By this stage of the rock ‘n’ roll plot, most bands that made their first mark in the 1960s are either at home tending their gardens or peddling nostalgia to finance their ex-wives. Very few are enhancing their legendary reputations with new releases, fresh songwriting and tireless touring. That’s where the Zombies come in.
Underpinned, just as they were in those early days, by the individual and collective brilliance of vocal craftsman Colin Blunstone and keyboard virtuoso Rod Argent, the Zombies are simultaneously celebrating the past and seizing the future. Not for them the option of sitting home and spinning yarns, as they’d be quite entitled to do, of making their undying hit singles, sharing UK bills with Dusty Springfield, US shows with the Beach Boys, or following the Beatles’ Abbey Road sessions for Sgt. Pepper to make an album that would reverberate for generations to come.
The 21st century Zombies have racked up the airmiles as never before and they continue to freshen the live set, both with their latest material and by digging deeper into their great catalogue. “We’re rediscovering these songs along with the audience,” notes Blunstone, and Argent agrees. “I love playing Breathe Out, Breathe In on stage, and A Moment In Time and Any Other Way, I enjoy them as much as anything. And so many people, especially in America, come up and say they can’t believe how the new stuff fits in seamlessly with the old stuff.”
“There’s a feeling that we’re still relevant,” says Rod Argent with the group’s trademark understatement. “it’s never felt as good as it does at the moment.”