offices, and he phoned this manager who had got a, a fake Zombies band and was talking to him, and the, the manager didn't know that Chris was, um, a member of the Zombies. He just thought he was, uh, a journalist, and the manager was explaining that they wanted to have a Zombies band to honor the lead singer in the band who had been killed in a car crash.
Pat: Oh ho!
Colin: So he was telling this story to Chris, and in the end, Chris had to just, you know, own up and say, "Listen. That's ridiculous," but I found a clip from Rolling Stone, although they didn't say I was killed in a car crash, I did find this clip that a guy did definitely say I'd been, I'd been killed, you know.
Pat: Wow.
Colin: And that's one of the reasons that they started this Zombies band, but you know, that's just, that's just silly. They just found a, uh, a gap in the market.
Pat: Right.
Colin: There was no band.
Pat: Right.
Colin: And there was a big record, so they got out there.
Pat: I, I love that. I don't know if it's irony or symbolism or life imitating art, but you are then literally a zombie. You are back from the dead.
Colin: This is true.
Pat: So the band breaks up, and then, uh, right now we're- you're gearing up to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of your debut, so- which is so great, and there's [sic] so many great things about that album that I, you know- were, were you aware of what Nick Drake was doing at the time because the, the parallels musically, they're there, and it seems like he never had any popularity while he was doing what he was doing.
Colin: Are you talking about my so- first solo album?
Pat: Yeah.
Colin: Yeah, One Year. No, I'd never heard a Nick Drake album before One Year.
Pat: Maybe he heard One Year.
Colin: Mm, I'm not sure. I think maybe his first album might have been a little bit before One Year***, but I hadn't heard anything by him at, at that point, and I mean, One Year came together in a very- sort of- very natural way in that, you know, I'd met up again with - I, I still saw them socially, but we decided to work together again - Rod and Chris. I was coming home from a party in Chris White's car, and he said, "You know, why don't you come work with Rod and I [sic]? We, we've got a production deal with CBS Records, and, uh, you know, we'd love to do an album with you," and I, I said, "Yeah, great, sounds [like] a fabulous idea," and we were, we were back in, um, Abbey Road, Studio Three, where we did Odessey and Oracle, [with] Peter Vince, uh, engineering. Actually, the first two tracks for One Year, we, we did in another studio, but we eventually found our, our home, Abbey Road. The other eight tracks were all recorded there, and it was mixed in Abbey Road, and we started off just doing a couple of tunes, uh, um, "She Loves the Way They Love Her," which is the first track on the album, which, you know, in some ways, I think, sounds like perhaps the Zombies would have sounded like
Pat: Mmhm.
Colin: if they'd have kept going. In fact, it's Argent and me. It's all the guys in Argent, and we also started "Misty Roses," a wonderful Tim Hardin song, and that was in a- another studio, but we realized that "Misty Roses" was incredibly short, and we, we needed to do something, and I, I think it, it might have Rod that come up with the idea of perhaps we could do some wild strings on there. He'd been listening to a lot of Bartók, and, uh, we were introduced to a string arranger called Chris Gunning. I wasn't really involved too much in giving Chris, uh, an idea of what we wanted. I think it more came from Rod, and, um, he, he was talking a lot about Bartók, as I said, and that's what Chris came up with, and I think it's absolutely breathtaking. So "Misty Roses" was very distinctly recorded in two parts. The first part was with just a- sort of a jazz guitar and then this wonderful string quartet piece that's probably two or three minutes long, and then it plays out with this string quartet and me, and when, when I first heard that - the play-out bit - I thought, "How am I gonna be able to sing over tha- what that quartet's playing?" but it, it, it works, you know. You just, you just have to get stuck in, and it works, and it was, it was so successful that we went on and did most of the rest of the album with Chris Gunning, and one of the tracks - it's actually the last song - again, "Time of the Season" was the last song - uh, a Denny Laine song called "Say You Don't Mind," uh, went on to be a big hit in the U.K. and ev- you know, there's so much chance in these things. We used to play that song with the original Zombies. We used to close the show with "Say You Don't Mind."
Pat: Wow!
Colin: And we tried to record it for the One Year album as a rock song, as we'd played it with the Zombies, but it didn't work, so we went back to Chris Gunning, and he came up with this magical arrangement. It's actually a twenty-one-piece string orchestra. It's not a string quartet.
Pat: Wow.
Colin: But it, it works with a string quartet.
Pat: Yeah.
Colin: It's a twenty-one-piece orchestra, and, um, yeah, it was a huge hit.
Pat: That's interesting that you say that about "How am I gonna sing?" because when, when I listen to a lot of the songs on that album, I just think, "How does he know when to come in?" you know? There's, there's no beat, but you find the harmony instantaneously, and, and it- wa- was that a challenge for you?
