The Zombies’ Rod Argent talks new album, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Merry Go Round tour

With a legacy inching ever-closer to sixty years of music making, The Zombies’ own Rod Argent sits down with Ewan Gleadow to talk Different Game, their recent tracks, the struggles of heritage music making it onto the radio and The Zombies’ UK return.

Ewan Gleadow: Let’s fire through and get clocked off early shall we? Firstly well done on the new album, I’ve had it on a lot this morning. Very good stuff, thank you for sharing it with me. What sparked this new album? It’s been a few years since we heard from The Zombies.

Rod Argent: Yes, it has. The thing is, I remember us starting. We’ve got an American management company who are really terrific and know America better than anywhere else. Leading up to our induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019, we were touring pretty intensely. I think we all felt the band had never sounded so good and with so much energy. We were desperate after the induction, which was great, an honour, and we really enjoyed playing, but we couldn’t wait to get back and start on a new album. That was 2019, just before Covid hit really badly.

The Zombies release new album A Different Game via Cooking Vinyl, March 31, 2023

We got back and we almost immediately recorded the first song I had written, which was Merry Go Round. We loved it. Strangely enough, I followed The Rolling Stones’ tradition of, once a record is finished and mixed, we go to a friendly radio station to play it, so I can hear how it sounded on the radio. Things always sound a little different on the radio, with radio compression, and it can have a bit of a magical quality if you get it right. We loved the result of it. We loved how it sounded, and we couldn’t wait to carry on. One of the things that was important to us, because of all the live playing that we’d done, was recording the album in a way that we used to have to in the old days.

There was no other option, everyone was in the same room together. You responded to a live guide vocal, which sometimes became the master vocal, maybe with a few little additions. Nevertheless, it was the experience of getting everybody in the studio at the same time, bouncing off each other, and getting magic in a take, it was special, something better than the sum of its parts. You catch something. We really wanted to get back to that, and we did that with the first song and we loved the result, we couldn’t wait to keep going. Right then Covid hit with a vengeance, and it meant none of us could come into the studio together and play. 

The only alternative would have been to do it in such a way that I had recorded before, by people doing their parts in different studios, but that felt sterile. We didn’t wanna do it like that. Things gradually ground to a halt, and it was so frustrating, particularly as our bass player lives in Denmark, so it was impossible for him to come over. But at the same time, it was impossible for people to come and work together in the same room. One advantage I got was the fact it gave me some uninterrupted time to work on the songs and finish them in an unhurried way. That was lovely. 

By that time I had realised that there was a benefit that came about that I hadn’t looked for. It felt like a real luxury, so there was a good side of things. Then eventually when Covid finally started to really ease off, we got the whole process back together. By that time I had most of the songs, most of them written and then always recorded in the way I just described. It meant that the actual basic recording of the song would usually only take three to four hours. We had the performance there, and it didn’t mean that we didn’t polish it up with backing vocals or just the occasional overdub, although there are not many overdubs on the album, I have to say. We’ve really got that feeling of energy and commitment, I feel. We feel we capture it on the album, and it was a lovely way to record. In the end, we’re pretty proud of it, and I must say that it’s lovely to have your reaction and the reaction we got from America is really terrific. It’s a really satisfying feeling. 

Ewan: It must be, it’s a very solid record. Did it feel good to reconnect in the studio? To look back on how much you and the band have accomplished must feel different?

Rod: To be quite honest, I’m happier with this album, partly because it’s a new album, it’s very hard to divorce things, but I’m happier with this album than anything we’ve done since Odessey and Oracle. Somewhere in the States, someone was nice enough to actually say that. I hope it gets some sort of recognition and play. It was the actual day of the first streamed single today, which Rolling Stone put up on their website. But someone phoned up yesterday and said ‘I’ve just heard it on BBC Radio 6, they’ve just played it’ and I thought ‘that’s fantastic’. I said ‘How did it sound?’ They said ‘great on the radio’. I love hearing our old songs on the radio, things like Time of The Season and She’s Not There.

But that’s lovely hearing that, I love hearing that, nothing beats the feeling of hearing something new that you’ve recorded actually broadcast on the radio. It gets harder and harder to do, to be honest, especially with the mainstream. You know, big radio stations, everything gets so playlisted and put into categories. Someone told me when it was on, so I managed to go back and have a listen and hear it play, and it does stand up, it sounded great. I was really, really, really pleased, really excited.

