[As of this writing (30 March 2024), the video is unavailable, but I'd downloaded it before it was set to private. Over the last six months or so, I transcribed it, but there are a few comments I can't make out, and I may have some other errors.]
Host (Scott Goldman): Would you please welcome the Zombies. Thanks for being here, Rod. Really appreciate it. [To Chris] Thanks for being here. It is so great to have you guys here. Um, all I know, all I know is I have gotten more phone calls from, from all manner of people wanting to be in this theater tonight to hear you guys talk about your careers. Um, and, and play some music, so, so thank you very much for
Rod: Great pleasure
Host: for taking the time. Um, so, the first question, and I wanna talk a little bit about, about, you know slightly more recent events, and then we'll kind of roll the clock back a little bit, but, but, you know, talking about recently or within the last few years, what was the impetus to bring the band back together?
Rod: Well, if, if we're talking about the four guys that are here
Host: Uh-huh
Rod: Um, I mean Colin and I actually got back together by accident in around the, late 1999/2000 to play six gigs for fun, and that's all we intended to do, and that six gigs in a very, very gradual way, the momentum gathered, and we did a few more and a few more. We eventually thought we would come over to the States, and we, when we first came over, we played in a very low key way, and we, we, we maybe played to, uh, sometimes fifty, sixty hundred people, um, and we've built that up actually over the last seventeen years
Host: Yeah
Rod: to, to the extent where for instance we had the biggest ever audience in, um, in, uh, LA, for the, um, the, free festival, I have to say.
Host: Yes, yeah
Rod: but the twenty-two thousand people turned up.
Colin: The Santa Monica beach that was...
Rod: Santa Monica, wasn't it?
Colin: Santa Monica.
Host: Oh, oh, oh, on the pier!
Rod: On the pier.
Host: On the pier!
Colin: Twenty-two thousand
Host: I remember that!
Rod: And after that, they said, um,
Host: Because I was in, like, a really bad traffic jam, you know, like tryin', yeah, yeah.
Rod: But after that, they said, um, we're not having any more of these events because it's just, it's getting out of, out of control, apparently. But anyway, the thing is, we're very proud of the fact that we built, I mean, wherever we play now, we tend to get sell-out crowds et cetera, et cetera
Host: Sure.
Rod: So that was the impetus, but then, around the fortieth anniversary of, um, Odessey and Oracle, Chris, who used to come to our concerts, said, "Do you know what? We've never, ever played Odessey from start to finish" because some of the, some of the tracks, we, you can't play without having every single note, um, on the track replicated. Some of the tracks do work, the simpler songs, the more straight ahead songs, and, and things like even "Care of Cell 44" work. Um, things like "This Will Be Our Year" work, with five people, but as soon as you get to things like "Brief Candles" or "Hung up on a Dream"
Host: Mm.
Rod: you need every single note replicated, and Chris said, "Why don't we, why don't we actually get the, all the original surviving members back together, use your current band as well to do the extra harmonies, the extra bits of, you know, keyboard, whatever," and we did that. We didn't know if it was going to work at all, and on that first night, um, in Shepherd's Bush, in, in London, um, we were about to go out on stage, and we had a real panic attack because people kept coming up and saying, uh, "Paul Weller's standing in the rain in line." Oh, ---. And then someone else said, uh, "Robert Plant's just come in," and then they said, um, "Oh, Snow Patrol have just-," and we thought, and I thought, "If this doesn't work" -'cause we haven't played together- "it's gonna be the longest night of my life." But in
Host: But I'm, I'm wondering for, for, for you guys, when you hear that: that Paul Weller was waiting in line, that, that, that the guys from Snow Patrol were waiting in line to hear you
Chris: Well, Paul Weller always said that he was totally influenced by hearing Odessey and Oracle.
Host: Mmhm.
Chris: And um, in actual fact, I embarrassedly introduced myself to him 'cause I really like what he does, backstage.
Host: Yeah.
Chris: And I said, "Uh, Paul, my name's Chris White," and he gave me a big bear hug and said, "Chris White, you're the reason I started writing songs." That was, that was unbelievable.
Host: Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. That, that's, that's fantastic. Um, um, and, and, and I, and I wanna talk much more about, about Odessey and Oracle, but I, but I, but I do wanna talk about this, this record Still Got, Still Got That Hunger. Be- because what I find fascinating is: in everything I've read about it, you've commented about how it was so organic in that it was, it was a bunch of guys playing live on the floor, there was, there was, you know, there was not a lot of, you know, "Well, we'll punch this in; we'll overdub this; we'll, we'll do that." It was really about guys making music together.
Rod: We, we, we made a conscious decision that we wanted to get a group of songs together, and we wanted to travel back in time in a way, and the thing is: I've done a lot of record production, and I've done every sort of, um, every aspect of record production: building things up in layers
Host: Mmhm.
Rod: from the start, in, in, in every, every way, um, but we said, "Why don't we go back to that old, um, sort of-." The kernel of the whole thing was to actually capture a moment in the way that we used to have to because there was no other way of doing it in 1964; you had four tracks, um, so we would have to play live, maybe with a guide vocal and put the vocal on afterwards, but, um, everything was captured at that one moment. We were all responding to each other. We got Chris Potter. In fact, Chris Potter, um, got in touch with us, um, the guy that did the Verve's Urban Hymn albums and, and some Stones stuff and whatever. He said, "I, I, I've seen a couple of your gigs, and I, and I really love it. Um, can I produce an album for you?" And we said, "Yeah, why not?" So, in fact, um, we, we decided to get a studio, um, and in the very old-fashioned way of things, um, we all played together in the same room, um, Colin was singing guide vocals. The whole idea was that we're gonna do the album in five days for the basic tracks. The following five days in the next week we were gonna really concentrate on the lead vocal, and the solos, re-, revisit the solos, get the very best out of all those things. In actual fact, the whole thing worked so wonderfully well, um, that all the guide vocals turned out to be lead vocals, and we didn't even revisit any solos. It was exactly what was captured on that moment. We didn't use a sync track; we didn't use a click track. Chris Potter said, "I think you should use a click track. I think you should actually. You know, just in case we need to revisit things or wanna comp between tracks." A couple of times we did comp between different takes, but the tempos were so exact that you can't tell, and we had a ball doing it, didn't we?
Colin: Absolutely. I mean I, I'd love to record like that again, I mean. Another thing that we did was, uh, the same as with Odessey and Oracle. With Odessey and Oracle, we had a very small recording budget, and we were in the most expensive studio in the world, probably, in Abbey Road, and so we realized we've got to rehearse really extensively before we went into the studio and then record very fast, which is what we did.
Host: Ha! Ha!
Colin: Very, very fast.
Host: Get it done now!
Colin; Yeah, and, um, so we took an, an element of that into this new album so that we did rehease extensively.
Host: Yeah.
Colin: When we went into the studio, we. the keys were all set; the arrangements were all set. All we were looking for was the performance, and it, I think it's a magical way to record. I'd love to do the next album like that, so we're doing it, really, it's a live album, but in a studio environment.
Host: Mmhm.
Rod: Can I just add one thing to that?
Host: Please.
Rod: And, and that is that, I say this on stage every night, but it's so true that the only, I mean we love playing all the old stuff, honestly. We don't get tired of it. We, and, and, and it feels fresh to us all the time, but it's always within the context of knowing that we can continue to energize ourselves by writing new material, by recording new material, and getting excited about it, and then playing it in front of what are terrific audiences now and getting a response back from them and the energy back from them. That's so important to us.
Host: Yeah. Yeah.
Rod: And I don't think there are many people of our vintage that actually still get the same buzz out of that creative energy, you know.
Host: Mmhm.
Rod: Because that is really important to us.
Host: Mmhm. Well, and, and the, the ability to continue, you know, the sort of that creative exploration, um, and even though you have this, you know, incredible catalogue of, of songs, I imagine must re-invigorate the catalogue.
Rod: I think it does, and I think there are, there are parts in all, uh, most of the songs in our catalogue, there are areas where you can improvise, where you can actually change things slightly. Obviously, not the harmonies; I mean, they're set.
Host: Mmhm.
Rod: Um, and there are lots of set parameters within the songs, but at the same time, there's always room to actually, um, investigate slightly other areas, and we've got a band where everybody listens, and that's such a joy.
Host: Yeah.
Rod: Because you know that if you go somewhere slightly different in a solo, they're going with you.
Host: Yeah.
Rod: And that's cool.
Host: I, I, I, I, I have to ask; there's so many questions about, about Odessey and Oracle and, and the, and the band's, um, uh, uh, approach to that, so, so you mentioned, Colin, you mentioned going to, to, to Abbey Road.
Colin: Yes.
Host: Now, not necessarily easy in 1967 to get time at Abbey Road if you were not signed to EMI.
Colin: To EMI. I mean it's a little bit of a mystery how that happened, but I, I think... I've only learned quite recently that our old producer was a guy called Ken Jones, and when we had explained to him that we didn't, I mean, it's a funny thing to say, "We don't wanna work with you anymore" and then turn round and say, you know, "Can you help us get into Abbey Road?" but I think that's how it worked because to my knowledge no EM- no non-EMI artist had ever worked in Abbey Road, and so suddenly we found ourselves in there. We were in studio three, and the, the Beatles had just left, unfortunately, days before we went in there; they'd just finished, um, Sgt. Pepper, so we didn't actually meet them, and they were mostly in studio two, uh, when they were recording, but we always recorded in studio three, and then we went on, and I know Argent recorded albums in studio three.
Host: Sure.
Colin: Um, and I recorded three solo albums in studio three, so it was quite a, a favorite
Host: Yeah.
Colin: uh, studio, and there were wonderful, wonderful engineers there, like Geoff Emerick and Peter Vince
Host: Mm.
Colin: who worked on Odessey and Oracle, and of course that, that makes such a difference. I, I often think it's the engineers; it's not the studio, you know?
Host: Mm.
Colin: It's the people, the people you're working with
Host: Who, who
Colin: not the equipment that make all the difference.
Host: Sure. And, and one, one thing that, one thing that I found unusual, especially for this time, um, yes, you know, Peter and, and Geoff Emerick, uh, amazing engineers, but you guys worked essentially without a producer.
Chris: Uh, no, we produced it.
Host: Oh, you, I mean, you,
Chris: Oh, yeah
Host: You, you got, but, but, but that, that was not necessarily the norm.
Chris: No, it, 'cause we, why we wanted to produced ourselves was the fact that we weren't allowed at the mixing sessions at that point.
Host: Right.
Chris: And, and we were frustrated because basically we were a lot harder sounding than Ken tended to make us. He did a great job with us, but, he, he was stuck in one sort of, and we wish we could be there at the mix, say, "Can you try so and so"
Host: Yeah.
Chris: But he was the old-school. We weren't allowed to be at the mixing.
Host: Sure, sure.
Chris: So that's why Rod and I said, "Well, we'd rather do it ourselves."
