0:00

The True Story of the Fake Zombies is a

0:02

production of iHeart Podcasts, Talk

0:04

House and never Mind Media. If

0:08

you could start out just by introducing yourself

0:10

and your role in the band.

0:12

Okay, my name is Colin

0:14

Blondstone. I'm the lead

0:16

singer in the Zombies.

0:26

The Zombies have made a lot of great music in the sixty

0:28

three years they've been a band. This

0:31

song time of the Season is

0:33

their colling Carry, one of

0:35

those perfect songs.

0:39

Back in nineteen sixty nine, when

0:41

that song topped the charts in America, there

0:44

was a rumor going around about their lead

0:46

singer, Colin Blondstone,

0:48

And at some point in the process, a journalist

0:51

from Rolling Stone gets in touch with the band

0:53

and tells you a piece of news about yourself.

0:56

Do you remember what he told you?

0:58

Yes, I remember very well.

1:02

Chris White was in New York and he'd

1:04

gone to the offices of Rolling Stone and

1:06

they said that there were at least

1:08

two bands touring

1:11

as the Zombies. The Rolling

1:13

Stone people in the office got Chris

1:15

White, original base payer, to

1:18

ring the manager of one of these bands

1:20

to engagement in conversation and see what he had

1:22

to say. And the manager said to

1:24

Chris well, yes, we've started up the Zombies

1:28

in honor of Colin Blanstone,

1:31

the lead singer from the band who was tragically

1:33

killed in a car crash

1:36

yesterday Rolling Stone.

1:39

And the

1:41

man said I.

1:44

Did this

1:47

was reported in Stone.

1:50

I mean they knew I hadn't been killed

1:52

in a car crash. For years,

1:54

I carried that clipping around with me. I've lost

1:56

it now. I'm not sure it's really healthy

1:58

to carry around chery around

2:01

with you.

2:02

Colin Blunstone isn't dead, obviously,

2:05

But back in nineteen seventy when his bandmate

2:08

Chris relayed that call from Rolling Stone,

2:11

his career and his band were

2:15

While Colin's band was falling apart back

2:17

in England, new zombies would

2:19

rise in their place. They

2:21

came from Texas, and

2:24

they came from Michigan. But

2:27

before I tell you about the fake zombies, you

2:29

need to hear about the genuine article, the

2:32

real zombies, and

2:37

how a fifty five year old footnote in

2:40

the career of one of the best bands ever let

2:43

us hear to a story that

2:45

could never in a million years happen

2:47

today.

3:13

It doesn't take much to set my mind reeling.

3:17

In the case of the fake Zombies, a fake

3:19

version of a very real British rock band.

3:22

It was a single sentence I read in a used

3:24

book that was ten years

3:27

ago. The

3:29

book was small, a flimsy paperback

3:32

with a glossy white cover. The

3:34

price, about eight bucks, was

3:36

written in pencil on the inside cover. I

3:41

don't remember where I saw it, just that

3:43

it was one of those bookstores in New York where there are

3:46

no defined sections and nothing is alphabetized,

3:49

just wall to wall books. I

3:57

stopped on this particular book on

4:00

that particular day because

4:02

the subject was and remains very

4:04

dear to me, and

4:07

I've never seen an entire book devoted to what I

4:09

believe is the most criminally underrated band

4:12

of all time, The Zombies.

4:21

I'm not the only one who feels that way. So

4:23

did Tom Petty.

4:25

We wounded up Salute one of our favorite

4:27

groups. That meant

4:29

a lots of us. They weren't the biggest

4:31

group in the world, as back in the sixties

4:34

there was a hoop called the Zombies.

4:36

Tom Petty loved the Zombies, so

4:39

do his bandmates. Later in

4:41

this podcast, you'll hear from Mike Campbell,

4:43

lead guitarist, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

4:46

That's coming up. Now,

4:48

back to that book, there

4:50

are pictures the band in their schoolboy

4:53

days at Saint Albans just outside London,

4:56

recording an Abbey Road, performing

4:58

on TV shows in the nineties in sixties with

5:00

names like Hullabaloo and Shindig.

5:03

What is Your Name?

5:04

Bud, Hugh but Grundy,

5:07

Paul Ashley, Warren Atkinson, Christopher Taylor,

5:09

White, Clint Edward Michael Dunstein.

5:12

You probably know them better as the

5:14

zombie.

