When I saw the Zombies play at El Corazón a few years
ago, I was astonished by how well your voice—one of the most
instantly recognizable singing voices in the history of rock ‘n’
roll—has been preserved. You sound almost exactly like you did 40
years ago, which is rare in your field. Do you have a vocal training
regimen?
Well, I never did until sort of seven or eight years ago, I went to
a wonderful singing coach in London. He works with a lot of the West
End shows, so a lot of people who have to sing every night will go to
him. He really helped me. He introduced me to a bit of simple technique
and also a practice regimen that, certainly when I’m on the road, I
follow religiously. Your voice is a muscle, you know. If you don’t keep
it in shape, you’ll run into problems. But I think all musicians and
all singers have to find their own path. I find it’s best for me to
have some technique, because… I know lots of singers who, after three
or four nights on the road, they’ve lost their voice. It’s terrible. To
walk out onstage as a singer and know you’ve only got a little bit of
voice left, it’s a pretty scary situation to be in, really.
When you’re onstage, are you consciously in command of your
technique or do you lose yourself in the moment of
performance?
Both, I think. You have to think of quite a few things at the same
time. I am thinking of the lyrics I’m singing, but another thing I’ve
learned later in life is to be aware of the phrasing as well. It could
be the most beautiful lyric in the world, but it has to be phrased
correctly. A particular favorite line, you can’t labor it just because
you think it’s beautiful. It’s got to be sung. So I’m thinking the
lyric, I’m thinking about the phrasing, I’m obviously thinking about
the tuning, and at the same time, I’m always thinking about the
breathwhere the breath’s going to come from and how I’m gonna support
it in my body. So I’m trying to think of all those things at the same
time and look as though I’m not thinking about all those things at the
same time.
You started in the Zombies at age 14 as a guitarist, but did
you want to be a singer? Did you have the sense that your voice was
unique?
I used to sing all the time, but not on a stage. I never in my
wildest dreams thought I could be a professional singer. I thought that
was something that happened to other people. If I just speak
personally, this happened to me. We built up a local following
that was quite big, we won a competition, we got offered a recording
contract, and we were still very young. When we recorded “She’s Not
There,” most of us were 18, one was 17. Chris White, the bass player,
was a bit older, maybe 20. It began to dawn on us: We’re beginning to
get quite popular; maybe we have a chance. So we bought an old truck
and went and played some dates.
Have you kept your range?
Yes, all our songs are in the keys we recorded them in.
Amazing. When I saw you in Seattle, you opened with “I Love
You,” and when you hit the high note on the line “and I don’t know WHAT
TO SAY,” this wave of awe went through the room. Not just that you
sounded great (which you did), but that you got to that heroic high B
or whatever the note is.
It’s funny, we all got terrible flu just before Christmas this year,
and for the first time, we had to cancel some dates. It was serious.
But my voice broke in that song, which of course is the first song we
play often. But it was because I had the flu! It was a bit of a
struggle after that. A lot of these songs were written for me, for my
voice, for my range. So, it’s probably easier for me than for other
people. Rod [Argent] sometimes says he learned to write songs by
listening to my voice. And I can counter by saying I learned to sing by
singing his songs.
I was surprised to discover that you only do a handful of
songs—four in Seattle—from Odessey and Oracle at
your shows. I had assumed that, at least in North America, that’s the
album most people are coming to hear. Is that a
misconception?
I think it’s true. It’s quite difficult for us to gauge. In the U.S.
especially, Odessey and Oracle does have quite an important
place. People do like to hear it. At the moment, we’re playing five or
six things from Odessey and Oracle, but we play them in a block.
We try to change things a little bit on each tour.
I know the album was made during a fairly grim time for the
band, and that you had broken up by the time it was released, but when
you were actually tracking it, listening to mixes, waiting for it to be
received, were you optimistic? Did it feel like a
masterpiece?
I didn’t know that people would be talking about it 40 years later,
but I thought it was good. A good album. And I thought it was the best
we could possibly do. I know that Rod feels we went into that album
knowing the band was going to split. But that’s the thing about a
40-year gap: Everyone remembers things differently. I don’t remember
going into Abbey Road believing it would be our last album. We had one
or two singles released in the UK that didn’t chart, had just split
from our agent and our manager, we’d been on the road nonstop for three
years, and everybody felt we’d gone about as far as we could. We
thought we were very unsuccessful, but in hindsight, we realized that
in no time in our career did we not have a hit record somewhere, in one
country or another. Sometimes we didn’t find out until years later.
It’s just the way the world was; communications were so antiquated. If
we’d known people were listening in France, the Philippines, or
wherever else, we might have been able to hold the band together. At
the time, it seemed the natural thing to do. It wasn’t acrimonious. We
just all accepted it was inevitable.
Did the fact that Odessey wasn’t fully appreciated
until years later haunt you as you pursued your solo career in the
’70s? Did you feel that the Zombies project was
unfinished?
I think I felt frustrated that it was getting recognition 15 to 20
years—40 years now—after it was finished and didn’t get the
recognition at the time. I was incredibly disappointed, to the point of
just not knowing what to do with my life, really, when Odessey and
Oracle wasn’t the immediate success that we hoped for. It was
incredibly disappointing. I think I felt quite hurt, really, that what
I thought was a really great piece of work wasn’t appreciated.
And now it is.
Well, now it is. And so, hopefully, there’s a sense of vindication,
validation, all those kind of words….
All the –ations.
All the –ations, exactly. 
The Zombies play Thurs July 24, El Corazón, 9 pm, $25
adv/$30 DOS, 21+.
