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Speaker 1: Back in nineteen sixty nine, this was the hottest song around.

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Speaker 1: It's so hot that some guys from Michigan tried to

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Speaker 1: steal it overseas and futher. My name is Daniel Ralston.

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Speaker 1: For ten years, I've been obsessed with one of the

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Speaker 1: most bizarre and audacious cons in rock and roll history.

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Speaker 2: A group would have a hit record and quickly they

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Speaker 2: would hire a bunch of guys to go out and

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Speaker 2: be the group.

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Speaker 1: I think it was a terrible deal.

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Speaker 2: People were being cheated on several levels.

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Speaker 1: That year, four hot shot young musicians from Texas were

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Speaker 1: hired to impersonate the British psychedelic rock band The Zombies.

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Speaker 2: I was like blowing away.

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Speaker 3: I said, you know, these guys are not going to

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Speaker 3: get away with it The Zombies who popular.

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Speaker 1: Two of those Texas guys went on to play in

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Speaker 1: another legendary band, zz Top. Meanwhile, back in England, the

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Speaker 1: real Zombies were breaking up.

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Speaker 3: The manager sister Chris Well, Yes, we've started up as

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Speaker 3: Zombies in honor of Colin Blunstone, the lead singer from

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Speaker 3: the band, who was tragic killed in a car crash.

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Speaker 3: I mean they knew I hadn't been killed in a

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Speaker 3: car crash.

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Speaker 1: The real Zombies ended up in the Rock and Roll

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Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. The fake Zombies brought them closer together.

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Speaker 2: There were impostors out there using their hard earned, well established,

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Speaker 2: well respected names and making money off of them.

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Speaker 1: We talked to family members.

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Speaker 4: They learned Zombies songs. The lead singer tried to pull

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Speaker 4: off an English accent, and they went on the road

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Speaker 4: distal Zombies opening acts.

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Speaker 2: We were all facing twenty years, all that good stuff.

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Speaker 1: Girlfriends, are you telling secrets? And a few music legends

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Speaker 1: along the way.

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Speaker 3: My name is Mike Campbell from Tom Kitty and the Heartbreakers.

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Speaker 2: This is Ben pon Torres, former senior editor at Rolling

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Speaker 2: Stone Magazine in San Francisco.

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Speaker 1: I'm Suzannah Hoffs.

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Speaker 4: I'm a Zombies super.

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Speaker 1: Fan, and we talked to the band that started it,

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Speaker 1: all the real Zombies, to find out how it feels

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Speaker 1: to be the band that inspired this outrageous scheme.

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Speaker 3: I had no money, I had no idea of what I.

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Speaker 1: Was going to do. After years of searching, we bring

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Speaker 1: you the true story of the Fake Zombies. Listen to

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Speaker 1: the True Story of the Fake Zombies on the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts