Drummer Mickey Dolenz tells how a memorial for Davy Jones helped restart the band
’We couldn’t sing Daydream Believer so told audiences to sing it, which they did, brilliantly’
The Monkees were the manufactured TV pop band who defied the odds. Brilliant tunes, smart, funny scripts and the cult movie Head made them 1960s pop darlings with crossgenerational appeal.
The death of Manchester-born frontman Davy Jones, aged 66 in 2012, could have marked the end. But instead, acclaimed 2016 reunion album Good Times! gave the group a new lease of life which now continues on Christmas
Party, which even features Jones on a few tracks.
“At a private memorial that we had for Davy, Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith both showed up,” says Mickey. “I hadn’t spoken to Nes for several years but we ended up in a corner, and somebody suggested ‘why don’t we, you know…’ There was a demand.
“It wasn’t called the Davy Jones memorial tour but there were moments during the show, because of the video that we had, that we were able to have him there. We couldn’t sing Daydream Believer and told the audience ‘you have to sing it’. Which they did, brilliantly. That was lovely.”
With top-flight originals from celeb fans including REM’S Peter Buck and XTC’S Andy Partridge, Christmas Party is more than a festive cash-in.
Dolenz even gets to flex his raw soul voice on a cover of Merry Christmas, Baby. Did it rankle that he never got the chance to show that side of his talent in the band’s golden era?
“Absolutely not, no. You gotta understand I was hired as an entertainer to play the part of a whacky drummer on a national television show. And that is the way I’ve always looked at it. The Monkees to me was more like a Broadway musical.”
Although both Tork and Nesmith have faced recent health challenges, Dolenz and Nesmith plan to go out on tour in the New Year. Dolenz has led a charmed life, but the outcome of the TV show that provided his passport to fame was far from certain.
“When we did The Monkees in the 1960s, the pilot very nearly didn’t sell,” he explains.
“You never know what’s going to happen when you do a show or a movie or a TV show or a record or anything.
“You can’t take The Monkees apart to say ‘it was just the four guys’ or ‘it was just the songs’, ‘it was just the TV show’, ‘it was just the writing’, ‘it was just this or that or that’ – it doesn’t work like that.
“The whole became greater than the sum of its parts.” ★★★★ Just turned 18, Preston’s pop princess Pip has released one of the year’s most fascinating debuts, a coming of age album that wears its heart on its sleeve. Entirely written, produced and recorded by Hall herself (Spices take note – that’s REAL girl power) it mixes troubled throbbing rock and dream pop in songs both hummable and self-revealing. Ill At Ease offers offbeat anthemic grooves in a warm enchanting voice. Devil You Don’t asserts her synthesiser supremacy. Elegant, aware and perfectly formed, this debut makes Hall a name to watch in 2019.