INTERVIEW
COLIN BLUNSTONE
THE ZOMBIES
UK TOUR 2018
COLIN BLUNSTONE
THE ZOMBIES
UK TOUR 2018
The Zombies are coming – Get ready to Rock and Roll
The Zombies are touring the UK- but it’s nothing to worry about- it’s the famous 60s pop Zombies. The group had a world- wide hit with the classic song She’s Not There and despite breakups and reunions are still performing today. Colin Blunstone’s voice was considered one of the main factors in making that single such a hit, together with Rod Argent's dynamic keyboard skills. After the band split Rod had success with Argent; Colin went solo and had hits with I Don’t Believe in Miracles, Say You Don’t Mind, Misty Roses, and was part of the Alan Parsons Project. Later they reunited as The Zombies, touring and recording and making well received albums, including Still Got That Hunger which recaptured the old Zombie sound.
Ahead of the Zombie’s latest tour, Colin Blunstone takes some time out to chat to me about how it all started and tells me some of the difficulties of life in the music industry.
Ahead of the Zombie’s latest tour, Colin Blunstone takes some time out to chat to me about how it all started and tells me some of the difficulties of life in the music industry.
‘I have just finished a solo tour and it has gone amazingly well. We went to the Netherlands, Belgium, and the UK, and I was surprised that most of the venues were sold out. I thought if it had been a long time since the release of a solo album, the interest would have waned. It is five years since my last solo album, but the audience numbers have increased.’
He continues, ‘In June, I join Rod Argent for The Zombies’ tour. The audiences for both just keep increasing, with The Zombie’s audience getting younger. The music of the 60s is still popular even with the younger generation. Both of my bands have new albums so there are many new tracks to get used to. Obviously, the audience expect to hear the well-known songs, but as we play for two hours, we mix in some of the new tracks with the old. We always get a good reaction with the new material, so it is quite simple to get a set together.’
I wonder how he keeps his voice protected and he explains, ‘I do vocal exercises twice a day when I’m touring. When I’m not touring, I am more relaxed and do them about three times a week. I always try to avoid people with colds. It is challenging as I sing in a high register, so a cold can affect my singing. I try to take precautions. If I see someone’s head go back I recognise that they are going to sneeze, and get out of the way double quick,’ he laughs.
I ask Colin if he has any favourites.
‘All the songs are my favourites otherwise, I wouldn’t sing them,’ he tells me. ‘Rod Argent tends to put the set together for The Zombie tour, as he’s their dominant writer. I put the solo set together, so I only play the songs I like. I play the hits, then do some up-tempo stuff and then look for some songs that I’ve written. I don’t play any of my songs when we perform as The Zombies. The two sets are completely different; the only Zombie songs on my solo tours are She’s Not There and Time of the Season.’
.
I suggest that many of the songs written by him seem to be about something personal and he agrees.
‘I usually have a vague story from something that I’ve witnessed or know about from someone else, as well as something I’ve experienced. I don’t set out to write them, but it just happens that way. When I wrote Caroline Goodbye, it was about my girlfriend, the Bond girl Caroline Munro. I didn’t want everyone to know who it was about, so I tried to find another name, but nothing fitted. I admitted defeat and thought that only my close friends would know it was Caroline. However, a journalist found out and I ended up with a two-page spread in the Daily Express, so the secret was out. I hadn’t wanted it to be public knowledge, as I’m quite a private person.’
I mention that I love How Wrong Can One Man Be and ask Colin what inspired that song.
Laughing, he tells me, ‘That song was a big hit in Europe and I put it into the new solo tour, yet it was strange how it was written. I was waiting for a girlfriend to get ready and she was always late. I was playing my guitar and the song came to me from nowhere. In forty minutes, I had a complete song. I have re-recorded it, but I’m not sure if it will go on the album, we’ll see.’
He continues, ‘In June, I join Rod Argent for The Zombies’ tour. The audiences for both just keep increasing, with The Zombie’s audience getting younger. The music of the 60s is still popular even with the younger generation. Both of my bands have new albums so there are many new tracks to get used to. Obviously, the audience expect to hear the well-known songs, but as we play for two hours, we mix in some of the new tracks with the old. We always get a good reaction with the new material, so it is quite simple to get a set together.’
I wonder how he keeps his voice protected and he explains, ‘I do vocal exercises twice a day when I’m touring. When I’m not touring, I am more relaxed and do them about three times a week. I always try to avoid people with colds. It is challenging as I sing in a high register, so a cold can affect my singing. I try to take precautions. If I see someone’s head go back I recognise that they are going to sneeze, and get out of the way double quick,’ he laughs.
I ask Colin if he has any favourites.
