Do Go On - The Imposter Zombies - Do Go On Mini

Episode Date: July 5, 2020

The Zombies are an influential psychedelic rock band from England, and in the late 1960’s they set off on a tour of North America. The only problem: they were not the real Zombies…This is the podcast version of episode six of our new web series that we made with Stupid Old Studios. You can watch the video of the episode complete with animations, props and lots and lots of regret face right now on The Stupid Old Channel YouTube page (link below).Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_LFeLQ05ttYOur website: dogoonpod.comSupport the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPod Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/Submit-a-Topic Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasReferences/Further Readinghttps://www.buzzfeed.com/danielralston/the-true-story-of-the-fake-zombies-the-strangest-con-in-rock?utm_term=.fuGGo51D6#.drOr9az1mhttps://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/zombies-band-interview-podcast-842990/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odessey_and_Oraclehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zombieshttps://ultimateclassicrock.com/fake-zombies-zz-top/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. Hey, mate, it's Matt here dropping in to let you know that this is the sixth episode of our web series. You can watch the video version of it over at the stupid old channel.

There's a link in the show notes. Also want to let you know that we are doing some live streams coming up and you get tickets to those. There's a link to the tickets as well in the show notes here. But that's really all I wanted to let you know. I think these episodes are more fun to watch if you have the chance to, but they also worked just fine in the audio format. So without further ado, here is the episode about the fake zombies. But I'll let me explain it more now.

The zombies were an influential psychedelic pop band from England. And in the late 1960s, they set off on a tour of North America. The only thing is, they were not the real zombies. This story involves deceit, intrigue, and bad English accents. This week, I'm talking about the imposter zombies. Welcome to the show. I'm Matt Stewart. Here are my two sidekicks, Jessica Perkins and David Hornicky. I'm even cider kick. Even cider kick. Okay. Because I'm further away.

Yeah, no, I understood the logic, but even cider kick just sounds ridiculous. Well, I was going for silly. That is something that a cider kick would say. Yeah, your third banana now. That's why. There's only three of us. I'll pipe down. You go shush for a while. Can we make him fourth banana? I'm thinking about this pop plant.

Still not a lot of the heavy lifting. I like it. Let us begin. Please. Formed in 1962, the zombies are an English psychedelic pop five piece. They scored a worldwide hit with She's Not There in 1964 and a few months later had another big hit with Tell Her No, which we could play a little bit of now. Oh. You sort of getting that vibe.

It is very psychedelic poppy. Did you know? much about the zombies before right now? I couldn't have told you off the top of my head their songs. Yeah. And then I hear them and go, oh yeah. You know what I mean? Oh yeah, I know.

What about you number four? I don't really know too much. Okay. About anything. Yeah, but specifically. Not really familiar with their music, but I'm loving what I'm hearing. Yeah, I've been listening to them a bit as I've been researching when I'm absolutely digging their sound. Digger it.

Okay. Let me tell you a little bit about them to set the scene. Both of those two singles came from their debut album called Begin Here in the UK. And it was sort of a bit of a fashion at the time they'd release in America under a different title. It's called Begin Here in the UK or that... It's called Begin Here. In the UK it was called Begin Here. So is there like a few dots there with that big pauses?

How are they scripting them? They also have the hand movement. In America, it was self-titled. It was called self-titles. I mean, was it called in America self-titled? This is very confusing. That cider kick thing was actually not the dumbest thing that's been said. And it shan't be the dumbest.

The album sold well without setting the world on fire. Not literally. I mean, as a figure of speech, it didn't. But it sold well. But literally it also didn't set the world on fire. That's true. It didn't. They didn't start the fire.

Good point. That was them. The follow-up album, Odyssey and Oracle, was recorded in 1967. at Olympic Studios and Abbey Road Studios in London. You might be familiar with the Abbey Road Studios. According to the band, it was a great time to record as the Beatles had just finished a session there, and some of their instruments were lying around.

For instance, a melatron, which is a kind of polyphonic tape replay keyboard. Very 60s. Well, so you just help yourself to other people's instruments. Yeah, you kind of pick up Paul McCartney's bass and have a go. Oh, I'm right-handed, so I'm going to restring all these left-handed instruments. comes in, it's upside down. Hey, it's like you guys were not even around in the 60s,

because that's what it was. It was the summer love. Free love, free instruments. Yeah, et cetera. So this melitron, which I don't know if I'd even heard of as an instrument, but it's basically like a funky keyboard. Radiohead or a fan of using that. Right.

