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Digger
talks to ex-Zombie Colin Blunstone, one of Britain's favourite and most successful
vocalists, who is currently as busy as ever with tours and recordings with co-Zombie
keyboardist Rod Argent.
This article is the intellectual property of www.retrosellers.com and cannot be reproduced without express
permission.
Photographs © The Colin Blunstone Official Website
Colin Blunstone is one of Britain's most respected and popular vocalists. With a
very distinctive breathy voice, managing to be both sweet and strong, he was the lead
vocalist with the highly successful and influential Zombies in the early 60s. The Zombies
were one of the bands to 'break' America in the wake of Beatlemania, and in their
relatively short existence produced some great material - She's Not There, Time Of The
Season, Tell Her No and the critically-acclaimed album Odyssey and Oracle. When the 60s
ended, Colin enjoyed a solo career with equal success and several further hit singles and
albums. He has remained friends with ex-Zombies and collaborated on a number of ventures
over the years. He and renowned keyboardist Rod Argent are touring and recording together,
satisfying a worldwide following for their melodic and classically-influenced brand of
rock and roll. Colin kindly agreed to answer a few questions for www.retrosellers.com
"I'm not sure that our image worked in our favour," says Colin
when I ask him about the press hype about The Zombies surrounding their academic
accomplishments. "We were most of us just out of school and the publicity people were
looking for an angle and chose the fact that we had a few O-levels between us. Those first
few press photographs were awful. Very embarrassing. And it wasn't as though we were
exceptional - Manfred Mann, The Yardbirds and even The Stones were all very well educated
guys. We came across as rather smug, which wasn't the case at all. We were just
ex-schoolkids having a great deal of fun. That sort of publicity stays with you and in
retrospect I think it did us more harm than good." The Zombies were part of the
so-called British Invasion which swept America. They had two Cashbox number one hits in
the States with She's Not There and Time Of The Season as well as chart success at home.
Colin tells me that the band was conceived based on a desire to emulate Cliff and The
Shadows. Most of the band members were friends from school in the leafy St. Albans area of
Hertfordshire, just up the road from London. But Colin didn't know anyone at his first
rehearsal with the band - his friend Paul Arnold hadn't turned up. Paul himself had been
recruited to the band on the qualification that he was making his own bass guitar! Colin
explains that he was bowled-over by Rod Argent's virtuosity on the keyboards whilst Colin
at that stage played a tentative guitar, with Rod doing the lead vocals. It was a while
before their, now familiar and seemingly natural roles were defined. On that first session
Colin sported a broken nose and two black eyes courtesy of a rugby tackle at school and
the other band members eyed him nervously and rather respectfully as a result. "It's
amazing though. Ask the five guys a question about those days now and you'll get five
completely different answers," says Colin. This was in 1961 at a pub called The Old
Black Lion off of St. Peter's Street. Rod's cousin, Jim Rodford, bassist at the time with
The Blue Tones, and who has since played with many of the major bands such as The Animals
and The Kinks, very kindly allowed the lads to use his equipment. Rod Argent, Colin
Blunstone, Hugh Grundy, Paul Atkinson and Paul Arnold (soon to be replaced by Chris White
when Arnold pursued a medical career) had sewn the seeds. "I think I did a Ricky
Nelson number - Hello Mary Lou or something like that, as I was a big fan of his," he
tells me. "Rod played Nut Rocker by B. Bumble and The Stingers and it was remarkable.
I couldn't believe his playing," Colin recalls that the rehearsal rooms were cold and
how Paul Arnold would keep one hand in his pocket, much to the chagrin of the others.
"He also played a semitone sharp!" says Colin. Clearly his days were numbered!
"The Zombies were very innovative with things like harmonies. Rod had been in the St.
Albans Abbey choir and seemed to have an instinctive knack of knowing what would work. We
tried a lot of vocal experimentation which was at odds with the usual thing - someone
sings the melody, someone else the top harmony and another the bottom harmony. Listen, for
example, to Time Of The Season,"
When the news broke that She's Not There had hit number one in the States, they couldn't
celebrate much because they were in Decca's West Hampstead studios recording the follow-up
Tell Her No. I ask Colin about the American attitude to popular music compared to the
British, and he confirms that the Americans were more passionate and knowledgeable about
their music. "In Britain music tended to be a background to drinking or getting
girls," he says. I point out that many bands were also formed on the pretext of
getting girls and he laughs in agreement.
Colin's musical taste he describes as "Eclectic - jazz, classical,
blues, rock and roll. That was a big strength of The Zombies. We couldn't be pigeon-holed
and our music came from a wide range of influences. And Rod and Chris very soon became
very good writers. There was a pressure on us to do our own material and those two rose to
the challenge. She's Not There was actually only the second song Rod had ever
written," he tells me.
