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Zombies
CREEM: Come on, from the arrangements to lyrical ideas, you really did seem to offer a very intelligent and creative icon of pop - it was a lot more than, uhm, the Troggs for example. Stateside, do you think they took off because Reg Presley was promoted as a cretin? RA: Those tapes, those Trogg tapes, my god… CREEM: Maybe y'all should have made some Zombies tapes, in the same vein, to dispel the intelligence concept. Colin could scream at you about sprinkling "some fucking Fairy Dust" on the mix… RA: Yeah, those tapes, man… CREEM:They revolutionized the idea that the rock'n'roll lead singer did not have to be a member of MENSA. The bar was raised, y'know, dare to be dumb… CB: Around the explosion of the punk scene, one of the first artists to talk about influences, this guy Paul Weller of the Jam. And he was asked him what his favorite record was, and he said Odessey And Oracle. And I read this, and I... I just found that… extraordinary… CREEM: I read, somewhere way back when, that Ray Davies thought Odessey And Oracle to be a high watermark. RA: (eyes opened wide) Ray Davies said that? Really ! Wow. Really ? Y'know we find out things all the time …. Courtney Love last year, Super Furry Animals. CB: Odessey made it to number 92 on the charts at the time. That was it. RA: Then ten years later, it started to gain a following. CREEM: The band broke up before "Time of the Season" became a hit, is that right? RA: Colin and I remember this slightly differently. My recollection is that it was in the air, that we split up. To give you some background, let me set the scene. At that time the world was a much bigger place than it is now. Nowadays you could have a hit in Fiji or some place and you know it the next day because the information is so good. In those days, you didn't know it. You were aware of what was happening in your own country, sort of aware of what was happening in America, but then, I mean it was ages before we found out that "Time of the Season" was halfway out there in Billboard and Cashbox commercial charts. But we were stuck in England. For that last year, we hadn't had a hit in England. Now for Chris and I, it wasn't so much of a problem because we had a lot of writing income. And the stuff that was going around the world was actually filtering back to us as writers. They guys that relied on performance money, like the rest of the band, particularly Colin and Paul, were feeling like it was time to change. Anyway, Chris and I felt that it was in the air that the band might split. And we said to ourselves that we really had to make an album before this happens, because we were quite unhappy with some of the productions. And therefore we went to CBS—they gave us a thousand pounds, which even at that time was not a lot of money and we went to Abbey Road and we made it. How long did it take to finish it? CB: Because we had such a small budget one of things we had to do was really rehearse a lot before that so we could record very quickly. RA: Then we'd go into a three-hour session to record the song basically. CREEM: Was this 8-track or 16? RA: 8-track. CREEM: Wow, just like Black Sabbath! RA: You see, in America, 8-track existed. The Beatles got wind of this from the Beach Boys doing an 8-track album. So they went to Abbey Road which was technologically cutting edge at the time. And they latched two 4-track machines together, found a way of synching them up, which at the time was a very difficult thing to do. I suppose it was really 7-track, because one was to be used a synch track. Anyway, so the Beatles recorded Sergeant Pepper and shortly after that we went in and the engineers were saying, y'know, 'we just went through three months of hell. The Beatles made us find a way of doing 8-track, fuck.' And we looked at each other and they're going: "ohhh migod, no not again...' But we did do it... CREEM: How long did it take? CB: It was just over one summer, and as I said, we'd just do in when we had a song ready. RA: It was nothing like "Sergeant Pepper" which went on for… CREEM: But all the intricacies and layers of the harmonies on… RA: All very quick. For example, the song "Changes." I remember, I mean we only had three voices between us, so I remember rehearsing the track with three-part harmony, putting it down in our 3-hour session. And then of course we had the luxury of extra tracks. So I recall saying to Chris, 'what if we went da de da da da de da' so we through that on, we heard another harmony, through that on. CB: In fact, I think on that track we also had Paul singing on another track. RA: No, is he? CB: I'm sure he was... RA: Wow... CB: But also, it was on that track, "Changes," where we were all singing on a live mike. And at Abbey Road, you recorded from ten til one. And then it stopped, everything stopped for lunch. And then you'd continue from two til five and then from seven til ten, and it absolutely had to stop at ten o'clock. Well in "Changes," we were putting backing tracks on in the afternoon session. And it was five o'clock - we were on the mike and there was this grand piano in the studio. And two guys wearing long white coats walked in, we were singing you know, and they got this grand piano and they moved it out of the studio, they were taking it somewhere else, so we just kept going ! Cos we were so short of money, we just had to get it done .. I'm not sure if that was the final take, but while we were doing harmonies for "Changes," two technicians came and essentially dragged us out. RA: But the extra overdubs were very quick. The state of mind that we had was almost like we were kids that've been set free. Suddenly, there we were with 8 tracks, after earlier times of being very limited, we were being given free run. So whatever ideas that came along, we were allowed the spontaneity and the capacity to make these additions as