Bringing a 1960s Classic Back to Life: The Zombies on Performing “Odessey and Oracle” Live and Their Latest Release
The Zombie’s Odessey and Oracle.
This year, nearly 50 years after its initial release, The Zombies are launching a U.S. tour to perform their classic album Odessey and Oracle in its entirety.
Oracle is now known as a truly great and once “lost” masterpiece of psychedelia.
It is an immaculate collection of music with exceptionally clever and unusual arrangements, Mellotrons splattered all over the place, a classic 60’s production ethos, swirling harmonies that seem progressive and reminiscent of 14th century England at once, and of course, Colin Blunstone’s evocative and engaging lead vocals.
Though it may seem a staggering feat to adapt such a painstakingly-produced classic album to the stage, The Zombies appear well-equipped to pull it off. This is evidenced by their 40th Anniversary Live Concert release, which documented their 2008 performances of this album to sold-out audiences in the U.K.
Now, supporting the upcoming release of a new album’s worth of entirely original material—titled Still Got That Hunger—The Zombies are bringing their live rendition of Odessey and Oracle here to the U.S., complete with all their surviving members.
I recently had the chance to sit down with Colin Blunstone, lead singer of The Zombies, to chat with him about the making of this amazing and influential recording, about how a classic album is pulled off live, and what the future of The Zombies looks and sounds like.
Now that it’s been nearly 50 years since the release of Odessey and Oracle, have your feelings about the recording changed?
Colin: No, I think my feelings about the album are the same. At the time, it got some critical acclaim, but commercially it was not a success. My feeling about the album was, in a very concise way, that it was the best that we could do. And if it wasn’t going to be a commercial success, obviously that tells you something—that maybe it was time for us to move on and get involved in other projects.
I think it’s got some great songs on it though, and some very great performances. We were very fortunate to get into Abbey Road—at the time it wasn’t easy to get into Abbey Road as we were a CBS act and to my knowledge, we were the only act to get into Abbey Road that wasn’t an EMI act.
I’m not quite sure how we managed that, but we were recording in studio 3 with Geoff Emerick and Peter Vance who had just finished the Sgt. Pepper’s album, so we were recording with the very best people and were very fortunate to get into a situation like that.
So you don’t know how you got in there, but did you want to get in there? Was that an specific goal, to record with Geoff, and at Abbey Road?
Well, Ken Jones produced us from “She’s Not There” up until Odyssey and Oracle and everybody in the band felt it was time to move on. Ken could be a real autocrat—he could be very strict—but when we suggested to him that it might be time to produce ourselves [mainly Argent and White doing the production], he helped us to get going. And to my knowledge, it was Ken Jones who got us into Abbey Road. But how he did it, who he had to kill, I’m not quite sure. [Laughs]
So, Geoff [Emerick] had just come off these historic recordings at the time. Was there anything in particular he contributed that changed the sound or direction of the record or any specific tune?
I don’t remember any specifics, because we recorded that album in ’67, but I think we did benefit from the advances they made with the Beatles. For instance, we were now recording on 8 tracks. They managed to put the two 4-track machines together.
We walked in to the studio just after they managed to do that, so we had tracks to spare to double track vocals and [overdub keyboard solos] and things like that which we weren’t expecting.
The other thing I remember, not exactly having to do with Geoff, but there was a Mellotron in Studio 3 that we were told was John Lennon’s, that he had left behind, and we used that all over O&O, so that made quite a difference to the album.
It was also interesting walking in to Studio 3 because on the floor there were percussion instruments just where the Beatles had left them [from Sgt. Pepper’s].
But Geoff and Vance were incredibly gifted and very sophisticated. They just made it so easy for us. I love it when you walk into a studio and an engineer just brings up magical sounds, when you don’t have to fight to get those sounds. Geoff and Vance did just that.
I’ve been a fan of the record for a while, and in my mind I always thought it had taken a long time to create since it’s so nuanced and arranged, but I’ve recently learned that this was recorded over a very short period of time.
Oh yes, an incredibly short time. I can’t remember how long it took to write the songs, but that only took a few months as well.
We had a very small budget, a thousand pounds, which even in 1967 in Abbey Road went nowhere. So we made a concerted effort to rehearse extensively so that all the arrangements and the keys were fixed before we went into the studio, and all we were really looking for was a performance.
Oddly enough we’ve done the same thing with our new album, Still Got That Hunger. We thought “why not go back to how we prepared for O&O?” and I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do that. That way you’re not using up studio time to find your way with a song; you find your way around it outside the studio.
[Editor’s note: Adjusted for inflation and historical exchange rates, a £1,000 budget would translate to roughly $20,000 today. Average recording studio costs were considerably higher at the time, meaning that direct are comparisons very difficult to make on dollars and cents alone, but Blunstone recollects that the entire album was completed in just five days at Abbey Road.]
Were the vocal arrangements sorted before recording Odessey as well?
For the most part. But because we had these extra tracks, we did sometimes have the extra luxury of either double- or triple-tracking harmonies, or adding another part on the top.