‘All the songs are my favourites otherwise, I wouldn’t sing them,’ he tells me. ‘Rod Argent tends to put the set together for The Zombie tour, as he’s their dominant writer. I put the solo set together, so I only play the songs I like. I play the hits, then do some up-tempo stuff and then look for some songs that I’ve written. I don’t play any of my songs when we perform as The Zombies. The two sets are completely different; the only Zombie songs on my solo tours are She’s Not There and Time of the Season.’
.
I suggest that many of the songs written by him seem to be about something personal and he agrees.
‘I usually have a vague story from something that I’ve witnessed or know about from someone else, as well as something I’ve experienced. I don’t set out to write them, but it just happens that way. When I wrote Caroline Goodbye, it was about my girlfriend, the Bond girl Caroline Munro. I didn’t want everyone to know who it was about, so I tried to find another name, but nothing fitted. I admitted defeat and thought that only my close friends would know it was Caroline. However, a journalist found out and I ended up with a two-page spread in the Daily Express, so the secret was out. I hadn’t wanted it to be public knowledge, as I’m quite a private person.’
I mention that I love How Wrong Can One Man Be and ask Colin what inspired that song.
Laughing, he tells me, ‘That song was a big hit in Europe and I put it into the new solo tour, yet it was strange how it was written. I was waiting for a girlfriend to get ready and she was always late. I was playing my guitar and the song came to me from nowhere. In forty minutes, I had a complete song. I have re-recorded it, but I’m not sure if it will go on the album, we’ll see.’
I ask if the band for the solo tour uses the same people as the one for The Zombies.
‘No, they are different people apart from the drummer Steve Rodford who is in both. His father was Jim Rodford who played with the Zombies for years, but sadly he died recently.
As well as touring the UK and Europe The Zombies will be headlining the 60s Festival in Chelmsford and then they are off to the States in September.
‘We have a couple of dates with Uriah Heep, then we’re off to Italy, Germany and Scandinavia and finish at the beginning of December. Touring is my life, I enjoy it. The travelling can be physically tiring, but it is great to meet new people. We have a comfortable Mercedes bus and I mainly sleep on the road and wake up for the show.’
He laughs when he tells me, ‘The touring is much better than in the old days when we had to send out the roadie to find us a b&b. There were no motorways and travelling took forever in a broken down old van. It is all very professional now with luxurious hotels. I have had a break after my solo tour so I can concentrate on writing and recording.’
I ask Colin how did The Zombies began, all those years ago.
‘We all met through school in St Albans. It was chance really. We had to sit in alphabetical order and the boy seated next to me knew I had a guitar, and asked if I wanted to be in a band. He knew Rod Argent, who attended another school, wanted to start one. He had Paul Atkinson and Hugh Grundy on board and then I joined them with Paul Arnold. We didn’t have a name and the name Zombies was suggested. I didn’t like it, we didn’t even know what a zombie was as there was no zombie culture then. Anyway it stuck.’
He goes on, ‘We rehearsed for about a year and then played our first local gig. Paul Arnold left to become a doctor and Chris White, another school friend, came in his place. We played locally until we won a rock and roll competition, which led to a Decca recording contract. The producer Ken Jones made an off the cuff remark about writing something ourselves. In those days, songwriters were separate from the singers. Anyway, Rod and Chris went off and came back with She’s Not There, also You Make Me Feel So Good, which became the B-side. We decided to go professional before it was even a hit, and if it hadn’t made it, we would have just gone back to playing around the local area. It was all chance.’
I ask why having finished the album Odessey and Oracle at the peak of their success, they decided to call it a day.
‘With hindsight now, it seems to have been a stupid thing to do, but things were different in the industry then (1967). Everything was singles based, the Zombies released the next single, and it wasn’t a success, so we decided to move on. Looking back, we should have stayed put as the industry was evolving into being more album based and singles were released from albums. We were tired, the non-writers were broke, and we didn’t realise that our new single was a hit all over the world. There was no internet, we only heard about UK and US chart successes. I needed money so rang an employment agency and they found me a job in insurance. It wasn’t a career move just a job.’
‘After Time of the Season from the Odessey album was released, interest began to build for me as a singer again. I had a call from Mike Hurst, who had produced for Cat Stevens, and he wanted me to record. I wasn’t sure I wanted to after the previous disappointment, but I went into the studios and he suggested I change my name, so I became Neil McArthur. I recorded She’s Not There again, and it became a minor hit. Then a year later I met up with old pal, Chris White and he suggested producing for me. He and Rod produced the Denny Laine song, Say You Don’t Mind and it became a big hit. It was all spontaneous I hadn’t any plans to record again.’
I say that surely his voice was so distinctive, people would know who it was?
‘Yes, you’re right but it was all haphazard in those days. Nowadays it is all work. To sustain a career there has to be a project that leads to something and then hope it will be released.’
