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Speaker 1: The True Story of the Fake Zombies is a production

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Speaker 1: of iHeart Podcasts, Talk House and Nevermind Media. This is

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Speaker 1: the final bonus episode of the True Story of the

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Speaker 1: Fake Zombies. Whether you've listened to the show or this

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Speaker 1: is your introduction, it's a look into how we made it.

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Speaker 1: I'm host, writer and EP Daniel Ralstone. I sat down

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Speaker 1: with Leon Nathuk podcaster, writer, radio host to talk about

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Speaker 1: what it was like to make this podcast while I

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Speaker 1: was also bartending full time, and I share some crazy

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Speaker 1: details that were revealed after the podcast came out. One

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Speaker 1: quick note you'll hear me refer to Anna, Nick and Melissa.

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Speaker 1: That's Anna McLain, who engineered and co produced the show,

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Speaker 1: Nick Dawson, who's my editor and co producer, and Melissa Locker,

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Speaker 1: my co EP. I'd also like to thank Ian Wheeler

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Speaker 1: from Talkhouse forgetting us all together.

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Speaker 2: Daniel, I was so delighted you asked me to be

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Speaker 2: a part of this interview. This sort of debrief is

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Speaker 2: how I've been thinking of it. Debrief of your tenure

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Speaker 2: journey to try to get to the bottom of this

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Speaker 2: story that's been lodged in your soul since you came

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Speaker 2: across it. In a stray line reading about something else.

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Speaker 2: Just to set the table here, you made this podcast

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Speaker 2: because you were obsessed, Is that the right word? With

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Speaker 2: this forgotten, poorly documented rumor for a full decade, tell

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Speaker 2: me how you first came across this little tidbit and

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Speaker 2: how it went from tidbit to story idea to eight

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Speaker 2: part podcast.

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Speaker 1: Sure, you mentioned in the one sentence in the book,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, it said some American guys went around the

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Speaker 1: country pretending to be this British band the Zombies. Read

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Speaker 1: it in a biography of the Zombies, and yeah, it

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Speaker 1: was intriguing enough that my one of my best friends

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Speaker 1: in the world, Jeff Rickley, and I said we should

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Speaker 1: write a screenplay about some guys, and we made up

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Speaker 1: a whole world. It was about a guy who's trying

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Speaker 1: to break out from his dad's under his dad's thumb,

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Speaker 1: and his dad owned a furniture store and he ran

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Speaker 1: the musical instrument section of the furniture store. And we

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Speaker 1: had a whole backstory. And then Jeff got his old

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Speaker 1: band Thursday back together, and I moved to Los Angeles.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, we were just really intrigued by the idea.

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Speaker 1: The storyline was that one of the guys in the

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Speaker 1: band's cousin from England was visiting and she sort of

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Speaker 1: was like the mastermind of the fake zombie. She taught

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Speaker 1: him how to use fake British accents. We invented this

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Speaker 1: whole world. And then one day I was googling, and

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Speaker 1: I was really deep into searching for stuff about imposter

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Speaker 1: zombie grooves, just trying to get information about what might

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Speaker 1: have really happened, and I stumbled upon this blog post

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Speaker 1: called I Was a teenage Zombie by this guy Mark Ramsey,

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Speaker 1: and it was literally, I mean, those two words fake

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Speaker 1: and zombie que a lot of different things in the

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Speaker 1: search results. I was way down, and I think one

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Speaker 1: of the first things that intrigued me was this guy

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Speaker 1: had pictures on his blog post that had three comments,

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Speaker 1: and there were pictures of him and a teenage Dusty

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Speaker 1: Hill and Frank Beard from zz Top and he's using

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Speaker 1: their full names, not trying to be secretive about it.

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Speaker 1: It's a public blog post, and half of the entire

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Speaker 1: post is about all the different guitars he had on

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Speaker 1: the tour and his amps, and he was like a

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Speaker 1: gear head, so he didn't necessarily see the story aspect

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Speaker 1: of it. He was like, look at this cool guitar

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Speaker 1: I used on the road in nineteen sixty nine. Oh,

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Speaker 1: by the way, two of the guys from Zzy Top

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Speaker 1: worried by high school garage band essentially high school garage man,

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Speaker 1: and I reached out.

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Speaker 2: To him, this is while you're still working on a

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Speaker 2: screenplay that sort of fictionalizes this scenario based on that

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Speaker 2: one line you read in.

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Speaker 1: Then sure, yeah, we were working on the screenplay. I

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Speaker 1: was also working full time as an office manager at

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Speaker 1: a international e commerce company in New York City, and

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Speaker 1: my time at that company, we went from six people

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Speaker 1: to six hundred. It was a really exciting time. Like

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Speaker 1: Jeff and I would like go away and write on

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Speaker 1: the screenplay. This was a fun thing to do on

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Speaker 1: the side. But I was still really use the word

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Speaker 1: obsessed with this idea. And once I met Mark Ramsey

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Speaker 1: and he sent me the photos, everything started to come

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Speaker 1: into place. And then the real key was that I

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Speaker 1: met a guy in Michigan named Gary Johnson who's a

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Speaker 1: rock and roll historian. And one of the pictures that

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Speaker 1: Mark had in Texas of his fake Zombies band had

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Speaker 1: an address on it for a management company, and Gary

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Speaker 1: in Michigan had the same photo with the same address

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Speaker 1: on it, these promotional photos that had been printed for

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Speaker 1: the Fake Zombies in nineteen sixty nine, calling themselves the

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Speaker 1: original Zombies. And then two weeks after I talked to Gary,

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Speaker 1: I went to see the Replacements play with a friend

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Speaker 1: of mine and he said, you should write this as

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Speaker 1: an article. I'm doing stuff for BuzzFeed. And I wrote

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Speaker 1: the article and it took me about two years, and

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Speaker 1: it was the first thing I ever wrote.

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Speaker 2: Wow, what do you think captured your imagination in the

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Speaker 2: story enough to first turn it into the kernel of

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Speaker 2: a fictionalized screenplay, but then also kind of take the

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Speaker 2: more journalistic route and try to find out what actually

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Speaker 2: happened here? Like, what was it about it that you

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Speaker 2: feel like activated you?

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Speaker 1: Well, first of all, like I'm an obsessive music fan,

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Speaker 1: obsessive specifically like British music fan. When I was sixteen,

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Speaker 1: me and my best friend decided that Oasis was our

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Speaker 1: favorite band, and from there it was of course the Beatles,

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Speaker 1: and the Zombies is a band that I really landed

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Speaker 1: on as like one of my favorites. I was married

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Speaker 1: at one point and we you know, walked down the Aisle,

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Speaker 1: so this will be our year. The Zombies are one

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Speaker 1: of my favorite bands, and I I've met a lot

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Speaker 1: of other people who feel that way about them.

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Speaker 2: And you were just reading the Zombies biography because you

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Speaker 2: love the Zombies.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, one PC. And I've always loved liked the stories

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Speaker 1: behind music, the things where it's like, yeah, I love

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Speaker 1: this song, but I also love this element of the band, Like,

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Speaker 1: of course everybody loves Fleetwood Mac, but everybody also loves

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Speaker 1: the Fleetwood Mac story and the drama and all of

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Speaker 1: that stuff. And this seemed to be like a really

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Speaker 1: weird piece of zz Top's history that there was almost

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Speaker 1: no information about. And since we started the podcast, we

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Speaker 1: did find out that zz tops Wrodi wrote a book

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Speaker 1: and he mentioned it in a paragraph, So this was

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Speaker 1: actually out there for somebody to find out about. And

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Speaker 1: I feel really lucky that I found Gary in Michigan

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Speaker 1: and we started to uncover this together.

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Speaker 2: What would you say your big questions were about what

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Speaker 2: happened here? Like you have these little stray bits of

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Speaker 2: data that you've kind of come across, none of which

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Speaker 2: treat the story as any big whoop. It's almost like

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Speaker 2: an aside every time you see someone mention it, right,

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Speaker 2: what did you want to know?

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Speaker 1: Naturally? I wanted to know the sites and smells and

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Speaker 1: what did the van seats feel like and all that stuff,

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Speaker 1: But almost nobody had that information, even the people who

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Speaker 1: were literally there with the fake zombies. It was fifty

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Speaker 1: five years ago, and I realized this was going to

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Speaker 1: be a lot more about collecting what people remembered from

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Speaker 1: the era than about putting that square peg into the

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Speaker 1: round hole of Like I need this exact information so

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Speaker 1: that people feel like they're feeling it. I think there

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Speaker 1: are other ways to do that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. No, it feels like from listening to it that

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Speaker 2: a big part of what drew you to it was

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Speaker 2: like just the milliu, like the scene. These guys were

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Speaker 2: part of the circuit. They were touring on the economics

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Speaker 2: of being a small struggling band during this time in

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Speaker 2: pop music history, and you seem to just want to

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Speaker 2: render that with as much texture and specificity as you could.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Also like the most covered era in music too,

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Speaker 1: like the sixties scene, Like what is left of it

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Speaker 1: at this point to be mined? And it turns out

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Speaker 1: there's a lot to be mined. But most of these

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Speaker 1: stories are with people who are in their seventies. And

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Speaker 1: I think I even told Nick and Annabs at one point,

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Speaker 1: But I truly do not care about the promotion of

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Speaker 1: this podcast outside of just telling people just find a

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Speaker 1: way to share it with, like your parents or your grandparents,

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Speaker 1: or somebody who might have been around at that era,

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Speaker 1: because I guarantee you if they were even remotely involved

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Speaker 1: with music, they're gonna have an amazing story somewhere about

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Speaker 1: somebody they crossed paths with, somebody they had dinner with.