Rod: Because we'd rather, the, I mean Chris and I, actually, it just occurred to me the other night when we were on stage that Chris and I shared a flat along with Terry Quirk, who did the cover art
Host: Uh, yes.
Rod: of Odessey and Oracle.
Host: Yes.
Rod: So it was a, a little family environment, almost, you know? And we, we spent the time in that flat writing the album, and then we said, "We have to, we have to get our own ideas down as to how these songs should sound" because at the time we quite often made demos, didn't we?
Chris: Yes.
Rod: And, and the, and the demos were much closer to how we wanted things to sound than the final
Host: Uh-huh.
Rod: records often, and it was frustrating us immensely.
Host: Yeah.
Rod: So that's why we did it.
Chris: Yeah.
Host: Yeah, I mean it was, it was very much the norm back then that, that bands would go in, they'd record, and then, "Thank you very much, boys," and, you know, "Good afternoon," and you were not involved in basically anything after that.
Chris: Yes.
Host: After you record.
Chris: "You'll just interrupt us all the while," you know, too many opinions.
Host: Yeah.
Chris: It didn't work out like that when we did it.
Host: Yeah. What, was it, was it a case, especially in the early records, was it a case where you guys went in, and, you know, was the guys in the white coats who, you know, kind of, you know, ran the equipment and, you know, God forbid you
Chris: Oh, yes, yes.
Host: you should touch the equipment. There was none of that.
Chris: Oh, no, no, we could touch the equipment. In fact, we had to because we used
Rod: It was co-mixing, wasn't it?
Chris: Yeah, co-mixing.
Rod: Yeah, yeah.
Chris: Dropping in on four tracks.
Host: Uh-huh.
Chris: Originally
Host: Right, oh, I see, yeah.
Chris: So we had to put things on different tracks.
Host: Yes.
Colin: That's true of Odessey and Oracle, but on the Decca tracks, we, we weren't allowed to touch
Rod: No, we weren't; you're right.
Host: Yeah, yeah, not.
Colin: the, you know, so, uh, "She's Not There" and "Tell Her No" and things like that, we were kept away from, from the desk. I mean, if I could just tell you
Host: Please.
Colin: a, a quick story about, um, "She's Not There." It was our first time in a professional studio, and it was very, um, it was thought to be very cool to record in the evenings, and, and sometimes into the night. I don't know- we would never do that now, but, uh, 'cause we'd, 'cause we'd fall asleep at our age.
Rod: [Indistinct] I think it's about time that we went now, isn't it, Colin?
Colin: Well, we got to, uh, Decca Studios in West Hampstead, and unfortunately, the engineer, who was a wonderful engineer, but he'd been at a wedding all day, so this is our first time in the studio, and he was absolutely, paralytically drunk, and he was also very aggressive, and it's sort of ironic that having been in the business for fifty something years, in that first session, I knew that with this madman in the studio, the music business was not for me. I knew it. But, anyway, we had a bit of luck; he passed out cold, flat on the, on the control room floor. We had to carry him up three flights of stairs
Chris: One on each limb.
Colin: Yes. We, we put him in a black London taxi, and we waved him goodbye. I never saw him again, ever, and, uh, the funny thing was, his assistant engineer took over, and his assistant engineer was Gus Dudgeon.
Host: Oh my gosh.
Colin: Who went on, went on to be
Host: Oh my gosh.
Colin: one of the biggest producers of all time.
Host: Yes, yes!
Colin: So, uh
Chris: It was his first session as well.
Colin: It was his first session and our first session.
Host: See, I, you know, uh, I mean, we, we hear this so often from artists, you know, in that time. There were so many creative people whether, whether it was musicians, engineers, producers, particularly in Britain, um, um, who were all seemed to be growing up together. I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm sure in the moment you, you didn't have a sense of that, but as you look back at it...
Rod: You have, you had a sense of a cultural explosion actually.
Host: Yeah, yeah.
Rod: You did have that sense, and it felt, you know, I, I often think that maybe it was, you know, after, particularly in the U.K., there was so much austerity in the war, and after the war, suddenly, there was a, a young generation, obviously starting with the time of Elvis Presley and Bill Haley and
Host: Yeah.
Rod: and, and Little Richard and, and all that, which excited the whole generation that became the British Invasion generation.
Host: Mmhm.
Rod: You know, that's what turned everybody on. But everything at that time seemed to be possible, creatively. There didn't seem to be any rules. The record company people didn't understand the music, so they just left it up to you, and, and so there were no, there were no strictures; there were no, no people saying, "No, you've gotta sound more like this"; they just didn't know.
Host: Yeah.
Rod: So they just said, "Oh, OK," you know.
Host: "Do your thing."
Rod: And, and, and it was a very free and very explorative environment.
Host: Yeah, yeah.
Rod: It was great, actually.
Host: You were, um, uh, you're, you were mentioning, you know, some of the early sessions, and I, I was struck by a song on the, on the most recent project, uh, "New York."
Rod: Yeah.
Host: Um, you know, talking about your, your, your first trip to the United States. Talk about, the, you know, the leading edge of the British Invasion. Um, um, and those, those shows were remarkable because there were so many artists, you know, on these shows. Tell us a little bit about that experience in New York being on these, these multi-act shows.
Chris: Well, it was when we first.... You see, we were quite young, and we came over to New York just after "She's Not There" was getting up to number one, and first of all, this was our magic land, New York. We'd only seen it in television programs, and to come over and hear police sirens, 'cause we, our cars had bells on them. They didn't have sirens.
Host: Ha!