Colin: It was on some of them. I think really it's just working at it, you know. You just, you just have to get stuck in. The, the song I think I find most challenging is "Her Song." It's a song by Chris White, and it's- sometimes it's difficult to know where you are in the song beatwise.
Pat: Mmhm.
Colin: Because what they're playing is so drifty, and, and it's not an obvious backing for that song. I find that can be a bit of a challenge. The other songs I think, you know- I think I'm OK on the other songs, and, you know, there's talk- I- with this pandemic, I don't know what's happening with live music, but, um, there is talk of me coming over in November to, to play, uh, concerts across the country and playing One Year in its entirety to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the album, so I, I hope that that comes off. I really do.
Pat: Also another "Is this true about the internet?" at, at one point did you- you, you became an insurance clerk? Was that after the Zombies and before One Year?
Colin: It was. Uh, the three non-writers all, all took jobs. They had to.
Pat: Mmhm.
Colin: I had- didn't have any money. It was the first job I was offered. I didn't think that I was born to be an insurance clerk. I-
Pat: OK.
Colin: It was the first job I was offered, and in a way it helped me because I worked in the middle of London in a very busy insurance office. Uh, the phones were ringing constantly, and, and I was really sad, you- and, um, probably a bit depressed about the band finishing, but I didn't have any opportunity to dwell on it because, uh, I had to throw myself into this job.
Pat: Mmhm.
Colin: And, um, and I, I stayed there for nearly a year, I think, and then when "Time of the Season" was a big hit in the States, I started to get offers to record, and I got back into the music business.
Pat: That must have come at the right time for your morale.
Colin: Well, it did. I- It was "Time of the Season" or, or life as an insurance clerk, so I...
Pat: Right, right.
Colin: It, it was, uh, it was no choice, really. Once "Time of the Season" started to happen, I was off.
Pat: Right. And, and when you were playing gigs at this time, would, would you play Zombies numbers? I mean, I, I know you had "Smokey Day" was even on the album and a lot of the songs that [the] Zombies played.
Colin: Um, I'm trying to remember. Uh, uh, yeah, I did start playing about '71. I, in fact, I did the first ELO tour when-
Pat: Wow!
Colin: The, the first tour they did in the U.K. I did it with them. I don't think I played many Zombie tunes on that tour, but over the years, I have. We- but I have a- I still have a solo band now. I still, in- if there's any gaps, I still go out and play as a solo artist.
Pat: Right.
Colin: And I have a sort of a gentleman's agreement with Rod that I won't do too many Zombies tunes, so basically, I usually just do "She's Not There" and "Time of the Season."
Pat: Yeah.
Colin: You know.
Pat: Yeah.
Colin: And, and leave the rest of the Zombies' repertoire for the Zombies.
Pat: Right. And, and the Zombies- I think- correct me if I'm wrong. When I saw you, you played, like, "Hold Your Head Up," the Argent tune, right?
Colin: We do usually play that. Well, you know, Rod produced it. Rod, Rod played it. Chris White actually wrote it. I don't think anybody minds that we- such a great song, and we've got a definite connection, and we also- sometimes we play, uh, "God Gave Rock and Roll to You" because again, uh, Russ Ballard wrote that, but that's a- another Argent song, and a lot of people think it's a Kiss song, but obviously, Argent recorded it years before Kiss did it.
Pat: Right. And so then, then you have the second album, E- Ennismore. That's how I pronounce it, right? And on that album what's exciting to me is that you're kind of finding different things to do with your voice that you weren't necessarily doing previously.
Colin: Well, possibly. I, I think for me Ennismore was more, uh, an album where I was discovering my songwriting capabilities, and I wrote- I think I wrote probably seven of the songs on that album, and I find it very natural and- I mean it's, it's kind of obvious really, but, uh, it, it's much easier for me to sing songs that I wrote, so maybe that's what you're, you're seeing or you're hearing there: that it's my more natural singing voice because if you're written the song, it's very, very easy to record it. When you're recording other people's songs, I think you have to put a lot more effort into it.
Pat: Now were you always writing? Uh, I mean, because o- once we start seeing Colin Blunstone credits on the songs, you know, they're, they're really accomplished songs. We- were you writing and taking ideas to the other people in the Zombies, or was it just understood that Rod and Chris were kinda...
