DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Now here's a group which has only experienced moderate success here in Britain, but which has had several big hits in the States. Singing "For You," we present The Zombies.
THE ZOMBIES: (Singing) For you, my love, I'd do most anything.
BIANCULLI: Americans were right about The Zombies, whose first record, the still spooky "She's Not There," made it all the way to No. 2 on the Billboard pop chart in 1964. In England, the same single topped out at No. 12. Five years later, by the time the group scored its biggest hit with "She's Not There," The Zombies already had broken up, but they left their mark. The Zombies were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2019, and they're now the subject of a new documentary titled "Hung Up On A Dream," directed by Robert Schwartzman. Terry Gross spoke with the lead singer of The Zombies, Colin Blunstone, in 1998, when a box set - also titled Hung Up on a Dream - had just been released. It contains singles, rare and unreleased tracks, and appearances on BBC Radio. Here's The Zombies' first single.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SHE'S NOT THERE")
THE ZOMBIES: (Singing) Well, no one told me about her, the way she lied. Well, no one told me about her, how many people cried. But it's too late to say you're sorry. How would I know? Why should I care? Please don't bother trying to find her. She's not there. Well, let me tell you about the way she looked, the way she'd act and the color of her hair. Her voice was soft and cool. Her eyes were clear and bright. But she's not there.
Well, no one told me about her. What could I do? Well, no one told me about her, though they all knew. But it's too late to say you're sorry. How would I know? Why should I care? Please don't bother trying to find her. She's not there. Well, let me tell you about the way she looked, the way she'd act and the color of her hair. Her voice was soft and cool. Her eyes were clean and bright. But she's not there.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
TERRY GROSS: Colin Blunstone, welcome to FRESH AIR.
COLIN BLUNSTONE: Terry, thank you very much.
GROSS: You got to record this song after The Zombies won a contest in, I guess, St. Albans, where you were from. And you won first prize, and the first prize was an audition with Decca Records. Tell me about the contest.
BLUNSTONE: The competition was held in Watford Town Hall, which was about 8 miles away from St. Albans, where we all went to school. And Watford Town Hall was quite a big venue for us. It held about 2,000 people. And because there were 10 bands on every night, they all had their supporters, and it was absolutely packed. And it was a bit like a football crowd. You know, everybody had banners and bells and rattles, and it was quite a - sort of a wild place to play. And we won our heat. I think there were sort of 10 weeks of 10 bands, and the winner got through to the final. And then we won the final. It was a magical evening. I'll never forget it.
GROSS: What did you sing in the final competition?
BLUNSTONE: Oh, I was hoping you weren't going to ask me that. We sang a Zombies - sorry, a Beatles song, "You Can't Do That."
GROSS: Oh.
BLUNSTONE: You know? (Singing) I got something to say that might cause you pain.
Do you remember that one?
GROSS: Absolutely. I like that song a lot.
BLUNSTONE: Yeah, I do, too. And we sang "Summertime," which went on our first album, and we did it as a - sort of a jazz waltz. It was very jazzy. And we sang a couple of other songs, and I can't remember what they were.
GROSS: Why was the group named The Zombies?
BLUNSTONE: Well, quite simply because we'd been - for the first few weeks of our career together - this was just when we were at school. I think to start off with, we were The Mustangs, and we found that there are a million bands called The Mustangs. And then we were The Sundowners, and we had the same problem. And Paul Arnold, who was our original bass player - there was only one change in the band, and this is while we were still at school - he came up with the idea of The Zombies. And I think we all thought that no one else would be...
GROSS: (Laughter).
BLUNSTONE: ...Crazy enough to call a band The Zombies. And so it really - I think that, in a way, it was an act of desperation. We were just trying to find something that no one else would have thought of. So we ended up as The Zombies.
GROSS: What do you think defined The Zombies' sound?
BLUNSTONE: Well, I think a lot of the sound really comes from the writers. We had two unique writers in the band and very prolific writers, as well. And I think possibly - especially Rod Argent. His writing, his songs were, I think, well, truly wonderful. I think they were brilliant songs. And he also was a brilliant keyboard player, so you got these great keyboard breaks that he would keep putting into songs. Also, he was a very accomplished musician, even at an early age. He understood a lot about music, which - certainly he was in a different league to me. So a lot of our chord progressions and the bass notes we put on the bottom of chords were quite unusual.