Chris: And, and, and to meet all our heroes, actually, to work on the same bill as them was absolutely fantastic. Mind you, we only played three songs; everybody did that.
Host: Right, yeah.
Chris: But, and we did eight shows a day.
Host: Yeah. Eight!?
Chris: Yes.
Rod: We started at eight o'clock in the morning, and we finished at eleven at night, and the thing was, when we turned up, we were scared stiff because we thought, "Here, we are," you know, uh, "five skinny, young, white kids, come..."
Chris: You speak for yourself.
Rod: And uh, and, and, we were turning up, and we thought, "They're gonna hate us because, uh, the, the person sound checking before us when we walked into the theater was Patti LaBelle, and
Host: Hello.
Rod: And, and, and we thought, "How are we gonna follow that?" And we thought they were gonna hate us, but in fact they, they didn't. They, they, they took us to their hearts. Uh, I wrote the lyrics to the song "New York" when I was in a car, actually, and it, and the second verse just came, came straight to me, and it's "I walked into the Brooklyn Fox that," uh, "snowy Christmas day," and, um, uh, "And Patti and her Bluebelles simply stole my heart away / She took me to Aretha Franklin, showed me so much soul / And helped us join the party with our English rock and roll," and she really did.
Host: Hmm.
Rod: And she, they accepted us, and, and they, they, they told, she told us about Aretha, didn't she? And about Nina Simone.
Host: Yeah, she, she, she gave you, she gave you some, some tips about
Rod: Oh, man.
Host: people you should be listening to.
Rod: Totally.
Chris: Quite definitely, yes, yeah. It was absolutely.... When I first heard this, 'cause I had nothing to do with that song, but when I first heard it, I thought it was the best thing he'd done for ages, and it was so personal, and I really like that track.
Host: Yeah, yeah.
Hugh: Not to mention, of course, huge respect for those musicians that we were seeing on stage.
Host: Sure.
Hugh: And, of course, that was where we getting it from in the first place: by listening on the radio, uh, in our early days, and being totally influenced by them.
Rod: Ben E. King. Drifters.
Hugh: But when we turned up, when we, yes, yeah,
Rod: Shirelles.
Hugh: But when we turned up and played, uh, they were blown away, which was absolutely wonderful.
Colin: It's kind of funny, you know, I often felt quite guilty when we came over and we played in America because a lot of what we played was American songs and done in an American style, well, we were certainly trying to do that, and, and when people were going crazy, I often, I wanted to say to them, "Listen, this is your music. We're just playing your music."
Host: Yeah, yeah.
Colin: But, you, know, as Rod often said, it had been through a British Invasion filter, so it, it was coming out slightly different, but a lot of the material that we played in those early days and a lot of the first wave of the British Invasion, we were playing American music to American audiences who were reacting as if it was something totally new. So I mean, I, I always feel guilty about everything; I shall find a reason for feeling guilty to be here tonight.
Rod: I...
Colin: But that was my current guilt.
Host: Yeah, I can, I mean there was so many
Hugh: I remember, I remember the
Host: Go, go ahead.
Hugh: Just quickly, I just remember the drummer with the house band, who was backing all those wonderful people, came up to me one afternoon and said, "Man," he said, he said, "I love your bass drum work," and I thought, "You were who I got it from."
Host: Yeah.
Rod: But it was... well, one thing I could never get my head round that we, we were still nineteen or some of us were, anyway, yeah, yeah
Chris: I'm a bit older, yes.
Rod: Um, and, um
Hugh: And always will be.
Rod: I remember the day when I was eleven when, uh, the current bass player in our, in our, in our band, when, when Chris is not with us, uh, is the guy that was for eighteen years with the Kinks, um, on their biggest ever selling albums, et cetera, et cetera.
Host: Yeah.
Rod: He was in Argent with me. He was my cousin, a few years older than me, and he played me Elvis singing "Hound Dog." That's what turned me on to rock and roll music. And then I thought that.... I saw that little bit of footage on TV that they were showing about, of Elvis, and I thought, "This is a super being from another universe," you know? It had nothing to do with anything that I could aspire to at all.
Host: Sure.
Rod: Then just nine, just, uh, eight years later, we had the number one record in the States, and not only that, we found out many years later that Elvis had three of our songs on his juke box, and so that was like a complete turn around.
Host: That's pretty cool, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rod: And that, that, that was so hard to take in, wasn't it? All that.
Host: And, and
Chris: We went to Graceland, but he was out.
Host: Yeah, yeah.
Chris: His uncle showed us round.
Host: And to think, and to think that, um, you, Rod, did, didn't think that a piano belonged in a rock band.
Rod: No, no, in, uh, in our very first rehearsal, I, I was desperate to form a band, and I'd got a disparate group of people together, um, a couple of people from my school. Hugh had never played a drum kit in his life. He was playing in the, in the cadet corps, um, and I, and I tried to pick the person who had the best sense of rhythm playing [imitates military-style drumming], you know? And, um, asked him to be in a band. He said, "Yeah, I don't mind." So that was, that was the drummer, um, uh
Hugh: To my great pleasure, little did I know what a change it would make to the rest of my life, I have to say.
Rod: Yeah.
Host: Ha!