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Speaker 1: You know. One thing we ended up cutting out of

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Speaker 1: the podcast was like Joeanne from the Fake Archies, Like

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Speaker 1: she said, everybody in the Fake Archies. By the way,

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Speaker 1: for anybody listening a new listener, there's also a fake

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Speaker 1: archiese in addition to two fake zombies. That one night

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Speaker 1: she had like a little fling with the guy who

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Speaker 1: Jake Lamata is based on his son ran a nightclub

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Speaker 1: and he was like, you were the most beautiful thing

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Speaker 1: I've ever seen. We had this romantic nightclub, but everybody

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Speaker 1: else was like obsessed with the girl who was playing Betty.

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Speaker 1: And it was every once in a while she'd have

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Speaker 1: a night where there was like a Veronica guy and

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Speaker 1: one of those nights was with this guy who was

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Speaker 1: like a boxer who ran a nightclub. And you know,

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Speaker 1: to me, that's a better story than like her telling

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Speaker 1: me maybe like a rote detail about their set list.

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Speaker 2: One thing that occurred to me as I was putting

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Speaker 2: myself in your position and kind of falling in love

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Speaker 2: with the story that it's just so funny that there

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Speaker 2: was basically a zombie zombies, like the fact that they

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Speaker 2: were called the Zombies and this band that formed after

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Speaker 2: the actual Zombies broke up, like they were the zombie Zombie.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny. We talked about calling the article the

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Speaker 1: zombie Zombies, I think way back in the day, and

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Speaker 1: I was like, it's way too confusing. They're not there

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Speaker 1: like a playo. She's not there was another possibility. I

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Speaker 1: was like, no, it's too confusing. You're one hundred percent

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Speaker 1: right like it is. There's two parts of it. One

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Speaker 1: the zombie aspect of it is it is really funny.

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Speaker 1: The band like kind of plays on that a little

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Speaker 1: bit too. I think. The other thing is like when

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Speaker 1: you look at these guys like young Frank, Young Dusty Mark,

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Speaker 1: see all these guys in the opening bands and stuff.

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Speaker 1: It's like they're really young, good looking, like they were

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Speaker 1: all going after it. They were dressing the part. They

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Speaker 1: were like playing in a you know, imposter band and

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Speaker 1: giving it everything they could. I found that really appealing.

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Speaker 1: Like talking to Mark Ramsey when he was still with us,

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Speaker 1: you know, I got the sense to like, it was

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Speaker 1: hard watching two of your bandmates go on to like

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Speaker 1: huge fame and his buddy see passed away young and

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Speaker 1: this wasn't like the cheeriest portrait portion of his life.

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Speaker 1: But he wanted to tell the story, and I'm glad

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Speaker 1: he got to.

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Speaker 2: Did you relate to them as like young men trying

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Speaker 2: to make it in rock and roll? Was that part

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Speaker 2: of your life at any point? Like the dream of

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Speaker 2: making it big as a as a rock star?

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Speaker 1: One hundred. When I was nineteen years old, I moved

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Speaker 1: from the Allentown area to Oakland, California with a girl,

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Speaker 1: and then I started playing in a punk band that

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Speaker 1: sounded like at the Drive In, and we all lived together,

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Speaker 1: played the band together, and worked in a candy store

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Speaker 1: in Berkeley together. Yeah. It was like the Monkeys, but

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Speaker 1: insanely dysfunctional, and it lasted about a year.

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Speaker 2: I was in a band that tried to sound like

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Speaker 2: Green Day, It's a little easier.

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Speaker 1: I was the singer. I was literally jumping around the

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Speaker 1: stage like a lunatic with my guitarist. It was insane

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Speaker 1: when looking back on it. But that year I lived

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Speaker 1: in Oakland, I started interning for a record label called

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Speaker 1: Absolutely Kosher, which put out early Mountain Goat stuff. Shushu

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Speaker 1: and I went on tour with Shushu and Devendra Banhart

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Speaker 1: on Devendra's first US tour as their tour manager for

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Speaker 1: three weeks in the summer of two thousand and three,

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Speaker 1: and that was kind of like the start of all

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Speaker 1: my life in music. I ended up moving back to Philadelphia,

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Speaker 1: started a band with my little brother, and Yeah, for

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Speaker 1: about three or four years, that's what I thought I

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Speaker 1: was gonna do, and then I started just living a

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Speaker 1: different kind of life.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Could you picture yourself in their place as you

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Speaker 2: learn more about like the you know, ecosystem that they

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Speaker 2: were working within and the kinds of people they were,

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Speaker 2: you know, having to deal with as they looked for

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Speaker 2: a way to make this their livelihood.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I could in a very direct like I know

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Speaker 1: what it's like to be on the outside looking in

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Speaker 1: in every conceivable way. I even remember a time when

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Speaker 1: I was very, very briefly in college when I was

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Speaker 1: eighteen and I was going to play in a band,

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Speaker 1: and I thought this one guy was like the coolest

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Speaker 1: guitarist ever, and I wanted to play with him. And

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Speaker 1: he's like, why don't you play me something you wrote?

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Speaker 1: And I played him a Radiohead B side because I

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Speaker 1: was trying to pass it off as my own, so

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Speaker 1: I know exactly how they felt. But yeah, it's the

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Speaker 1: same kind of you know, this guy was so cool,

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Speaker 1: and I imagine, like when you look at the pictures

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Speaker 1: of Seed Metter from the Fake Zombies, like coolest guy.

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Speaker 1: He was the band leader. Mark was nineteen and wanted

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Speaker 1: to be cool. Like I sort of get this whole thing.

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Speaker 1: I get why they did it, and the fact that

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Speaker 1: they found a second band to do it tells me that, like,

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Speaker 1: this was just the thing that people didn't know what

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Speaker 1: it was yet the Zombies were broken up, this kind

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Speaker 1: of thing would become tribute bands. But we're just in

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Speaker 1: a small little window where this could happen, right.

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Speaker 2: I was curious about that. Listening to the show, I

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Speaker 2: was like, how does this compare to just a cover

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Speaker 2: band or a tribute band. It kind of just goes

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Speaker 2: to intent, right, It's like, do you want people to

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Speaker 2: think you're the real thing or are you satisfied to

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Speaker 2: kind of like bringing an audience in that just wants

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Speaker 2: to hear the songs and there's no illusion that you

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Speaker 2: are who you are pretending to be.

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Speaker 1: Right. I tried to write this sort of dey new

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Speaker 1: moment to the last episode that was like about the

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Speaker 1: word fake and why it stands out so much. And

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Speaker 1: you realize that anybody who's considered like an originator in

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Speaker 1: music has created some kind of persona from the things

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Speaker 1: that they've cobbled together, from their influences and all of this.

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Speaker 1: But there's something about using that word fake that just

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Speaker 1: makes it feel wrong. I think there's value in using

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Speaker 1: that to figure out who you are when you're nineteen

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Speaker 1: or twenty out on the road with your friends, Like

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Speaker 1: I think these guys were really trying to figure out

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Speaker 1: who they were, and for some of them, they were

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Speaker 1: one hundred percent right because the fact that they were

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Speaker 1: fake zombies didn't matter, and they went on to play

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Speaker 1: in one of the biggest bands of all time, just.

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Speaker 2: To zoom out for a second, you said that the

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Speaker 2: BuzzFeed story that came out in twenty sixteen was the

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Speaker 2: first thing you'd ever really written. But then I noticed

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Speaker 2: in your Twitter bio you say trying to tell somewhere

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Speaker 2: between four and ten of the wildest music stories ever

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Speaker 2: before I die. When did that become your mo Like?

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Speaker 2: When did sort of a one off story for BuzzFeed

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Speaker 2: turn into like a career where you're really like looking

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Speaker 2: for stories just like this, you know, wild music stories.

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Speaker 1: What kind of goes back to the decade log obsession?

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Speaker 1: Like it was very I'll tell you, Leon, it was

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Speaker 1: a very strange experience to write the first thing that

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Speaker 1: you ever wrote. And three days later, the executive producer

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Speaker 1: of Quentin Tarantino's movies has you in his office and

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Speaker 1: is saying, we could make this into the greatest movie.