Well, keyboardists and vocalists Rod Argent later spoke about this to Rolling Stone saying, it's so funny because melitron is all over Odyssey and Oracle. And if John Lennon's melaton's melaton's melaton hadn't been there, it probably would have been a very different album. And we were just picking up these percussion instruments for the session just after they finished. It was a great time to be at Abbey Road. I'll have one of them.

Quite literally it was a great time. It doesn't mean like in the general, like, oh, it was a good time for music. People were into. He's like, it was a good timing to get there just after the Beatles. Because they could steal their shit. They like start booking their sessions looking at the schedule and the Beatles are going to be there.

Oh, they're finishing at 7. We'll have it at 715, please. Yeah, they go into the Google Calendar. and seeing one of the Beatles there, all right, we'll pop in after. I love that idea. The Beatles are just like, yeah, we'll just leave our shit around as well.

Yeah, it's all right. We're the Beatles. We're the Beatles. Who's going to touch our stuff? Who's going to use our stuff and disrespect us like that? It's the Abbey Road thing. We're fan. This is our, you know.

All of our stuff is safe here. Do I ever tell you about the time why I was in Liverpool. Went to this Beatles shop and this guy was dressed up as one of the Sergeant Pepper's sort of things and the shiny, colourful Beatles outfit? And he goes, high and like tourists were streaming through. I said, hey mate, in Liverpool, how do I get to Abbey Road? I'd love to see it. And he goes, oh, you want to get to Abbey Road? I said, yeah.

And he goes, oh, what you've got to do is just head down this street, turn left, and then the first right, you'll see a bus depot. Get a bus to London. And then he stopped. How many times a day does he get asked that question? Probably a lot, but I was like, oh, So it's not here. Not nearby, okay. Thank you. He was furious and with good reason. This little kid.

I was just a boy. I was but a boy. You're just asking a question. He broke my heart. Yeah. Anyway, the album failed to chart. Their follow-up album, Odyssey and Oracle. Despite stealing the Beatles instruments.

Yes. I mean, it just goes to show it wasn't just the instruments then, was it? That's proof. It was so much more. For those deniers, those beetle deniers who say, it was just your fancy. instruments. They were mythical. Yeah. They'd been cursed to play nothing

but classics. They had the only drum kid in England. We had to listen. It's all there was. No, Rigo's not that good. But he was the only drummer we had. For when the album failed to chart in the UK and the US label

decided to not even properly release it. Oh, brutal. The band just kind of quietly broke up. The members all remember how it happened slightly differently, but it seems like a few key members were disillusioned by how the album sold, and their hearts weren't really in it anymore, so they just called it a day. I prefer a loud, very public breakup. Yeah.

You know? I like people streaming themselves, bitching about other people, you know? Don't break up quietly. Make it big. Make it, like, so quiet that even the members are like, yeah, forget which one called it a day. We all sort of just walked in different directions and never brought it up again. Never turned back. I think they just all stopped turning up to rehearsals.

They just got jobs. Yeah. Some of them did. So they went off in different directions, literally, turned to their backs and walked off. The keyboardist Rod Argent, who was also one of the key songwriters. And the bass player Chris White started a new project called Argent. I'm sure Chris White would have been stuck about it. We aren't going to call it White. That's a terrible note.

Boring. Argent, that's cool. They went on to have a wiserable. worldwide hit with the song, Hold Your Head Up. Lead singer Colin Blundstone got an office job after the breakup. He remembers taking the breakup pretty hard, but he said, I didn't have time to dwell on it, because it was a very busy office, although I didn't understand what was going on. You know what he was doing there?

People are just walking around the office. People are busy. Photocopying, I don't. He said, he said, I realize the phones kept ringing and they needed to be answered. I'm quite a good bluffer. It was insurance. I know nothing about insurance. Yeah. Yeah, we'll insure your cat. Yep. I don't know how I came up with cat.