Rod: And then, and then Paul [Atkinson] was in, in, in, in, uh, a form just below me, and I liked the way he was playing guitar in a folk club. That was two people. Um, I had a mate who was building a bass guitar, never played a note of anything in his life. That was the only person that ever left the band, actually, is a guy called Paul Arnold, who's now a doctor in Canada. Um, and, and he said, "I sit" - he went to a different school, and he said, "I sit in front, alphabetically, of a guy, um, who plays guitar." 'Cause I was gonna be the singer. "He plays guitar, and he sings a bit." And I said, "Well, bring him along; bring him along." And we all turned up on the first rehearsal. Colin played a lot of rugby at the time, and he'd broken his nose, and he had, he had two black eyes, and he looked pretty terrible, actually, and, and as
Hugh: He frightened us all; he frightened us.
Host: Perfect for rock and roll.
Rod: As, as we were turning up, I said to Jim Rodford, who was in the, in, in the car with me, "Oh, ---, I hope that's not him," but it was. And so we all walked down to the rehearsal room, and we started rehearsing, and, um, it all seemed to go quite well, we thought. Um, in fact, Jim showed Hugh the first bass drum and snare pattern that he'd, that he'd ever played, so we
Host: Mmhm.
Chris: He's got it about now, haven't you?
Rod: Yeah.
Hugh: Just about now. Yeah, think I've got it.
Rod: And, and, and we got that off, and then, it, uh, we had a break, and I wandered over to a beaten-up, old piano and started playing "Nutrocker," and Colin came racing over to me and said, "Oh, man," he said, "You've gotta play piano in the band." And I said, "Well, no, it's a, it's a rock and roll band, isn't it? It's, it's, it's just guitars. It should be just guitars, really." And, and I was a bit confused, and then about twenty minutes later, we had another break, and he picked up a guitar and started singing an old Ricky Nelson song, and he sounded fabulous, and I said to him, "OK, you can be the lead singer, and I'll, I, I'll play guitar, you know," and that was it.
Host: Yeah.
Rod: That's, that's what happened on the first rehearsal.
Host: Yeah
Chris: You mean piano, you mean.
Rod: Yeah, yeah, sorry, piano.
Host: Yeah, 'cause you [Colin] were not originally intended to be the lead singer.
Colin: Not at all, no, I mean, I had the shortest audition in the world because the guy who sat in front of me at school said, "You've got a guitar, haven't you?" and I said, "Yes," and he said, "You're in the band," and that was it, so I was gonna be rhythm guitarist, and I think the first tune we ever played- Rod didn't play this because he was the lead singer, and we did, we, we just did an instrumental, and it was "Malagueña," and I just had to play E minor and A minor, and I thought I was pretty good.
Rod: You got most, got most of it right.
Colin: Yeah, I got most of it right. Most of the E minors were right on; the A minors were a bit not so good. And, uh, and then Rod went and played this big piano piece. I mean it was a totally different league to what we were doing, and I didn't know him; he went to a different school to me, so I went over and said, you know, "Hey, you, whoever you are, um, that is really effective, and I, I, I really think you should play keyboards," and as Rod said, that, the rest happened.
Host: Did, did, did you, did, did, did you realize kind of instinctively that this sort of keyboard-forward sound would be, would be kind of your signature, would be unique for....
Colin: I don't think we were really thinking in those terms. I mean, perhaps later on we would.
Host: Yeah.
Colin: But what we wanted to do, first of all, we just wanted to play a gig. It took us a year. See, the first rehearsal we had, Jim Rodford, who's in our current band, um, he let us lend, or, or borrow all the equipment from his band, which was the biggest local band, and so we sounded like a band, as anyone would with, with big amplifiers and things like that. The second rehearsal, we used our equipment. Well, we didn't have any. Hugh was playing drums on, we had one speaker cabinet, and he had two drum sticks, and that's how he played the drums, on the speaker cabinet, um
Hugh: If, if you recall, you and I used to go to rehearsals on my scooter.
Colin: A Lam-, Lambda? Vespa?
Hugh: Which is like a small motorbikey-type thing, uh, with the drums on the back.
Colin: And my guitar.
Hugh: And his guitar.
Colin: Two of us.
Hugh: The group van.
Colin: Yeah, but I mean the main aim was to, to first of all play this first gig, and it took us a year to play the first gig.
Host: Yeah.
Colin: And then we built up a bit of a local following, bit by bit. It, it took us three or four years, and then we won a big rock competition, which led directly or indirectly, 'cause we all remember it differently, to a recording deal with Decca.
Host: With Decca, yeah, yeah.
Colin: And that's when we recorded "She's Not There."
Host: What, what, you know, one of the things that, that, uh, and, and, and I, I, I wanted to ask you about this because some of it, I think, gets to, um, you know, being a little naive, perhaps, to the, to the intricacies of music, works to a band's benefit in that listening to your harmonies, it's, it's, it's not, it's not simple.
Colin: No.
Host: It's, it's very much against convention, um, and I think it came to you guys in a very organic way because your voice kind of gravitated to that
Colin: To the top.
Host: To that top part.
Colin: It's very, it's quite simple to, um, to explain how it happened. Rod was in the cathedral choir, and so he understood harmonies very well and also [from] being a very good keyboard player. He understood harmonies very well, and right from the beginning, we were always gonna do harmony. It wasn't fashionable then; this is before the Beatles had hit records.
Host: Mmhm.
Colin: It wasn't fashionable, and, and it's quite difficult to do, to play instruments and do harmonies as well, but the way we found that worked for us, and I know it's driven bands crazy tryin' to work out what harmonies we're doing. It was just tailored for us.
Host: Mmhm.
Colin: And what we would do, 'cause I have a quite a high voice, if we were going into a block harmony, they would say, "Sing what comes naturally to you," and I would often drift into the top harmony, so we would do that two or three times, so I've got that fixed in my mind, and then Rod would try and set a fairly easy harmony for Chris.
