My fantastic new life... as a Zombie
The band never made any money in the 1960s – but now can earn a five-figure sum in an hour
WHEN singer-songwriter Colin Blunstone left The Zombies in 1967, he had just £500 to his name and was living in a rented flat with his parents.
The Zombies enjoyed a series of big hits in America in the 1960s, selling more than a million copies of their first record, She’s Not There.
But Blunstone never made much money from the hits and struggled to make ends meet in the 1980s, sleeping in his clothes in a friend’s freezing spare bedroom because he had nowhere else to go.
He had to wait until he was in his 70s to start earning serious money from his music, following a huge resurgence of interest in The Zombies in America.
The Zombies have now re-formed and will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the album Odessey and Oracle live at the London Palladium on September 29. Blunstone, who is now 72, lives with his wife Susi in Surrey.
Q What did your parents teach you about money?
A TO BE careful with it. My father was a wise man and sensible stewardship of the family fortune was one of the things I learnt from him. He was a barber and had his own shop. He was rarely home before 8pm. My mother was a dancer but after I was born, she took on a variety of jobs working in factories and offices. Then she would come home and do all the cooking and the washing.
They were generous as well as hardworking, but they were not wealthy and had been bombed out in the war. Money was quite tight and we lived in a small rented flat. But we were happy. Q What was the first paid work you ever did? I WORKED as a butcher’s boy for ten shillings a week when I was 12. I was not successful at it. On my first delivery, I loaded up the basket of my bike with so much heavy meat that, when I got off, the back wheel went up in the air and all the meat landed all over a gravel drive. I remember spending ages picking bits of gravel out of the meat – and then delivering it. I think I got all the pieces out, but it might have been a little crunchy. Did you ever struggle to make ends meet? YES, absolutely. The worst time was in the early 1980s. I somehow managed to be sued by a major record label so I could not work. It was a desperate time and I was forced to live off my royalties alone. Thankfully, the lawsuit was dropped. But I remember living in a friend’s spare bedroom in the mid-1980s for about six months because I did not have anywhere else to stay. I slept in a tracksuit, pullover and thick socks because I was so cold. One day, I noticed a crack in the wall. I thought, ‘No wonder I’m cold – I can see daylight.’ Q Have you ever been paid silly money for a job?
A YES and the funny thing is, it has been more in later life. When The Zombies were big in America in the 1960s and had huge hits around the world, we did not make any money.
There were management issues, and when I left the band in 1967, I was still living at home with my parents in their rented flat and drove an old second-hand car. I had not gambled, I had not taken drugs – and I left The Zombies with £500. Even in those days, that was not much.
There have been times since we have re-formed when I have thought, ‘Wow, this is an astronomical hourly rate.’ For example, for an hour-long, one-off concert recently, we got paid a big five-figure sum. Q What was the most lucrative year of your life?
A LAST year. My income has been increasing year on year recently, thanks to the resurgence of interest in The Zombies. But I am not driven by money. I do not pay that much attention to it. I am more focused on writing, recording and performing.
Q What is the most expensive thing you have ever bought, just for fun? A IT HAS to be the Martin D-28 herringbone guitar I bought for $1,200 in 1977. That was a lot of money for me at the time. It is worth several thousand pounds now. Q What is the biggest money mistake you have ever made?
A NOT buying one of the Victorian three-storey townhouses I l ooked at purchasing i n West Hampstead, North London, in the 1970s. I could have afforded it – they were about £10,000 – but I never saw one that convinced me to do so. Those houses would be worth more than £1 million each today. Q What is the best money decision you have made?
A JOINING The Zombies. So much of it came about by chance. It was a school band. We sat in alphabetical order in the classroom, and the guy in front of me was called Paul Arnold. He had a friend at another school called Rod Argent who wanted to put a band together. One day this boy Arnold turned round to me and said, ‘You play guitar, don’t you?’ I said yes. That was it. I was in the band. We eventually went on to win a local rock competition which led to us getting a deal with Decca records. Our first record was a number one hit in the States. To think my parents had been concernedc that, when they saved upu and bought me that guitar, it wouldw be a waste of money. Q Do you save into a pension or invest in the stock market?
A ONE of the great things about being a musician is that, as long as people keep buying and playing your records, the royalties continue after you stop working. But I have always been a saver. The music business is up and down – and I try to play it safe with my personal finances as a result. Since the mid-1970s, I have saved into a series of taxfriendly Personal Equity Plans and Isas. I cashed them all in last year because of the uncertainty surrounding Brexit and put the money in a savings account. It is important to have rainy day money. I have got a good little wedge put aside now. Q Do you own any property?
A MY HOME in Surrey. It is three-bedroomed but the downstairs is twice as big as the upstairs. There is a canal at the bottom of the huge garden. I bought it 12 years ago and it has doubled in value. But I am not going to say how much I bought it for – that would be like revealing my inside trouser leg measurement. It would be vulgar. Q How much cash do you typically carry?
A UNTIL a few years ago, it would have been £20 but it is more nowadays – usually £200. I like paying for petrol with cash. Q What is the one little luxury you like to treat yourself to?
A AN OCCASIONAL massage. I recently spent a week on holiday in Cornwall and had a spa treatment almost every day. Q If you were Chancellor, what is the first thing you would do?
A ARTISTS often have a few good years and then hardly earn anything, so I would lower income tax and change the tax system. I would make it so that if you work in the arts, you are taxed on your average earnings over ten years, not your annual earnings. I would also retreat from military operations around the world, so we could focus our spending on the NHS, schools and police. Do you think it is important to give to charity? YES. Charities would not exist if we did not give to them. I recently put on a concert for Megan Baker House, which helps children with motor disorders such as cerebral palsy. I support the RNLI, the NSPCC and Prostate Cancer UK. A What Is your number one financial priority?
A TO PAY the bills as they come through the door, and to have the occasional treat without having to worry about how much it costs. Colin Blunstone was talking to Donna Ferguson.