That's improv. Damn it. I always go one click too many. He later released some singles under the name Neil MacArthur with moderate success. One of those being a cover of a zombie song. He's sort of covering himself. But he had some charted. Wow. In the meantime, the zombies.

US label CBS decided to release some singles from Odyssey and Oracle, including Time of the Season. They released a few. The last one they had a crack with was Time of the Season, sort of as a last ditch attempt to see how it could go. This only happened after Al Cooper, one of the CBS producers, had a trip to London. He bought the album. We got a hold of it and he played and he's like, oh, this is great. Why didn't we release it? We got the rights to this. Took it back and convinced the label to put it out. They said, we're not putting it out on the main label, though. we'll put it on one of our little side labels. Right.

They just didn't really believe in it. Less of a gamble, maybe. Yeah. This is now well after the band had broken up. The single slowly climbed up the charts, eventually peaking at number one in Canada and number three in the US. Through all of this, apparently the band in the UK were totally unaware.

So he's bluffing his way through insurance on the phone. He's number three in the US. Yeah. He's like, it's a big hit. It's not a hard to believe. I guess pre-Internet world. Yeah. Or maybe they're, yeah, they just heard and they're like, oh, you're big in the US. We did nothing in the UK in other countries.

Yes. Number one in Canada. Who cares? Yeah. Oh, and the colonies, fine. I guess. Of course they'd like it. They're like rubbish. It doesn't think it goes to prove how bad we were. They have moose there. An inferior animal to the English squirrel. Our biggest and bravest mammal. Hey mammals? Can we fact check that, Evan? at the bottom say not a mammal or yes a mammal yes a mammal

it's a little game within the show we like to play is it a mammal am I a mammal you're a mammal you're a mammal you're all mammals confirmed Evan can you double check that and say whether or not Jesse is in fact a mammal

yes a mammal so they were broken up unaware in the UK while they're having a big hit in North America. And this led to the strange scenario of them being highly in demand in North America, but not an existing band anymore. So there was no one to fill the demand. This situation was ready to be exploited. Yes. And the men for the job with Bill Kehoe and Jim Atherton of Delta Promotions, a small-time music promoter in Michigan. They just had a little shop on the edge of town.

Delta saw the opportunity and started telling their employees that they had acquired the rights to the music of the zombies. They had not acquired the rights to the music of the zombies. From there, this was their plan. We're going to recruit four musicians and send them around as the zombies. Even though there's five in the zombies.

Yes. Cost-cutting, I guess. No one will notice. Who's the fifth guy? Phil? Who cares? Who cares? Who's he playing?

Was he the singer? What do they do? What do they really do? That's not even an instrument. Yeah. I was just standing there, use my voice. Anyone can do that. Yeah, come on it right now. The line up was Mark Ramsey, Sebastian or Siebemeter, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard.

Dusty Hill. Frank Beard. Hang on. One at a time. Okay, also there was someone called Sieber Meera or something. I let that go. Let's hear those again. Who were that? Mark Ramsey, Sebastian.

Boring. Hang on. Slow down. Mark Ramsey. Fine. Neither of us care about it. Move on. Get over it, Mark Ramsey. Sebastian, Sieb Meador.

Seeb Meador. Is that all one word? Seab or Siebredor? Is that all one word and you're just... Seab is I think or maybe it's Seb with an A in it. Seeb. Sab? Sab.

No, it's SEA. Oh, sorry. Saab. Saab. Seab. He started up as Swedish motor company as well. Seab Meador. Dusty Hill.

Dusty Hill. Yeah. You didn't even flinch saying the name Dusty Hill. I've known his name for a long time. Maybe that's why I haven't really here, because that is funny. It's a dusty hill. That's an incredible name. Now that I think about it, Dusty Hill.

It's the worst kind of hill too. Yeah. Can't get a grip. You're sliding down. Yeah, you want a nice... Get a vacuum up here or what? A nice grassy one so you can roll down it. It's better than a gravel hill though, isn't it?

Gravely hill. Was he born on a dusty hill? Was he born on a dusty hill? And he'll dive on one too. I've got a family friend who's got a kid called Dusty Hill, which I didn't even connect. Seriously? Yeah.

That is the common name. He's a toddler. A toddler. He's a toddler. He's a toddler. He's a toddler. I know this toddler. And finally there was one more name.