The vocal arrangements always seem to me to have almost a Renaissance influence, very British in fact. Composers like Thomas Tallis come to mind. Was any of that an influence on this recording?
The Zombies, though under-recognized in their day, have since come to be counted as one of the most influential and creative groups of the 1960s Britpop era.
Well, I’ll tell you one thing, apart from Rod being a great pianist, he was a chorister until he was about 18 so he’s got a deep knowledge of harmony.
Now, when the band first got together, I was supposed to be the rhythm guitarist but ended up being the singer, but I was a pretty unsophisticated musician, so this is how we did our harmonies:
They would say to me, “Colin, you sing to us what you think is the melody.” And usually in the verses and bridge that would be fine, but when we came to the chorus I would often naturally take the top harmony (I have a high voice), without realizing that was what I was doing.
So what they would do was set that first, sing it four or five times until I’ve got it in my brain. Then Rod would give Chris White a very simple harmony because he’s got to play bass. Now this is all very well, but it often leaves Rod with a nightmare harmony to sing around these two harmonies that we’re doing.
I know that people have said to me “We’ve been trying to get this harmony that you’re singing, what is it!?’ Because it wasn’t just one person on top, one in the middle and one on the bottom—it was jumping all over the place and it gave it a unique sound. But it was because we were just starting off as kids and we had to do things the best way possible that worked for us.
Were there any particular outside influences on the songs while you were writing them?
I think that there’s always a very wide range of influences in the Zombies. I always say it’s one of our strengths and in a strange way one of our weaknesses, because people in the media never quite knew how to compartmentalize us. Were we an R&B band or a rock band?
But because we took our influences from classical music, modern jazz, rhythm and blues, blues, it’s quite an eclectic mix and of course it goes through the Zombies filter and comes out as something completely different.
Probably the one album that was influencing us at the time was Pet Sounds. I’m not saying we were copying it, but we were very aware of it. Sgt. Pepper’s wasn’t yet released, at least for the first part of the recording. So we hadn’t heard that. But we were avid Beatles fans of course.
So, when adapting the record for stage, how true do you try to stay to the album?
Oh, very true. And as far as I know, every note that’s on the record is in the performance.
We’ve got Darian Sahanaja from Brian Wilson’s band playing second keyboards, the surviving members of the Zombies [bass, keys, voice and drums], plus our touring band [Argent/Bluntstone] doubling up some of the harmonies. Also, Chris White’s wife Viv, who is a great singer helps out with some of the higher harmonies as well. So every note should be covered.
The one thing I’m not sure of on this tour is that on “This Will Be Our Year,” there’s a brass section which is mostly trombones [3 trombones and trumpet]. In the UK we had a brass section, and there’s been talk of having one in the big cities, but we’re still not sure if it will happen.
In listening to the recordings of your live performances [40th Anniversary Live Concert], it seems incredibly accurate, even down to the subtleties of how the fingers play certain parts, and minor changes of feel. Was that something you wanted to capture as well?
It was definitely thought about, and I think it was also just there. We did try to replicate everything, but the other side of it is that with the original band getting together, that’s just how we play. It’s natural. I really do admire Chris White though, because from 1967 to 2008 he hadn’t picked up a bass guitar, and he played it note perfectly.
What was the most enjoyable tune to go back to?
Well, we had never performed many of them live at all. The vast majority, besides Time Of The Season, I don’t think we played ANY of O&O live. So, for that reason it was great to go back to the whole piece really. I definitely have favorites and of course with the current incarnation [of our touring band] we do get to play about half of them live. I do really like “Hung Up On A Dream” so that’s a fun one to play.
So how do you find your experience of touring nowadays different from the 60s?
The Zombies have returned to the stage in recent years. Photo by Peter Grad.
Oh yeah, it is quite different. One of the main things that’s changed, especially since the 60s, is that back then the PAs were just an afterthought. Back then, a lot of shows were done in cinema chains, and you just used whatever PA was in the cinema. How anybody ever heard any vocals I don’t know.
I saw the Beatles in a cinema. We toured with the Isley Brothers, the Searchers, Dusty Springfield, and we were playing in cinemas just using their PA. And then by the 70s bands were bringing their own PA. Nowadays, venues usually have very good Pas.
In England, there was only one freeway back then. It just went north and south and not even the whole way, so we spent a lot of time on really small back roads, and to get anywhere just took forever. Also, there weren’t so many mid-priced hotels, so we would stay in B&Bs if an old lady had some spare rooms in her house.
So it was a little primitive. I mean, this was what the road manager’s main job was back then: We’d get to a town and he’d literally have to walk the streets and find some place for us to stay. When I think back I can’t imagine how we existed. But Rod and I were just 19, and to us it was just a huge adventure, and we were soon traveling around the world. So, we’re traveling around the world at a time when that was really unusual for people to do, playing the music that we loved with our pals. What could be better? So the fact that we stayed in somewhat primitive places, we didn’t really notice.
Listening back to all your post-1991 records, it seems as though you’ve done a good job of staying current with production. Are you committed to the idea of being a band that takes advantage of new things, and doesn’t try to just sound like a “classic” band?
