Monkees’ Micky Dolenz, The Final Daydream Believer

Some things can’t be explained. Take The Monkees. In the mid-sixties, a comedic television show parodying a struggling rock band living on a California beach unexpectedly caught fire on NBC, the host network.

The four main characters in the series, which ran for 58 episodes from 1966-1968 and won two Emmys, were played by Peter Tork, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith and Micky Dolenz. Each actor had some musical training, but, by their own admissions, weren’t Lennon and McCartney - nor were they trying to be.

As the show’s popularity grew with catchy A.M. radio hits like, “I’m A Believer,” “Last Train To Clarksville,” and, “Daydream Believer,” the Pre-Fab 4, as some called them, went on the road, to hordes of screaming girls, just like The Beatles. By all accounts, the group did pretty well live, for a bunch of amateur musicians learning to improvise on the fly.

Of the four members, only Dolenz, 78, is still alive. We caught up with the singer and drummer by phone during the recent COVID-19 lockdown. Dolenz was more than happy to talk, joking that it was preferable to mowing the lawn.

This interview was published previously in several parts, but here, with light edits and for the first time, it is posted in its entirety.

Jim Clash: How did they cast you four for the show? Humor must have been a key.

Micky Dolenz: I can tell you after having produced, directed, written and created my own television shows and films, and after having done The Monkees, there's no formula. If there were, there would never be a flop. You rely on your intuition, your sixth sense. Usually it just pops out.

You hear about people having charisma. In the 1930s and 1940s, they called it the "it" factor. It's just something some have and others don't, nature versus nurture. The audition process for The Monkees was extensive. It involved acting, scene study, improvisation and music, of course. My musical audition piece was Johnny B. Goode, by Chuck Berry.

As for comedy, they were looking for different personalities. Quite a famous group that already existed at the time, very talented, auditioned. But as most groups, the members tended to have similar characteristics. That's one of the reasons that they were a group. It plays for them in terms of music and simpatico. But on television or in film, it can become difficult to distinguish between the different characters.

The characters on television tend to be cast with different personalities, so they stand out. Take Friends, The Marx Brothers, Cheers. You also have that in buddy comedies like Bosom Buddies and The Odd Couple.

Clash: Do you remember the other three guys in the Monkees during the audition process?

Dolenz: It's funny, I don't remember Mike [Nesmith] and Peter [Tork] so much, but I do remember David [Jones]. It probably has to do with the fact that we had similar childhoods. He had been in the business as a child actor in theater on Broadway, and I had been on the television series, Circus Boy. We were comfortable with, and being on, a set, with cameras and hitting your marks. So they paired up the two of us frequently.

As for Nes [Michael Nesmith], we've always had similar comedic sensibilities - Monty Python, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore. In fact, a recent show we had done, The Mike & Micky Show, we had joked about on The Monkees set way back when. We would just go off on an improvisational riff, look at each other and say, "One day, The Mike & Micky Show" [laughs].

Clash: They cast you as the show's drummer, even though you didn't play drums?

Dolenz: I was a guitar player. I started out playing classical, Segovia. Then I morphed into folk music in the late fifties and early sixties, on acoustic guitar. And that morphed into rock and roll. When they cast me in the show as the imaginary drummer, I said, "Fine, where do I start?" It was like my earlier television series on NBC called, Circus Boy. They told me I had to learn to ride an elephant, and I said, "Fine, where I start?" [laughs].

I could read music, so it wasn't like I was starting from square one. They did set me up with a teacher after the producer had sold the pilot. I picked up the drums pretty quickly. I had a kit at home, and drum pads, but I did practice a lot.

The other operative point is that I didn't have to learn every single style, pattern or Stephen Sondheim time signature like you would if you were a session drummer. I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a session musician. I learned what I had to learn to play onstage. I like to think I did okay.

Clash: It must have been difficult to drum and sing lead vocals.

Dolenz: Yes, it is very challenging, especially on the road. And that was before monitors. The challenge is that the drummer is the clock of the band, has to be, in effect, the click-track. Singing a lead is quite the opposite. You're constantly drifting across the bar lines.

I think of it as one half of your brain doing the click and keeping the tempo consistent, and the other half floating all over the place [laughs]. Nowadays I absolutely have, as most drummers do, a real click-track in my ear. But back then, of course, it didn't exist.

Clash: Without good sound equipment, playing live must have complicated it further.

Dolenz: What we would do is go on stage in 1967, with no monitors and really crappy sound systems, and, right from the get-go, play live in front of 10,000 screaming kids. I couldn't hear much else but the screams. I was, of course, in the back line, as the drums were, and the big box amps were only level with me, so I couldn't hear Mike, Peter and David.

I would start to drift, but I couldn't tell. Mike and I worked out a system, because he was in front of the guitar amp and could hear himself, the bass and the keyboards. He told me to watch the heel of his boot, and he'd be my click-track. So I would watch his heel and get the tempo, then try to shut out everything else [laughs].

