“An Evening With… The Zombies” LIVE! at the GRAMMY Museum Experience Prudential Center
By: Spotlight Central
Tags: New Jersey, Grammy Awards, Rock And Roll, Interview, Music

Opening up the conversation by asking the pair what it was like to inducted into the Hall of Fame 50 years to the day when the group’s song “Time of the Season” topped the charts, Zombie lead vocalist Colin Blunstone replies, “When we were nominated four out of five times in the last few years and not inducted, we thought we would never make it, so it was a fabulous feeling when we were inducted!”

Blunstone’s bandmate, songwriter/keyboardist Rod Argent, agrees adding, “We are one of the few vintage bands that still gets excited by continuing to create — and because we do still create new material, we’ve been taken more seriously in the last five years.”

When asked what the induction ceremony — which took place on March 29, 2019 at Brooklyn, NY’s Barclays Center — was like, Blunstone simply replies, “Dreamlike.”

Continuing, “The good and great of the music business were all there; it was almost overwhelming,” Blunstone explains, “We were playing to 17,000 people and being televised — now, we’re a gigging band; we play all the time — but for something like that, it was an incredibly exciting evening.”

Remarks Argent, “Sometimes, it’s difficult to believe that other musicians like what you’re doing, but that was special because your peer group voted for you.”

When Conklin adds, “It was well-deserved — and a long time coming,” the audience enthusiastically applauds.

Conklin asks the pair about their latest album — their excellent 2015 effort, Still Got That Hunger, inquiring about what the recording process was like.

Recalls Blunstone, “With this album, we had to tell our producer that we wanted to go back to the way we recorded in the ‘60s,” before Argent discloses, “We had to convince him.”

“There was no click track,” explains Blunstone. “We played live and we sang live — the only thing we added later were the vocal harmonies.”

“We wanted to do a live recording and thought we would only be replacing the solos,” notes Argent, “but we didn’t have to — we just did some touching up. We loved the feeling of everyone ‘locking on’ to what everyone else was doing — and we had a ball doing it.”

Acknowledges Blunstone, “I like the energy when everyone is performing together. It really focuses your mind,” before Argent notes, “I feel the records we made in the ’60s had a much better structure. You had to make things absolutely right until you found something that really worked.”

Conklin also asks Argent and Blunstone about the origins of their band, The Zombies, a group which they created in 1962 when they were both still teenagers.

Recalls Argent, “When I was in school, I heard my cousin, Jim Rodford’s, band and I knew I needed to get into a band. Soon after, I wandered into a classroom and I heard a guy playing folk music on a guitar, and I asked him if he wanted to be in a band. I also listened to a group of drummers in the marching band and asked the one who kept the best time if he wanted to be in a band. Lastly, I asked my friend who just finished building his own bass if he’d like to be in a band, and he agreed, asking if his friend who played guitar could join, too. Within two weeks, we all met, and that was the band that gelled; we entered a competition and even beat my cousin Jim’s band and ended up getting a recording contract.”