Frank Beard. Is that the same Frank Beard from ZZ Top? Yes. And is that the same Dusty Hill from ZZ Top? Yes. I did not know that Dusty Hill was in ZZ Top. That's why you've known that name for a long time. So two thirds.

I assume you meant, because you've been writing this report for a while. Even longer. than the week or so I've been researching. So two-thirds of ZZ-Top were in this fake band. Yeah, in this fake zombies band. So all four of them are Texans. Okay. They build the band as the original zombies,

the zombies part in inverted commas on posters. So I think that was sort of their way. That's like, you know what that is? That's the poster equivalent of allegedly. Yeah. It's like, can't get in trouble. Can't get in trouble. I put it in quotation marks.

I thought that was obvious. Everyone knows what I mean. I hope when they were announced to the stage on tour, the MC, is like, welcome to the stage, the original zombies. Surely the original part should also be, I guess they were the original zombies. Yeah, true. They're not the original zombies, though. Zombies, though.

And the MC in the contract has to wink at the crowd. And do a little nudge. All right, I think that should get us through in the court of law. If you just whisper it as people are cheering so they can't hear it, They're fake. They're fake. The original zombies, cover man. The original zombies cover man.

The original zombies impersonators. In brackets, no refunds. How do you say something in brackets? Open bracket, no refunds, close bracket. You go to this. No refunds. Showing off the guns. Oh, imagine if they had guns.

Yeah, that'd be cool. That would have been a perfect moment to show them off. Ah well, missed opportunity. To warm up for the tour, Delta organized the band to do a mini tour as another defunct band, The Rose Garden. Stop, whipping off fake band! The Rose Garden or what's the title? I think they just called you, I just think they called them the Rose Garden. The Rose Garden had a top 20 single with Next Plain to London, which fake band...

The next plane out of London's almost gone, if I'm remembering correctly. I love that band. Yeah, it's a beautiful song. Great tune, great band. So is the idea that they can warm up to see if they can pull off pretending to be people they are. I think because they hadn't played as a band together before. So like don't do a tour, just rehearse. Yeah. You know? Just go to a studio and rehearse. I guess they were also because they weren't ripping off as big of a band. They'd had one minor

single. So they thought let's sort of test the waters a bit. And they're also, they were doing, Delta was starting to do this with a bunch of bands as well. A lot of, a lot of fake band money to be made at the time. That's so strange. So Mark Ramsey, one of the fake band members, remembered to BuzzFeed about Next Planet London. He said, that's the only song they bothered learning before the tour. The rest, they just did blues covers. Like, oh, we're the Rose Garden.

Here's one of their songs you might know, and the others are just whatever. Do you reckon they're closed with that song? Yeah. So somehow the tour went off without trouble. Despite the Rose Garden being a folk rock five piece. They played blues. now are four piece playing blues.

And on top of that, the Rose Gardens lead singer was Diana de Rose. Diana's sick tonight, so it'll just be us. Tonight Diana will be played by the guy from Zizi Top without a beer. Everyone's very confused. No one really noticed.

They did a whole tour. No one noticed. Why they go? People are buying. Oh yeah, we'd love to go see. Oh, the Rose Garden? The Rose Garden, great. I love that one song they have.

Oh, yeah. On the radio it sounded more like a woman singing. And they were playing folk. I guess things just sound different live. Yeah. You know, in a room, open room. Sounded better. Yeah, it's the openness.

It's acoustic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What you don't realize is in a big open space, folk sounds like blues and blues sounds like folk. Yes. It's very confusing. Yeah, it is confusing. Yeah.

Before the zombies tour, the band had promo shots taken, which I guess is sort of smart because it means, you know, when people rock up to the show, they go, oh yeah, we saw the poster. They look the same as the poster. So yeah, must be the legit band. And are they trying to look anything like the original band? It's just them going. This is my clothes. In the photo they took, so remembering the original band, who we saw before, very psychedelic 60s, in the photo, the two Zizi top guys wore cowboy hats. no one's like Maybe just take the hats off boys

They didn't even bother with any kind of costume They just turned It was just a photo taken They were just sitting around having a coffee Yeah, look like that They're like oh Oh So yeah

So people saw the poster Then the band they might have been like Oh cool this is legit This is the original Yeah they're wearing cowboy hats in the poster Now they're on stage with Capley Unless of course any of the audience members had seen one of the zombie's debut album covers which had a photo

of the band owners. Or if they noticed they were all of a sudden a four piece without a keyboardist, which is, as we said before, a very key element of their sound. There's like a solo. Yeah. Keys are going crazy. Now it's played on a trumpet. Or that their British accents were unconvincing. Or that they're a blues band and not a psychedelic hop band.

