Alive and kicking
Last updated 11:35, Thursday, 15 May 2008
They couldn’t have known it when the band was formed way back in 1961, but The Zombies has turned out to be a very appropriate name. This is, after all, the band that came back from the dead.
Rewind 40 years. As the Sixties near their end, so do The Zombies. Great songs, loved by critics, but the band has managed just one hit in their native Britain. Even in America, where they were the second British band after the Beatles to have a number one single, the hits have dried up. They separate: disillusioned, short of money, bitter about their lack of recognition.
So how come 2008 sees The Zombies playing to sell-out crowds, lauded by celebrity fans and acclaimed as one of the greatest bands of all time?
The reappraisal began while The Zombies’ body was still warm. In 1968 the band had just split up when DJs in America began playing a song from Odessey and Oracle, their second and final album.
Time of the Season is perhaps the coolest three minutes ever applied to vinyl. Pop and jazz melt together with the keyboards of the band’s main songwriter Rod Argent and the lilting, Nick Drake-esque vocals of Colin Blunstone.
The track was released as a single and reached number three in the USA. The Zombies’ reputation continued to grow as Argent and Blunstone both enjoyed solo success. In 2001 they reunited for an album and tour. Three years later they began playing under The Zombies name again.
The band, with three new members, comes to Carlisle’s Sands Centre tomorrow night. They are supported by The Yardbirds, whose former members include Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.
The Zombies’ current tour comes 40 years after Odyssey and Oracle was released. Largely ignored at the time, it has since been named by Vanity Fair as the defining pop album of the Sixties and ranked at number 80 in Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 greatest albums of all time.
Forty years...
“I find that very difficult to comprehend,” Colin Blunstone tells the News & Star, sounding much younger than his 62 years. “It’s gone in a flash. It’s been a great adventure. Neither Rod nor myself ever envisaged we’d still be doing it.
“It’s not a contrived thing. I hadn’t played live for 23 years. I was talking to Rod and I said ‘Do you fancy doing these six dates?’ Those six have grown into eight years.”
Blunstone was only 18 when The Zombies recorded their solitary British hit, She’s Not There, which reached number 12 in 1964 and topped the American chart.
“When you’re that age you do find things easy to accept. You take it in your stride. I wouldn’t say we took it for granted but that’s all we’d ever known.
“When we were a bit older we realised how fortunate we’d been. It’s only when you have a record that doesn’t make it you realise how many ways a record can go wrong.
“Bands are not always well advised. There’s no way you can know the right things to do when you’re 18. Money disappeared and once that happens it’s very difficult to get back.
“We had two wonderful and prolific songwriters in Rod Argent and Chris White. They were quite financially secure but the rest of us relied on money from concert performances.
“The non-writers had no money. This often happens in bands. That was a big factor in the split. I did feel a bit disillusioned, but only for a year or so. I just needed to recharge my batteries.”
Blunstone returned with a solo career. But even his biggest hit, Say You Don’t Mind, didn’t earn him big bucks.
“Denny Laine wrote it. Denny always says he didn’t make any money from my version of the song and I tell him I didn’t make any money from signing it so we’ve got something in common.”
At least Blunstone is now enjoying critical and commercial success with the resurrected Zombies. A “best of” album – The Zombies And Beyond – is about to be released and two months ago the band played three sold-out nights at Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London to mark 40 years since the release of Odyssey and Oracle.
Famous fans, including Paul Weller, Robert Plant and Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody, queued up to witness the first ever live performance of the album. Other admirers of The Zombies include Bruce Springsteen, Richard Ashcroft, Dave Grohl and Robert Palmer. Elvis Presley had Zombies’ singles on his jukebox at Graceland.
“It’s probably the most satisfying thing, to have the respect of your peers,” says Blunstone. “Whenever we play, the audience is as excited as we are. When Rod and I started out again we didn’t play that many Zombies songs on tour but we do now because people want to hear them.”
The Zombies have played in Carlisle before, during the Sixties, but Blunstone has little memory of the night, beyond the suspicion that it was New Year’s Eve and he had a good time.
He still does have a good time – although perhaps not in quite the same way as during The Zombies’ former life: “The only difference between the 60s and now is, in the 60s after a show we’d be looking for a party and a boogie somewhere. Generally at the end of a performance now we’re ready to hit the sack.”
n Tickets for The Zombies and The Yardbirds cost £22.50-£24.50 from www.ticketweb.co.uk or by calling 01228 625222.