And he also understood vocal harmonies because he was in the cathedral choir until he was about 17 or 18. And if we played a gig on a Sunday night, we'd have to go and pick him up at the back of the cathedral, where he'd been singing in whatever the thing had been at the cathedral. And he'd have to be taking off all his church clothes and getting into his rock 'n' roll gear, and then we'd go off to the rock 'n' roll gig. So I think our harmonies helped to make things a bit different as well.
I think there were lots of things that contributed towards it. But the songwriting and the vocal harmonies - and then maybe there's a little bit of the interplay between Rod's writing and my voice. I mean, both of them - Chris White and Rod Argent - used to write songs for my voice.
GROSS: What were the qualities of your voice that you think they wrote for?
BLUNSTONE: Well, especially for those days, I sang in quite a high key, you know, considering - compared with lots of other singers. Nowadays, lots of people do that. But I think that was one of the things. I think I tend to sing sad songs better than happy-go-lucky songs, so often songs would have a sort of a haunting quality about them. "She's Not There" is probably a good example. I think they would look for that. Songs in minor keys perhaps would be another thing they would look for. So lots of little things all added up to The Zombies' sound.
GROSS: Yeah, a lot of the songs you sang had more to do with vulnerability than showing how strong you were (laughter).
BLUNSTONE: Yeah, that's right. Well, that's me.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: Let's hear another one of The Zombies' big hits, and this is "Tell Her No."
BLUNSTONE: OK.
GROSS: Tell us something about the song or the session.
BLUNSTONE: I think, as I remember, we'd been touring with Dionne Warwick and - who you would call Dionne Worwick (ph). And through that, we'd got very interested in Burt Bacharach songs. And I have a feeling that Rod Argent, who wrote this song, was going through a period of being influenced a lot by Burt Bacharach.
With regard to the session, we would record probably three or four, maybe five backing tracks in an evening at Decca recording studios. And then we would put vocals on, and it would probably be 12 o'clock or 1 o'clock at night before I got round to singing. And I always remember this session because I was fast asleep when they finished, and they woke me up to sing "Tell Her No." And in fact, there's a mumbled line in the middle of "Tell Her No" because I was half asleep when I was singing it. And I said, listen, guys, I better just do that again because there's this mumbled line. And they said, oh, no, no, that's fine. Don't worry about that. And I've heard stories of people who - in bands who have been trying to copy our version of "Tell Her No," and they've been desperately trying to work out what the lyric is. And I have to - after 15 or 30 years or whatever it is, I have to tell them, well, you shouldn't have bothered because it's just a mumble, so there is no lyric there, really. It's the...
GROSS: Where is the mumble in the song?
BLUNSTONE: I'll leave it to you to find out because I can't remember off the top of my head.
GROSS: Oh, come on.
BLUNSTONE: No, I - really, I can't remember. It's something like - you play the song, and then I'll have a think about it while you're playing.
GROSS: OK. Why don't we play it? You listen in, and then you tell us which the line was.
BLUNSTONE: OK.
GROSS: OK.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE ZOMBIES SONG, "TELL HER NO")
BLUNSTONE: How funny to hear this all the way from America (ph).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TELL HER NO")
THE ZOMBIES: (Singing) And if she should tell you come closer, and if she tempts you with her charms...
BLUNSTONE: OK, that's all right. That's fine.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TELL HER NO")
THE ZOMBIES: (Singing) Tell her, no, no, no, no.
BLUNSTONE: All right.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TELL HER NO")
THE ZOMBIES: (Singing) No-no, no-no, no, no, no, no, no-no, no-no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't hurt me now for her love belongs to me. And if she should tell you I love you, and if she tempts you with her charms...
BLUNSTONE: I think this might be it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TELL HER NO")
THE ZOMBIES: (Singing) Tell her no, no, no, no. (Vocalizing).
BLUNSTONE: Here it is.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TELL HER NO")
THE ZOMBIES: (Singing) No-no, no-no, no, no. Don't let her down from your arms (ph).
BLUNSTONE: That's it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TELL HER NO")
THE ZOMBIES: (Singing) No-no, no-no, no, no, no. (Vocalizing).
BLUNSTONE: Did you hear it?
GROSS: Yeah, so it was the part I always...
BLUNSTONE: It sort of...
GROSS: Yeah, go ahead.
BLUNSTONE: It sort of sounds like, don't love her love from your arms or something, but really it's (vocalizing).
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: I always heard it as, don't hurt me now from her arms, and I figured, well, I don't know what that means, but it's all right. I get the gist of it.
BLUNSTONE: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
BLUNSTONE: Well, what it means is it was a rather sleepy Zombie who was trying to do his best but was...