There's a few, probably a few little. hints that they weren't the... For a savvy audience member, you could probably put a few things together. Totally. Some people are worried that they look uncool if they don't just go, oh yeah, yeah, this is them. Yeah. They've paid the money for the game.

It's the emperor's clothes sort of thing. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, I love this band. Yeah, I remember this blues song they played. I've got the record. Yeah, yeah, LaGrange, love it. Yeah, she's got legs. She knows how to use them.

Yeah, yeah, love this psychedelic stuff. Love this cowboy hats. I can hear them on the record. It looked even better in person. According to Tom Hocott, who worked for Delta promotions at the time, the concert promoters in most of the cities knew they were getting a fake zombies band. But the punters, for the most part, believe them to be the real deal, saying, when they were told, here's the zombies, they bought it.

Even the strange parts, like the fact that they were touring without a keyboarder. BuzzFeed quotes a review from the original zombie show on the 22nd of June 1969 by the Saginaw News, saying they were especially disappointing and that the crowd began leaving during their fourth tune. The article suggests there'd been a change in sound from when they were on the top of the charts, which at that stage was not long before.

In the last year and a half, they've really changed their sound. The article puts the change in sound down to the fact that there had been a complete transition of the band members except the bass player. But that wasn't true. That wasn't true, no.

It was a complete transition. of band members, including the bass player. Well, they thought he looks vaguely. He was the one that only looks similar to the others. I think that was just, that was the line they told him. They were always like, this is the thing that keeps them legit as one. They're basically, it's Billy Corgan still. You know, it's still a smashing pumpkins.

Billy Corgan's there. Yeah, but it's like, only not Billy Corgan. It's the bass player. Yeah. Responding to the article, Mark Ramsey remembered it differently saying, I think the reviewer must have been drunk. I don't remember anyone walking out. Were we perfect?

No. And we weren't the zombies. We were a blues rock band from Texas. A band with plenty of good looks. Better than the original zombies. That's not what people go to see a band for. Such a weird brag. I actually go to gigs with noise-canceling headphones and I just look at them.

Yeah, look. Just go, oh, yeah. But when I start singing, I go, la-la-la-la-la-la. Oh, yeah, you're good. La-la-la-la-la-la-la. Love the idea that thinks the reviewer is drunk. One of the side effects of being drunk is accidentally thinking people are leaving a venue. Yeah.

I think from within the audience you can tell better that people are leaving rather than when you're on stage. Maybe. You know? I think Mark Ramsey's full of shit. That's what I'm saying. I'm calling it. There's something so funny to me about the fact that he somehow called the real zombies ugly, basically. Totally.

And can I just ask, so the reason, I know the band had broken up, but like if they were doing really well in the US, you could convince him. to get back together to perform. No, one of them is enjoying pretending to be an insurance salesman. Would it just have been more expensive to, like, get them over? So it's easier to... Well, I think, yeah, definitely way cheaper because they were paying band members a couple hundred bucks a week. Right.

And, you know, they were just able to send them out on the road. Yeah. If they convinced the real zombies to come over, probably a more legit bigger promotions company than Delta would have got the deal. Maybe like their record label would have had something to do with it. So they just wouldn't have been able to do it. Oh, this tiny little operation. So crazy.

Still feel like they could have paid for a keyboard player. Yeah. Just get a fifth member. It does feel like if you're going to do it. And you're selling tickets, you're going to make some money. Yeah. Just pay a keyboarder. That would have been better off.

Keyboarder. Keyboarder. Finding a keyboardist. Get a drummerist. Get a guitar. Ah, yeah. They should have got one of those as well. Get a singerist.