5:19

In the photos. The zombies are thin and

5:21

pale, and they look impossibly cool.

5:23

The definition of British Invasion chic. Their

5:26

music you've probably heard it oc

5:32

and Food. If

5:36

you know that song, you know part of

5:39

the story. The

5:42

book went a little deeper. It covered

5:44

the band's early hits too, which you also

5:46

might know if you've ever flipped through an FM radio

5:48

dial or listen to a British Invasion playlist.

5:53

No no no no

5:55

no no no no no no

5:57

no no no

6:00

no no no no no no

6:02

no, these

6:06

don't bother find

6:08

them.

6:09

She's not that.

6:17

And The book talked about their seminal album Odyssey

6:20

and Oracle, a record which is now

6:22

accepted as a modern classic.

6:24

Part of the appeal is that

6:26

it's just as good as

6:29

Sergeant Pepper's.

6:31

It's extremely sophisticated and like

6:33

it's very intellectual,

6:35

but yet its beauty is unparalleled.

6:39

They just stood up from a lot of the other bands, and

6:41

their songs were so catchy, you know,

6:43

instantly memorable. They just had the whole package

6:45

of singing, the writing, to playing that vocal sound.

6:47

It just jumped out of the radio. I fell in

6:49

love with them right away.

6:52

So that's the Zombies' official story

6:55

as the book laid it out. They had

6:57

some hits, they made a classic album,

7:00

They remained darlings of the record collector set,

7:02

never fully appreciated in their time. They

7:05

weren't destined to become the Beatles, although

7:08

Paul McCartney loves the Zombies. Here's

7:10

Lucy Atkinson, her dad

7:12

Paul is the only original Zombie no longer

7:15

with us.

7:16

My dad Paul was working at CBS

7:18

in New York. He was in charge of

7:20

his band Wings. They were recording

7:23

in London. McCartney greeted

7:25

my dad with a Zombie song the first day he walked

7:27

in the studio. I think it might have been

7:29

tell her No, but I can't I can't remember exactly.

7:32

Lucy's story is a pretty good microcosm for the

7:34

Zombies career. They

7:36

have a lot of famous fans and huge hits, but

7:38

they remain a little underground, the

7:41

best kept secret. Everybody knows.

7:44

The Zombies are like the Connoisseur's

7:47

British Invasion band.

7:49

Everybody should know about the Zombies

7:52

and they will fall in love and

7:54

they will think, why did I not know?

7:56

Why did I not know this music?

7:59

Once you you're in the Zombies world, you don't

8:01

want to leave. The deeper you go into the band's

8:03

catalog, the better the songs get. Their

8:11

songs mean a lot to people like these

8:13

Zombies super fans. So carosel

8:15

forty four.

8:17

My daughter, I remember

8:19

her being very young, like three or four, and I was dancing

8:21

around the house of that song all the time.

8:23

So it's a very important song

8:25

to me and my kid. Wow,

8:28

I'm smart.

8:29

Smart I

8:33

chose this will be our year for our wedding song, and

8:35

that obviously has connected with me the most.

8:38

This will be our years Yeah, I'd

8:40

say my favorite. And

8:42

the way,

8:56

that's the kind of Zombies fan I was when

8:58

I picked up that paperback ten years ago

9:01

and read a sentence that would take me on the wildest

9:03

ride of my life. It

9:07

was these words and the end of a chapter

9:09

without any further explanation, that

9:11

would set this whole thing off. While

9:16

the Zombies were disbanded, a group of Americans

9:18

toured the United States pretending to be

9:20

the Zombies. As

9:24

it turns out, that sentence that got my mind

9:26

reeling all those years ago wasn't even

9:28

accurate. There wasn't

9:30

one group of young guys going around America

9:32

faking British accents and playing time

9:34

of the season. There were

9:37

two, and one of those bands

9:39

featured a couple of guys from zz Top.

9:52

I'm Daniel Ralston and this

9:55

is the true story of the fake

9:57

Zombies.

10:06

What's your name?

10:10

Daddy is rich

10:13

like me?

10:19

Who's your daddy is

10:23

rich?

10:25

Is he rich?

10:25

Like?

10:26

What's your name? Who's your daddy?

