The Zombies’ Colin Blunstone on The Humor and Energy Behind New LP ‘Different Game’ (INTERVIEW)

Photo credit: Alex Lake

The Zombies are releasing their first album since 2015, Different Game, on March 31st via Cooking Vinyl Records. It’s a busy time for the band as they resume their Life is a Merry-Go-Round tour with an appearance at SXSW, concerts in Texas and New Orleans, and then a full UK Spring tour. Their appearance at SXSW will also be part of the premier of a new feature documentary about their 60-year history and current touring life, Hung Up on a Dream, directed by musician and filmmaker Robert Schwartzman (UTOPIA). 

Making the new album was also challenging because the band, made up of founding keyboardist Rod Argent, founding lead singer Colin Blunstone, drummer Steve Rodford, guitarist Tom Toomey, and bassist Søren Koch, discovered when they recorded their 2015 album that they really preferred to work live in the studio together. That meant biding their time throughout lockdowns to put together Different Game, but they were more than happy with the results. The combination of exactitude and live energy behind the new tracks is something rarely captured these days, so we can only agree with their decision making. I spoke with Colin Blunstone from his home in the UK before he jumped into touring again. 

Hannah Means-Shannon: It seems like your upcoming touring is coming just in time to kick-start Spring and get people moving again. 

Colin Blunstone: That’s exactly what’s happening. It’s great since we’ve got a new album but it was a little bit of a challenge to get it finished because we started just before the pandemic. We like to record with everyone in the studio at the same time. A lot of bands don’t do that and will record separately. We really do find there’s a difference, an energy in the studio, if you’re all there and playing off of each other. This album is nearly a live album but played in studio conditions. Almost all of the instruments are live and most of the vocals were live. 

HMS: That is less common these days, a little more common in Blues and Roots music.

CB: We put an album out in 2015, Still Got That Hunger, and almost by chance, we did it on that album and liked it so much. For this album, Rod just had a new studio built. He lives in a converted barn and there are farm buildings around. I believe the building used to be an old dairy that got converted with a new roof and acoustically treating the walls. It’s compact but all the gear in it is very sophisticated. I hope we get a chance to record there lots in the future. That is studio is set up for us.

HMS: Where did you record this new album?

CB: We did it in Rod’s studio, part of his house, and it’s about two hours Southwest of London. It’s good for me since he moved a couple of years ago and he is now about an hour from me on an easy drive. Søren Koch, our bass player, actually lives in Denmark, so he has to go a little bit further than me for sessions! 

HMS: To what extent do you all craft the songs together in the studio, or are they very fleshed out before that?

CB: I think when Rod writes a song, it’s usually fairly complete. In the past, especially, he’d know the bass line and what he wanted the drums to play. That’s fairly rare. For instance, the bass line on “She’s Not There” was written as part of the song. It wasn’t from us getting together and working out a bass line. “Time of the Season” was the same. This album was a little looser than that. As the songs are written, Rod always calls me, and firstly we just sit round the piano. He’ll play me the song and we’ll just see how I get along singing it. 

You have to remember this, though: Rob will always say that he learned to write songs to my voice, and I certainly learned to sing professionally to his songs. So, usually, it works very well. We’ll go through the song first, then we’ll bring the other guys in. If they want to expand the song in any way, it’s open for them to at least have a try. They all make wonderful contributions in their own way. 

HMS: Something that really struck me about this collection of songs on Different Game is that they are not at all spare. They allow for plenty of layers and pieces that fit together. Despite the pandemic situation, that didn’t cause you take a more streamlined approach.

CB: Absolutely, yes. And though there is a lot in there, the vast majority was played live. We were really set on playing in the studio, and of course we could have taken some shortcuts. All the guys have got studios. They could have phoned their parts in, but we were determined not to do that.

HMS: That shows. I noticed that the band did a livestream concert in 2021 from Abbey Road and some of the videos from that performance are up now. The sound is particularly good on those videos and gives a good sense of how close together that live performance is to the songs on Still Got That Hunger. 

CB: Absolutely. It’s that we’ve gone back to recording how we used to record in the 60s. Obviously, studios are a lot more sophisticated now, so that gives us more choices in sound. But in terms of performance, we used to record in one or two takes back then. Particularly that was true on Odyssey and Oracle because we such a small budget and Abbey Road is such an expensive studio. We had to rehearse extensively, get into the studio, and since we knew the arrangements and we knew the keys, we were just looking for a performance. We still record quite quickly, but it’s not because we have to, but because the guys in the band are very, very good players and it suits us to record that way.

I must admit that the live concert in Abbey Road was one where I, personally, could feel it that we hadn’t played for two or three years at that point. It is funny how after three or four songs, though, it starts to come together. I liken it to sport. If a professional sportsman hasn’t played in a while, it takes them some time to get back to where they were. But by the end of the recording, I was absolutely fine. I’ve been playing for 60 years, but if I haven’t played for some time, it does take some time to get sharp again.

HMS: A lot of musicians are experiencing that right now! A lot of people have just been off the road for the longest period in their adult lives. No matter who you are, there’s a certain amount of that, and people laugh about it.