Chris: For me, yes.
Colin: Because
Hugh: [Indistinct]
Colin: Because
Chris: And Rod would fill in the rest.
Colin: Well, he's gotta play bass as well, and that bass note may be a different note to the note that he's trying to sing, so that is, is quite a tough one. So I'm taking often the top harmony; Chris is taking often a one-note harmony: [sings multiple notes of the same pitch].
Chris: Hey, watch it.
Colin: And then, the tricky bit is what Rod had to do 'cause he had to fill in all the holes, so his harmony would often be [sings notes of wildly varying pitches], but when you put it all together, it worked, and now when people try to copy our harmonies, they can't do it.
Host: Yeah.
Hugh: I, I, I'm very, I'm
Colin: And why would they want to!?
Hugh: I'm very proud to say that I was allowed to sing a little bit on, uh, "Changes," which is a track, of course, on Odessey, uh, but, bless you, you gave me the bottom harmony alongside Paul, singing it in unison, but nevermind, I did sing on it, and I do it onstage now, which is great.
Host: Yeah!
Chris: Yeah. It was during that, um,
Host: So
Chris: It was during that whole recording of "Changes" where we let Paul and Hugh sing - we had to because we were limited on tracks - is that we were very tight, 'cause it was three-hour sessions, and right at the end of the session, the door opened, and the men in the white coats came in, started moving a piano while we were doing the harmonies, and we had to keep it.
Host: Wow. Um,
Hugh: They do say, they do say you can hear
Chris: Not the piano
Host: Yeah
Hugh: you can just about hear it, but I think that's a bit apocryphal.
Host: Yeah, huh. So tell me 'bout, tell me 'bout the first time any of you heard "She's Not There" on the radio. First time you heard it on the radio.
Colin: I remember the first time I heard it on TV because there was a big TV program called Juke Box Jury, and they would have four people on this jury, and it's a national TV program, and it's years ago now, of course, but, um, there were four people on the jury, and they would play thirty seconds of so many records, and they would say whether it's gonna be a hit or not, and George Harrison was on the panel this week, this particular week, and they played "She's Not There," and he said, "Well done, Zombies!" I mean
Host: Ah!
Colin: We, we were in heaven, you know, and if there was ever any doubt it was gonna be a hit, after that, George said, "Well done, Zombies," it's a hit
Host: Done.
Colin: you know so
Host: Done.
Colin: that was great.
Host: That, that's fantastic. And, and, and I have to ask you, and it's somewhat cliché to, to ask this, but the name of the band. Now, now, today, if someone named their band the Zombies, I don't think anyone would think twice or give it an igno-second's worth of thought; however, in 1961, um, this was kind of a radical decision.
Colin: Desperation, I think. Well, we'd been through at least two names before that. You know, that's one of the most important things being just sitting around- nevermind whether you can play your instrument. No one's interested in that. What's the name of the band? So we're, we're sitting around, and
Hugh: In a pub, I think you'll find.
Colin: Was it in a pub?
Hugh: And I think by the, by about the third or fourth pint, when we'd gone through a load of funny names, and somebody mentioned that name, and we all went, "Yeah, that'll do."
Rod: It's Paul, wasn't it?
Colin: Paul Arnold.
Rod: Paul Arnold. And I have to say
Host: Yeah.
Rod: that I loved it. Uh, Colin hated it, the name, when he first heard it, but, but there were no zombie films or anything like that. I, I vaguely knew that a, a zombie was something to do with Haiti and, and voodoo and
Host: Uh-huh.
Rod: something being brought back to life.
Host: Yeah.
Colin: I hadn't had a clue what a zombie was.
Rod: And Colin, Colin didn't even know what it was.
Colin: I'm still not very sure.
Chris: You still don't know.
Colin: No!
Rod: Actually, the funny thing, I say that there were no zombie films, but I, I, you know, the, the, um, the sort of exotic nature of it quite appealed to me, really, and I thought, "It's gonna be a name that no one else has," which is very important, and I also thought that, just think about the Beatles. I mean, I don't think most people think about either insects or even a play on words when you think about it.
Host: Yeah.
Rod: You think about John, um, Paul, George, and Ringo, you know?
Host: Right, sure.
Rod: Um, and I thought if we were lucky enough to have any sort of success at all, then people will start, um, associating the name with who, who we were
Host: Mmhm.
Rod: and, and that's the way it worked, and, and, and it, it did appeal to me from the start, but Colin and I asked were asked the, the other, um, month, um, "What, actually, just as a matter of interest, what is your favorite zombie film?" We said, "Well, neither of us has ever seen one."
Host: Perfect. Um, you, you, the great thing about, one of, one of, I think one of the remarkable things about the story of the band is that, and, and here we are, you know, we're, we're reminiscing and, and, and, you know, it has that sort of, you know, the, the glow of youth and, and, you know, great things that, that you did as, as young men, but it was not a straight ascent to this sort of hallowed place. Um, there were challenges, significant ones along the way, uh, you know, "She's Not There," big hit, but after that, not so much.
Hugh: When we first went, when we first went out, we were pretty, pretty big in our local area. We had a great following, and it was fantastic, and then "She's Not There" came along, and it was a hit, it was beginning to be a hit, and so they started sending us out on gigs, and the very first one we went to, there were six people there.
Host: Huh. Huh.
Rod: But it went downhill after that didn't it?
Chris: Yeah.
Hugh: It went downhill.
Host: Huh. Huh.