Ewan: It is very difficult to get radio airtime now, especially when broken into playlists for Spotify or for the radio itself. How do you manage around that? Or is there no clear route of breaking through that?

Rod: I’m not sure that there is, unless things break out and cross over. It is possible, but very hard right now because everything is so categorised. I did a Ringo Starr All Star Tour. It was with a great band, Edgar Winter and Hamish Steward, and it was great playing with Ringo. He was lovely. First time I met him, actually, and all that was lovely. But he said to me, he said ‘You know what? I’ve made some great tracks. I can never get played.’ He said it was because when they’re sent to radio, the stations go ‘Yeah, yeah, we really like this. But, unfortunately, we only play your old stuff because we’re a vintage station’ or the current stations say ‘We don’t play anything from heritage artists,’ because then they get classed as Heritage Radio. 

He said it’s so frustrating. I know things can break out, nothing’s impossible, you just have to hope, particularly if you’ve done something that you feel is good. It’s a real shame if people can’t get the chance to experience this and make up their own minds, because we always get young people, particularly in America, in our audiences. We always have that young component to the audiences. That is lovely, it really is. I’m not being ageist because I love all the older people coming as well, that’s wonderful, but if you get younger people, you get a huge amount of energy coming back from the audience. It’s lovely to have a mix.

Ewan: It is yeah, I mean I’m the tender old age of twenty-three. In some ways, the heritage aspect of it, the categorisation of it, is quite sad. Some of the best artists releasing last year and this year are people who have released albums decades before. I know John Cale has an album out in a couple of weeks, but whether or not it gets played by stations is up for debate. The Zombies’ latest album does feel quite broad, quite unique, in that it moves the image forward, which I think is important for so-called “heritage” artists now, especially when they find themselves categorised and attempting to break free from it.

Rod: That’s the first time I played the harmonica in forty years, you know. 

Ewan: Do you think you’ll be getting it out for the Merry Go Round tour later this year?

Rod: Well, the problem is I have to play the keyboard as well. The bit of harmonica that I do play, I bend it and it means having to use both hands and work it that way. I can’t imagine being able to play the keyboards at the same time, and I can’t let the keyboard part go. It’s too important, so it may have to be without that, which is a real shame.

Ewan: You could always get that neck strap Bob Dylan had where it wraps around.

Rod: I’d have to really practise, I don’t know if I could manage properly, but it might be worth a try once we get underway.

Ewan: Obviously speaking of the tour too, that is pretty soon, are you excited?

Rod: Yeah, I am. I’m excited to play in the UK again because we’ve really neglected it in a way, and it’s not because we wanted to. It’s because I think that our managers have done a wonderful job, the upward curve in the last ten years has been unbelievable. But ending in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, I’m sure that without what they had done and what we had done in America, it wouldn’t have built to that stage. They’re much more comfortable with the whole situation in America and different places, and in the UK, especially in the early days, we were very badly managed.

We only ever had one hit really, which was She’s Not There. Then of course with Odessey and Oracle, that was never a hit album. It did become a cult album. It’s sold better over the years, which is extraordinary. It’s never stopped selling, it sells more now than it ever did when it first came out. But at the same time, the UK has, for various reasons, been a bit neglected. I just hope we get a bit of play on this album because it might inspire a few people who wouldn’t have come otherwise, who might not quite realise what we’re all about. I’m really looking forward to playing in the UK again. 

Ewan: It’s always pleasing to hear seasoned musicians come back with something that sounds this good. 

Rod: I may be generalising with this but one album that puts me to shame is David Bowie’s last album. He made an album that was absolutely full of inner energy and just brilliantly done, and that is the total opposite of what I’m about to say. A lot of people of our vintage, when they put out new albums, they sound like a diluted version. The one thing that I wanted, with tracks like the one that dropped today, was to capture the energy that the band has on stage, and capture that on record and get some of that excitement. 

To my way of thinking, it means that when you do what you hope are beautiful ballads, or at least the original intention, the contrast of one thing with another, the energy against the groove tracks, is much stronger. The feeling behind this album, capturing that energy, and when I say energy it doesn’t have to be thrashing, I mean the intensity of feeling that you always have when you’re young. Sometimes people lose that as they get older. I wanted so desperately to try and capture the energy on this album, and it’s lovely to hear some good responses from guys like you. It’s lovely.

The Zombies release new album A Different Game via Cooking Vinyl, March 31, 2023