At times, I couldn't even hear my snare. I'm doing rim-shots and hearing them echoing off the auditorium wall back at me [laughs]. It was like singing the National Anthem at a baseball stadium, which I've also done.

I came up with another system to keep time where I'd hit my leg at the same time I'd hit the snare, using the feel of it on my leg. But that got to the point where I had this massive bruise. They had to make a stunt bandage so my leg wouldn't get so black and blue [laughs]. A live CD by Rhino Records from 1967, by the way, will give you an idea of what it all sounded like, very raw.

Clash: How did it come to be that Jimi Hendrix opened for the Monkees in 1967? I mean, the music is so different.

Dolenz: I first saw him when he was still Jimmy James [and the Blue Flames]. I was in New York, and somebody said I had to come down to [Greenwich] Village to see this guy play the guitar with his teeth [laughs]. That was what he was known for. He was with Randy California [of Spirit] at the time, I think. So I remember going down to see his band, and sure enough, Jimi played guitar with his teeth.

Months later, I'm at the Monterey Pop Festival and out on stage comes an act, three guys in these crazy psychedelic clothes introduced as, The Jimi Hendrix Experience. I look at this guy, and he wasn't well known at the time, and say, "That's the guy who plays guitar with his teeth!" His was a very theatrical act, of course.

We were about to tour, and were looking for an opening act. I said to the producers of the show that Jimi would be great for opening, because he was very theatrical like we were. I guess my producers liked the idea, and Jimi’s producers liked the idea, because, sure enough, we ended up on the road together. It was wonderful.

Clash: How many shows did he open for you?

Dolenz: He did six or eight, then broke his first record. But it was tough for him, and must have been a challenge. I remember hearing about Guns N' Roses opening for The [Rolling] Stones, and people going, "We want Mick, we want Mick!" That happened to Jimi. He was on stage singing, "Purple Haze/All in my brain,” and the crowd was chanting, "We want Davy [Jones], we want the Monkees!" It was very embarrassing.

Clash: What was Jimi like as a person?

Dolenz: He was a nice kid, early to mid-2os, a couple of years older than me, very quiet. I don't want to say he was naive, because he was street- wise in terms of the business and in other ways, but certainly not at all like his persona on stage. You can also say that about my friend, Alice Cooper [laughs]. Alice was, and is, nothing like his character. You can say that about The Who, and other entertainers, too.

Clash: Do you ever read things written about you, or listen to stuff you've done?

Dolenz: Not really. I just find that when I used to, I got very self-conscious. I start second-guessing myself. "Oh, I shouldn't have said that, and I should've said this." If it's filmed or recorded, "Oh, I sounded crappy and looked like hell, or I should've worn a different shirt." There's a level of spontaneity I'm looking for. You don't want anything that's too planned and thought-out. So I find when I don't read about, or watch myself, it's better.

Clash: I heard that Stephen Stills auditioned for The Monkees television show, but didn't get a part. True?

Dolenz: I heard that, too. I probably had a conversation with him about it at some point. It does appear to be true, and it's pretty well documented. He auditioned, and the joke is he didn't get it because he had bad teeth [laughs].

He is also the one who told Peter Tork about the audition, because they had been in New York together in the Greenwich Village-era scene. He and Peter had similarities in a lot of ways, especially the way they looked. People would confuse the two. But Stephen did okay [laughs]. He's not hurting.

Clash: Do you miss your deceased bandmates?

Dolenz: Of course. Siblings is the closest analogy I can come up with. I probably spent more time with Peter and David, certainly in the sixties and even after, than with my real siblings, in terms of amount of time. My siblings all have families with children, and have moved to different places, but Peter and David, and, to a degree Nes, spent a lot of time together, and not just casual hanging out, having-a-beer time, but intense work and play.

There were up times and some really intense tough times, being on the road, which is tough for anybody at any age. The saying goes, "They pay us to travel, we sing for free" [laughs]. The shows are the easy part. That 9o minutes on stage is when I’d relax. It's the getting there, in-and-out of airports and hotels, restaurants. David passed, of course, and then Peter, and now Nes.

But when you get to this age, it's kind of expected. Peter's was cancer, so that was not a huge surprise as it had been going on for a while. But David’s was right out of the blue. Supposedly, he just had a physical and came out in good shape, and then had a heart attack. They must have missed something. He went out riding in the morning with one of his horses, which is very strenuous. And that was it. [Note: Nesmith passed in 2021, from congestive heart failure, after this interview had taken place.]

Clash: I heard somewhere that Frank Zappa had considered you for drummer in The Mothers Of Invention?