10:29

Is he rich like me? As far as

10:31

iconic lyrics, it's hard to do

10:34

better than that one. Its appeal

10:36

is kind of obvious. It's

10:39

more self assured than cocky. Equal

10:41

parts let me take you to dinner and let

10:43

me take you to bed. It's a hotline,

10:46

and there's a reason it's been sampled to

10:48

death, and

11:00

it's a damn good entry point to appreciate what's

11:02

great about the Zombies. They're a British

11:04

invasion band by definition, but the

11:06

sound is more American R and B than

11:08

blues. The

11:12

Zombies, back in the sixties and today are

11:14

built around two guys. One

11:16

is Rod Argent, world class keyboardist

11:18

and songwriter, and

11:23

as you're learn in this podcast, Rod still plays

11:25

those outrageous keyboard solos note

11:27

perfect as he approaches eighty years old.

11:35

Of the season.

11:38

The other key to the Zombies sound is

11:40

that voice you're hearing, the singer Colin

11:43

Blunstone, and my god,

11:46

what a singer me drymus

11:49

pleasure. Here's the legendary

11:51

Susannah Hoffs of the Bengals.

11:54

I was instantly seduced

11:56

by Colin's voice. He has

11:59

a singular voice for some

12:02

reason, even as a very little girl,

12:04

I was very

12:06

moved by the emotion in songs.

12:09

Susannah had the honor of inducting the Zombies

12:11

into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in twenty sixteen.

12:14

He's the one channeling that same passion.

12:18

He's in the pantheon of emotive

12:20

singers.

12:24

Argent and Blunstone met in nineteen sixty one,

12:26

by the way, making them one of the longest

12:28

running duos in rock history. Some

12:31

bands can make great songs, but it's

12:34

another thing entirely to make a great album.

12:37

While the Zombies have made a lot of incredible music

12:40

over the past sixty years, they're best

12:42

known for their nineteen sixty seven album Odyssey

12:44

an Oracle. It

12:47

has the big hit song on it, but to quote

12:49

Bob Dylan, it contains multitudes.

12:52

Every song is great. Here's

12:54

Mike Campbell from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

12:58

Of course, time and the season.

13:00

Brilliant song that is Hung

13:02

Up on a Dream is probably my favorite.

13:04

That's drummer and composer Joe Walk.

13:07

Because there's the rod part and there's

13:09

the Colin part. I just think it's

13:12

my favorite of all their melodies too,

13:14

and they've written lots of great melodies.

13:16

Let's hear from Susannah Hawk's I.

13:18

Mean a Rose for Emily by the way. This

13:21

is like a story. It's

13:23

connecting to all sorts

13:26

of interesting traditions

13:28

and literature.

13:30

Is at least this

13:33

guy is overcast

13:35

and brings a rose.

13:40

They just had that quality X

13:42

that just connects with people and you remember it when

13:44

you hear the song you instantly remember it, you know,

13:47

and that's a gift.

13:53

Odyssey and Oracle is now considered a classic,

13:56

but I wasn't always the case. In

13:58

fact, when it was released in nineteen six, it

14:00

was kind of an afterthought. Here's

14:11

Zombies co founder, keyboardist and chief

14:14

songwriter Ride Argent and singer

14:16

Colin Blunstone.

14:18

The main reason that I think that we recorded

14:21

odscen Oracle was because it was

14:23

in the air that we might break up, and so we made

14:25

the record because we felt that we went in with some

14:27

wonderful ideas and in

14:29

our heads we had how we

14:31

wanted them to sound, and they weren't coming out that way.

14:34

And so we thought, if we are going to break up, we've

14:37

got to try and produce an album ourselves. So

14:40

if it works or if it doesn't, we don't know if it's going to work,

14:42

but Lisa, we'll have given it a shot.

14:44

We had a really small advance, are

14:46

we a thousand pounds from

14:49

CBS, which,

14:51

you know, to record an album even then is

14:54

a very small amount of money. We

14:56

managed to get into Abby Road and we recorded

14:58

very very quickly.

15:00

So we thought, if the first single comes out and

15:02

it's a hit, would stay together. I mean

15:04

all of us thought that because we were great friends and

15:06

we thought it would be exciting, but it wasn't.

15:08

They issued a first single, which was

15:11

care of Self forty four, and I would

15:13

have thought that's a sure fire hit myself,

15:16

but nothing happened. By this

15:18

point, we weren't managed, we didn't have an

15:20

agent, we weren't getting any enthusiasm

15:22

from the record company the single would

15:25

come out. We'd

15:27

had several big disappointments before

15:30

that.