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Speaker 1: Like that's how it happened.

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Speaker 2: That's amazing. I'm not surprised. The interest was there. I

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Speaker 2: mean it jumps off the page as like make me

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Speaker 2: a movie, please.

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Speaker 1: But they didn't want to give me any money. They

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Speaker 1: didn't want to do anything. They were just like, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna be able to market this movie so great. And

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Speaker 1: I was like, okay, what I wrote an article that

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Speaker 1: just came out. I don't know what you're talking about,

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Speaker 1: so that obviously didn't pan out. And then there was

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Speaker 1: a huge gap of about six years where nobody gave

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Speaker 1: a shit about this story, like literally no one. I

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Speaker 1: got all the stuff, I got a lawyer, I got managers,

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Speaker 1: and nothing happened. Like I mean, the story was option.

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Speaker 1: But these things have, as I've.

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Speaker 2: Learned, when you say nothing happened, you mean like you

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Speaker 2: were hoping that that story would be step one on

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Speaker 2: like a path to making a for example, a feature

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Speaker 2: like the one you were writing with your friend from Thursday.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. But there's a very kind of strange trajectory, which

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Speaker 1: is that when the story came out, I moved to

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles and then I worked a bunch of strange

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Speaker 1: kind of production jobs out here. People who would like

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Speaker 1: read the story and were like, oh, yeah, we want

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Speaker 1: you to come in and do this, And I was

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Speaker 1: actually really bad at it. I was terrible at it.

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Speaker 1: I had no idea what I was doing. I did

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Speaker 1: know how to work with people. I didn't go to college.

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Speaker 1: I have no idea how a writer's room works or anything.

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Speaker 1: And then I completely crashed out working on a documentary,

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Speaker 1: and I ended up living in Malibu for one thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars a month and could not get any work. So

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Speaker 1: I started working in a surf shop in Malibu, even

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Speaker 1: though I have never surfed before. And then I got

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Speaker 1: really good at barts and that became my job. And

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Speaker 1: then four years ago, Melissa, she's our other partner on

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Speaker 1: this producer of this, I had heard a story that

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Speaker 1: somebody told me at a bar, another crazy rock and

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Speaker 1: roll true crimesh story, and I started working on another story.

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Speaker 1: And as soon as I found another one, I realized

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Speaker 1: that I could make a living in Los Angeles bartending,

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Speaker 1: just like I did office managing in New York, and

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Speaker 1: maybe there was room for me to work on another story.

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Speaker 1: It was finding that second one, and then finding a

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Speaker 1: third story like that about a year later, and then

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Speaker 1: a fourth one, and now making a documentary about question

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Speaker 1: Mark so five.

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Speaker 2: One thing leads to another. So the piece came out

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Speaker 2: twenty sixteen. It was sort of sitting there for six years.

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Speaker 2: What happened that set in motion the production of the podcast,

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Speaker 2: Like how did that dormant you know, idea that was

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Speaker 2: sort of in your back pocket, you know, take you know,

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Speaker 2: find a new life.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Ian approached me with a production a different production

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Speaker 1: company than we ended up working with, and the germ

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Speaker 1: of the idea was there. I think Ian saw this

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Speaker 1: as like a potential for a narrative podcast based on

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Speaker 1: reading the BuzzFeed story. And you know, Ian and I

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Speaker 1: have actually been in each other's worlds for a long time,

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Speaker 1: like I used to do the original Talk House reading

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Speaker 1: series back in New York when the site first launched,

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Speaker 1: and once Ian and I talked, we realized that we

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Speaker 1: had the same vision for this, and then we took

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Speaker 1: it out. But there were some real dark jobs during

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Speaker 1: that time in Malibu. I cleaned rich people's garages for cash.

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Speaker 1: I built furniture with a bunch of illegal immigrants in

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Speaker 1: a factory during COVID when I couldn't bartend like it

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Speaker 1: was a lot. It was some really tough times, and

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Speaker 1: I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact

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Speaker 1: that I used to be a really bad listener and

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Speaker 1: being a bartender it will force you to be a

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Speaker 1: very good listener, like as you know, this fake zombie

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Speaker 1: story was a collection of people's stories. People between the

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Speaker 1: ages of seventy and eighty and usually there's about an

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Speaker 1: hour before the really good stuff starts to happen in

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Speaker 1: their story, and I'm used to like a drunk old

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Speaker 1: guy talking to me for two hours. So I've learned

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Speaker 1: to handle it and keep things moving along and keep

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Speaker 1: things cordial in a way that I do think has

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Speaker 1: really improved what I do.

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Speaker 2: That's funny. Yeah, it's a whole special art interviewing old

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Speaker 2: people about things that happened to them fifty years ago.

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Speaker 2: I feel like this is probably why I seem like

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Speaker 2: maybe the right person to have this conversation with you,

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Speaker 2: because that's been my life for the last seven years,

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Speaker 2: is tracking down people who are involved in things they

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Speaker 2: maybe they'd rather forget and trying to get them to

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Speaker 2: open up and remember as much as they can. Sometimes

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Speaker 2: you got to let them play the hits before you

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Speaker 2: can intervene and ask them what you really want to know.

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Speaker 2: The cocktail party stories they've been telling for years, you know,

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Speaker 2: you got to let them tell those, and then you

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Speaker 2: can and yet with the good stuff.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I've been listening to your stuff, and I

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Speaker 1: definitely felt that kinship with going back into finding these things.

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Speaker 1: You're really good at tying together a piece of tape

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Speaker 1: or a quote to the context of what's going on

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Speaker 1: in your story. And when we started doing this, I

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Speaker 1: was really faced with this challenge of a six thousand

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Speaker 1: word article becoming a seven hour podcast. That is a

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Speaker 1: big task, and obviously it required me to go a

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Speaker 1: little bit deeper and find out more about the story.

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Speaker 1: But I had no idea how to tie clips to

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Speaker 1: narrative and button off things for commercial breaks and all that.

402
00:21:40,240 --> 00:21:42,720
Speaker 1: And Nick and Anner here, but I literally could not

403
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Speaker 1: have done it without them, Nick Tommy, how to put

404
00:21:45,240 --> 00:21:49,400
Speaker 1: it together animate it sound perfect? Like there was sort

405
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Speaker 1: of a moody vibey vision that I had in my

406
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Speaker 1: head for this at the beginning, which was like, maybe

407
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Speaker 1: you were going on a six hour road trip with

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Speaker 1: your friend and he was going to tell you, like

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Speaker 1: the craziest rock and roll story of all time.

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Speaker 2: Why wasn't the six thousand words that you wrote for

411
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Speaker 2: BuzzFeed enough for you to get this monkey off your back,

412
00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:10,040
Speaker 2: this obsession? Why did it feel like you had more

413
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Speaker 2: work to do After that story came out.

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Speaker 1: Gary and I kept talking, and every once in a

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Speaker 1: while somebody who'd read the article would email me, and

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Speaker 1: then Leon, I have to tell you. The craziest twist

417
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Speaker 1: of the whole thing. I got an urgent Twitter message

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Speaker 1: about three years ago and at somebody I don't know.

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Speaker 1: It's a woman in her about forty years old, and

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Speaker 1: she says, Urgent, I need you to call me right away.

421
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Speaker 1: It's about your fake zombie story. I know this is weird.

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Speaker 1: Call me. So I call her and she tells me

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Speaker 1: that her husband just found out that Mark Ramsey, my

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Speaker 1: fake zombie who the story is focused on, had an

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Speaker 1: illegitimate child, and her husband he found out that Mark

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Speaker 1: Ramsey was his biological father. Wow, because he had a

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00:22:59,359 --> 00:23:03,480
Speaker 1: falling out with his mother. And she said, by the way,

428
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Speaker 1: that guy you thought was your dad is not really

429
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Speaker 1: your dad. Your real dad is this guy, Mark Ramsey.

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Speaker 1: They did the DNA test thing. And I get on

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Speaker 1: the phone with this guy and he's like, Mark Ramsey's

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Speaker 1: my dad and the only thing I know about him

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Speaker 1: is the story you wrote about him. Wow. But here's

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Speaker 1: the really happy ending. I've never met the guy's in

435
00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:29,800
Speaker 1: zz Top, but Mark's one year old grandson has met

436
00:23:29,880 --> 00:23:34,920
Speaker 1: zz To, and I haven't really talked to him since

437
00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:37,840
Speaker 1: that happened. He's not really been involved. I asked him

438
00:23:37,880 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 1: if he wanted to be in the podcast. He said no.

439
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:42,679
Speaker 1: I actually even asked his wife if she wanted to

440
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:46,840
Speaker 1: tell me about the Twitter message send me. She said no.