CB: It’s a bit dramatic! We are playing a cruise, Flower Power, in a few weeks’ time and we played it last year. At the last minute, three of the guys in the band had covid. Two of them recovered in time, but our lead guitarist Tom Toomey, didn’t recover in time. A decision was made that Rod and I would do our acoustic duo show on Flower Power. We’ve done that once or twice over the years, but we hadn’t rehearsed anything. [Laughs] 

We were playing to about 1500 people, and I was standing in the wings thinking, “This could be a very interesting show. I have no idea what’s going to happen.” In this instance, it went really well and we really enjoyed it. Rod and I both talk a lot and tell a lot of stories, so the audience had no choice in that. Most of the songs were written on keyboards, so when it’s just the two of us, they sound full and really work. That was an instance where the fact we hadn’t played much beforehand probably worked in our favor because there was so much energy. It went down really well. 

HMS: It still sounds terrifying. Given your incredibly long history together, I’m sure that was part of how you could just click into place and do the performance.

CB: There’s no substitute for experience and we have been playing a long time. Sometimes playing by the seat of your pants can be quite good! You find out some things about yourself!

HMS: Would you choose to go through that situation again, if someone said, “We want you to do an acoustic duo show.”?

CB: Yes, I don’t mind doing that at all. Rod and I have done it enough times now. What I find challenging is if we haven’t played in two or three years! At Abbey Road, we did five new songs, and some had a string quartet, and some didn’t. There were cameras zooming all over the place, and I was thinking, “What’s happening??”

HMS: The album is called Different Game and we have a song by that title. When I heard the song, I was struck by some of the serious ideas in the song. It reaches out to someone, but also critiques this person’s limited perspective, I think. It’s also a very emotional vocal line for you.

CB: As a vocalist, there are some songs that you take to immediately, and I did with this one. It was very natural for me to sing this. Rod wrote nine of the songs on this album and I wrote one, and Rod likes to keep the ideas of the songs close to his chest. He feels the lyric means what the listener decides. But I do know some of what this song means! 

Without mentioning any names, it was a very famous Classic Rock star that Rod saw in a documentary, and this was the star’s attitude, that he really missed the thrill of playing, and the fact that he wasn’t playing was everyone else’s fault except his own. But in actual fact, it was very much his own fault, and the decisions that he’d made. That was the spark for the song. But also, in the title of the album, it applies quite well to a band that’s been in the music industry for 60 years. It very much is a different game and is changing day by day. 

I like to think that I understood very little of the music industry when I came into it, and for me today it’s very much the same, a deep mystery. The business is changing, but for me it’s the same. I’m quite fortunate because I don’t get overwhelmed by the changes in the music business because I have very little idea what goes on.

HMS: I can see the upside to that because some people spend all their time and energy trying to figure it out and don’t have time to make music.

CB: It can be that way. I do find that stuff very overwhelming. For me, it’s always been about the song and the performance. Of course, it’s got to be recorded in a sophisticated manner and it’s got to sound good. I understand there’s a business side, but if you haven’t got the song, you might as well pack up and go home.

HMS: I think it’s fun that you title the album, Different Game, because of the situation. Despite the fact that you know it’s a different game now, you’re making this album and releasing it in the face of things you don’t understand. It’s a humorous kind of gesture, a determined one.

CB: Absolutely. We were trying to think of other 60s UK bands who were still playing, writing, and recording music. It’s not a long list. There are The Kinks, but I’m not sure they are going to record and play again. There was a time when I wondered whether The Who would continue to write and tour, but they are. 

The other thing about the idea of “different game” is that if you look at the photo on the cover, it shows what we have to do. I think, subconsciously, a lot of people think we just arrive ten minutes before a show starts and have a party onstage. While we all love to perform, but the cover gives you a hint of all the things that can happen on tour. We were in the middle of a desert going to Tucson, and the engine caught fire. The temperature was also 107 degrees! We were stuck by the side of the road for about five hours. 

We needed three vehicles to get out of there because we had crew and equipment. I also noticed all these little holes by the side of the road and I was thinking it was some kind of drainage system. I asked one of my American companions about them and they said, “They are snake holes!” [Laughs] I had visions of what would happen once it got dark. I was glad that we got away before dark. I think it could be quite dangerous.

HMS: I knew this happened to you, but I didn’t know about the snakes! They make a little appearance in the animated video for “Dropped Reeling and Stupid.” It says a lot about your attitude as musicians that you would share such a revealing event rather than preserving some myth that you fly by private jet.

CB: I think at this point in our lives, we’d like to be open about these things. The thought never crossed our minds to hide something like that. To me, it’s a big part of touring, how you deal with these setbacks. We had a really good road crew and they were magnificent. That’s all part of our story. Also, the band didn’t panic. 

HMS: Tell me more about the song that you wrote on the album.

CB: It’s the last one on the album, and the only one the whole band isn’t playing on. It’s called “The Sun Will Rise Again.” It is quite a literal song. In a way, it’s a love song, but it’s from a parent to a child. It’s literally about my relationship with my daughter. She was going through a very difficult time and this song just came to me. You can say, “The sun will rise again. We’ll get through this.” 

HMS: That’s lovely. I noticed for some of the songs on the album, and this was one of them, that there’s a pretty encouraging tone, as if reaching out to someone who needs to hear it. It’s an attempt to add some lift to someone’s life. 

CB: I think so. Even the slightly down ones have such a strong rhythmic content that you’re not overwhelmed with sadness. The music still lifts you. We don’t believe in getting mawkish. We put energy into the writing songs and into the performance of the songs. 

Related Content

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

New to Glide

Keep up-to-date with Glide

Twitter