I don't even say what the four members played. They all played. They all played banjo They were banjos. It was weird that people didn't notice. It was ding ding ding ding ding ding Yeah, it was dueling banjos for two hours Yeah

And it was beautiful. That was so beautiful. They were so beautiful. The tour went on And they played shows in small clubs All the way up through America and Canada And in Canada they even appeared on TV What?

Please welcome the Zombies No, you did the comments are the wrong part. Now we're going to get sued. Yeah, the zombies is a completely separate band. Completely separate. The zombies. On December 13th, 1969, an article appeared in Rolling Stone magazine titled

The Zombies Are a Stiff, which read, The Zombies are No More. There is a group calling itself the zombies, but these zombies are not the zombies who made hits of She's Not There, Tell Her No, and Time of the Season. Those zombies are British and split up two years ago. The group now calling it, themselves the zombies have British accents, sort of, sometimes.

And sometimes they forget, then they drawl and refer to y'all. Hello, y'all. Good evening, y'all. Forget mid-sentence. The article... Jolly good, y'all! The article says actual zombies bass player, Chris White, is good and pissed off when he found out about it, quoting him as saying, the fake band were taking

money from our fans and dragging down our reputation. At a fake zombie show at the Whiskey a go-go in LA on October 21st, friends of the band were able to catch the impostors on tape. White remembers that the fake band had a guitar player calling himself Hugh Grundy, which was the actual zombie's drummer's name or drummer's name. Thank you. But the guitarist is calling himself the drummer's name. So they didn't even do basic research. I'm Hugh Grundy or something, Joel. I'm, I don't know Hug, Rundi I don't know

We're all Hugh Grundy Whatever the real one is That's him That's us, the real ones The White continues So they caught him on tape So this is what they asked him on tape As White explains

They asked him why he was now out front As the singer And said in a northern England accent Well The boys want me out front and I'm the only original member. Then the interviewer said... No, no, no, no, you're not getting away with that.

Honestly, no, what you don't need to know is Matt is a fantastic mimic, but he's pretending to be someone who's from Texas doing a bad... Ah, yes, sorry. So that's why it might sound absolutely shi-house. I forgot how many layers they were to it. Matt's... I can hear them all. Yeah. So I started...

It actually took me quite a while to perfect that. Yeah. I started learning a pinpoint perfect Texan accent. Yes. Then on top of that, I went and studied English, the language, in England. And then I went on tour as the fake zombies in America. Did you? Yes.

Impersonating. Anything to do with this story? Oh, no. Coincidence. But actually, yeah, now that you mentioned, it has come in handy for learning this accent. Right. Which I just nailed. Yep.

Sorry for stopping you there, yeah. Please continue. Then the interviewer said, didn't you used to be 5'10? You're about 5'6. Oh. I'm not sure how we got out of that one. Yeah, I had my legs shortened and I'm really sensitive about it. Thanks for bringing it up, y'all.

Didn't you used to be 5'10? Yes. And? No further question? Yeah, I did. I used to be. That was when I drummed. Didn't need that extra height for the guitar.

How could you tell when I was always sitting down? Yeah. Yeah. Where'd you get that information? You actually sound like an idiot. What do you mean did I used to be? What a silly question from you? I shan't be answering.

That doesn't make any sense. So it's also kind of random they pick Northern English as the accent, even though the real Grundy is from south west of London. So they just picked a random English accent. Okay. Well, I guess they had him as the guitarist. What does the Northern accent sound like again? As done by a Texan?

No, just an actual northern accent. Well, I've actually been, it's been so tainted by my Texan influence. But it is something like Dave, say a sentence like, hello, I'm from northern England. So it's south, accent wise south of Scotland. This won't be infuriating at all for any English listeners. It's sort of like a stuff. So do Ross Noble, basically.

Do Ross Noble, Dave. All right, hello, I'm Ross Noble. Give me some suggestions. Oh, a cat. Oh, whoa! Had Ross been living in London long before his accent changed? That was great, Dave. That was great.

I was seeing an impression of my friend Ross Noble who lives in London. Sorry? Oh, okay. So are you talking about a different Ross Noble? That was your fault of beings. He's also a... No, I was talking my friend who's obsessed with cats. Yeah, and improvising.

And taking suggestions. I take suggestions, yep. No, you just wanted some suggestions for his life. Yeah, he likes feedback. Thank you. Feedback. He's not a performer. He's an insurance salesman pretending to be anyway.