441
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:53,200
Speaker 1: And thankfully Mark's brother, who is actually the executor of

442
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:55,760
Speaker 1: his estate, wanted to come and talk to me. And

443
00:23:56,320 --> 00:23:58,240
Speaker 1: I won't spoil it, but we were able to find

444
00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:00,560
Speaker 1: a piece of Marx musical history in the story that

445
00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:03,879
Speaker 1: kind of hit me when I first heard it, so

446
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:06,000
Speaker 1: hopefully others will feel the same.

447
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:09,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely felt it. That's a good segue to

448
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:12,239
Speaker 2: something I wanted to put to you, which is like,

449
00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:16,200
Speaker 2: having now finished the show, it feels like it's about

450
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:19,360
Speaker 2: this thing that I think I'm generally preoccupied with, which

451
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:23,639
Speaker 2: is that like there's such a thin line between you know,

452
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:28,479
Speaker 2: living out your days like an ordinary person, you know,

453
00:24:28,600 --> 00:24:34,679
Speaker 2: relatively anonymous, and becoming a superstar. Like there's all these

454
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:38,560
Speaker 2: sliding door moments that determine who gets to be an artist,

455
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:42,359
Speaker 2: whose work gets discovered, whose work gets remembered. Just feels

456
00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:45,719
Speaker 2: like there's so many like arbitrary, little inflection points, and

457
00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 2: it can be the difference between you know, becoming famous

458
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:53,879
Speaker 2: and influential and having to give up your dreams, And

459
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:56,439
Speaker 2: I feel like some of those moments you zero in

460
00:24:56,480 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 2: on in the show where these young guys with big

461
00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:03,040
Speaker 2: dreams were sort of taking a crack at it, they

462
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:03,639
Speaker 2: came close.

463
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:06,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a sliding door moment where these other

464
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:11,200
Speaker 1: guys go on to be to live the dream. And

465
00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:16,760
Speaker 1: I think hearing Mar's music is just it made me

466
00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:19,479
Speaker 1: think that there was some connection to the world that

467
00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 1: like he saw at one point in his life. Hearing

468
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:23,480
Speaker 1: his brother talk about how he was like this smart

469
00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:26,359
Speaker 1: kid straight a's he had the curse because he was

470
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 1: so good looking, like and then everybody else in his

471
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:33,080
Speaker 1: band kind of takes off in this different direction. It's

472
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:36,720
Speaker 1: different for him. And you know, he became a math

473
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 1: teacher and then stayed in the same town where he

474
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 1: grew up and it was a different life. Here's the

475
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 1: best part, you know. I'm sure you can imagine. I'm

476
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:47,320
Speaker 1: not gonna pat myself on the back or name drop

477
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:50,480
Speaker 1: or anything like that, but like I've had literally a

478
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:53,919
Speaker 1: list directors be like, this is the best story I've

479
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:58,679
Speaker 1: ever heard, had one say to me last week. I've

480
00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:00,959
Speaker 1: been eyeing this story like a hot girl at a

481
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:06,600
Speaker 1: party for seven years. But one day when I was

482
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:10,320
Speaker 1: bartending in Malibu. I was really bummed out and one

483
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:13,480
Speaker 1: of my regulars, he's like a deadhead. He lives in

484
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:15,880
Speaker 1: a one bedroom apartment next to the hotel I worked

485
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:19,680
Speaker 1: in Malibu, and I was really bummed out, and he's like,

486
00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:22,040
Speaker 1: what's up? And I was like, I'm just so fucking

487
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:24,200
Speaker 1: over it. I can't believe, Like, how the fuck did

488
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 1: I get here? I'm bartending, I don't my family's three

489
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:31,000
Speaker 1: thousand miles away. I live in a one bedroom apartment

490
00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:33,920
Speaker 1: with a seventy year old woman. And he's like, dude,

491
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:35,560
Speaker 1: you wrote a music story that people are gonna be

492
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:39,959
Speaker 1: talking about in bars two hundred years from now. And

493
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:43,199
Speaker 1: like at that moment, I was just like okay, Like

494
00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:45,439
Speaker 1: that's cool. He's like people are gonna be saying, did

495
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:47,879
Speaker 1: you know the guys through zz top were the zombies

496
00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:50,080
Speaker 1: for a long time? Like, don't sweat it, like you're

497
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:53,120
Speaker 1: doing fine, And yeah, that was like a real moment

498
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:54,920
Speaker 1: for me. I was like okay, Like I hadn't seen

499
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:56,840
Speaker 1: the impact of it for a long time, and just

500
00:26:57,080 --> 00:26:57,879
Speaker 1: hearing him say.

501
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 2: That, I can see that being really a big lift

502
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 2: in a moment like that, What have you done for me?

503
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:05,200
Speaker 2: Lately is something I think we all kind of feel

504
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 2: about ourselves. Sometimes it's nice for someone to remind you

505
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 2: that it's not all about what you did lately.

506
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:14,119
Speaker 1: That's a good point. That's yea sweet.

507
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 2: Your your life changed pretty significantly over the course of

508
00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 2: the ten years. This was germinating or gestating, right, I

509
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:23,920
Speaker 2: mean you've alluded just the way your career went. I'm

510
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:25,879
Speaker 2: curious if you could give me a sense like you were,

511
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:28,520
Speaker 2: what thirty five when the BuzzFeed story came out, and

512
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 2: now you're like forty five, right, Yeah, that's about y

513
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 2: You've arrived a destination with this story, so like what

514
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 2: else happened while it was in the oven?

515
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 1: I know, I've come back to this a few times,

516
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 1: but like I never saw it in myself. I never

517
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 1: saw it, Like I didn't write anything until I was

518
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:49,440
Speaker 1: thirty six. I never saw I always wanted to maybe

519
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 1: be like a journalist or My favorite thing has always

520
00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:55,680
Speaker 1: been listening to a song with somebody and they want

521
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 1: to turn it up because they love it, or they

522
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:58,479
Speaker 1: want to turn it down because they want to tell

523
00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 1: you a story about it. Like those are my two

524
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:05,399
Speaker 1: your favorite moments with music? And I'd always had that

525
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:07,480
Speaker 1: feeling that I wanted to share that in some way,

526
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:09,200
Speaker 1: I just didn't know how to do it, Like I

527
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 1: never learned had very conservative parents growing up, Like I

528
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:16,200
Speaker 1: wasn't allowed to be in a band in high school.

529
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 1: My mom ripped my eight foot verve subway poster off

530
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:24,480
Speaker 1: the wall when I was seventeen years old because she

531
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 1: was mad at me, like I was not supposed to

532
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:28,919
Speaker 1: be like a person involved in music. I'm like literally

533
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 1: the last person. It was not a cool thing in

534
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:34,160
Speaker 1: my family to be involved in. And then of course

535
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:35,960
Speaker 1: I started a band that sounded like at the Drive

536
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 1: in when I was eighteen. That's as people do. And

537
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 1: when the Zombie story hit, like before I even wrote it,

538
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 1: like people would say to me, I was like, oh,

539
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 1: I'm working on this story, but the zobvious people would say, like, damn,

540
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 1: it sounds like a movie. And I actually think I've

541
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 1: been able to see what it is about certain stories

542
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 1: that has a broad appeal. Not that they're all going

543
00:28:56,800 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: to be made into a fucking movie, obviously, but like

544
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:03,600
Speaker 1: what is the heart of a story and why does

545
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:06,320
Speaker 1: it resonate? Like sometimes it's my job to figure it out.

546
00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:08,720
Speaker 1: And with this one, I got to have the article

547
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:12,239
Speaker 1: come out, learn how people felt about it, kind of

548
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 1: see how it progressed. I. First of all, one of

549
00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: the big lessons was that I knew that zz top

550
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 1: was never going to be a part of it. We

551
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 1: asked and asked and asked, and like, I actually thought

552
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 1: about posting the screenshots of the interactions with their manager

553
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: because he's literally like, stop fucking asking me, Hugh and

554
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:34,520
Speaker 1: Lloy idiot, like he's there over it. But I met

555
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 1: him at a Christmas party and he shook my hand

556
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 1: and he was super nice. So I think it's all

557
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 1: just like what they're doing with this, it's just they've

558
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: got a legend of their own.

559
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, listening to it, one thing that was really

560
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 2: clear to me, and I think he'll be clear to anyone,

561
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:53,240
Speaker 2: but I think it was clear to me, especially because

562
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 2: I've like been on these journeys before where you're like

563
00:29:57,920 --> 00:30:00,320
Speaker 2: trying to get to something and you're t trying to

564
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 2: get lucky with who you can convince to talk to

565
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 2: you and what little detail you're going to find that

566
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:11,160
Speaker 2: can make or break, you, know, your ability to realize

567
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 2: your vision. I'm curious, like what made this story hard

568
00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 2: to excavate because you know, like when we make podcasts,

569
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 2: we often pick pretty easy targets like we'll do the

570
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:22,840
Speaker 2: age crisis, you know, and no matter what, like we're

571
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 2: gonna find interesting people to talk to and interesting storylines.