Colin: I always thought that songwriters were in a sort of a, a different career path to musicians. I thought- I didn't know that musicians could write their own songs, and, and to a large extent, that was true before the Beatles. Artists would go to publishers or songwriters to get their material, but the Beatles changed all that. When I saw Rod and Chris writing songs, I thought it was really exciting that they could do that, and I just tried to write as best I could, and I did write two songs for the Zombies, um, the original Zombies, and then after the Zombies finished, I kept on trying to write, and, you know, the more you try, the more songs come, and eventually, hopefully, they get a bit more sophisticated as well because I don't have any formal musical education, you know, I'm- I am literally making- sitting there and just making up a song as it, as it comes along, and certainly at the time of Ennismore, uh, I, I did have a lot of material, and I think it was a lot to do with the fact [that] I lived in a flat for a time in a place called Ennismore Gardens in London - it's just at the back of the Albert Hall - with a couple of other guys. Uh, one was a singer/songwriter called Duncan Browne. He, he's sadly no longer with us, but if you get the chance to check out his albums
Pat: Mmhm.
Colin: uh, they're absolutely fabulous. He was also in a, a band called Metro at one time, and they have one or two albums. So there was Duncan and myself and his manager, who was called Patrick Lacey, and we all played guitar, and we used to just stay up very, very late, may- nearly all night, just playing guitar, and, and it just really helped me develop as a songwriter. I, I lived in that flat for a year, and I suddenly found- you know, it just freed up my ideas, and I suddenly found I could write lots of songs, and that's why I called my second album Ennismore.
Pat: Mmhm.
Colin: After that flat where, where we were just playing guitars all the time, and it, it was a wonderful time, and I think that's where I found my feet as a songwriter.
Pat: So then you're, you're playing more, and wh- when is, when is the first Zombies reunion? It's not until, like, 2000-something, right?
Colin: It's nearly that, yeah. I, I was working with Rod, um- Rod produced one or two of my albums and some singles. I did some shows with him. Um, you know, I was still seeing him all the time, but we weren't working regularly together, and then in- and I have to say Rod remembers this differently, but, um, this is how I remember it: in 1999, I was working as a solo artist, and I had a keyboard player who was a bit unreliable. He had a slight problem in that if anyone offered him a gig and encouraged him to play his own songs - this was the key - and say, "Yeah, we'd love you to come and play in our coffee bar to five people and play your own songs," he just- he wouldn't turn up for my gigs, and it, it was getting scary, you know. Um, I was- I never knew if he was gonna turn up or not, and I thought, "I wonder if Rod would consider doing a few gigs" 'cause he'd been working as a producer. He hadn't played live much in the last few years, and I just took a chance and said, you know, "I've got these six dates left, and would you consider doing them?" and he said, "Yeah, yeah, I'd like to, but I only wanna do those six dates, very definitely only wanna do those six dates," and I thought, "Well, fantastic," and it, it worked again as soon as we were back on stage. It worked.
Pat: Mmhm.
Colin: Uh, the, the combination be- between him and I, and although he was only gonna do the six dates, here we are twenty-something years later, and we're still, we're still playing, but originally, you know, there was no idea of reforming the Zombies. We didn't play many Zombie tunes. We had no idea that there was a[n] interest in the band. Uh, it may be hard for people to believe that, but, um, once we started playing, we realized from the audience that they wanted to hear more Zombie tunes.
Pat: Mmhm.
Colin: And then eventually, after- it was probably six or seven years, we thought, "Listen, we're playing a Zombies show. Let's talk to Chris White and Hugh Grundy about us using the name," and, and they were fi- uh, they were [a] little concerned to start with, but in the end, they said- they gave us their blessing, and we became the, the second incarnation of the Zombies, and, and we played a Zombies set.
Pat: Didn't either Hugh or Chris join for a little bit?
Colin: They did! Can I just say that although we did play lots of the original Zombie tunes, we were always writing new songs and always wri- recording new albums. We've recorded four or five albums since we got back together again, and the last one, Still Got That Hunger, actually got into the Billboard top hundred. I think it was 2008, Chris White got the idea of forming a concert to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Odessey and Oracle. Everybody thought it was a pretty good idea, and it was really funny actually: Rod and I had this conversation - it may have been driven by me - and I said, "Listen, we're out playing all the time. We need, we need to check before we commit to this- we need to check if Chris and Hugh can play these songs." Not, not being mean, but it's important.
Pat: Right.
Colin: You know, they hadn't played professionally in thirty-something years, so we got together to play Odessey and Oracle through, and Rod and I hadn't really rehearsed it at all. We presumed, you know, we- 'cause we'd been out playing, we'd be fine. Hugh Grundy and Chris White had rehearsed extensively. They were note-perfect, absolutely note-perfect. Rod and I were all over the place, so it's a- it was a bit embarrassing, actually. It was a bit embarrassing.