Actually, I just remember, Jess, you're very good at accents, aren't you? No. Where were we? Apparently saying that only one original member remains was a common line that Delta used when people question the band. That explains the bass player line in the Saginaw News Review. But he always said that no matter what. What time are you guys loading in tonight? Only one of the original members remain.

Great, can I get you some beers or anything for the green room? Only one original member remains. Yeah, we'll take some beers for the one original member and the other three of us who are not original members, but now part of the new legitimate zombies. But we very much still like beers. Yes. Thank you.

So it seems like they weren't consistent about who supposedly was the original member, though. Or what they play. Oh, come on. Sort out some details. Yes. Yeah, Phil, you have a quick meeting. Have a fucking conversation about it. Write it down.

If you're not sure you'll remember, write it down. I think that's good. Why don't people just communicate? Yes. You know? I've been a dialogue. I'm in a fucking dialogue already. When Rolling Stone magazine contacted Delta for their article,

Bill Kehoe said that the American zombies formed after the lead singer of the zombies was killed and two other guys left. which is all fully made up. What do you mean he was killed? Nobody's going to ask any questions about that. I'll just keep it really dull so that nobody thinks to ask questions.

Yeah, he was brutally murdered. It made a lot of news. Just look it up. You just find that out. By his wife's secret evil twin. And yeah, it was off a really tall building. Yeah, it's a huge. I mean, yeah, if you read his...

book, any library would have it. Yeah. But I wouldn't bother because I've told you the crux of them anyway. And the other two members both left to become president. Both of them. At the same time. They were conjoined twins. First conjoined twin presidents.

Yeah. Of England. So, look it up. Look it up. I wouldn't, but you can. Go on who. It's real. So I don't know why you'd need to look it up because I told you the truth.

Delta got so cocky about it all that they ended up touring a second fake zombies band concurrently with the Texan poor piece. God. One night, they're in the same town. One night, they come through the next night. Two shows in LA. We won't get the same band to play both. No, one opens for the other.

Thank you. We've been the zombies. Please give it up for The Zombies. Apparently the other band was more convincing, even down to the fact that they had five members. And remembered their own names. Hodcott from Delta told BuzzFeed, they were so damn good.

They were the perfect zombies. If you heard them play time of the season, You couldn't tell the difference. I mean, the perfect zombies probably are. The original zombies, right? No. No, unconvincing. But as time went on, the backlash from the real bands grew,

and now that the music media had caught wind of it, it was only a matter of time till the jig was up. Delta also had a fake version of the animals going around. I'm a big English rock band, but the band of Impostas got a rude shock when they were playing a show, and Eric Bird and the front man are the real animals rocked up with a baseball bat

and some bikey mates. He just turns up with a baseball bat. That's good. And we're like, oh, oh no. Oh, dear. But possibly the last straw was when Delta put out a fake Archie's band. You're familiar with the Archies? Yeah.

They're already a fake band. They're a cartoon band. So like, how easy is it going to be to fake these guys? You know, they're, they're, they can't, no one knows what the real members look at. There's only one surviving cartoon. Archie can't turn up with a baseball bat. Unless he comes alive from the page.

Do they sing Sugar Sugar? Yeah. But unfortunately for Delta, the Archies were owned by a very real and litigious producer and businessman named Don Kirshner. And did Dan rock up with a baseball bat and some bucky friends? No, he rocked up with some lawyers. With baseball bat. That's just because they were on their way to their baseball bat. Yeah, yeah.

It was confused. It was a mix up because everyone was like, ah, and they're like, what's up? Oh my God, I'm so sorry. Oh, sorry, I meant to have a pen. I'm so sorry. With my pen? My son must have my pen. And the kid's like opening his baseball bag and training.

He's got a pen. He's like, dad. He's to go into the cage with a pen. Yeah, it's very, it was a real, a real whoopsa daisy. Oh, he got, he copped it in the face, like that. Yeah, big time. Kirshner was quoted by Rolling Stone saying about the fake archies. We've heard about this group and our lawyers are taking action.