572
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 2: Is to build our show around when that's your topic.

573
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 2: With a story like this, like we really need certain

574
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 2: pieces to fall into place, where you need certain reporting

575
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:37,479
Speaker 2: things to go right, there's some risk, right that you're

576
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 2: not going to get it. There's a possibility that you

577
00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:42,600
Speaker 2: just won't harvest enough material to make it work, and

578
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:45,560
Speaker 2: I'm curious how you dealt with that as you move forward.

579
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 1: I want to be very clear about this. I had

580
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: one limitation and it was money. Like, there was no

581
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 1: limitation to where we were going with the story. Nick

582
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 1: is a genius editor who had incredible ideas, and I

583
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:00,280
Speaker 1: put this together. We've never met, and I've never met before.

584
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 1: We made this over zoom like. I recorded huge portions

585
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 1: of this in my car on my break at the bar.

586
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 1: My only limitations on this were money, Like, I'm sure

587
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:17,960
Speaker 1: that everybody would be really thrilled to hear that on

588
00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 1: the podcast. But no, like, obviously there was some we

589
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:25,680
Speaker 1: lost a really key figure one of the two managers

590
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 1: died right as we were about to have an interview

591
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 1: lined up. During those six dead years, we were just

592
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: gonna talk to him for fun.

593
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 2: I really felt for you right then, man.

594
00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 1: I mean the guy who literally told his girlfriend, oh yeah,

595
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 1: I'm leaving here to go built the stage for Woodstock,

596
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 1: I'd Brie Hendrix's amps and stuff like. It's crazy, you know,

597
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:48,200
Speaker 1: it's there are moments you miss. But I do feel

598
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:50,520
Speaker 1: like the reason I was so blunt about the money

599
00:31:50,520 --> 00:31:52,640
Speaker 1: stuff was just like, it took me a year and

600
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 1: a half. And I've gone on a couple podcasts and

601
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and people are like, you worked on

602
00:31:57,520 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 1: this for so long, Oh my god, you took forever

603
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:03,800
Speaker 1: to make this. And I'm like, if you feel that way,

604
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 1: you can blame my boss at my bartending job for

605
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:10,600
Speaker 1: scheduling me so much like it is my reality. Hopefully

606
00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:13,480
Speaker 1: the balance will be a little bit better going forward.

607
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 1: That's my goal. I actually do love bartending and don't

608
00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:18,040
Speaker 1: plan on giving it up anytime soon.

609
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 2: I don't know. A year and a half. I mean,

610
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 2: listening to the show, I'm like, yeah, this fucking took

611
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:24,479
Speaker 2: a year and a half. I mean, chasing down some

612
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 2: of the leads that you know that ultimately allowed you

613
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 2: to sort of crack it open. Like you had to

614
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:33,560
Speaker 2: get pretty creative about where you were going to find

615
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 2: your witnesses, right, Like you couldn't talk to most of

616
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 2: the primary players. You had to call their prom dates,

617
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:43,120
Speaker 2: you had to call the guys who opened for them. Like,

618
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 2: I found it quite inspiring to see how creative you

619
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 2: got in terms of just you know, hitting a wall

620
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 2: on access and then finding a way around it.

621
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean that's was a huge thing. And

622
00:32:57,240 --> 00:32:59,680
Speaker 1: I was really lucky that Bay City is a pretty

623
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 1: small town in Michigan that the place where I was

624
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:04,880
Speaker 1: telling the story. I got lucky that Gary and these

625
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 1: other people. There's another guy by the way named Scott

626
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:08,880
Speaker 1: Baker who I want to shout out, who is incredible,

627
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 1: who helped record some of the stuff in Bay City.

628
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:13,880
Speaker 1: And it's like these guys, you know, wrote for the

629
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 1: local paper, Like these are people who've known a lot

630
00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 1: of these people for as neighbors and community members for decades.

631
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 1: So that was obviously very helpful in Bay City. And

632
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 1: I'm actually as I go into this next project on

633
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:28,560
Speaker 1: question Mark, like it's Detroit, it's a little bigger at Saginaw.

634
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 1: I'm thankful that Bay City kind of had its limited options.

635
00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm hoping that I won't have too much

636
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:39,960
Speaker 1: to go through taking it to a bigger size city

637
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 1: and artists and all that.

638
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 2: Well, since you brought up question Mark, you know, talk

639
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:47,760
Speaker 2: about finding your way around the wall, like the way

640
00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 2: you handled the limitations that were placed on you and

641
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 2: getting that interview with question Mark into the show, I

642
00:33:55,720 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 2: thought was so funny and so perfectly executed for those

643
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 2: who haven't heard it. Basically, you couldn't get question Mark

644
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 2: to agree to talk on the record, right but you

645
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,320
Speaker 2: had all these conversations with him where you were recording

646
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:12,239
Speaker 2: your side of it, if not his, and basically you

647
00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:15,839
Speaker 2: just let us hear your side of the conversation and

648
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:18,720
Speaker 2: kind of left the rest up to the imagination. I'm curious,

649
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:19,560
Speaker 2: how did you come up with that?

650
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:22,759
Speaker 1: I felt like it kind of came pretty organically from

651
00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 1: the three of us, from me Anda and Nick, Like

652
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:27,400
Speaker 1: we at one point were like, we can't not have

653
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:30,359
Speaker 1: him in here. This man is talking about how he

654
00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 1: was born on Mars and was essentially gender fluid in

655
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 1: the sixties and believes he's reincarnated from a female singer

656
00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:41,480
Speaker 1: from ancient Egypt and all these things that you know

657
00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:44,760
Speaker 1: are a little out there, but he is the ultimate

658
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 1: example of the older person who, once you wade through

659
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:51,440
Speaker 1: the you know all the conversation they want to have.

660
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:56,160
Speaker 1: He actually has an incredible memory, and I was just

661
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 1: with him last week and he was moved to tears

662
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 1: telling me about how much Dick Clark helped his band

663
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 1: back in the sixties and had him on the show twice.

664
00:35:04,719 --> 00:35:07,719
Speaker 1: And then when they made that show American Dreams in

665
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:10,279
Speaker 1: the nineties, it meant so much to question Mark that

666
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:12,880
Speaker 1: they put question Mark in the Mysterians in one of

667
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:15,879
Speaker 1: the scenes because Dick Clark loved them so much, And

668
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:19,000
Speaker 1: obviously I would have loved to have had that for

669
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 1: the podcast, but it literally took me two years to

670
00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:24,080
Speaker 1: get him to agree to record a phone call.

671
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:26,680
Speaker 2: It's crazy because I feel like I have an image

672
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 2: of him in my head based on what you played,

673
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:32,360
Speaker 2: which is almost nothing right. I don't know how you

674
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:34,799
Speaker 2: did it, man, but it really was evocative.

675
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:53,840
Speaker 1: He's a question Mark.

676
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:04,319
Speaker 2: What do you think you learned over the past year

677
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:06,360
Speaker 2: and a half making the Fake Zombies podcast that's going

678
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:08,880
Speaker 2: to help you tell the story of another crazy rock

679
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:10,480
Speaker 2: and roll, you know, Taiale.

680
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: As far as story and story impulses and all that,

681
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: I'm not worried about that. And I'd say this very proudly.

682
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 1: We learned so much making this on the production side

683
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:23,080
Speaker 1: and the practical bricks and sticks of how to make

684
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 1: an eight episode podcast with two bonus episodes. I had

685
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 1: never done it before. And there are certain things, like

686
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:33,240
Speaker 1: I mentioned recording stuff in my car at the beginning

687
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 1: of this, I probably could have built myself a little

688
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 1: booth in my house and saved myself a lot of

689
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:39,280
Speaker 1: time and money, and I will do that going forward.

690
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:42,360
Speaker 1: But you know, we were figuring it out, so a

691
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 1: lot of it was practical. And then there are a

692
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:48,400
Speaker 1: few things, a few interviews that I would maybe like

693
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 1: to have back at some point, but I promised this

694
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: is not a huge teaser. But we did get an

695
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:56,919
Speaker 1: email from a guy I think it was the day

696
00:36:56,960 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 1: after the podcast came out and said, hey, love the show,

697
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:01,880
Speaker 1: love loved the whole thing. Was wondering if you were

698
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:04,319
Speaker 1: going to mention this, and he had information about a

699
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:09,040
Speaker 1: third fake zombies happened in England at the same time. Wow,

700
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 1: different management company and all that. But I haven't even

701
00:37:12,440 --> 00:37:15,600
Speaker 1: written back to him yet, but there are these little

702
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:17,440
Speaker 1: pieces of this out there, and I don't think this

703
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 1: story is ever going to leave me fully.

704
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:23,719
Speaker 2: Did every band, every popular band, have a doppelganger out

705
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:25,759
Speaker 2: on the road pretending to be them or was it

706
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:28,600
Speaker 2: something about the Zombies that made them the perfect target?