So who are Colin's favourite musicians and songwriters? "My dream band would actually
be made up of bass players, which would be an interesting sound!" he explains.
"Jim Rodford - such a talented player and generous man, Sting - because he's such a
fantastic writer, commercially successful and yet he hasn't sacrificed his principles. I
have worked with Sting and when I first met him I was frankly overawed which is unusual
for me. Paul McCartney - I haven't met him but I did stand backstage at a Beatles concert
and it was marvellous and Brian Wilson - God Only Knows probably rates as my favourite
song, along with Fragile by Sting and Fields Of Gold," As for songwriters "Elton
John and Bernie Taupin," Colin tells me. "And if I were on Desert Island Discs
today I'd choose Casablanca, Shakespeare In Love and Carve Her Name With Pride as my
films," I tell Colin that I always get weepy when I see the bit where Violette
Scabo's daughter goes to Buckingham Palace to receive her mother's posthumous medal and he
says he does too.
Why does Colin think that the sixties were so explosively creative in Britain?
"Anything was possible. The barriers had been broken down. The Beatles were from the
north and class and accent no longer mattered. David Bailey was the world's top
photographer, John Osborne the world's top writer, Twiggy the top model and we won the
World Cup in 1966. Britain was the centre of the artistic world and it was
self-perpetuating. But then every region of the world has its day. I'm not sure it will
happen in Britain again," I suggest to Colin that maybe accent contributed to the
demise of The Zombies after so short a career at the top and he agrees it could have been
a factor. "It's funny though, because none of us came from posh backgrounds. We just
speak like this in Hertfordshire! I lived in a council house and my dad was a hairdresser.
Right up until his death I think he was hoping that maybe I'd get myself a proper job!!!
And if my wife ever wants to have a little go at me, she just calls me 'Arthur' which was
my dad's name,"
After the massive success of She's Not There, the UK follow-up Leave Me Be failed to do
well. Colin says that this, together with the inexperience of the band and the dubious
image that their publicists put forward meant that the band lost a lot of momentum and
struggled despite moderate hits with Time Of The Season and Tell Her No. I suggest to
Colin that he had three careers - firstly with The Zombies, then his very successful early
seventies solo incarnation with songs like Say You Don't Mind and I Don't Believe in
Miracles and latterly his more recent collaborations with Rod Argent. Colin reminds me
that he had a hit in the eighties with What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted with Dave Stewart
although this success was short-lived. His biggest career highlights, so far, he tells me
are his two US number one hits.
Does Colin ever worry about his voice? "Yes, it can be a strain
touring and it can start to waiver a bit on long tours when you are on the road for three
or four months, as we were recently with 'The Manfreds'," And what about technology
in music? "If used properly it's a good thing. I have terrible problems with
machines! I get very frustrated when we have to wait for the machine to be re-programmed
or whatever when we all just want to get on with the recording. I think it's important,
and Rod and I are certainly aiming at this, that we use more real instruments and don't
over arrange and over produce," I ask him about the state of the music business
today. "I am afraid that these days the music companies do things the wrong way
round. They look for a gap in the market and then plug it with whatever they can find or
fabricate. Promotion and marketing have taken over from talent and substance. And it's
incredibly hard to get a record deal these days. I'm sure it was a lot easier 'in my day'.
We were very lucky, actually, as we had producer Ken Jones who was a likeable man and
helped us a lot,"
I ask Colin if he's nostalgic. "Yes, I think about the past a lot.
I'd like my youth back, I think. Maybe choose a more sensible path than I sometimes
took," although he points out that this wouldn't mean not being a musician. He says
that it almost seemed as though when he really tried something it failed and when he was
casual about some goal in life he succeeded.
"Rod and I are working on an album with ten new songs by Rod - people say that this
was one of the strengths of The Zombies - Rod's composing and arranging and my voice.
There's a UK tour in April 2003 and we are off again to Holland and Belgium in January.
They seem to like us a lot there. Our current band are fantastic. Rod and I tend to choose
people we know or who come highly recommended rather than auditioning people. There's a
wealth of talent in the band. I'm also working, very slowly, on a new solo album which
features many of my old favourites. I don't think many people would have heard of most of
the songs, but I hope they grow to like them as much as I do. So there's a lot to look
forward to. Actually, can I change that last answer? Maybe I'm not so nostalgic
really."
Visit Colin and Rod's websites, www.colinblunstone.co.uk
and www.rodargent.com
This article is the intellectual property of www.retrosellers.com and cannot be
reproduced without express permission.
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