GROSS: (Laughter).
BLUNSTONE: ...A little bit not with it. He was amongst those not present.
GROSS: I always loved your chorus of - you know, the tell-her-nos with your whoa-whoa-whoas in it and all that.
BLUNSTONE: Yes.
GROSS: Did you sing it the same way for each take, or did it always come out different?
BLUNSTONE: Well, it wasn't something that was specifically written. It was, OK, Colin, now do a little bit of something here. I mean, it probably would have been similar, but it wouldn't have been exactly the same.
BIANCULLI: Colin Blunstone speaking to Terry Gross in 1998. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 1998 interview with Colin Blunstone. He was lead singer of the British invasion band, The Zombies. The group is the subject of a new documentary titled "Hung Up On A Dream."
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: What was it like to be in the United States and, you know, billed as a British invasion band? What did that mean to you?
BLUNSTONE: Well, the surprise to me was the reaction. I mean, I wasn't particularly aware of the fact that we were part of the British invasion. I'm not sure if that term was used - certainly to me - at the time. I mean, I know the expression now. But so I can't really say I reacted to that phrase when I was there. But what was interesting to me was the enthusiasm and the huge numbers of the fans in America. For all music, I mean, things were a little bit more basic back here in the U.K. We would be traveling in the back of an old van. There were very few freeways in this country. We call them motorways. So we would be traveling on country lanes, vast distances in a broken-down old van. It wasn't terribly glamorous, really, except we were having fun. We were 18 years old. What did we care? But then, when we went to America, we were playing to huge audiences and very, very enthusiastic audiences that were screaming and screaming and rushing the stage and tearing our clothes off. And it was all pretty exciting stuff, really. Very exciting.
GROSS: Do your best to be honest with me about this. What's it like when you're 19, you're a young man, you're just getting started, you know, as a man in the world and sexually and all that. And here, there's, like, you go from city...
BLUNSTONE: This sounds very interesting. I - yeah.
GROSS: Yes, right. You go from city to city, and women are screaming and screaming over you. I mean, this must really give you a sense of being something else, you know, and just...
BLUNSTONE: Very lucky is the...
GROSS: Yeah.
BLUNSTONE: ...Expression I was thinking of.
GROSS: Right.
BLUNSTONE: Well...
GROSS: Yes (laughter).
BLUNSTONE: ...I enjoyed it very much. Definitely. It was wonderful.
GROSS: Well, I mean, how much did it go to your head and how - sometimes that type of stuff...
BLUNSTONE: Oh, I don't think...
GROSS: ...Really deforms people's personalities.
BLUNSTONE: Yeah, I don't think it did too much in our band, but again, probably better if someone else judged it because we sort of had periods of success, and we had periods of not being so successful, and we were brought down to Earth with a big bump. And also, in the band, no one was allowed to get too carried away. I mean, we'd grown up together, and anybody who got too carried away would be slapped into place pretty quickly. It was very exciting, and it was great fun. But we all still lived at home with our parents. We still lived in the little area that we'd grown up in, and we weren't really allowed to get too carried away.
GROSS: When you started performing, particularly when you came over to the States and started performing, did you get a lot of advice or guidance on what to wear, what kind of haircuts you should have? What kind of eyeglasses the guys in the band should wear, all that image-type of stuff?
BLUNSTONE: No, we didn't, actually. And I think that image-wise, I think it was a weakness in the band. I think, you know, we were together professionally for three years, although we were together for four years at school. Towards the end of the three years, I think we were getting the image thing a bit more sorted out, but it had just been a natural progression for us. And I think that we probably - we did - we needed help, I think, earlier on. How could it be any different? Our first record had been a huge hit record around the world, and some of the guys had just left school. And I don't know how much other bands thought about image, but we certainly didn't. And I wish that some shrewd character had given us a bit of help there.
And then you just mentioned spectacles. Two of the guys wore very heavy rimmed spectacles, and at a time when - if you're in a teenage band, of course, you want to look fairly attractive for people, and it wasn't very fashionable at the time for young men in rock bands to wear glasses. And towards the middle or the end of our professional career, Paul Atkinson stopped wearing those heavy rimmed glasses and wore contact lenses, and he was a very good-looking lad. And I think it might have helped us a little bit if he'd wore contact lenses from the beginning. But just little things like that, I think we could have looked into. And I think also, "She's Not There" is a very charismatic song. It's eerie, almost could be a little bit sinister, and I think we could have worked on that.