707
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:30,400
Speaker 2: Was it that they had their second win sort of

708
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:33,840
Speaker 2: posthumously and therefore there was a vacuum.

709
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: I think that's actually the cool thing too. Very similar

710
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 1: to I was saying about that guy reaching out A

711
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 1: lot of the third fake Zombies is that we have

712
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 1: heard from other people about other fake bands. And there's

713
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 1: a really great podcast about a fake Fleetwood Mac. It

714
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:48,959
Speaker 1: was only like a half hour long or something like that.

715
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:51,839
Speaker 1: There were actually, I think two fake Fleetwood Macs. There

716
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:53,120
Speaker 1: have been a lot of these. There was a fake

717
00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:55,880
Speaker 1: James Taylor at one point. Like, we're learning more about

718
00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:59,840
Speaker 1: these kinds of things, and now we're like a target

719
00:37:59,920 --> 00:38:01,439
Speaker 1: for people to tell us about it too.

720
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:04,080
Speaker 2: Which rules that's awesome. Yeah. I feel like there's something

721
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:08,560
Speaker 2: really kind of poignant and profound about cover bands, and

722
00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:12,279
Speaker 2: especially like now that you see over and over again

723
00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:15,640
Speaker 2: that the members of you know, particularly successful cover bands

724
00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:19,480
Speaker 2: get hired by the real band to replace someone who

725
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 2: quit or died. Like it gets back to that thing

726
00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:27,279
Speaker 2: of sliding doors, where the distance between obscurity and you know,

727
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:31,279
Speaker 2: fame is just like so thin. You know, someone who

728
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:35,680
Speaker 2: was playing in a Smashing Pumpkins cover band gets picked

729
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:38,720
Speaker 2: to play guitar in the actual band with Billy Corgan.

730
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:42,120
Speaker 2: It's like so magical, and I feel like there's something,

731
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:44,360
Speaker 2: you know, there's something of that magic here with the

732
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 2: fake Zombies, especially because two of the members did in

733
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 2: fact go on to great acclaim and success. Such a

734
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:56,560
Speaker 2: thin line between toiling and obscurity and like getting everything

735
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:57,120
Speaker 2: you ever wanted.

736
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe we don't appreciate it until a little bit later,

737
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 1: when it was good and when it was interesting and

738
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:09,200
Speaker 1: when it was something that could be you know, cinematic

739
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:11,560
Speaker 1: or whatever. Like we don't realize we're going through it

740
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:15,319
Speaker 1: at the time. And with this story, it actually took

741
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:17,719
Speaker 1: fifty five years for it to really kind of come

742
00:39:17,760 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 1: to fruition, you know, and learning that Frank Beard, the

743
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 1: one who's still alive from the Easy Top, learning that

744
00:39:24,239 --> 00:39:27,480
Speaker 1: he's a lifelong Buddhist and like, I'm sure he has

745
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:31,279
Speaker 1: some fascinating thoughts on the fake zombies. I'd love to

746
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:37,760
Speaker 1: hear someday. But I'm also somebody who has a certain

747
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:40,360
Speaker 1: level of spirituality to them, and I think if that

748
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:42,319
Speaker 1: were ever gonna happen, it will happen when it's supposed to.

749
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:45,239
Speaker 2: Are there any stories you can tell me from that

750
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 2: year and a half that you guys spent working on

751
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:50,080
Speaker 2: this where you had a big breakthrough that where you

752
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:53,960
Speaker 2: were like, yes, the key fits, I got the door open, Like,

753
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:57,200
Speaker 2: here's the person who's gonna unlock this part of the

754
00:39:57,239 --> 00:40:00,000
Speaker 2: story for me, someone who's gonna tell me what happened

755
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 2: and in a way that no one else can. I

756
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:03,560
Speaker 2: feel like listening to the show, I feel like there

757
00:40:03,600 --> 00:40:04,480
Speaker 2: must have been a bunch of those.

758
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember the moment very distinctly, and it's the

759
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:10,640
Speaker 1: kind of thing now that I've learned a little bit,

760
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 1: I probably would have put this in, But Nick and

761
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:14,759
Speaker 1: I had just met, had just started talking, and I

762
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:17,360
Speaker 1: went to Bay City, and I remember I was staying

763
00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:21,360
Speaker 1: at the world's worst hotel, like a day's ill illustripmall,

764
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:24,200
Speaker 1: and I was in the stairwell because the people next

765
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 1: to me were fighting in their room, and I was

766
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 1: calling Nick, and I was like, I found Jim Atherton's girlfriend, Like,

767
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 1: I found this guy who says he was on tour

768
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:35,680
Speaker 1: opening for the fake Zombies and he wrote around in

769
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:38,800
Speaker 1: a limousine on the tour. And I remember that conversation

770
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:41,240
Speaker 1: in the stairwell very well. I probably have a recording

771
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:44,399
Speaker 1: of it somewhere. But that was really my breakthrough moment

772
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 1: with it, where all of a sudden, I has somebody

773
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:48,920
Speaker 1: incredible who like gets this story, gets what it is,

774
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 1: because he was as excited as I was, you know,

775
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:54,480
Speaker 1: And that was my big breakthrough in them. From there,

776
00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 1: the next move was to go to, Yeah, Jim Atherton's

777
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:02,400
Speaker 1: prom date's house. And you know, you sat down for

778
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 1: this interview. You're sitting in a mic in a booth.

779
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 1: This woman has not had a microphone in her face,

780
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:09,319
Speaker 1: probably since she was singing in school when she was

781
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:12,279
Speaker 1: like twelve years old or something. It's different, you know.

782
00:41:12,600 --> 00:41:16,880
Speaker 1: And Yeah, showing up there, putting my nervousness aside, putting

783
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:20,040
Speaker 1: my anxiety aside, and being like I'm here to get

784
00:41:20,080 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: this woman's thoughts about her old boyfriend. Like I got

785
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:26,120
Speaker 1: to go in here really chill it, just like let

786
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 1: her talk at her pace, like, I'm not going to

787
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 1: extract anything from her, like, and she wanted to teach

788
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:35,239
Speaker 1: me a card game that she had played and do

789
00:41:35,360 --> 00:41:38,279
Speaker 1: this other stuff and that's fine. And she played in

790
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 1: a woodwind ensemble for in her twenties and had her

791
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:45,440
Speaker 1: own little musical history and that's what she wanted to

792
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:47,480
Speaker 1: tell me about. So that's what we talked about.

793
00:41:48,480 --> 00:41:52,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, one breakthrough in the show that well, that doesn't

794
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:55,360
Speaker 2: end up panning out, but that you again, as with

795
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 2: the question Mark tape, you end up making, you know,

796
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 2: something really special out of is of course the video

797
00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 2: that maybe was Nick that or Anna who tracked down

798
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:11,160
Speaker 2: this interview clip right where the fake zombies are being

799
00:42:11,760 --> 00:42:15,759
Speaker 2: interviewed while on tour, and as far as I could tell,

800
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:20,719
Speaker 2: this was like the only real documentation anywhere of these

801
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:21,920
Speaker 2: guys in action.

802
00:42:22,160 --> 00:42:22,359
Speaker 1: Right.

803
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:24,319
Speaker 2: I know, you tell the story in the podcast, but

804
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:26,799
Speaker 2: tell me here, like, what was it like discovering that

805
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:29,400
Speaker 2: piece of footage existed, and tell me about the quest

806
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:31,960
Speaker 2: to get your hands on it and ultimately how you

807
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:33,640
Speaker 2: decided to handle it in the show.

808
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:37,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think actually you're the perfect person who we

809
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:39,279
Speaker 1: asked in that question because this has probably happened to

810
00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:42,040
Speaker 1: you a million times. This is a new experience for

811
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: me to have somebody want to charge you an arm

812
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:46,880
Speaker 1: and a leg for a clip that you feel like

813
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:48,359
Speaker 1: is basically worthless.

814
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, it's rough. I just had to tell ABC

815
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:54,800
Speaker 2: thanks but no thanks to paying one thousand dollars for

816
00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:58,040
Speaker 2: ten seconds of a Nightline episode. Yeah, it's sad, but

817
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 2: I can only imagine it was heartbreaking in your case,

818
00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:02,839
Speaker 2: because it really is just like kind of a holy grail. Right,

819
00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 2: Maybe you didn't even know you were looking for it,

820
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:06,919
Speaker 2: but once you found it, it's like here they are

821
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:08,640
Speaker 2: and you can hear them talking, and you can see

822
00:43:08,680 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 2: them talking. It must have just been amazing to just

823
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 2: sit there and watch it.

824
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:12,719
Speaker 1: Yeah.

825
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:14,640
Speaker 2: The way you pull it off in the end in

826
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 2: the show with this video that you couldn't license is

827
00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:20,959
Speaker 2: by essentially recreating it. Right, How did you go about

828
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:21,279
Speaker 2: doing that?

