Rod Argent on Mick Jagger, William Faulkner and the Mellotron

It’s inexplicable but remarkable: the Zombies are enormously popular in the Philippines. They reportedly performed to crowds of 30,000 in the ’60s and still draw 10,000 today. Keyboardist Rod Argent claims their reception was bigger than the Beatles’ trip to Manila. Maybe the Philippines knows better: Argent’s first-ever song was the concise surf/mod piece “It’s Alright With Me,” catchier than Lennon’s debut “Hey, Little Girl.” And “She’s Not There” was his second—by now it’s a certified legend. His Zombies released the brilliantly dense Odessey and Oracle in 1968 but disbanded before the record came out, which left songs like “This Will Be Our Year” and “Time of the Season” never performed live, until Argent played a charity concert in 2000 and requested that singer Colin Blunstone—who was in the audience—come to the stage to perform “Time” and “She’s Not There.” They’ve been touring together regularly since, and to commemorate Odessey’s 40th anniversary, they’ve been working in more and more material off of the album than ever before. They’ve even performed the entire record start to finish—which is a privilege 40 years overdue.

The Washington Times said the Zombies are ‘the best ’60s band still touring which doesn’t have Mick Jagger as a front man.’ Is not having Mick Jagger in your band really a disadvantage?
Rod Argent: Well, we thought about asking him, but we thought he probably wouldn’t have had any of it! I think that one of the reasons this has been successful is because we came together naturally. We didn’t say, ‘How can we recreate this thing to make a buck?’ And to be quite honest, in the first two years, it was a question of subsidizing it. It cost more money than we were getting back! But it was a labor of love really. It was such a blast to play on stage!
You mentioned in interviews that the recording process for your early stuff was extremely rushed. Would Odessey have turned out differently if you recorded it today?
That’s a very good point! I think to have boundaries really focuses the process. We’re writing songs right now for a new studio album—we’ve written three or four. I’m trying to do them on stage first—in the way we used to. I want us to try to get the freshness of being able to go in to the studio well-rehearsed, though that doesn’t mean you can’t add new ideas off the cuff as you’re putting the thing down. We’ve come full circle in a way. I produced a lot of records during the end of the 1990s. It was a very different process—it took forever! I love the thought now of getting back to that old method.
Is ‘A Rose for Emily’ based on the Faulkner short story?
That was written when I was living at home. I was thinking to myself, ‘I’ve got to write more material—I’m just being too lazy.’ I remember writing myself a note: ‘Wednesday, 9 o’clock: Get up, have breakfast, write song.’ I’d started casting around for ideas and I picked up a book of William Faulkner short stories and saw the title. I had read it, but I just liked the title—it was quite evocative. I thought, ‘I’m gonna write a song. Make a story on that title.’ It was done very quickly. By the end of the day the song was finished.
Which song on Odessey is the most difficult to play live?
With our touring band—the best ’60s band without Mick Jagger—we’ve tried quite a lot of the Odessey stuff. Some of it works brilliantly with just the five of us. Others really need the extra parts. When we got together at Shepherd’s Bush and had all of those parts covered, two songs really came into their own. One was ‘Changes,’ which was brilliant live, and the other was ‘Hung Up On a Dream.’ You need the extra Mellotron part and you needed the harmonies—with all of those things in place, those songs really soared!

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Tags: Music, odessey and oracle, rod argent, the grove, the zombies