GROSS: Right.
BLUNSTONE: Instead of which, we came with a very jolly little "Tell Her No" number for our second record, which was - didn't seem to me to follow "She's Not There" very well, really.
GROSS: In one article that I think was written in American newspaper or magazine, an article that's quoted in the liner notes to the new Zombies box set, the band was described as clean-cut, quiet, well-mannered, intelligent. They behave like gentlemen. Was that considered good or a liability at the time to...
BLUNSTONE: Well, it's funny. When you met...
GROSS: ...To be so clean-cut in your image, yeah.
BLUNSTONE: When you met people in the media, I think they quite liked it because we turned up on time and...
GROSS: You didn't insult them (laughter).
BLUNSTONE: We didn't insult them. We didn't spit. And, you know, but when you actually put that into an article, I think it can put people off. People want rascals and rogues and naughty boys, you know, then do you know what he did? Do you know what this guy did? People love that, you know? But then they're not having to face it firsthand. So in a way, I think that it went against us a bit. Mind you, I'm saying all this with hindsight. I didn't realize it at the time. We were just making it up as we went along.
GROSS: Well, let's pause here and play something from the new Zombies box set. And this is a previously unissued recording that you made, I think, at the BBC, and it's a cover of Burt Bacharach's "The Look Of Love." You had mentioned before that the band had - what? - toured with Dionne Warwick?
BLUNSTONE: That's right, the very first tour we ever did. And we were fantastic Burt Bacharach fans. I think still. I still am a big Burt Bacharach fan. He just writes the most wonderful songs.
GROSS: Were you thinking of Dionne Warwick when you sang this yourself?
BLUNSTONE: No, because the version I'd heard was by Dusty Springfield. And I think she had a hit in America with that version, but she didn't have a hit in the U.K. It's funny how that happens. You know, people can have hits with a wonderful version of a song in one country, and it doesn't mean anything in another country. Very strange.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE LOOK OF LOVE")
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: And now you're hearing the sweet and swinging sound of The Zombies one more time in "The Look Of Love," written by Burt Bacharach.
THE ZOMBIES: (Singing) The look of love is in your eyes, a look your heart can disguise. The look of love is saying so much more than just words could ever say. And what my heart has heard, well, it takes my breath away. I can hardly wait to hold you, feel my arms around you. How long I have waited. Waited just to love you. Now that I have found you. You've got the look of love is on your face, a look that time can't erase. You're mine tonight. Could this be just the start of so many nights like this? Let's make a lover's vow and then seal it with a kiss. I can hardly wait to hold you, feel my arms around you. How long I have waited. Waited just to love you. Now that I have found you, don't ever go. Don't ever go. I love you so.
BIANCULLI: Colin Blunstone spoke to Terry Gross in 1998. After a break, we'll continue their conversation, and we'll remember director James Foley, who died last week at age 71. His films include "At Close Range," "After Dark, My Sweet" and "Glengarry Glen Ross." I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "IF IT DON'T WORK OUT")
THE ZOMBIES: Nice and dry again (ph), all right? One, two, three, four.
(Singing) When she love me, nothing in the world could touch her loving now. The light of love has gone. Can I return the joy she's dreaming of? I don't know. I don't know. But if it don't work out, the tears that I cried, babe (If it don't work out) won't bring her home (If it don't work out). If it don't work out. Will she still care for me the way she did before? Well, she turned around and tell me she don't love me anymore. I don't know. I don't know. This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, professor of television studies at Rowan University. Let's get back to Terry's 1998 interview with Colin Blunstone, lead singer of the British band The Zombies. The group's hits included "She's Not There," "Tell Her No" and "Time Of The Season."
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: The very last hit that The Zombies had, "Time Of The Season," was from an album called "Odessey And Oracle." It's an album that didn't sell well at all in the United States. And the hit single, "Time Of The Season," I think was released long after the album had already kind of bombed.
BLUNSTONE: I know.
GROSS: What is the story behind why this record came out in the way that it did?
BLUNSTONE: Well, I mean, it really intrigues me because I sometimes think that records have a life of their own, because everything was against this record. We recorded it for CBS Records in London. They'd only just started out. They were quite a small company in London, and they gave us a very limited budget. I think it was a thousand pounds, which even in those days was a very small budget for doing an album. And there wasn't a lot of enthusiasm. We'd had quite a few flop singles. We'd just come back from a disastrous tour of the Far East. And we went into the studio, recorded this album, and there really wasn't a great response in the U.K. And I don't think - in America, they didn't want to release it at all.