15:31

If you need more evidence that the Zombies and their now

15:33

classic album weren't exactly a priority

15:36

for their record label, the word

15:38

Odyssey is misspelled on the cover. Nobody

15:41

noticed the mistake until after the record was pressed.

15:44

The mistake was left in and called a psychedelic

15:47

inspired choice. The

15:49

album bombed when it was released in the UK.

15:53

The band released two singles, both great

15:55

songs, but they didn't hit and the

15:57

Zombies broke up.

15:58

I think there was a disc since in the band

16:01

at that time, the band

16:04

were going through a difficult

16:06

time, and when the single didn't

16:08

happen, we got together

16:10

for you know, the

16:12

meeting. I think we all knew that

16:15

something was going to happen, but Paul

16:17

Atkinson, Hugh Grandie and myself

16:20

from the live work. We had

16:22

never made any I don't

16:24

mean any money at all. We were

16:26

having trouble just eating, you

16:28

know, existing, and Paul said,

16:31

guys, you know I've just got married.

16:33

I've been offered a really great job. You know I'm

16:35

going to have to take it. And Rod

16:38

said, well, if Paul's leaving, I

16:41

think the band should finish.

16:45

And I remember I wish I

16:47

had said something, but I

16:49

didn't say anything at all

16:52

and left this meeting. I had no money

16:55

and no idea of what.

16:57

I was going to do.

16:59

It wasn't a acrimonious split up. It

17:01

was for other reasons. It was very sad because I thought

17:04

this is breaking into pieces. We're

17:06

all friends, We've just done an

17:08

album which we think is the best that

17:10

we can do, but no one was listening to

17:12

it at all.

17:15

Keyboardist Rod Argent, along with Zombies'

17:17

bassist Chris White, wrote the band's

17:19

early hits that man Rod

17:21

had the money and resources to continue his

17:23

life as a musician.

17:26

Chris and I had already managed

17:28

to negotiate a great deal for production

17:31

with Clive Davis. We had all our plans

17:34

in place and we were just about to launch them.

17:36

It felt great, but.

17:38

It wasn't so easy for Colin Blunstone. He

17:41

was the front man, the face of the

17:43

band, but he didn't write

17:45

the songs. You

17:47

can almost picture it. Rod Argent

17:50

shows up to the artist scene Oracle sessions at Abbey

17:52

Road and a rolls Royce Colin

17:55

rode up on a bicycle. That

17:58

disparity, that reality

18:00

would lead to the breakup of the band. You

18:03

see, the band's dissolution back in

18:05

England happened just as Time of

18:07

the Season was taking off in the US.

18:11

The only problem was the

18:13

band didn't know it

18:14

was a void was created.

18:21

People in America wanted to see the

18:23

Zombies, but there was no band,

18:26

and this would lead to the creation

18:29

of the fake zombies.

18:33

So your

18:38

own rab.

18:46

As you may have figured out, this

18:48

is a scheme that would be impossible to pull

18:51

off today. A band,

18:53

not just any band, but one with the massive hit

18:55

record breaks up just as their

18:58

song is climbing the charts. The

19:00

Zombies could have disappeared right then and there. But

19:04

there were these two guys in a small

19:06

town in Michigan who had a dream, a

19:08

fucked up, twisted so crazy it

19:11

just might work. Dream Enter

19:14

Bill Kehoe and Jim

19:16

Atherton, founders

19:18

and co proprietors of Delta Promotions,

19:21

the pre eminent concert promoters of

19:24

Bay City, Michigan. They

19:27

are also the management company who would assemble

19:29

and manage both versions of

19:31

the Fake Zombies. If

19:35

you dig deep enough into the history of American

19:37

music before giant corporations

19:39

got involved with controlling everything,

19:42

you didn't have to look far to find a shady character

19:44

with connections to organized crime. Think

19:48

Colonel Tom Parker's control over Elvis's

19:50

life, or Hesh Tony's

19:53

financial advisor and the sopranos who

19:55

got rich exploiting black artists and taking

19:57

their royalties. Tom

20:02

Parker and the guy's hash is based on

20:04

operated on a big stage and exploited

20:06

the naivety of their young performers without

20:08

any fear of repercussion. The

20:11

music industry was built on this kind of arrangement.

20:14

It's the wild West.