Pat: [indistinct beneath Colin's comment]
Colin: Um, but obviously, that was good news, and we were gonna do one night at the Shepherd's Bush Empire. It's a kind of a medium-sized theater in fairly central London, but tickets were so popular, we did three nights, so that was with the original members of the band a- and supplemented with some other players as well, wonderful players. Darian Sahanaja from the Brian Wilson band played second keyboards, and, and some of the guys from the current incarnation of the Zombies helped out with backing vocals and so forth, so we did three nights at Hammersmith Odeon, and then the next year, we, we then- we went 'round the country and played quite a few of the, the big dates 'round the country, and then we came to America, and so we, we've done that quite a few times, but I don't think we will probably- I don't think there are any plans to do it again. We, we s- we did it again for the fiftieth anniversary,
Pat: Right.
Colin: which was, um, 2018, and we played a lot of dates, um, and the last time we did it, we actually toured with Brian Wilson, and we played Odessey and Oracle in the first half in its entirety, but I, I think probably that's it now. It was great to play with, with Chris and Hugh again after all these years.
Pat: What do you have, uh, lined up for this big concert that's coming up, uh, the, uh, Abbey Road taping?
Colin: We're gonna play five new songs, and, and otherwise, you know, we're, we're gonna play a selection of songs that we've recorded more recently and of course the standard songs that, that people want to hear, so I think it'll be a really exciting concert. I, I think it should be fantastic.
Pat: There's so many bands these days that had such a short burst at first, then a long dormancy, and then their second act together. I mean, you've been playing Zombies songs again for more time than the Zombies existed in the first place, like four, four times as much!
Colin: I know. I know. It's, it's strange, isn't it? I don't pretend to understand it, and in regard to the Zombies, I mean, I- oth- other bands will have their own story, but with the Zombies, so much of it's been left to chance, you know. How I got in the band in the first place. If I hadn't been sitting in alphabetical order, I wouldn't have probably got in the band in the first place, you know.
Pat: Right, right.
Colin: Um, and it, it's, it's just been a, a series of coincidences and chances all the way along, but then you have to make the most of your opportunities. That's the thing. You, you have to do that, and the other thing is: you need stamina. I think it's really important. There are so many wonderful musicians who just get beaten down by the business, and you know, you have to be sensitive enough to write songs and perform songs, but you've gotta have a, an inner strength as well. It's not always easy to tell who's gonna be strong and who's not, but you, you do need that.
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Pat: You do need that inner strength, and Colin Blunstone and the Zombies certainly seem to have that. Remember to check out veeps.com on Saturday, September 18th for the Zombies' livestream from Abbey Road. Also check out thezombies.veeps.com for more info and offers. Times will vary according to where you are because it's a livestream, so in Britain where Abbey Road is, that means 8pm on September 18th, which means 3pm on the east coast of the U.S., noon on the west coast of the U.S., and since we do have some listenership in Australia - mostly in New South Wales - that will be Sunday, September 19th at 5am. Also keep on eye out for tour dates to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Colin Blunstone's One Year album. You know what else to keep an eye out for? Berklee Online discounts. That's right. You can save $100 off your first course with us by going to musicismylifepod.com. All the info you need is right there. Check it out. This episode**** was edited by Talia Smith, mastered by Jose David Vindas Mora. All visual assets coordinated by Mike DeBenedictis. Social media by Brooke Larson. Web assistance courtesy of Mark Thomas, Dee Zimmerman, and Joe McDenna. Thanks to our video team who posts these episodes on YouTube two weeks after they premiere on podcast services, and speaking of YouTube, you'll definitely want to subscribe to the Berklee Online YouTube channel because if you do, you'll be the first to know about our upcoming video interview series 4/4. The first episode premieres soon with Lou Barlow. Really excited 'bout this. And while I'm talking about subscribing and the like, please leave a review for the Music Is My Life podcast on iTunes. We're seeing lots of listenership, but we could see even more with a little help from you, my friends, when you leave a positive review. OK, back to the credits: I wrote and recorded the Music Is My Life theme song, but the expert remixing comes courtesy of Lilly Dickinson. Special thanks to Gabriel Ryfer Cohen, Greg Faucher, and you, our listeners. So stay inspired. Thanks for listening. We'll talk soon.
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*"You Make Me Feel Good" was the B-side to "She's Not There" in both the U.S. and U.K. Colin seems to me thinking of "Leave Me Be," which was the Zombies' second U.K. single but wasn't released in the U.S.
**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."
***According to AllMusic, Five Leaves Left, Drake's first album, was released 1 September 1969, and according to Russo's Collector's Guide, One Year was released in the U.K. on 5 November 1971.
****Via internet searches, I was able to verify the correct spellings of the names of most of the people listed in the credits, but there were a few I couldn't find.
[Last updated 10 October 2026]
