The Zombies were an English rock band who enjoyed success in the 60’s with a string of hits including “Tell Her No” and “She’s Not There”.
“Time Of The Season”
In 1969, the record label for the band, released the last hit song of the group’s career titled, “Time Of The Season”. Unfortunately, the band couldn’t capitalize on its success because they had broken up 2 years prior. This created a vacuum in which others took advantage of the situation.
A promotion company hired 4 musicians who pretended to be The Zombies and toured around the United States. The problem was, they weren’t the real Zombies.
Delta Promotions had two fake lineups of The Zombies touring the United States. One was based out of Michigan while the other and the best known lineup was based out of Texas and was made up of future ZZ Top members, bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard. They used aliases on promotional materials using the names D Cruz and Chris Page.
By 1967, the group had disbanded following a less than stellar commercial performance of their album, The Odyssey and The Miracle.
Demand Grows For The Zombies
While “Time of the Season” was successful and the demand was growing for the group, the former members of The Zombies weren’t even aware of their new found fame across the pond in the United States. The band members were now focused on other musical projects.
Two Fake Lineups of The Zombies
It was the idea of a shady promoter named Delta Promotions to assemble 2 fake lineups of The Zombies to tour the US to cash in on the band’s popularity. Delta Promotions used to be a reputable company representing the band, Question Mark and The Mysterians who actually opened a show for the fake Zombies.
The future rhythm section of ZZ Top was joined by 2 Dallas musicians named Mark Ramsey and Sebastian Meador who rounded out the group. Keep in mind, this was the late 60’s before the days of the internet. Many people back then had no idea what The Zombies looked like or how many people were in the band.
Some of the inconsistencies were that the fake Texas Zombies band members wore cowboy hats and only had 4 members while the real Zombies lineup were British and had 5 members, including a keyboardist. Anyone who asked about the keyboard player would be told by Dusty Hill, that he was locked up in jail in Texas.
A Buzzfeed article from 2016 dove deep into how this whole arrangement happened. Some of the members of the Texas-based band weren’t even aware, themselves, of who The Zombies exactly were.
“I was told The Zombies didn’t exist — that they were only a studio sound.” – Mark Ramsay
The article interviewed member Mark Ramsay who recalled, “I was told The Zombies didn’t exist — that they were only a studio sound. I was just excited and flattered. I’d only been playing for a few years and the other guys were pro-level at that point. I didn’t look at it as anything more than a chance to have some fun, hang out with some cool guys, learn some songs, go somewhere outside of this hillbillyville, and earn a little money.”
During the 50’s and 60’s era of American Rock N’ Roll, musicians were seen as disposable. If one member of a group became outspoken against their label or management, they would soon be replaced by a more agreeable member. In this pre-internet era, fans were none the wiser and given The Zombies inactivity, they were ripe for exploiting.
If anybody questioned the management company, they would use the standard dodge that one original member was in the lineup even though that wasn’t true. The company claimed they had legally acquired the rights to The Zombies catalog of songs, which also wasn’t true.
Not The First Tour for Texas-Based Zombies
Prior to touring as the fake Zombies, Delta Promotions sent the Texas quartet out on tour pretending to be another disbanded group called Rose Garden. They were a California-based folk group who had one hit song in 1967 with “Next Plane to London”.
The band learned their one hit song and the rest of the set was made up of blues songs. The tour went off without a hitch, despite the fact that the real lineup of Rose Garden had a female lead singer, but no audiences really pressed the band about the inconsistencies.
Following the success of the tour, the quartet met once again with Delta Promotions who had a bigger undertaking and that was for them to tour as The Zombies. They were told that they would need to attend a photo shoot to be used for promotional material, but were told to wear their own clothes, hence the cowboy hats.
Future ZZ Top Members Suspected of Knowing More
Ramsay and Meador used their real names on the promotional material, but the future members of ZZ Top didn’t. Ramsay told Buzzfeed that he suspects that Dusty and Frank knew that something was up.
So what did the members of ZZ Top have to say about this Buzzfeed story? Well they declined to be interviewed but Dusty Hill did respond through the band’s publicist with a statement reading, “It was the ’60s, man.”
Keep in mind, the imposter bands weren’t playing huge venues. These were small clubs or bars. They were making around $200 a night and promoters didn’t seem to question the legitimacy of the lineups. The Texas version of The Zombies began the tour, playing shows in the midwest and then moved up to Canada. During one of their stopovers, they even played in a prison.
“The band was especially disappointing and the crowd began to leave during their fourth tune.” – Saginaw News Reporter
So how did the gigs go? Following a show in Michigan, the Saginaw News posted a less than stellar review of the Texas-based Zombies in 1969 stating, “The band was especially disappointing and the crowd began to leave during their fourth tune. The band didn’t sound like they did back when they were selling millions of records. When their 40-minute set was finally finished, there was no applause — nothing but dead silence.”
Ramsey thought that review was not entirely fair, telling Buzzfeed, “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.”
Did the real Zombies ever find out about the fake versions of the band? Yes, they did, and it didn’t take long. Co-founding member and bassist Chris White knew about the scheme in late 1969. He talked to Rolling Stone magazine and slammed them for “taking money from our fans and dragging down our reputation.”
“The Zombies Are A Stiff”
The same Rolling Stone piece which was titled, “The Zombies Are A Stiff” detailed an actual phone call that happened between White and a manager of one of the imposter groups. White’s anger about being ripped off and imitated didn’t seem to represent all members of the real Zombies.
Frontman Colin Blunstone told CBC in 2017, “In those times, I don’t think anybody even knew what we looked like. We had this huge hit record and there was no band. It’s not an ideal situation, but I’m not going to come down too hard on anybody who filled the vacuum.”
The Zombies wouldn’t get back together until the 90’s because keyboardist Rod Argent was busy with another musical group called Argent. Delta Promotions had other fraudulent bands touring across the US including a fake version of The Animals and The Archies.
As time went on, more people caught onto the scheme that Delta Promotions was a part of. Promoter and businessman Don Kirschner owned the rights to The Archies and threatened to sue Delta Promotions which scared the company.
“Band Promoter Quits, Blasts DJs, and Mafia”
Following the threats from Kirschner, the Michigan’s Bay City Times ran a headline that read, “Band Promoter Quits, Blasts DJs, and Mafia.” Argent also claimed that one of the imitation bands was threatened by an angry gun-toting fan.
What happened to the fake Zombies from Texas after disbanding? Meador ended up recording two RCA albums with The Werewolves before passing away from brain cancer in 1980. Ramsey became a teacher, while HIll and Beard would join guitarist Billy Gibbons a few weeks later to form ZZ Top.
“When we finish our tour, we have to go out as a ZZ Top tribute band and repay the compliment.” – Rod Argent
Rod Argent had the last laugh looking back at everything. He told the Toronto Star in 2017, “When we finish our tour, we have to go out as a ZZ Top tribute band and repay the compliment.”
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