20:17

Well, it was an unregular

20:19

industry. There was a lot of pash,

20:22

there was a lot of leeway, there

20:25

was a lot of opportunity

20:28

to operate

20:31

beyond the you know, outside the lines.

20:34

So a circumstance like that, it's just going

20:36

to attract those people, and

20:39

as the record business grew, as

20:42

the money got bigger, it just attracted

20:44

more of it.

20:45

That's Joel Selvin, longtime

20:47

San Francisco Chronicle columnists and rock

20:49

writer emeritus. Joel

20:51

literally wrote the book on the criminal underpinnings

20:54

of the early days of rock and roll. He's

20:56

actually written a few books on the subject. I

20:58

wanted to talk to Joel because I knew that an operation

21:01

like Delta Promotions wasn't the first to try

21:03

a fake band scheme.

21:05

This also goes back to the early days of

21:07

rock and roll, when a group would have

21:09

a hit record and quickly

21:11

they would hire a bunch of guys to go out and be

21:13

the group, and sometimes they would send

21:15

two or three of the groups out at the same time.

21:19

Eventually, the Coasters had three

21:21

different groups working. Two

21:23

of them had split the country west

21:26

of the Mississippi, east of the Mississippi, and the third

21:28

one just rampaged across the country and

21:29

they were all the Coasters.

21:32

When the Fake Zombies were formed, Bill

21:34

Kehoe and Jim Atherton were running a teen

21:36

nightclub in Bay City called Band

21:38

Canyon. These teen

21:41

nightclubs popped up in the years after the British

21:43

invasion. Teenage kids wanted

21:45

to dance to rock music, and there's no

21:47

way in hell parents in Bay City were sending

21:49

their kids to an adult nightclub. Because

21:52

nightclubs were run by the mob.

21:55

Nightclubs were the province

21:57

of you know, shady

22:00

types. It wasn't

22:02

a high end business. Jack

22:04

Ruby in Dallas had a nightclub

22:07

that a lot of these bands played at. And

22:09

of course, you know, the classic story is

22:11

the Peppermint Lounge, right That was

22:14

a gangster hold

22:16

out. That was a place where they

22:19

had this bar off Times Square

22:21

just as a place to hang out. And

22:25

the manager decided to start booking rock

22:27

and roll bands and attractor the crowd

22:29

sort of unexpectedly and all

22:31

of a sudden bingo.

22:36

Our story might be a little darker

22:38

if Kehow and Atherton were hooked up with the tough

22:40

guys and killers Joel writes about her. But

22:43

they weren't. They

22:46

just ran a teen nightclub and they saw a

22:48

new way to make some money by

22:51

asking the young performers who played band Canyon

22:53

to pretend to be the zombies. Keijo

23:01

and Atherton attempted their scheme in nineteen sixty

23:04

eight and at least According to them,

23:07

they saw their teenage fake zombies as perfectly

23:09

legal. My god, they felt comfortable

23:11

enough to start a second fake Zombies. But

23:15

that time somebody was watching. A

23:18

writer named Ben Fong Torres,

23:20

who back in sixty eight was one of the first editors

23:22

of a new music newspaper called Rolling

23:25

Stone after

23:30

the Break the legendary

23:33

Ben Fong Torres.

23:47

Before Rolling Stone Magazine, if

23:49

you wanted to know about your favorite band, you pretty much

23:51

had to rely on what the band gave you. There

23:54

was, of course, the music, the album

23:56

cover and liner notes, and if you were lucky, a

23:58

few photos, maybe a fan

24:00

club. Once

24:03

guys like Ben Fong Torres and Cameron Crowe

24:05

started writing lengthy profiles of new bands

24:08

like led Zeppelin, things started to

24:10

change. Suddenly, things like the

24:12

Beatles breaking up or Mick Jagger hating

24:14

Keith Richards became news and

24:16

Rolling Stone made it legend. Speaking

24:19

of legends, if the name Ben Fong Torres

24:22

sounds familiar, he was a key figure

24:24

in the movie Almost Famous, portrayed

24:26

by actor Terry Chen. That

24:28

movie, written and directed by Cameron Crowe,

24:30

one of Ben's old co workers at Rolling Stone,

24:33

takes place around the same time as the fake Zombies.

24:35

If you're looking to get a picture of the era, I

24:38

mean, go watch Almost Famous. It's a classic,

24:42

William.