With baseball bats. Within two weeks, Bill K. Kehoe. Had his head bashed him with a baseball bat. Had, and then shut down Delta Pro promotions as a touring company saying, we never represented to anyone that these were the same groups who made the records. Yes, you did, you piece of shit. You absolutely did.

Oh, I never said it was the real band. I only put original on the poster. And then in interviews said that... Someone had died. That was a typo. We meant to say not the original, but then the printer cut off not. That's the printer's fault, if anything. You should sue him.

Sue him, not me. His name's Greg. And scene. Are you playing a character that can't turn a page now? That's a fun character. I'm panicking my way out. Lick your thumb, mate. Lick your thumb.

You'll teach you out of turn a page. So that were all done. So Delta closed down their promotions arm. He kept, he still had a rock club that he kept going. A rock climbing club. Rock climbing club. This is a rock climbing club. real rock climbing club I swear to God.

Who's real rocks? It was all polystyrene. A lot of people fell to their death. Yeah, if you shouldn't climb on polystyrene. So all the bands in his stable went back to their original life. He was keeping them in a stable. He was stable. That's unbelievable.

Keeping cuss down. Is he feeding him hay? Hotels and motels are expensive back then. Stables are forever. Yeah. So our mates and the original zombies went back off in different directions. Like the original zombies? zombies before them.

Frank Beard and Dusty Hill joined Billy Gibbons in ZZ Top and had recorded their debut album within a year. Wow. Do you think that if the jig hadn't been up, they ever would have formed ZZ Top? Yeah, I would have continued on in this, what is a glorified cover band that lies to audiences. It's strange. Yeah, it feels like there was always a matter of time before the fake zombies came a cropper, but amazing that so quickly they were in ZZT.

top. The trio of Zizi tops still together and have sold more than 50 million albums worldwide. Crazy. It was a fair step up. They tried to get in contact with Dusty Hill. So this is all basically come out of a BuzzFeed article, which is great, which will be linked in the description. And they tried to get a comment from Dusty Hill. And all he did was respond, sort of do it a bit of fact checking for them. And a lot of his answers were, I don't remember, it was the 60. It was the 60s man, I don't remember. Seeb Medaw joined a Texan band The Werewolves who made two albums with limited success

and Mark Ramsey went on to study teaching at college. How many albums did he solve? As a teacher. Yeah, a few spoken word albums. But he's... He shaped a lot of lines. Maths rap. One plus two is three and four,

plus five is sixth and seven and more. Didn't do well because a lot of the maths was incorrect. It was more of an English teacher. It was a fake math. Yeah, I'm a math teacher. I got my diploma from Delta College. From Mars University.

Whoa. That's prestigious. Inspired by the whole ordeal, the real zombies attempted to reform at the time. They're like, we should get back together. Turns out people like our music. Yeah. But they were all sort of in different directions,

making music for different things. and it took until the 90s till they made it happen. Oh. And they remained together today but only singer Bill Bluntstone. Why have I made up his name? Only Colin Blunstone.

Only Bill Blunstone. A.k.o. Oh no, we've been swindled again. Only Colin Blondstone, the front man and Rod Argent remained from the original 60s lineup. So it kind of ended up happening from. Only two real original members remain. You know, Rod Argent from?

Argent. From Argent. Wow. The 1968 album at the time failed to chart, but it has since been retrospectively hailed as a great album, ranking in the Rolling Stones' top 100 albums of all time. Wow. So it's seen as a genuine classic album now.

The band themselves were also recognized in 2019 when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Also inducted that year, with a Cure, Stevie Nix, Def Leopard, Janet Jackson and Radiohead. So it's pretty amazing. class of acts. Some good company. And that is my story of the imposter zombies. That is amazing. Wild. I hope one day there's an imposter do go on. Do you? Yeah, but like, it's like two girls and a guy, but one of the girls is like, oh, Matt, you know, like,

they don't give a shit. I didn't you used to play drums? Didn't you used to be taller? No. No, I was always a German Shepherd dog. That's it for the imposter zombies. This is a spin-off of our podcast Do Go On, with over 200 episodes to listen to. If you like this topic, check out some of our music-related episodes like Biographies of Dolly Parton, Pantara, Queen, and the making of Fleetwood Max Rumors' album. Subscribe for free on your favourite podcast app. And be sure to subscribe to this channel to check out our other videos.

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