‘Although not a success at the time, Odessey and Oracle is now considered a classic. It is always in the top one hundred albums of Rolling Stone magazine or the Top thirty for the NME. Year on year its sales increase. Not only that, we are lucky enough to own the masters so the rights reverted to us. We last did the Odessey tour in 2017 in the US, where we have a big following. We sang the album from start to finish and it was very successful.’
‘No, they are different people apart from the drummer Steve Rodford who is in both. His father was Jim Rodford who played with the Zombies for years, but sadly he died recently.
As well as touring the UK and Europe The Zombies will be headlining the 60s Festival in Chelmsford and then they are off to the States in September.
‘We have a couple of dates with Uriah Heep, then we’re off to Italy, Germany and Scandinavia and finish at the beginning of December. Touring is my life, I enjoy it. The travelling can be physically tiring, but it is great to meet new people. We have a comfortable Mercedes bus and I mainly sleep on the road and wake up for the show.’
He laughs when he tells me, ‘The touring is much better than in the old days when we had to send out the roadie to find us a b&b. There were no motorways and travelling took forever in a broken down old van. It is all very professional now with luxurious hotels. I have had a break after my solo tour so I can concentrate on writing and recording.’
I ask Colin how did The Zombies began, all those years ago.
‘We all met through school in St Albans. It was chance really. We had to sit in alphabetical order and the boy seated next to me knew I had a guitar, and asked if I wanted to be in a band. He knew Rod Argent, who attended another school, wanted to start one. He had Paul Atkinson and Hugh Grundy on board and then I joined them with Paul Arnold. We didn’t have a name and the name Zombies was suggested. I didn’t like it, we didn’t even know what a zombie was as there was no zombie culture then. Anyway it stuck.’
He goes on, ‘We rehearsed for about a year and then played our first local gig. Paul Arnold left to become a doctor and Chris White, another school friend, came in his place. We played locally until we won a rock and roll competition, which led to a Decca recording contract. The producer Ken Jones made an off the cuff remark about writing something ourselves. In those days, songwriters were separate from the singers. Anyway, Rod and Chris went off and came back with She’s Not There, also You Make Me Feel So Good, which became the B-side. We decided to go professional before it was even a hit, and if it hadn’t made it, we would have just gone back to playing around the local area. It was all chance.’
I ask why having finished the album Odessey and Oracle at the peak of their success, they decided to call it a day.
‘With hindsight now, it seems to have been a stupid thing to do, but things were different in the industry then (1967). Everything was singles based, the Zombies released the next single, and it wasn’t a success, so we decided to move on. Looking back, we should have stayed put as the industry was evolving into being more album based and singles were released from albums. We were tired, the non-writers were broke, and we didn’t realise that our new single was a hit all over the world. There was no internet, we only heard about UK and US chart successes. I needed money so rang an employment agency and they found me a job in insurance. It wasn’t a career move just a job.’
‘After Time of the Season from the Odessey album was released, interest began to build for me as a singer again. I had a call from Mike Hurst, who had produced for Cat Stevens, and he wanted me to record. I wasn’t sure I wanted to after the previous disappointment, but I went into the studios and he suggested I change my name, so I became Neil McArthur. I recorded She’s Not There again, and it became a minor hit. Then a year later I met up with old pal, Chris White and he suggested producing for me. He and Rod produced the Denny Laine song, Say You Don’t Mind and it became a big hit. It was all spontaneous I hadn’t any plans to record again.’
I say that surely his voice was so distinctive, people would know who it was?
‘Yes, you’re right but it was all haphazard in those days. Nowadays it is all work. To sustain a career there has to be a project that leads to something and then hope it will be released.’
‘Although not a success at the time, Odessey and Oracle is now considered a classic. It is always in the top one hundred albums of Rolling Stone magazine or the Top thirty for the NME. Year on year its sales increase. Not only that, we are lucky enough to own the masters so the rights reverted to us. We last did the Odessey tour in 2017 in the US, where we have a big following. We sang the album from start to finish and it was very successful.’
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Having recorded at Abbey Road I wonder if The Zombies ever bumped into the Beatles.
‘We went into the studio just after the Beatles finished Sgt Pepper and they had already left. They left some instruments and we used their Mellotron and their percussion, but it was all very eerie. I did say hello to George Harrison backstage once, but he wasn’t really engaged.’ Colin laughs. I ask Colin how he became involved with the Alan Parsons Project. ‘Alan was an engineer on the Odessey album and he lived near me in Hampstead. He asked me to record a couple of songs on the first disc, but I wasn’t available. Then on the second recording, I sang Old and Wise even now it seems to be very popular. I was on a cruise ship not long ago with the Moody Blues, and I sang it live for the very first time.’ |
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Finally, I mention The Zombies’ nomination for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
‘We’ve been nominated three times, but never inducted. We had half a million votes from the public, and came sixth. I believe next year that they are changing the way the voting takes place. It isn’t so important in the UK but in the US, it proves that you are appreciated by your peers and validates your career. We are very proud to have been nominated.’
