The group scored British and American hits in 1964 with "She's Not There". In the US two further singles, "Tell Her No" in 1965 and "Time of the Season" in 1968, were also successful. Their 1968 album Odessey and Oracle is ranked number 100 on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The Zombies will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.
Three members of the band, Rod Argent, Paul Atkinson and Hugh Grundy, first came together to jam in 1961 in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England. Argent wanted to form a band and initially asked his elder cousin Jim Rodford to join as a bassist. Rodford was in a successful local band, the Bluetones, at the time and so declined, but he offered to help Argent (Rodford would later join in 2004 when the band reformed). Colin Blunstone and Paul Arnold joined the other three to form the band in April 1961, while all five members were at school.
Their original name was the Mustangs, but they quickly realised that there were other groups with that name. It was Arnold who came up with the Zombies, according to Blunstone. When Argent was asked about the origins of the band's name in a 2015 interview with PopMatters journalist J.C. Maçek III, Argent said, "Well, we chose that name in 1962 and, I mean, I knew vaguely that they were: sort of, you know, the Walking Dead from Haiti and Colin didn't even really know what they were." Argent explains, "It was [original bass guitarist] Paul [Arnold] that came up with the name. I don't know where he got it from. He very soon left the band after that." However, Arnold also left his mark with the name. "I thought this was a name that no one else is going to have. And I just liked the whole idea of it. Colin was wary, I'm sure, at the beginning, I know, but I always, always really, really liked it."Arnold lost interest in the band and chose to leave to become a physician; he was replaced by Chris White. After winning a beat-group competition sponsored by the London Evening News, they signed a recording contract with Decca and recorded their first hit, "She's Not There". It was released in mid-1964 and peaked at number 12 in the UK, becoming their only UK Top 40 hit. The tune began to catch on in the United States and eventually climbed to number 2 in early December. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA.
Like many other British Invasion groups, the Zombies were sent to the United States to tour behind their new hit single. Among their early US gigs were Murray the K's Christmas shows at the Brooklyn Fox Theatre, where the band played seven performances a day. On 12 January 1965, the band made its first in-person appearance on US television, on the first episode of NBC's Hullabaloo and played "She's Not There" (and their new single "Tell Her No") to a screaming, hysterical audience full of teenage girls.
In the UK, the Zombies' follow-up single to "She's Not There" was written by Chris White. "Leave Me Be" was unsuccessful in the UK and as a result was not issued as an A-side in the US. It did appear as the B side of their second US single, "Tell Her No". Penned by Rod Argent, "Tell Her No" became another big seller in 1965, peaking at No.6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March. As the band's third UK single, "Tell Her No" failed to make the Top 40, peaking at number 42. Subsequent recordings such as "She's Coming Home", "Whenever You're Ready", "Is This the Dream", "Indication" and "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself" failed to achieve the success of the previous two singles (although the Zombies had continued success in Scandinavia and the Philippines, which led to a series of concerts in 1967). A song by the Zombies released only as a B-side (to "Whenever You're Ready") in both the US and UK in 1965, "I Love You" subsequently became a sizeable hit for the group People! in the United States in 1968.In 1967, frustrated by their continuing lack of success, the Zombies signed a recording contract with CBS Records for whom they recorded the album Odessey and Oracle at EMI's world-famous Abbey Road studios. (Odyssey was accidentally misspelled by Terry Quirk, an art teacher who designed the cover). The band's budget would not cover session musicians, so they used a Mellotron. According to Argent, this was in fact John Lennon's Mellotron, which had been left in the studio because the Beatles had just finished recording their own album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The album was mixed into the standard mono, however as another concession toward their limited budget, Argent and White (who, due to their songwriting royalties, had earned more than the rest of the members) personally paid for the stereo mixes.
The change in direction was evident on their first single released by CBS, "Care of Cell 44", a song about the anticipation felt while waiting for the singer's partner to be released from prison. It is also notable for the title of the song not appearing anywhere in the lyrics. Unfortunately, like their previous Decca releases, it failed to reach the charts. A second CBS 45, "Friends of Mine", was also unsuccessful. With the band experiencing a declining demand for live appearances, the band split up after a final gig in mid-December 1967. Odessey and Oracle, the band's swansong , was released in April 1968 and sold poorly. It was only given a US release because musician Al Kooper, then signed to Columbia Records, convinced his label of the album's merits. One of its tracks, "Time of the Season", written by Argent, was released as a single in 1968 and spent a long period as a 'sleeper'. Eventually, in 1969, it grew to become a nationwide hit in the US, peaking in the Hot 100 (Billboard at No.3).
In 1968, Argent and White began working on material for a possible new band when they were approached by CBS to do another Zombies album. Several new tracks were cut with a line-up of Argent, Hugh Grundy, Rodford (bass) and Rick Birkett (guitar), and were combined with some old Decca out-takes and demos that were overdubbed and enhanced in sessions at Morgan Studios in London. The album, scheduled for release in 1969, was cancelled and only a couple of the songs, "Imagine the Swan" (one of the newly recorded songs) and "If It Don't Work Out" (a demo of a song that Dusty Springfield recorded and released in 1965), were put out as singles instead (some of this material was released on several compilation albums during the 1970s and 1980s, and the album, titled R.I.P., was finally released in Japan in 2008).
n 2017, the four surviving original members (Colin Blunstone, Rod Argent, Chris White, and Hugh Grundy) re-united to carry out a North American tour marking the 50th anniversary of the recording of Odessey and Oracle. The first stop on this tour was a first-time performance in Jamaica, as the featured artist on the Flower Power Cruise on the Celebrity Summit while in port in Falmouth. A popular podcast, S-Town, used "A Rose for Emily" as its closing music. This exposure helped The Zombies land a guest appearance on Conan in May 2017. The band was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in October 2017. They were nominated again a year later and were announced as one of seven inductees for the 2019 class in December 2018.
Jim Rodford died after a fall on 20 January 2018, aged 76. He was replaced by Søren Koch (from the Danish band The Beatophonics).
Here is "This Will Be Our Year" From 1968 Enjoy.
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