Dolenz: When The Monkees show had gone off of the air, we were still recording a bit, fulfilling some obligations. I lived up in Laurel Canyon, and down the street was my friend, Frank Zappa. He was a fan, had been on our television show. He got the Monkees, understood what we were, and what we weren't. He was a very smart man.

He called me up one day, and I remember it so clearly. He asked if I would be the drummer for his band, The Mothers Of Invention [laughs]. I had to pick myself off of the floor. Of course, I was incredibly flattered, like, "Oh my God!" But, he said that I'd have to get out of my recording contract with RCA, because his band was going to record.

So I called the record company, and basically they said, "Absolutely not. You still have two albums to fulfill." So I told Frank, but there was definitely a part of me that was relieved. I don't know if you know Frank Zappa's music, but boy, I'd have been very challenged.

Clash: The Beatles said some good things about you guys, correct?

Dolenz: Yes, they were fans, they got it that The Monkees was not a band, not a group. It was a television show about an imaginary band that lived in this imaginary beach house in Malibu. It does beg the question of how we could afford a Malibu Beach house when we never got any work [laughs].

We spoke to all of the kids around the world who wanted to be The Beatles. There was even a poster of The Beatles in our imaginary house, the set, which we would throw darts at.

Now when I say The Beatles were fans, I don't think Paul [McCartney], the first Beatle I had met, sat around watching Monkees episodes. John Lennon was the first one I remember saying publicly, "I like The Monkees, I like The Marx Brothers." That was absolutely spot on. That's what the Monkees were, this half-hour little Marx Brothers musical.

Clash: Some critics dubbed you, "The Pre-Fab 4." Your reaction?

Dolenz: When you're as successful as we were, you just don't give a damn. You wouldn't say that Glee Club was a pre-fab Glee Club, would you? They also said the Monkees were a manufactured group. But you wouldn't say that Glee was a manufactured Glee Club. Look, with us, the proof is in the pudding. You don't stand up like the Monkees have for six decades if there wasn't something there.

Clash: There's some talk that the Monkees are contenders for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

Dolenz: I'm flattered, you know. That's been going on for years now, fans doing petitions and supporting us. But I've never chased awards and banners. My big hey-day was when we won two Emmy's for the [Monkees] television show.

I understand that the RRHOF is not an open democratic enterprise. It's essentially a private club. It was started by three guys, two of them from the music industry, one from journalism. They're going to let in who they want. And they're not going to let in who they don't want. There are a lot of people who don't understand that. I think that's where the confusion comes from. Jethro Tull isn't in. What, are you kidding me?

Clash: In the day, The Monkees had a slew of great songwriters composing their tunes.

Dolenz: Donnie Kirshner was responsible to some degree in picking The Monkees songs because he was head of Screen Gems Columbia Music in the famous Brill Building in New York. He WAS the Brill Building during that period, along with those incredible writers like Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Neil Diamond, Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, David Gates, Paul Williams, Diane Hildebrand, etc. We were surrounded by the best of the best.

Donnie would come out to the studio once in a while. I didn't really know who he was. I didn't pay too much attention to the suits, as we called them [laughs]. There was this one recording session when I was drinking a Coca-Cola, and it was down to a cup of ice. Donnie made some comment that I thought was silly. So I dumped the cup of ice on his head as a riff. It's now become an urban myth. He took me aside and said he had to retain a level of respect [laughs].

Clash: I guess some of your set improv spilled out after the taping sessions?

Dolenz: Yes, they had trained us to do crazy stuff like that. You can't just walk off of the set at 7 o'clock and not be funny anymore. On set, it was like nuclear fission. You have to contain it or it melts a hole to the center of the Earth. But if you contain it too much, you put it out.

That's the way I look at what they had us do. They trained us to bounce off of the walls improvisationally. To their credit, they used a lot of that improvisation in the final edits. To this day, I think it's one of the charms of the show.

Clash: What is your favorite Monkees tune?

Dolenz: That's impossible. That's like asking me my favorite Beatles album [laughs]. There's a whole bunch. It depends on if it's a ballad, or up- tempo, whatever. There are some songs that tend to work better on-stage than others. I like a lot of the stuff that King and Goffin wrote, not necessarily big hits.

Of course, you love singing the big hits. A lot of them were written by Boyce and Hart: “Last Train To Clarksville,” “Steppin' Stone” and, of course, our theme song. Then King and Goffin again, who wrote, “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” still a great song to do live, a real rocker. Of course, there's Neil Diamond and one of our biggest hits, “I'm A Believer.”

Clash: What do you think of the Smash Mouth Shrek movie version of, “I'm A Believer?”

Dolenz: I thought it was a great rendition. When I used to do it in my solo show, I'd say to the audience, "For all of you kids out there, I want you to know that I did this way before Shrek [laughs].”

[Editor’s Note: In late November 2023, Dolenz’s new book, “I’m Told I Had A Good Time - Micky Dolenz Archives - Volume 1” (Beatland Books) will be released.]