24:42

This is Ben Fong Torres and the music editor

24:44

at Rolling Stone Magazine. We got

24:47

a couple copies of your stories.

24:48

From back in nineteen seventy, at

24:50

the beginning of rock journalism. Ben

24:53

Fong Torres wrote about Delta Promotions

24:55

and their fake zombies scheme. When

24:59

I stumbled upon the story forty five years

25:01

after it happened, I had no idea

25:03

Ben already covered it. Unfortunately

25:06

he did not remember it.

25:08

This would be had a short conversation because I remember

25:10

nothing, but I'll do my best.

25:12

But we send him the original story, and luckily

25:14

it jogged his memory. I

25:17

asked Ben how a story like Delta Promotions

25:19

and their fake zombies might have ended up in Rolling

25:21

Stone back in nineteen seventy.

25:24

I think we heard about this from

25:27

probably an artist like Triss White,

25:30

or from management who felt rooped,

25:33

cheated because there were impostors

25:35

out there using their hard

25:38

earned, well established, well respected

25:40

names and making money

25:43

off of them.

25:44

Even now, Ben is fiercely defensive

25:46

of the artists he's covered. Rereading

25:49

his fake Zombie story is reminding him why

25:51

he wrote it in the first place.

25:52

And of course the real people

25:54

who founded these groups, who might have

25:56

split up or might have gone off to

25:59

other bands like about argent Wood, are

26:02

being deprived of income. And further

26:04

than that, it could amount to a defamation

26:06

of character because you have these frauds

26:08

up on stage, playing their

26:11

music poorly, if at

26:13

all, and be

26:16

smirching their names.

26:17

And Ben was right, as you'll hear later

26:19

in the series, there were in fact reviews

26:21

for the fake groups.

26:23

Wait a minute, now, we saw that group

26:25

a few weeks ago, and they were terrible.

26:28

We were ripped off.

26:29

Artists getting ripped off by a company like Delta

26:32

was exactly the kind of news Ben wanted to cover

26:34

in Rolling Stone. He wanted to see

26:36

artists win.

26:37

You know, it just fouls the air around

26:40

these artists. And I think that's the

26:42

nature of the story as I recall

26:44

it vaguely, And that's

26:46

why we do stories like that. You can't

26:49

all be celebrity profiles

26:51

and the latest drug busts. It

26:53

had to be all the news that I

26:55

think it says on the front page here all

26:57

the news that fits, and this

27:00

one did.

27:01

And now over fifty years later,

27:04

he's happy he had a hand in bringing the fake Zombies

27:06

to an end.

27:08

Clearly, we felt that it was the

27:10

wrong thing to be doing, and

27:12

that's why we put it on the front page of Rolling

27:15

Stone.

27:16

Thanks Ben, We're glad you did.

27:19

Really bad.

27:29

Because the zombies were on Ben's radar. The

27:32

Delta Promotions operation made it into the

27:34

pages of Rolling Stone. The

27:38

Fake Zombies only went on as long as it did

27:41

because of geography. Delta

27:44

operated out of Bay City, Michigan, two

27:47

hours north of Detroit, and as

27:49

you'll hear in the next episode, I have come to love

27:51

this weird little town that Bill Keyhoe and Jim

27:53

Atherton called home. And

27:56

surprisingly, Bay City has an entire

27:58

museum dedicated to the town's rock and

28:00

roll past. Gary

28:09

Johnson is a music historian who lives in Bay

28:12

City, the home of Delta Promotions.

28:14

Kejo was the guy

28:16

who started Delta

28:19

Promotions, and.

28:20

I'd soon learn it's home to a whole lot more,

28:23

including one of the most important songs in rock

28:26

music history, ninety

28:28

six Tiers by question Mark

28:30

and the Mysterians.

28:33

Jim Atherton was well

28:35

known in Michigan as a band

28:38

manager and in the

28:40

late sixties, he partnered

28:42

up with Keho in

28:45

Delta Promotions. Delta

28:48

Promotions signed question

28:50

Mark in the Mysterians. You know, they

28:52

started going out and playing

28:55

concerts that were promoted by Delta

28:57

Promotions.

29:01

And j.