Rod: But, but the thing was, well, of course, we had, I mean, um, this was the thing again, um, the very first session that we had, I think our record producer did wonderfully
Host: Mmhm.
Rod: because he just took the song - he was a very musical guy; he was a great piano player himself - and he took the music that was in front of him, and he made the best out of it, but because he was so old school, after that first session, he started thinking, "What made that successful?" and instead of just taking the songs and getting the best out of them, he was tryin' to recreate bits and pieces of what he thought we'd done the first time round, and, and our frustrations started at that point, really.
Host: Mm.
Rod: And, and things came out, I mean, I always thought that the, it was a toss up on that first record whether "She's Not There" or "You Make Me Feel Good," which was writ- um, I wrote "She's Not There"; Chris wrote "You Make Me Feel Good," and either could have been the A side, and I really think that "You Make Me Feel Good" should have been the next single
Host: Single, yeah.
Rod: rather than throwing it onto the, the B side of "She's Not There."
Host: Mmhm.
Rod: But it wasn't. Um, and, and I thought the actual production of the next record that we had was, was pretty poor, actually, and that was "Leave Me Be," and I, and I don't think it did us any favours, and, and in the end, because it stiffed in, in the U.K., um, they released, uh, the next one, which was "Tell Her No," which Ken did a pretty good job on, actually, on that, so, as, as it happened, and that became a, that because a hit over here, of course.
Host: Yeah, yeah.
Rod: But then we had those continual frustrations that Chris talked about, um, with the subsequent, you know, because I think that, well, we had a song out called "She's Coming Home."
Host: Mm.
Rod: Now, we do that on stage sometimes now, and I always feel if we could re-record it, and it's, it's too late to do it, re-record it now, you know, that, that was then, but I think that was a hit record, but not the way it was produced, and it used to drive us mad, didn't it?
Host: Yeah.
Rod: And I think that was one of the reasons.
Host: Yeah.
Rod: Also, we were managed very badly, and we were managed by a guy who didn't particularly like rock and roll, and, um, and, and, and just thought this was a passing fad, and so the, the, the way our first, uh, photo sessions were done was pretty appalling,
Host: Mm.
Rod: um, and those, those photographs followed us for a lot of our career because in the U.K. that was the only hit record we had, so those kept being dredged up and up and up. What I love on this new book that, um, BMG have put out,
Host: Yeah.
Rod: Um.
Host: It's a terrific book, by the way.
Rod: Yeah, with,
Host: which will be for sale in the [indistinct] store.
Rod: Well, Scott's here tonight, the, the guy that, that put it together.
Host: Yeah.
Rod: And so is Cindy, from our management company.
Host: Yeah.
Rod: And they, thank God, have put pictures of us in that book, which were all around at the time, but which took a h--- of a lot of finding because, um, the lazy press at the time were just using what was
Host: What they were given.
Rod: on, on file.
Host: Mmhm.
Rod: And, and nobody was monitoring it, and I think that worked, you know, all those sort of things worked to our disadvantage, I think. Don't you think?
Chris: Absolutely, and, of course, as they'd just come out of school, they latched on to the fact, "How many qualifications have you got?" and then, it was ridiculous.
Host: Yeah.
Chris: But we were innocent at the time, so, you know.
Colin: And the trouble is when you're a new band that that image and, and those photographs will follow you for years.
Host: For years.
Colin: And that's so important
Host; Yeah.
Colin: how you're set up at the beginning.
Host: Yeah.
Colin: We still have those photos at, at gigs now when we go. We go to concerts, and we can see pic-, pictures of us pulling funny faces when we were nineteen, and we think, "What on earth is this audience gonna expect?" you know? We're all in our seventies, you know?
Host: And, and, and, you know, we fast-forward to going into the studio to record Odessey and Oracle, and there seems to be, and maybe I could get some definitive opinion, here. There, there seems to be a, a difference of opinion about whether you had an understanding that this might be the last record you would do together.
Rod: I thought that was in the air. What did you think?
Chris: I, I, I thought it was perhaps in the air or it's sort of thinking, we at least gotta do this, and we were very happy with doing it, but of course, there was no money. Rod and I had some money because basically we were writers.
Host: Yeah.
Chris: The others didn't. There, there was no work
Host: Mm.
Chris: and Paul was getting married.
Rod: [No work] in the U.K.
Host: Yeah.
Chris: Yeah.
Colin: I, I, I have to say: I didn't know it was gonna be the last album, so
Host: Yeah!
Colin: It was a bit of a shock to me.
Host: Yeah.
Colin: Uh, this is- I'm the person who after twenty minutes didn't wanna be in the music business, but, um, after three years, you know, I was, I was sort of gettin' the hang of it, and I thought, "This is great." I, I wanted to, to, it to keep going, so
Host: Yeah.
Colin: I never thought of it- I think it would be very hard to put real energy and commitment into an album if you think, "That's it for the band." That's- isn't- there- gonna be nothing after that
Host: Mmhm.
Colin: So I thought we all put everything we've got into it, so I was, I was quite surprised when people said afterwards that they knew it was gonna be the last album.
Host: Yeah.
Hugh: I think it faded off after that rather than before we made the album or while we were making it, but it was afterwards that the sort of latitude felt
Host: Sure.
Hugh: you know, come into place.
Host: Yeah, it did not, obviously, it did not meet initial, you know, success, um, but then this very strange thing happens where this DJ in Idaho
Chris: Six copies
Host: starts playing
Chris: [Indistinct]
Host: Yeah, starts playing "Time-
Chris: Boise, yeah.
