Zombies frontman Colin Blunstone offers solo Worthing date
Worthing bound
The Zombies frontman Colin Blunstone brings his solo tour to The Pavilion Theatre, Worthing on May 27 on the back of the release of an expanded and remastered version of their debut album Begin Here.
You could say that it's the perfect title for a debut album.
“But I must admit I had nothing to do with the title,” Colin laughs. “But it does seem to work well, and it was certainly the beginning of a lifetime adventure for all of us. None of us could have seen what the future was going to hold. Back in the 1960s most people probably thought that they would have a three or four-year career (in music). I certainly thought that, and I think it just all added to the intensity of all at the time.
“I find myself thinking now that if I'd known back then that it was going to be a lifetime career, I would have tried to learn a bit more about music, about the industry, about writing and about performing and how everything works. If I'd known, I think I would have liked to have had more depth to my knowledge of the industry especially now in the last few years when there has been such a huge change in the industry.
“But I sometimes joke that back in 1964 the whole industry was a mystery to me and that it is still a mystery to me now so really for me personally nothing much has changed!”
The Zombies were signed to Decca, a year or so after The Rolling Stones were: “As a band we went up and saw The Stones before we hit the charts. We saw them playing in a little club just off Leicester Square and they were phenomenal. It was very small and they were all sitting on stools and it was just phenomenal. They were a really, really tight band, and I think the thing was that they were extending the repertoire before most English bands were aware of the rhythm ‘n’ blues repertoire. I remember the band went up and asked them afterwards where they got their songs from and they listed all these people.”
Also happening at the time of course were The Beatles, and again they were utterly transformational: “I think now everybody knows Beatles songs but I'm talking about a time when it was absolutely sensational. This was a band that was writing its own material. They were changing the whole pathway. It changed everyone's perception. They changed everyone's idea of what a band could do. Before, bands would just be going off to song-writers but these were The Beatles and they were writing their own music!”
As indeed The Zombies did: “We were only together professionally from 64-67 and I think the whole three-year progression was about Chris White and Rod Argent finding their way as writers and about the band discovering their musical pathway forward. If you listen to the singles, you can see them developing and you can see the albums developing. You think of Odessey and Oracle and then you think back to Begin Here which was lots of energy and maybe naive. Over that three-year period you just hear the band finding a whole different level.”
These were momentous times, but Colin admits he probably didn't see the wider picture back then: “I was just working very much day by day. We were touring constantly and Decca put severe pressure on all its bands to keep recording. We were really, really busy all the time. It's only looking back that you realise what a huge social upheaval there was. I was just thinking about the day or maybe the next day but not further ahead than that. There just wasn’t a lot of time to analyse what was happening. We were just concentrating on what we were doing in that moment.
“But my feeling is amazement that we stayed the same and that it happened so fast. In the summer of 64 we were playing locally but by Christmas 64 we were playing in Brooklyn in New York with all our idols. We were playing with huge world artists. We were playing in America with the greatest names, and here we were, just 18 or 19 years old.
“And I sometimes feel a bit of guilt because of the reaction that the bands got in America which was always absolutely incredible. It was like a riot every time British bands played in America but the fact is that a lot of the British bands were playing rhythm ‘n’ blues music which was American music! At times I wanted to shout ‘Stop!’ during the show. I wanted to shout ‘This is your music!’ I think what a lot of the British bands were doing was introducing American audiences back to their own music and in a way really reinvigorating the careers of those American artists.”
All these years later, the love for it all is just the same for Colin: “I think all musicians’ careers take a bumpy road. There have been several times when I have wondered whether I wanted to move career wise but always something keeps me coming back to it this. It somehow just always felt like I was meant to stay in the music business. Opportunities come up and they might not be dazzlingly high-profile opportunities but they happen at the right time.
“Obviously you have to have an interest in music but I think at the same time you have to develop the ability to survive. There have been desperate moments when I was thinking of other things but you find yourself surviving and you realise this is what you're meant to do.”