But Al Cooper from Blood Sweat and Tears was in London, and he just bought a lot of albums, took them back to America. And he wrote the sleeve notes on this album in America, and he just felt that this album stood out from everything that he brought back from the U.K. So he alone is responsible for what happened with "Time Of The Season" because I think CBS had given up on this album. But he said, listen, this is a wonderful album. You must release it. When you think of how major record companies get behind some records or some acts - and they put lots of money into promotion and marketing, and probably the band have just come off a huge hit as well, and so you know that something's going to happen with this record. "Time Of The Season" had no right to be a hit, but I'm very, very glad that it was a hit.
And even in the studio - I tell this as a story against myself. I didn't really like the song, and I didn't want to sing it. And it had been written more or less in the morning before we recorded it, and I wasn't too sure of the exact melody. And it's a Rod Argent song. And he's very emphatic that when he writes a melody, he wants it exactly as he wrote it, and quite so. I mean, I agree with him. It should be like that. And Rod and I had a set, too, in the studio. It was in Studio Three at Abbey Road. And he wanted this song absolutely as he wrote it, and I kept making little mistakes. And I said to him, Rod, listen. If you know how to sing it, you come in here, and you sing it. And he said to me - mind you, the language is a little bit richer, I hasten to add.
GROSS: (Laughter).
BLUNSTONE: He said to me, Colin, you're the singer. You sing it. And it went on from there. It was quite a fiery moment. But, I mean, I'm really glad that I - he made me stand there and sing it. I would be very upset if I hadn't done it.
GROSS: Well, let's hear it. This is The Zombies, "Time Of The Season."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TIME OF THE SEASON")
THE ZOMBIES: (Singing) It's the time of the season when love runs high. In this time, give it to me easy. And let me try with pleasured hands to take you in the sun to promised lands, to show you everyone. It's the time of the season for loving. What's your name? Who's your daddy? Is he rich like me? Has he taken any time to show you what you need to live? Tell it to me slowly. Tell you what, I really want to know. It's the time of the season for loving.
GROSS: So what was the condition of the band by the time this record became a big hit?
BLUNSTONE: Well, Rod Argent and Chris White had been very successful as songwriters for The Zombies and for other artists as well. And I think that had fired their enthusiasm, and they knew they wanted to stay in the music business. But for the other three, I mean, we were really struggling just financially because our concerts were few and far between. Our records weren't selling. And we were, quite frankly, going broke. And so it was getting more and more difficult for us.
On top of that, we had worked absolutely solidly for three years. There were no sort of three weeks touring here and then six months off or something like that - we worked solidly. And just speaking personally, I think I was very, very tired and just a little bit disappointed with the way things had gone, remembering that we started off with a No. 1 hit record, a gold record, "She's Not There." And from there on in, we seemed to have gradually slipped down the hill of success, or however one explains it.
And so I think, personally, I was feeling very disappointed. And I remember we were having a rehearsal. Rod Argent and Chris White were sharing a flat, and we were having a rehearsal there. And Paul Atkinson said, listen, guys, I just think that's enough for me. You know, I think I need to move on and do something else. And Rod said, well, listen, if one guy is going to leave, I think we should all perhaps get out and try new things. And I said nothing. I just kept my head down and thought, oh, my God, what's happening?
GROSS: (Laughter).
BLUNSTONE: And I just went out for a long walk.
GROSS: When "Time Of The Season" came out, did everybody in the band think, well, maybe we should actually stick together after all?
BLUNSTONE: Well, unfortunately, the band had finished at least an hour - at least an hour? - at least a year before "Time Of The Season" was a hit. And in that time, everybody was doing very different things, and really, at the time, it felt impractical for us to get back together again. Again, with the benefit of hindsight, I think it could've been done if everybody had wanted to do it.
GROSS: Colin Blunstone, it's really just been a pleasure to talk with you. I thank you very much...
BLUNSTONE: Well, thank you, Terry.
GROSS: ...For being with us.
BLUNSTONE: Yeah, it's been fun.
BIANCULLI: Colin Blunstone speaking to Terry Gross in 1998. He led the original Zombie invasion as lead singer of the British group The Zombies, which had several hits in the 1960s. A new documentary about the group, titled "Hung Up On A Dream," has just been released. Coming up, we remember filmmaker James Foley, who died last week at age 71. His films include "Glengarry Glen Ross," a David Mamet play currently being revived on Broadway. This is FRESH AIR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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