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

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

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

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

"Just out of Reach"

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

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

Rod:  'Just out of Reach'.

Colin:  Yes.

Rod:  Yeah.

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

Rod:  Oh, Bunny Lake Is Missing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I Love You"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Whenever You're Ready"

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

Colin:  'I'm- I'm Alright'?

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

Colin:  OK.

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

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

Rod:  Very autocratic, wasn't he?

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I Want You Back Again"

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

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

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

Rod:  'Why aren't we doing this?'

Colin:  Yes.

Rod:  Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

"She's Coming Home"

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

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

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

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

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

"Leave Me Be"

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

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

Colin:  Yeah.

Rod:  And-

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

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

Colin:  Mm.

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

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

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

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

"Tell Her No"

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

Rod:  [mumbles in imitation of record]

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

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

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

Rod:  That was recording in those days.

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

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

Colin:  It was fantastic.

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

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

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

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

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

"You Make Me Feel Good"

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

Colin:  It was-

Rod:  It was on the B-side.

Colin:  It was the B-side, yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

"She's Not There"

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

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

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

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

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