829
00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:23,440
Speaker 1: Well? I live in Los Angeles and some of my

830
00:43:23,480 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 1: friends here are actors, and my friend Josh makes the

831
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:30,120
Speaker 1: best hogies in Los Angeles at his pop up shop,

832
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 1: and he's also an actor who does a really good

833
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 1: British accent. We talked to each other British accent sometimes,

834
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 1: like when we're goofy or out playing music or whatever,

835
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:41,600
Speaker 1: and I was like, I think he could. He has

836
00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:44,560
Speaker 1: kind of the same tone as this guy. His roommate

837
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:48,040
Speaker 1: is also an actor. And then I called my friend Joey,

838
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:50,800
Speaker 1: who's a comedian, to do the kind of goofy guy's voice,

839
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:56,359
Speaker 1: and we basically made a fake fake zombies, a fake

840
00:43:56,400 --> 00:44:00,319
Speaker 1: fake fake zombies to do this version of it, and

841
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:01,719
Speaker 1: we thought it was kind of a fun way to

842
00:44:01,719 --> 00:44:05,759
Speaker 1: work around it, and yeah, it kind of came out

843
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:07,640
Speaker 1: of fun. I was happy with it. I was.

844
00:44:07,680 --> 00:44:08,600
Speaker 2: I found it delightful.

845
00:44:08,640 --> 00:44:10,400
Speaker 1: And there is actually a happy ending to this story,

846
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:13,200
Speaker 1: which is the Zombies have a documentary coming out next year,

847
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:19,440
Speaker 1: directed by Robert Schwartzmann, and they licensed it for the documentary,

848
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:21,160
Speaker 1: so you'll be able to see them when you go

849
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:23,279
Speaker 1: see the Zombies documentary, which will I think will be

850
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:25,359
Speaker 1: streaming soon. Actually hell yeah.

851
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 2: As a podcaster, I was very intrigued by this archivist's

852
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:31,840
Speaker 2: apparent hostility towards the medium. From what you said, it

853
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 2: sounded like as soon as you said the word podcast,

854
00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:36,920
Speaker 2: this guy who held the keys to this video is

855
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:39,560
Speaker 2: like click not talking to you. If you're a podcaster,

856
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:41,080
Speaker 2: what's up with that?

857
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:45,440
Speaker 1: My guess is it's probably just experience of being like

858
00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:48,040
Speaker 1: a seventy year old guy who probably licenses stuff for

859
00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:50,279
Speaker 1: like Warner Brothers and all these huge studios all the.

860
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:52,880
Speaker 2: Time, and he knows that podcasters have no money.

861
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 1: I think he was not interested. And we were trying

862
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:02,480
Speaker 1: not to just be like drop iheart's name, you know,

863
00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:05,680
Speaker 1: thinking that if they did want to work with us,

864
00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:08,520
Speaker 1: that would mean they thought we had deeper pockets. But

865
00:45:08,560 --> 00:45:12,439
Speaker 1: I offered to negotiate a price for this clip of

866
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:13,960
Speaker 1: a minute and a half of the audio and they

867
00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:14,719
Speaker 1: were not having it.

868
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:18,160
Speaker 2: Well, you made the best of it. Really, It ends

869
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:20,399
Speaker 2: up being a very memorable, I think moment in the show.

870
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:21,560
Speaker 1: Thanks.

871
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:24,200
Speaker 2: Speaking of licensing, did you end up having to license

872
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:25,520
Speaker 2: the Zombies music that you used?

873
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 1: It was the first thing we did, really, first thing

874
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:29,759
Speaker 1: we did with the first thing we did with the

875
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:35,040
Speaker 1: budget was licensed our ten phase And yeah, that was

876
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 1: a decision between Ian and I and we felt like

877
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 1: we needed to because, yeah, the Zombies are very well

878
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 1: respected and appreciated, but they are actually until about a

879
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:48,440
Speaker 1: month ago, they were still a touring band who played

880
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 1: more shows than bands I know were in their early twenties.

881
00:45:52,840 --> 00:45:55,680
Speaker 1: They're definitely still a working band. They still sound great,

882
00:45:56,040 --> 00:46:00,319
Speaker 1: and I wanted to remind people that, you know, like

883
00:46:00,360 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 1: I have a real bell Weather litmus test thing where

884
00:46:03,680 --> 00:46:05,319
Speaker 1: when people are like, oh, yeah, the zombies are one

885
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:07,880
Speaker 1: hit wonder. I had a director say that to me

886
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:11,600
Speaker 1: at one point recently, and I was like, well, if

887
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:13,160
Speaker 1: you really listen to the podcast, I think you would

888
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:15,680
Speaker 1: come away taking away that they actually have a handful

889
00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:20,480
Speaker 1: of truly classic songs and then ten to twenty that

890
00:46:20,560 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 1: are like as good as any band from their era. Yeah,

891
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:26,400
Speaker 1: which is a pretty high batting average.

892
00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:29,320
Speaker 2: So I really liked how you guys used the songs.

893
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 2: And there's one lovely transition. I noticed you're talking about

894
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 2: Jim Atherton's prom date and trying to find her, and

895
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:40,120
Speaker 2: then we hear she's not there. And I assume that

896
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:42,839
Speaker 2: was like a deliberate choice to be like, let's have

897
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:44,839
Speaker 2: the song kind of speak to the narration a little bit.

898
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,280
Speaker 2: And I'm curious if A if that was in fact deliberate,

899
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:49,160
Speaker 2: and b if you like had other jokes like that

900
00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 2: that I missed.

901
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:53,560
Speaker 1: That was definitely deliberate. That one was intentional. And then

902
00:46:53,560 --> 00:46:56,239
Speaker 1: there's one at the end, the last song in the

903
00:46:56,280 --> 00:46:59,120
Speaker 1: podcast is like kind of a Zombies deep cut. It's

904
00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:02,839
Speaker 1: called Friends of Mine, and the song about all these

905
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:04,919
Speaker 1: different people who've come to their world and how cool

906
00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:06,880
Speaker 1: it is to see them in love. And it's like

907
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:10,279
Speaker 1: such an interesting, innocent perspective for a rock and roll

908
00:47:10,320 --> 00:47:12,719
Speaker 1: song to have, And I think it kind of keys

909
00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:16,440
Speaker 1: in on the fact that almost every band, at some point,

910
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:20,000
Speaker 1: every big band, has like tried to be a little

911
00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:22,320
Speaker 1: bit tougher or tried to be a little bit cooler

912
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 1: than they are. And I feel like the Zombies have

913
00:47:24,719 --> 00:47:27,520
Speaker 1: always just been themselves and they were probably called soft

914
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:30,200
Speaker 1: and all these things when they were coming up and

915
00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:33,120
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones were starting to, you know, come up

916
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 1: at the same time. They would cross paths as teenagers,

917
00:47:36,120 --> 00:47:40,239
Speaker 1: and the Zombies have maintained like a very sweet innocence,

918
00:47:40,360 --> 00:47:42,320
Speaker 1: and the fact that they're kind of the quote unquote

919
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:46,800
Speaker 1: victims of this story ties into that innocence really well totally.

920
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 2: I remember. I mean, so you obviously get into this.

921
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:54,120
Speaker 2: In the show. The Zombies were sort of like underappreciated

922
00:47:54,160 --> 00:47:56,080
Speaker 2: for a long time, right, Like they had these couple

923
00:47:56,080 --> 00:47:58,080
Speaker 2: of hits, maybe like the guy you just referred to,

924
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:00,319
Speaker 2: like people wrote them off as a one hit under.

925
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:04,799
Speaker 2: I was in high school, so probably around two thousand

926
00:48:04,840 --> 00:48:08,160
Speaker 2: and one, thousand and two when I remember probably Pitchfork

927
00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 2: writing about the Zombies and suddenly like they were in

928
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:14,800
Speaker 2: the cannon and people were talking about Odyssey and Oracle

929
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:18,480
Speaker 2: alongside pet sounds, and I think at the time I

930
00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:21,840
Speaker 2: didn't know that they were had previously been kind of

931
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:25,000
Speaker 2: an obscurity, But I think that adds to what is

932
00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:27,120
Speaker 2: magical about your story in a way, like you could

933
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:32,840
Speaker 2: only have pulled this taper on a band that was underappreciated,

934
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:36,799
Speaker 2: and people might actually believe that they were seeing the

935
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:39,600
Speaker 2: real thing because the real thing wasn't all that famous

936
00:48:39,600 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 2: to begin with.