Absolutely. We want our music to be fresh and exciting, and in no way do we want to rely on what we’ve done in the past.
Obviously, if people are interested in that, we take great pleasure in it. But it’s very important that we’re writing and recording new material. And of course we try and record it in as modern a way as possible.
With the new album, Still Got That Hunger, we worked with a producer named Chris Potter. He’s recorded The Verve and Richard Ashcroft, worked with the Stones and many other big-name artists and he is a fabulous professional producer, and to a large extent, I’m glad to say, the technical side of recording was left entirely to him, and he took that weight right off our shoulders.
The thing I loved was that immediately upon hearing the music back, it just sounded fantastic. And I’ve been in situations where you’ve spent 2 or 3 days just trying to get professional sound in the control room.
On this album we made a very definite decision to approach it from how we recorded O&O. So we rehearsed extensively and the arrangements were set, and when we got into the studio they asked me to lay down a guide vocal because it helped them play through the song, and we found when we listened back that not only did we keep all that they played, all the solos, but we also kept all of my original vocals.
We did about five or six takes, and maybe we grabbed part of a vocal from another take once in a while, but it was mostly just one take. And six months or a year ago, I would’ve thought it would have been harder to perform live in a studio with a band, but it’s not, it’s easier. Because you’re caught up in the moment, it’s exciting, it’s emotional. Whereas when you go in cold after a backing track has been completed, that’s a whole different ball game. And as much as I can in the future, I’m going to do the vocals live.
The Zombie’s upcoming release “Still Got That Hunger” is available on pre-order now.
You’ve said you thought there was a lot of interesting chord progressions on the newest album, Still Got That Hunger. Is that crucial to The Zombies sound?
I think it is really because Rod’s always been the dominant writer in the Zombies, and right from the beginning he’s always used chords that are quite unusual, and some of that has to do with being a keyboard player; they just automatically go to strange chords. Because of the chords in these songs we’ve always needed a good guitarist, because they’re monster chords.
One of the tricks that Rod has is that they’re quite progressive chords, but they sound simple; it’s only when you start to try and play it that you think “What’s he playing??” But, if a song came to Rod that was kind of simple with straight chords, then that’s fine, but generally his songs do have very sophisticated chords.
Well, that’s something I noticed about both records, and about a lot of your material is that a lot of your chord progressions are unique and progressive.
Absolutely. You know I play the guitar but in a very limited way. So I can hear what Rod is doing is progressive, but I wouldn’t say that I’m technically accomplished, I very much see myself as a singer.
But the funny thing is that even though some of these songs are quite complicated, Rod says he grew up learning to write with my voice in mind. And it’s worked the other way around too, I grew up learning to sing professionally to his songs, so I’m used to things being not quite what you’d expect in a melody.
Yeah, and it seems as though the songs you’ve chosen for much of your solo material have a lot of the same chords and sounds as Rod’s writing as well.
Yeah, I think that’s probably what I was brought up on. I find it very attractive, it’s one of the first things I look for in a song is the chord progressions. I think as I’ve got older I’ve become a bit more interested in the lyric [and] even the melody, or maybe how the melody fits with the chords. When I was younger, it was probably the chords that struck me first.
So, to wrap up on the newest record, you funded it via PledgeMusic. Do you find that this new and modern way of making records is better, worse, different, than how they were made back in the day?
Well, this is the first time we’ve done this, so we’re still discovering the full implications of how it works. But for us, I think it’s been great to keep our followers—I don’t particularly like the word “fans”—to keep them informed of everything we’re doing.
And we get feedback from them as well. So it means that people feel much more involved in what we’re doing. And in the same way, it helps us to know that people are interested in the early parts of recording an album as opposed to [only] the finished product.
From a financial point of view, of course it does lift a little of the burden from our shoulders, but we’ve always managed to record. We recorded three albums with this incarnation of the band, and also two live albums as well, so it’s never been a problem for us to finance our own records—so that wasn’t the main consideration really.
It was to bring us into closer contact with the people that follow us, and so far I think we’ve all really enjoyed it and we haven’t really completed the whole cycle yet because we haven’t yet released the album. But so far it’s been really enjoyable, to the benefit of us and the people who follow us as well.
Do you find that you have more older or newer fans who have contributed?
I think it is a mix, and that’s true of our audiences when we play in America. It is a real mix of ages. There are many people there who have probably followed us since the 60’s, but there’s also incredibly young people there as well.
And you can always tell, there’s about two or three young local bands that are always right at the front and I think they’re quite intrigued and interested because we’re a band from the 60’s, and it’s probably the same way (and I’m not comparing us with other artists) that we were very interested in the blues legends, and maybe there’s a bit of the same thing with the young band coming to watch us.
But definitely, we have a lot of different ages at our concerts, and the same with the pledge campaign as well, it’s been a real mixture.
Rich Bennett is an engineer, producer, composer, and guitarist who grew up in New York City. He is the owner of Acme Hall Studios, a recording studio and music education space in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
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