29:12

Question Mark and the Mysterians are fronted by

29:15

a guy who legally changed his name to

29:17

punctuation. His name is literally

29:19

a question mark, and he and the Mysterians

29:22

were light years ahead of their time. Question

29:25

Mark, in his band all Mexican

29:27

American, were the children of

29:29

migrant farm workers. They

29:31

wrote ninety six tiers when they were teenagers in Michigan,

29:34

and you could make a case they helped invent punk

29:36

rock with ninety six tiers.

29:39

Question Mark shared a manager with the fake Zombies.

29:42

Keyho and Atherton made a name for themselves through

29:44

their connection to question Mark and the Mysterians.

29:48

They had a real band on their roster, so

29:50

they had to be legit right And

29:53

now they were out there looking for impressionable

29:55

young men to pretend to be

29:57

the Zombies. And

30:06

here's where the story gets a little hazy.

30:09

We don't know exactly when or exactly

30:11

where Jim Atherton from Delta Promotions

30:13

cross paths with the four guys from Texas.

30:15

Who you're about to meet. The

30:17

chances are you already know a couple of them.

30:36

Here's music historian Gary Johnson.

30:38

Again.

30:39

Kehoe was a well

30:41

known businessman, and

30:44

you know his early days. He

30:46

ran for office in

30:48

Bay City as commissioner and he

30:51

had a restaurant

30:54

in the southern part of Bay City called

30:57

Steak and Big.

30:58

Bill. Kehoe is in charge of Delta's operation

31:01

out of Band Canyon in Bay City. He

31:04

was older a city councilman

31:07

and a pillar of the Bay City community. The

31:09

consummate straight man. The

31:12

other half of Delta, Jim Atherton didn't

31:14

stay so close to home. In

31:18

addition to co running Delta and Band

31:20

Canyon, Jim also worked

31:22

for Sun Amplifiers. Sun

31:26

Amplifiers was and still is known

31:28

for making the loudest amps in the world.

31:31

Jimmy Hendrix played Sun amps.

31:32

If you're looking for bona fides, Atherton

31:35

went out east. He had a job with Sun

31:37

Amplifiers and apparently

31:40

eight was Sun for quite a few years.

31:43

This meant Atherton was out on the road meeting

31:45

young bands and supplying them with the heaviest

31:48

music equipment in the world. Now,

31:51

this is the hazy part At

31:54

some point in some city, probably

31:56

in Florida, a twenty year

31:58

old drummer from the Dallas Fort Worth area

32:01

cross paths with Jim Atherton. It's

32:06

hard to know exactly what happened during that conversation,

32:09

but that young man with a thick Texas draw

32:12

and three of his friends would soon find themselves

32:14

in Bay City, Michigan, getting

32:17

ready to go on tour as the Zombies.

32:21

That twenty year old would go on to tour the world in

32:23

his next band, zz Top.

32:27

His name is Frank Beard, and yes, in zz Top,

32:29

he's the guy without the beard. So

32:34

Frank Beard from Texas meets Jim Atherton

32:36

from Michigan. Beard

32:38

returned to Texas and recruited a bass player,

32:41

his friend and eventual Zzy Top bandmate,

32:43

Dusty Hill.

32:46

In music News, Dusty Hill,

32:48

the bass player of the legendary Texas

32:51

rock trio Zz Top, has passed

32:53

away age seventy two. In

32:55

a statement, the band's remaining members,

32:58

Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard, said,

33:01

we are saddened by the news today that our compadre

33:03

Dusty Hill has passed away in his sleep

33:06

at home in Houston, Texas. You

33:08

will be missed greatly Amigo.

33:11

The rhythm section of the Fake Zombies was locked

33:14

in Frank Beard and Dusty Hill.

33:17

Next up lead guitar. Beard

33:20

and Hill know how to pick a guitarist. Their

33:22

band Maiden Zz top Billy Gibbons is

33:25

one of the best of all time. For

33:27

the Fake Zombies, they chose another hotshot

33:30

guitarist, Seed

33:32

Meta. Seed

33:34

Meta would go on to play in a band called The Werewolves.

33:37

They released a few albums that are beloved among

33:39

Texas blues fans. Sadly,

33:42

Seed passed away in nineteen eighty, a

33:45

decade after he toured with the Fake Zombies. Seb

33:48

was the hottest league guitar player in all of Dallas.

33:51

He got a mythical figure with his Keith Richard's

33:54

hair and his Gibson flying V. There's

33:57

no question that Seb's good looks must

33:59

have gone a long way in selling the Fake Zombies.

