The happy-sad story of 60s band the Zombies is recounted in this very watchable documentary from actor, film-maker and Coppola family member Robert Schwartzman, younger brother of Jason. Keyboardist Rod Argent, singer Colin Blunstone, guitarist Paul Atkinson, drummer Hugh Grundy and bassist Paul Arnold were the amazingly talented group from the English home counties who, in this film, look heartbreakingly like a five-man team on University Challenge.
The Zombies became a hugely prominent part of the British invasion of the US, while at the same being royally manipulated and exploited. Their eerie and sublime harmonies, topped off by Blunstone’s beautiful, plangent and weirdly vulnerable lead vocals, were the foundation of iconic songs like She’s Not There, praised by George Harrison on Juke Box Jury (the equivalent of getting a simultaneous OBE and papal blessing). Then there was the mysterious, psychedelic and weirdly unwholesome masterpiece Time of the Season from 1968, although sadly Schwartzman doesn’t ask the band to walk us through those groovy lyrics: “It’s the time of the season for loving / What’s your name? What’s your name? / Who’s your daddy? Who’s your daddy? / He rich? Is he rich like me?” It stormed the US charts after the band had made the gloomy decision to break up, exhausted and demoralised and, above all, needing money to pay the bills.
Some of the band stayed in the business as performers; chaotically, Blunstone continued as a solo artist by experimenting with a change in name (“Neil MacArthur”) which only confused everyone. And after the band split up, American copycats started ripping off their act under the same name. The Zombies’ story in many ways cuts to the heart of the dilemma for everyone who wants to make it in music: when do you cut your losses, give up, take a boring straight job and then torment yourself with the thought of what might have been if only you’d stuck at it a little bit longer? Incredibly, Blunstone was plugging away in a dull sales office when he heard about Time of the Season making it big in the US.
Eventually the surviving members of the band reformed and were passionately praised by younger musicians such as Dave Grohl who admired their cult 1968 album Odessey and Oracle. (The band had long claimed that “Odessey” was a deliberate coinage, mixing “Ode” and “Odyssey” – before finally admitting it was a spelling mistake which stayed on the cover after it was too late to do anything about it.) There’s a lump-in-the-throat moment when the surviving Zombies are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; it was amazing, they say “to realise in your 70s, that you were successful in your 20s”.
Hung Up on a Dream: The Zombies Documentary is in UK cinemas from 24 June, and US cinemas from 29 June.