The Tour begins in the UK on 2nd June, for full dates and venues see
https://www.thezombiesmusic.com/tour-dates
It will be followed by the On the Blue Cruise in February 2019
Interview Jacquee Storozynski-Toll
https://www.facebook.com/thezombiesmusic
‘We’ve been nominated three times, but never inducted. We had half a million votes from the public, and came sixth. I believe next year that they are changing the way the voting takes place. It isn’t so important in the UK but in the US, it proves that you are appreciated by your peers and validates your career. We are very proud to have been nominated.’
The Tour begins in the UK on 2nd June, for full dates and venues see
https://www.thezombiesmusic.com/tour-dates
It will be followed by the On the Blue Cruise in February 2019
Interview Jacquee Storozynski-Toll
https://www.facebook.com/thezombiesmusic
The Zombies are a much loved English psych rock band from St Albans, who formed part of the British Pop Invasion of the US throughout the 1960’s with bands such as The Beatles, The Stones, The Faces, Jerry and The Pacemakers & The Yardbirds. The current band line up consists of founding members Rod Argent & Colin Blunstone, alongside Steve Rodford, and Tom Toomey with Danish fan Soren Koch stepping in to replace the late Jim Rodford (The Kinks/ The Who) who sadly passed earlier this year. The band are best known for their seminal album ‘Odyssey and Oracle’ and hits such as ‘She's Not There’, ‘Tell Her No’, and ‘Time of the Season’
Formed in 1962, the band released their debut album, ‘Begin Here’, which contained the hit, later used by Channel Perfumes for a long running ad campaign ‘She's Not There’. The band released their second album, ‘Odessey and Oracle’, in 1968, which contained the #2 hit ‘Time of the Season’, before disbanding in 1967. Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone enjoyed successful solo careers, until they reformed in 1990, releasing a new album, ‘New World’, in 1991, followed by ‘As Far as I Can See…’ in 2004, ‘Breathe Out, Breathe In’ in 2011 and their latest release, ‘Still Got That Hunger’, in 2015, which saw a resurgence in popularity for the band who performed at Glastonbury, The Great Escape & on Later with Jools Holland (BBC) They celebrated 50 years of Odyssey and Oracle last year, with performances for Lauren Lavern on 6 Music and features on BBC 4 and The One Show, culminating in the original band line up playing the album in its entirety at London’s Palladium. The Zombies embark on a UK tour throughout June 2018 after another sell out series of shows in North America this spring.
TOUR DATES:
2 JUNE EASTLEIGH THORNDEN HALL
6 JUNE BEXHILL ON SEA DE LA WARR PAVILLION
7 JUNE MARGATE THEATRE ROYAL
9 JUNE ESSEX THE SECRET FESTIVAL
12 JUNE CARDIFF TRAMSHED
13 JUNE LEAMINGTON SPA ASSEMBLY
14 JUNE LONDON 02 SHEPHERDS BUSH
16 JUNE EDINBURGH THE QUEENS HALL
Tickets & Info:
http://www.thezombiesmusic.com
http://www.seetickets.com
Formed in 1962, the band released their debut album, ‘Begin Here’, which contained the hit, later used by Channel Perfumes for a long running ad campaign ‘She's Not There’. The band released their second album, ‘Odessey and Oracle’, in 1968, which contained the #2 hit ‘Time of the Season’, before disbanding in 1967. Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone enjoyed successful solo careers, until they reformed in 1990, releasing a new album, ‘New World’, in 1991, followed by ‘As Far as I Can See…’ in 2004, ‘Breathe Out, Breathe In’ in 2011 and their latest release, ‘Still Got That Hunger’, in 2015, which saw a resurgence in popularity for the band who performed at Glastonbury, The Great Escape & on Later with Jools Holland (BBC) They celebrated 50 years of Odyssey and Oracle last year, with performances for Lauren Lavern on 6 Music and features on BBC 4 and The One Show, culminating in the original band line up playing the album in its entirety at London’s Palladium. The Zombies embark on a UK tour throughout June 2018 after another sell out series of shows in North America this spring.
TOUR DATES:
2 JUNE EASTLEIGH THORNDEN HALL
6 JUNE BEXHILL ON SEA DE LA WARR PAVILLION
7 JUNE MARGATE THEATRE ROYAL
9 JUNE ESSEX THE SECRET FESTIVAL
12 JUNE CARDIFF TRAMSHED
13 JUNE LEAMINGTON SPA ASSEMBLY
14 JUNE LONDON 02 SHEPHERDS BUSH
16 JUNE EDINBURGH THE QUEENS HALL
Tickets & Info:
http://www.thezombiesmusic.com
http://www.seetickets.com