Host: "Time of the Season," um, and, and next thing you know, this is a tremendous hit, and, and I'm, and you, you had gone on already, you had formed Argent.
Rod: I'd for-, I'd formed a production company with Chris because
Host: Uh-huh
Rod: we two wanted to desperately stay in the
Host: Yeah.
Rod: In, in, in, in the whole thing. We started to form Argent, and Chris wanted to be a non-playing member by that time, so he was a sort of non-playing member of Argent, really.
Host: Mmhm.
Rod: Co-produced with me, co-wrote with me, um, and, um, we also ver-, in the very, very soon, we started to, uh, put together an album for Colin, his solo album, which was One Year, which was a wonderful album.
Host: Yeah.
Rod: It's a gorgeous album.
Host: Yeah, yeah. But. [Audience claps] Indeed. So, as this, as, as all of sudden now there's all this attention, was there discussion at the time about, "Well, wait, wait a minute, maybe, maybe we should get this back together"?
Rod: No, ZZ Top had already done that. They- No, in actual fact, there were some fake Zombies. [Indistinct]
Host: Actually, quite a few.
Rod: Yeah, the thing, the thing was that, um, this was eighteen months down the line after we'd finished recording Odessey and Oracle, you have to realize.
Host: Yeah, yeah.
Rod: And by that time, as you so rightly say, Argent was formed; we'd already started working on the idea of, of Colin's thing; and it was the perfect backdrop
Host: Mm.
Rod: for Chris and I to be in New York talking to Clive Davis and, and, and selling the idea of a production, uh,
Chris: That's right, yes.
Rod: uh, company with Argent, which of course then went on to be, uh, have some
Host: Yeah
Rod: big, big hits. Um,
Chris: Not forgetting, of course
Host: And, and by, by the way, we would be remiss in not mentioning that Al Kooper
Rod: Oh!
Chris: Yeah, 'cause, 'cause Clive Davis actually turned the album down.
Host: was instrumental
Colin: Absolutely.
Host: in getting, getting it released.
Chris: Yes.
Host: Yeah.
Chris: He actually turned it down, Clive. Uh, he, they passed on it, but Al
Host: What does, what does he know?
Chris: Well, actually, he's [a] very good music person, actually.
Hugh: You know, [indistinct] with that.
Host: Ye-, yes
Chris: And, and
Host: and God bless us; he named our theater for him.
Chris: Yeah, and, 'cause Al Kooper said, "Well, I think we ought to get this album," and he [Davis] said, "We already got it, but we didn't- we passed on it," so it was down to Al Kooper to get the album out, really.
Host: Yeah, yeah. Um, it, so, as, as, now you're starting to hear this song on the radio, what, I'm, I'm wondering if there was, like, some level of cognitive dissonance going on that, that we have left this band behind and yet, it lives.
Rod: Do you know, we, we never had it in our psyches to actually look back. We, we never have done.
Host: Mm.
Rod: We've, we've always wanted to move on and look forward to the whatever it is stimulating us at the moment, you know?
Host: Sure.
Rod: Um, and, um, I, I know that, well, certainly, I, I never thought of, um, of, you know, the thing is, we'd already done so much work on, on the new projects, getting them together.
Host: Yeah.
Rod: We thought, "We can't just abandon this and abandon people, you know, because something has come together eighteen months later." But when I mentioned ZZ Top, I mean, of course, they turned out- We only found this out a couple of years ago, but, uh, two of ZZ Top were in one of the fake Zombies bands.
Host: Huh! Is that, is that so?
Chris: Yeah, yes, right, yeah.
Rod: Yeah, yeah, Frank Beard and, uh,
Host: Yeah.
Rod: And Dusty were.
Host: And Dusty?
Rod: Yeah.
Host: Mm. Mm.
Chris: I think-
Rod: So when we finish,
Host: Mm.
Rod: we're gonna be a ZZ Top tribute band.
Host: Ha! I love that. I love that. So, um, uh, couple minutes, we're gonna ask for a couple questions from the house, uh, but, I, I, I, I wanna quote a couple of things that have been said more recently about, about Odessey and Oracle, particularly, AllMusic, OK, this is, this is, one of the now Bibles of, of, you know, sort of, the modern music industry. Quote: "One of the most enduring long-players to come out of the entire British psychedelic boom." Pitchfork, the, the, you know, sort of the, the, the website of record for the hipster world: "Decades ahead of its time, Odessey and Oracle is the final statement from an unfortunately short-lived band and stands as one of the late sixties' greatest achievements." What do you think when you hear statements like that?
Chris: Why didn't they buy the album at the time?
Host: Ha! Ha! Ha!
Hugh: What it does mean, of course, it means that that album, uh, is what you might call the longest sleeping album of all time. Uh, that it's come about now is just a huge thrill to us all, and, uh, Chris and I are, uh, have been playing with, uh, dear friends Rod and Colin and recreating Odessey on, on
Host: Yes
Hugh: on, uh, on stage, which has been absolutely marvellous.
Host: Yes.
Hugh: Marvellous.
Colin: I'm a little bit worried, though, with our new album, Still Got That Hunger, if people are gonna wait fifty years to discover it, quite frankly we're buggered.
[edit, apparently excising the audience questions]
Host: So, well, the, um, my gosh, what a pleasure to have you gentlemen with us. Um. I can, I, I can only say one thing, and I think this group [gestures towards the audience] will understand it when I say it: it's time for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to do the right thing.
Hugh: Yay. Hurrah!
Host: So we'll leave it at that. We want to hear some music. Ladies and gentlemen, the Zombies.
