There's a new documentary about the '60s British band The Zombies. It's called 'Hung Up on a Dream' and it's streaming on Amazon Prime. We're listening back to Terry's 1998 interview with lead singer of The Zombies, Colin Blunstone. The band had a reputation for being clean cut and well mannered. "People want rascals and rogues and naughty boys. So in a way, I think that it went against us a bit," he said.Also, we remember actor/director James Foley. He directed Glengarry Glen Ross.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is the background of The Zombies band?
Support for NPR and the following message come from Jarl and Pamela Moan, thanking the people who make public radio great every day, and also those who listen. This is Fresh Air. I'm David Bianculli.
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. You're my lover, I do my thing with you.
Americans were right about the zombies, whose first record, the still spooky She's Not There, made it all the way to number two on the Billboard pop chart in 1964. In England, the same single topped out at number 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 and 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 Blundstone, 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.
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 had tanned the color of her hair her voice was soft and cool her eyes were clear and bright but she's not
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Chapter 2: How did The Zombies achieve success in America?
Please don't bother trying to find her. She's not there.
Colin Blenstone, welcome to Fresh Air. Terry, thank you very much.
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.
Chapter 3: What is the story behind the song 'She's Not There'?
The competition was held in Watford Town Hall, which was about eight 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.
What did you sing in the final competition?
Oh, I was hoping you weren't going to ask me that. We sang a Beatles song, You Can't Do That.
Oh.
You know? I've got something to say that might cause you pain. Do you remember that one?
Absolutely. I like that song a lot.
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.
Why was the group named The Zombies?
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Chapter 4: Why was the band named The Zombies?
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.
What were the qualities of your voice that you think they wrote for?
Well, especially for those days, I sang in quite a high key, you know, 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 zombie sound.
Yeah, a lot of the songs you sang had more to do with vulnerability than showing how strong you were.
Yeah, that's right. Well, that's me.
Let's hear another one of the zombies' big hits. And this is Tell Her No. Tell us something about the song or the session.
I think, as I remember, we'd been touring with Dionne Warwick, who you would call Dionne Warwick. 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 around to singing. And I always remember this session because I was fast asleep when they finished. And they woke me up to sing Teller No.
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Chapter 5: What defines The Zombies' unique sound?
Oh, come on.
No, 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.
Okay, why don't we play it, you listen in, and then you tell us which the line was. Okay.
How funny to hear this all the way from America.
And if she should tell you, come closer. And if she tempts you with a charm. Okay, that's all right.
That's fine.
Tell her no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't hurry now for her love belongs to you. And if she should tell you I love you. And if she tempts you with a charm. This part's good. Here it is.
That's it. Did you hear it?
Yeah, so it's the part I was... Yeah, go ahead.
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Chapter 6: How did The Zombies handle their public image?
But if it don't work out, if it don't work out, if it don't work out, if it don't work out? Will she still care for me the way she did before? Will she turn around and tell me she don't love me anymore?
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Support for NPR and the following message come from Jarl and Pamela Moan, thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen.
The very last hit that the Zombies had, Time of the Season, was from an album called Odyssey 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. What is the story behind why this record came out in the way that it did?
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 up. They were quite a small company in London. And they gave us a very limited budget. I think it was £1,000, 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 UK. 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 UK. So he alone is responsible for... 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.
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Chapter 7: What led to the hit 'Time of the Season'?
No. Talking about it as a robbery. As a robbery? No. Hey. So all this, you didn't actually, you didn't actually call Graff, you didn't talk to him? Not actually, no. You didn't? No, not actually. Did you? What did I say? What did you say? I said not actually. F*** you, George, we're just talking. We are? Yes. Because, uh, because it's a crime.
Robbery, that's right. It is a crime. It's also very safe. You were actually talking about this. That's right. You're going to steal the leads. Have I said that? Are you? Did I say that? Did you talk to Graham? What did I say? What did he say? What did he say? Did he buy them?
The language, as we all heard, is not exactly naturalistic. It's a really kind of stylized, like hyper-realist form of colloquial language. When you're reading the script and figuring out what you want to get out of it as the director, how does a Mamet script read different from what you're used to seeing as a script?
Well, it's good, which is very different. And I think the most important thing when I read this screenplay, I certainly was aware of what it was, and I really began to read it with some trepidation, like, why do I want to make a film out of this Pulitzer Prize-winning play? It was not something I ever saw myself doing. And so I read it with, yeah, well, you know, not likely.
But what really surprised me was that the reading of it seemed much more emotionally accessible than my memory of the play. I had thought when I saw the play that it really appealed to me sort of from the neck up and was an interesting intellectual, philosophical, black, humorous sort of experience. But reading the screenplay, for some reasons that I later analyzed for myself,
it really opened up a whole nother level of an emotional accessibility to the characters that had not been evident for me on stage.
Did you want people to read the lines naturalistically or were you looking for something else?
No, that was very important because I became aware early on that there was a real danger that actors could get into with language like this where they get seduced by the superficial level of gratification that comes from just saying good dialogue that's written in a rhythmic way. Because if you just memorize the lines and say them fast, they sound good.
And so one could get convinced that it actually meant something. And That actually happened a lot when we had actors come in to read and some really heavyweight actors had come in and read and they made a big mistake by sort of having prepared in that superficial way and so it was flashy and entertaining but totally boring to me.
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