34:02

He looks like the coolest motherfucker on the planet. We

34:06

know for a fact it was see who recruited

34:09

the last and most important member

34:11

of the Fake Zombies. He's the one you never

34:13

heard of, the one nobody in Texas

34:15

remembers, the one who didn't make

34:17

it big. Frank

34:28

Beard and Dusty Hill would remain rock stars

34:30

for life. Even see Meta had

34:32

his time as the fastest hand

34:34

in Texas Blues. But there

34:36

was one more fake zombie, someone

34:39

whose dreams never made it past that single tour,

34:42

pretending to be another band. His

34:46

name is Mark Ramsey. In

34:52

the few photos that exist from the Fake Zombies

34:54

tour over fifty years ago, Mark

34:57

is the cute one. The

34:59

baby fit Race McCartney deceives John Lennon.

35:03

He was nineteen years old, blonde

35:05

haired and blue eyed, next

35:07

to his bandmates, already touring

35:09

Bluesman before they were twenty. Mark

35:12

looks even younger, more

35:14

innocent than the rest. But

35:18

Mark loved to play guitar, and he loved

35:20

playing with his new hotshot musician friends,

35:23

and he was looking for a reason to get the fuck out of Texas.

35:31

The story of the Fake Zombies very easily could

35:33

have been a footnote in rock history, nothing

35:36

more than a Ben Fong Torres article in a lost

35:38

copy of Rolling Stone Full

35:42

disclosure. Before he passed

35:44

away, Dusty Hill did answer one of my emails

35:46

about the Fake Zombies. When

35:48

I asked him what he remembered about it, he

35:50

simply said it was the sixties

35:53

man, and

35:56

we're still working to get Frank Beard to tell us

35:58

this story himself. We'll

36:00

keep you updated instead.

36:04

Thanks to Mark Ramsey and the people that remained

36:07

from this once in a lifetime rock and roll caper,

36:09

we are here and we have the true

36:12

story of the Fake Zombies. Mark

36:15

passed away in twenty twenty one at the age

36:17

of seventy one. I was

36:19

lucky enough to talk to him before he passed, and

36:22

he told me the real story of the Fake Zombies.

36:25

This podcast is dedicated to Mark and Dusty,

36:28

two boys from Texas who changed my life.

36:32

This season on the true story

36:34

of the Fake Zone.

36:37

They learned some Zombies songs. The lead

36:40

singer tried to pull off an English

36:42

accent, and they went on.

36:44

The road just the zombies.

36:45

I think it was a terrible deal.

36:47

We were off facing twenty years and all that good

36:49

stuff.

36:50

I said, you know, these guys are not gonna get

36:52

away with it and

36:58

fought.

37:03

Yesterday Rolling Stone,

37:06

I rang, the

37:09

man said I

37:12

I'm dead.

37:15

This guy is said a note

37:17

on the song you're hearing. In nineteen

37:20

seventy one, with the Zombies temporarily

37:22

broken up, Colin Blunstone released

37:24

his debut solo album One Year.

37:30

In twenty twenty one, the record was reissued

37:32

and some of the demo recordings were unearthed. Colin,

37:36

working in an insurance company at the time, wrote

37:39

a song about the Fake Zombies, Sing

37:42

your Own Songs. He poured his heart out

37:44

singing about his phony obituary and rolling

37:47

stones and having his voice and his money

37:49

taken. Then he forgot

37:51

about it for about fifty years. It's

37:54

called Sing Your Own Song, and it's available

37:56

on vinyl and digitally as a bonus track

37:58

on his album One Year.

38:03

You Get that.

38:05

Man.

38:08

If you want to get in touch about the Fake Zombies,

38:10

we've set up an email address fake

38:12

zombiespod at gmail dot com.

38:15

This podcast was written by Daniel Ralston.

38:17

Executive produced by Ian Wheeler, Melissa

38:20

Locker and Daniel Ralston. Produced

38:22

by Anna McClain and Nick Dawson. Score,

38:25

original music and additional audio engineering

38:28

by Robin Hatch. Additional production

38:30

support from Cooper Mall in Los Angeles.

38:34

The True Story of the Fake Zombies is a production

38:36

of iHeart Podcasts, Talk House

38:39

and never Mind Media. For more podcasts

38:41

from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio

38:44

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

38:46

you get your podcasts