we went along. CREEM: Did you have a sense that something particularly unusual was being created, something special? CB: We all remember it differently, and so we've talked about this subsequently. I don't remember going into this album thinking this was great—things were quite difficult, morale was a little bit low. We'd played to great audiences, large audiences just before all this, but because of the management we came up with practically no money. RA: Someone was making a hunk of money, and it was heartbreaking. CB: But the material on Odessey was really a natural end to a creative cycle. CREEM: It seems consciously different, almost conspicuously set apart from your earlier stuff. RA: Absolutely. CB: It was the natural ending of what had been a three-year cycle of material, but I still sometimes wonder what it would have been like if that had been the beginning of the next cycle. CREEM: You know, it could have really sucked as well. I mean, just about everything went sour after 1969. You could have unduly been influenced by peer pressure. RA: Well... CREEM: Just kidding... RA: We've always been trying to explore, push new territory. CREEM: Odessey And Oracle has been described as a "psychedelic masterpiece." Do you see it as such? RA: The thing is, strangely enough, when we broke up, we played our last gig by 1967. And really the explosion of psychedelia, particularly as far as drugs were concerned, was really 1967 onwards. And so, I mean, we came across almost no drugs, very few drugs. Until we split up. Then of course we weren't playing, I mean I wasn't playing until the beginning of the '70s with Argent. So the whole drug thing absolutely passed us by. I mean, we weren't goody-gooders. We used to go out on the road and enjoy the attention of beautiful young ladies and we'd get a bit drunk, but that was about it. Actually, drugs were never something anyone got into. CREEM: I was fortunate not to have been old enough to tempt owning a hippie identity, never liked hippies. I wouldn't even wear bell bottoms. I even hated the word, "bell bottoms," made me think of inverted mushrooms. What could be worse? RA: It all seemed a bit superficial, not really getting to the substance of your emotions or the feelings of real love, just some sort of fantasy ideal. CREEM: Was there a period of time where Colin, you didn't record? CB: No I always recorded, there were never really any gaps. But I hadn't performed live for a long long time, mostly starting in the mid-seventies. Around then there was a sudden explosion of disco music, and suddenly there was nowhere for me to play. It wasn't until the mid-nineties that I got back into it—and the re-emergence was kinda tough. When I first opened my mouth I wasn't sure if anything was going to come out at all! CREEM: And you've seen a lot of trends, different flavors of rock'n'roll come about. What did you think of the Sex Pistols? RA: They weren't, I mean, anything that I'd personally like. But I loved the energy of the band. I didn't actually like the vocal area of it very much. But the actual energy of the band playing, I liked a lot. CB: I liked more accessible side of it like the Police, for example. Sting is probably my favorite artist. Aside from the more commercial aspect of the punk scene, I didn't really care for it all that much, nor did I care for disco. RA: I've been really curious just about everything that's been going on. Right up until the time rap happened. And rap was the first time it felt for me that there was a, uhm, profound generational difference. Because suddenly there was this thing here that I couldn't really get interested in. I guess that was the defining moment for me, when rap happened. I suddenly found myself not following or caring about what it was about. What's this (RA examines a couple CD's brought with me for a friend), is this rap? CREEM: No, it's the Blood Drained Cows. RA: Gangster rap? CREEM: No, uhm, uh, eviscerated cattle sounds. RA: REALLY? CREEM: Actually, these are 2 cd's I recorded back in New Mexico. Y'know, like 60's garagey stuff, early Kinks; I mean, I brought these for a friend, not to hustle to you guys! RA: I do like the dead cow on the front. CREEM: My pal Andy from the Dictators produced that one. Ever hear of the Dictators? Handsome Dick Manitoba? CB: (sounds like) Gorgeous George? CREEM: Sorta. RA: Can we have these? CREEM: Uhh, yeah. CB: Did you say they're punk rock? RA: Like Johnny Rotten singing? CREEM: Well, uhm, it's me, so I hope you don't think so—cos I know you don't like the Johnny Rotten vocal thing. But you probably won't like it, but you're welcome to have it. Cattle are a big deal in the states here. It's all very confusing. No-one understands the reason W. Bush hasn't had a cattle prod turned on him at this point. CB: So it's about Dictators. CREEM: No, it's produced by a Dictator. RA: Who thinks he's George Bush? CREEM: Not that I'm aware of... But I'll ask. At this point, the phone rings and the boys are informed that sound check time at the fabulous Beachland Ballroom is calling. I pick up my thangs to leave, 2 Blood Spattered Cattle silicon wafers lighter (honest, I wasn't self-promoting!) as RA is relaying to me that that there's a possibility of a future Odessey And Oracle tour to even more possibly include original members Hugh Grant and bassist Chris White. No guarantee, we'll see, whoah, that'd be nice. And before I'm out of their room, past the threshold of the door, I salute bye-bye, see y'all at the show. And as I slip out the door, my thoughts are on e-mailing Mr. Vom out in Portland and letting him know that RA's intent on dredging up a copy of Aesthetics in NYC to check out the Zombies refs !!!!
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—Gregg Turner February 2005 |
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Photo by Tony Briggs
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