Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction

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Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees, The Zombies reveal their all-star supergroup

Colin:  But I would go for the writers, and so, you know, I'd have Elton on keyboards, McCartney on bass, uh, Dave Grohl on drums, um, and, uh, gui- and Eric, uh, Clapton on guitar.  OK, so, can you arrange that?

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Rod:  To actually finally make the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is, well, it's just a huge honor.  It, it really is.  I mean, it, it's felt fantastic enough in the last five years to have been nominated four times.  I mean, we weren't looking for that, and that felt fantastic.

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Hugh:  I was actually sat in a bar where I live, and I'm fortunate enough to live in Spain, in a[n] island called Menorca, and, my wife and I were in the bar.  The phone call came, and I, I instantly just choked up with the ab-, the beauty of it and the surprise and everything else.  It was wonderful.  And I was told- the, the person [at] the other end, who's not a million miles away from me, said, "Maybe you should buy everybody a drink in the bar."  Well, the bar was empty except for us.

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Rod:  So many people have said, and, and really quite famous people have said, you know, "We were so influenced by all the stuff that you've done," and that's always a huge surprise and shock to me because when I listen back to what we've done, it just sounds like us.

Chris:  Yeah.

Colin:  Yeah.

Rod:  You know?

Colin:  And al- I'm- and also, it's so great to have things in films and TV.  It's the equivalent of having a hit record, really.  It's another way of, of reaching your audience.

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Chris:  I know what I was gonna say about [how] I knew it might have had some influence after we split up.

Rod:  Yeah.

Chris:  I was at a party with, uh, in Lo- Bel, in Bel Air, and Jimi Hendrix was- I was at the bar with him, and he said, "Oh, yes, the Zombies.  You did-" and he sang "Time of the Season" to me at the bar.  Now, not many people can say that basically.  I knew that, that we had made some little mark, you know?

Rod:  But we also heard that John Lennon had said, "I wish I could have produced-" uh, that's, that was the story.

Chris:  That's one, yes, yeah, he said, "I'd like to produce them."

Rod [overlapping with Chris's last comment]:  "I wish I could produce them."

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Colin:  I like to think sometimes that we're passing the baton because, obviously, there are people who influenced us, the rock greats, uh, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, and then the Beatles, who were a huge influence on us, and hopefully we took the baton and ran with it, and now, we've reached the autumn of our careers.

Rod:  Well, Colin has, yeah.

Colin:  We're passing the baton on.  So I hope they don't bloody drop it.

Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent Unbox The Zombies 5LP Vinyl Box Set

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

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

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

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

"Imagine the Swan"

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

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

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

Colin:  I think it's actually-

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

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

Rod:  Yeah.

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

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

Colin:  Yeah.

Rod:  But, um-

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

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

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

Rod:  Yeah.

Colin:  Good luck to them.

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

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

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

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

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

"If It Don't Work Out"

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

Colin:  Yeah, absolutely.

Rod:  Yeah.

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

Rod:  Mm.

Colin:  as well.

Rod:  Mm.

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

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

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

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

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

"Time of the Season"

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

Colin:  Studio 3.

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

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

Rod:  [indistinct]

Colin:  Yeah.

Rod:  Yeah.

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

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

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

Rod:  You mean the ones that never get anywhere?

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

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

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