937
00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:43,640
Speaker 1: You're hitting on something there, and it's like it is

938
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:47,040
Speaker 1: the power of a great song. This is I think

939
00:48:47,080 --> 00:48:51,360
Speaker 1: the importance of, you know, musicians with good taste and

940
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:53,880
Speaker 1: an understanding of the history of music. I think a

941
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:55,760
Speaker 1: lot of the stuff with the Zombies in the nineties

942
00:48:55,800 --> 00:48:59,000
Speaker 1: happened because of people like Beck was a big Zombies

943
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:02,320
Speaker 1: sent Paul Weller, huge Zombies fan. Paul Weller would do

944
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:04,520
Speaker 1: interviews where he would say, Odyssee an Oracles the greatest

945
00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:09,240
Speaker 1: album ever made, and you know, as a Angli file

946
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:12,279
Speaker 1: kid obsessed with Oasis and later The Jam and later

947
00:49:12,320 --> 00:49:14,680
Speaker 1: The Clash and everybody else. When I saw that kind

948
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:17,239
Speaker 1: of statement about the Zombies, I was like, oh, I

949
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:19,080
Speaker 1: got to check out this album, and I do think

950
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:22,920
Speaker 1: it was that very prominent. I miss it. I think

951
00:49:22,960 --> 00:49:27,200
Speaker 1: everybody misses it. Like print magazine long features on bands

952
00:49:27,800 --> 00:49:31,120
Speaker 1: like coming out of England mostly, and the Zombies are

953
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:32,960
Speaker 1: like the perfect band for that because they are a

954
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:34,880
Speaker 1: little bit obscure. You know, time of the season, but

955
00:49:34,960 --> 00:49:38,560
Speaker 1: did you know this or whatever. The deeper you go,

956
00:49:38,640 --> 00:49:40,360
Speaker 1: the better the catalog gets. I think I say that

957
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:44,240
Speaker 1: in the podcast, but yeah, they've got some truly magical music,

958
00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:46,640
Speaker 1: and Colin, in my opinion, is the best singer of

959
00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:47,120
Speaker 1: all time.

960
00:49:48,760 --> 00:49:52,239
Speaker 2: I loved hearing his speaking voice because you can hear

961
00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:55,360
Speaker 2: his singing voice in it, but it's like obviously happening

962
00:49:55,400 --> 00:49:57,799
Speaker 2: in a different register. Give me a little shiver to

963
00:49:57,840 --> 00:50:03,160
Speaker 2: hear that gorgeous voice just saying words like people.

964
00:50:03,480 --> 00:50:05,440
Speaker 1: So many people have come to me and said I

965
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:07,960
Speaker 1: love his voice so much. I could listen to him

966
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 1: read the phone book. It's it's really cool totally.

967
00:50:12,520 --> 00:50:15,920
Speaker 2: When we talked before on the phone, you said that

968
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:19,200
Speaker 2: you want to inspire other people to make podcasts about

969
00:50:19,200 --> 00:50:22,680
Speaker 2: crazy music stories. And that caught my ear because I

970
00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:24,560
Speaker 2: was curious, as someone who's just made a podcast for

971
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:26,880
Speaker 2: the first time, what did you like about the medium

972
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:28,759
Speaker 2: and what do you think makes a podcast a good

973
00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:31,400
Speaker 2: vehicle for, you know, a crazy music story.

974
00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:35,000
Speaker 1: Obviously, the accessibility is there as somebody who made this

975
00:50:35,040 --> 00:50:38,200
Speaker 1: as like a working class writer, Like podcasts are possible

976
00:50:38,239 --> 00:50:40,520
Speaker 1: to make in your free time. I think that's really important.

977
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:44,200
Speaker 1: And obviously documentaries and movies are too, but you're at

978
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:47,400
Speaker 1: a different level. I'm in production, and it helps have

979
00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:51,040
Speaker 1: a genius editor, which not everybody's going to have making

980
00:50:51,080 --> 00:50:54,360
Speaker 1: a podcast, But for me, it's it really keys in

981
00:50:54,440 --> 00:50:58,120
Speaker 1: on people who are maybe where I was, like thirty

982
00:50:58,160 --> 00:51:02,319
Speaker 1: five and working in office job but still loving this thing.

983
00:51:02,440 --> 00:51:05,000
Speaker 1: And like, you know, it was surprises me that people

984
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:07,800
Speaker 1: spend thousands of dollars on concert tickets all this stuff

985
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:11,000
Speaker 1: on loving music, Like there's a lot of different ways

986
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:15,360
Speaker 1: to love music, and my way just happens to be

987
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:18,640
Speaker 1: like getting as deep into these weird stories as possible.

988
00:51:19,040 --> 00:51:20,880
Speaker 1: But I just hope there's somebody out there who's like

989
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:23,319
Speaker 1: forty years old and thinks that like their life is

990
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:26,839
Speaker 1: one way and they have convinced themselves that they can't

991
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:28,920
Speaker 1: do it. Because I was in that spot and I

992
00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:32,000
Speaker 1: felt exactly that way, and I hope, yeah, I hope

993
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:35,200
Speaker 1: people remember that, like life is long, and yeah, this

994
00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:39,360
Speaker 1: the medium is really fun, like it's cool, and you know,

995
00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:41,719
Speaker 1: I remember at the beginning of this, like obviously, licensing

996
00:51:42,080 --> 00:51:45,520
Speaker 1: clip lengths and stuff like that made this not entirely possible.

997
00:51:46,080 --> 00:51:48,799
Speaker 1: But I was like, let's play a whole zombie song

998
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:51,360
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the first episode, like you know,

999
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:53,879
Speaker 1: and people weren't like, get the fuck out of here,

1000
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:57,520
Speaker 1: Like I actually want people to sit with the music,

1001
00:51:57,640 --> 00:51:59,799
Speaker 1: and like, not everything has to be rushed and hit

1002
00:51:59,840 --> 00:52:02,360
Speaker 1: this same beats that everybody wants you to hit. It's

1003
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:04,719
Speaker 1: okay to take your time with it. And when you're

1004
00:52:04,760 --> 00:52:08,360
Speaker 1: dealing with people, you know who are maybe in the

1005
00:52:09,080 --> 00:52:11,319
Speaker 1: what was like the back nine of their life, like

1006
00:52:11,360 --> 00:52:13,239
Speaker 1: it's going to go a little slower than you wanted to.

1007
00:52:13,880 --> 00:52:18,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's also my experience like talking to people

1008
00:52:18,120 --> 00:52:21,360
Speaker 2: like that, you often get stuff that they wouldn't have

1009
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:24,399
Speaker 2: told you back when you know the events and question

1010
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:27,440
Speaker 2: were happening. It's only forty fifty years later. That they're like,

1011
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:29,400
Speaker 2: all right, I'll tell you, I'll tell you what really happened.

1012
00:52:29,719 --> 00:52:31,640
Speaker 1: You know, we had a few of those yeah people

1013
00:52:31,680 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 1: who probably wouldn't have in the past.

1014
00:52:33,160 --> 00:52:37,719
Speaker 2: And then we're like, sure, yeah, all right, Daniel, thank

1015
00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:40,359
Speaker 2: you so much for giving us the behind the scenes look.

1016
00:52:40,520 --> 00:52:42,839
Speaker 2: As someone who really loved the show and could tell

1017
00:52:42,880 --> 00:52:46,640
Speaker 2: there was all kinds of sweat and angst that went

1018
00:52:46,680 --> 00:52:48,480
Speaker 2: into making this thing, it was great to be able

1019
00:52:48,560 --> 00:52:50,400
Speaker 2: to ask you about it. And I hope the podcast

1020
00:52:50,440 --> 00:52:53,480
Speaker 2: gives the story a third life still and if not,

1021
00:52:53,520 --> 00:52:55,120
Speaker 2: you got to just, I think, make a sequel about

1022
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:58,400
Speaker 2: the Third Zombies. So that's just your fate. I'm afraid

1023
00:52:58,800 --> 00:52:59,320
Speaker 2: that's okay.

1024
00:52:59,560 --> 00:53:01,520
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it as long as we

1025
00:53:01,560 --> 00:53:11,399
Speaker 1: can keep the band together. This episode of the True

1026
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:14,479
Speaker 1: Story of the Fake Zombies features original music by Robin Hatch.

1027
00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:17,480
Speaker 1: Robin did the score for the podcast and you can

1028
00:53:17,480 --> 00:53:21,000
Speaker 1: find her music everywhere. It was produced by Nick Dawson,

1029
00:53:21,360 --> 00:53:25,799
Speaker 1: Anna McClain and myself, Thanks again to Leon Nafach and

1030
00:53:25,880 --> 00:53:31,560
Speaker 1: executive producers Melissa Locker and Ian Wheeler. The True Story

1031
00:53:31,560 --> 00:53:34,440
Speaker 1: of the Fake Zombies is a production of iHeart Podcasts,

1032
00:53:34,760 --> 00:53:38,120
Speaker 1: Talk House and never Mind Media. For more podcasts from

1033
00:53:38,120 --> 00:53:42,800
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts for wherever

1034
00:53:42,840 --> 00:53:58,680
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts,