The remarkable 60-year ‘Odessey’ of the Zombies

The catalog of music from British band the Zombies has engraved an indelible design of influence and acclaim for the musicians since the 1960s. Formed in 1961, the St. Albans-born group arrived in the record bins at the height of Anglo-mania in 1964, subsequently issuing a string of successful baroque pop singles, including “She’s Not There” and “Tell Her No.” The future looked bright for the band but by 1967 the Zombies disbanded after recording their second full-length, the infamously misspelled collection “Odessey and Oracle.”

In the ensuing decades, the album slowly turned into one of the most acclaimed records of the rock era, while influencing several generations of artists, including Tom Petty and Dave Grohl. Buoyed by renewed interest and respect, founding members Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent officially reunited in 1999, with revamped lineups and a batch of new material that continues to equal the quality of their original releases.

With a feature-length documentary on the way later this year, the band is currently touring to support 2023′s “Different Game” — as they celebrate “60 Years on Tape.” The AJC recently caught up with vocalist Blunstone to discuss the past and future of The Zombies.

Credit: ALEX LAKE

Credit: ALEX LAKE

Q: A legacy band such as the Zombies could easily do an all-oldies set. Why do you lean on the new material as much as the familiar tracks?

A: We have to play new songs because that’s the lifeblood of what we do. It’s a constant thing with us. We just like to write and record new material, and I think we’ve still got as much energy onstage as there was in the ‘60s. But if that were to ever change, we’d have to take a view on whether it was worth continuing.

Q: So this is in no way a “farewell tour?”

A: Well, we simply love playing. Rod and I both really enjoy the excitement of live performance. We don’t take prisoners when we go on stage; we give it everything we’ve got. It’ll be the same on this new tour, as well. Occasionally, we sort of pinch ourselves and say, ‘Can this really be happening?’ We are incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to travel around the world with our friends, playing the music we love at this time in our lives. It’s so unexpected. I think both of us thought that our touring days were over a long, long time ago.

Q: You initially broke up the band in ‘67 because there was a perceived lack of public interest. Do you feel a wave of vindication to be touring 60 years after the first single was released?

A: You know, that is true. Like Rolling Stone naming “Odessey and Oracle” as one of the Top 100 albums of all time and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominating us three times — and finally getting in — it’s all a bit of vindication, you’re quite right. Because it was an incredibly sad time in 1967 when the band finished. I thought that was the end of the music business for me, I really did. Now, after all these years, to get the recognition we’ve had, it does make you realize, yeah, maybe we did have something.

Q: You had a little flash of success in ‘69 when “Time of the Season” was an unexpected hit, right?

A: That’s right but the album [“Odessey and Oracle”] was never a hit at the time, even with a big single on it. But now just by word of mouth it sells, year by year. It’s quite extraordinary; I don’t think there are many records like that out there. It’s almost as though it’s doing it by itself — there’s no promotion, no marketing. It just sells.

Credit: ALEX LAKE

Q: So many people continue to cite it as one of the greatest records of all time.

A: (Laughs) I know! Many people mention that album as an inspiration when they were forming their bands. Tom Petty, Dave Grohl, Susanna Hoffs, so many very different musicians have listed it as one of their favorites. For years, Paul Weller from the Jam has said that if he’s with someone and they don’t know “Odessey and Oracle,” he buys them a copy. Dave Grohl said on a Scandinavian TV show that a song that changed his life was [opening track] “Care of Cell 44.”

Q: In retrospect, do you feel the Zombies were far more appreciated than you initially thought in the ‘60s?

A: You know, when we look back, we realize that we always had a hit somewhere in the world. But communications were so bad, often we didn’t find out. I know it sounds bizarre now, but often we didn’t know we’d had a hit until months later. Maybe sometimes you never found out — unless you went and toured in a country — which songs were successful. Like in the Far East or the Philippines, we had many hits there. But they weren’t songs that had been hits anywhere else!

Q: Do you think the Zombies could’ve continued well into the ‘70s had you known the bigger picture?

A: With the benefit of hindsight, I often don’t understand why we didn’t keep going. But we’d been on the road nonstop for three years and we had an agent who managed to employ us. He had us working nearly every night, yet he’d never earn us any money! We were constantly broke. I think we all got tired and disillusioned with it all. But if we’d really thought it through, we were still in a strong position.

Q: In a way though, the late ‘60s was the end of an intensive cycle of creativity. Culture was changing, so naturally popular music evolved along with it.

A: Exactly. We’d been together for four years as an amateur band and three as a professional band and, you know, maybe it was just time to move on. Everyone else feels it was the right thing to do and had no regrets, but I personally have always been curious to know what we might have done next. Thankfully our music has survived and now we’re continuing the story.