Good Times Coming: An Interview with The Monkees’ Peter Tork
Written by: Ken Sharp | Thursday, June 09, 2016

In commemoration of their 50th anniversary, The Monkees have pulled off the impossible with Good Times, the group’s first new studio album in 20 years.

The LP is truly a timeless record that stands up proudly against their most revered recordings (i.e.-Headquarters and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, Jones Ltd.)

Marrying disparate strands of pop, folk, country, bubblegum and psychedelia, the album, produced by Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne fame, is a well-considered and welcome throwback to their classic ’60s sound with strong contributions from surviving members Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork along with the late Davy Jones — who is represented with Love to Love, a track resurrected from the ’60s.

Stellar new songwriting contributions written specifically for the “Pre-Fab Four” from XTC’s Andy Partridge (You Bring The Summer), Rivers Cuomo from Weezer (She Makes Me Laugh), Ben Gibbard of Death Cab Cutie (Me & Magdalena) and a stunning psych-rock number penned by Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher (Birth Of An Accidental Hipster).

’60s-era archival tracks penned by Harry Nilsson (Good Times, which features a duet with the late great Nilsson and Dolenz), Goffin and King (Wasn’t Born To Follow) and Boyce & Hart (Whatever’s Right) round out this splendid return to form.

We spoke with Peter Tork, who runs us through the making of the new record. Good Times indeed.

Let me first say, any new Monkees album that features Peter Tork on banjo is a good one.

Peter Tork: Thank you very much for that remark but as it happens the banjo that I do play is more for color than being featured. There just didn’t seem to be any place on the record to feature a banjo. I play a little plunky plunky plunk plunk kind of thing and I thought I did a job but it’s not really featured.

What is the track you keep returning to on Good Times?

Peter Tork: Well, it’s kind of interesting. Back when we were making the CD, I heard the track of Me & Magdalena and Michael’s (Nesmith) voice alone and I was very moved by it. I was swept away.

Adam (Schlesinger) chose to produce it as a duet with Micky (Dolenz) singing a second part above Mike and I’m a little disappointed because I think Mike’s vocal was just amazingly tender and a breakthrough for him, revelatory. I think that the effect was slightly diminished by the duet effect but that’s the artistic high point from my point of view.

The song that keeps coming to mind is She Makes Me Laugh written by Rivers Cuomo; it’s an ear worm. (laughs) I’m not sure why I think it’s that great exactly but Micky wrote the line “directing traffic in the mall,” which is a great line. There was a line that didn’t seem to work and he and Adam were chattering and chattering and Micky said, “directing traffic in the mall.” It’s perfect for what that song is trying to do.

Did you know that Rivers Cuomo graduated from the same high school as I did? The same little town in Mansfield, Connecticut near the university; it used to be the University High School. I graduated in the first class when the school was founded and Rivers, living under a different name, something much more prosaic like Matt Stevenson or something like that. But he was living here at the time and for all four years he went to that same high school.

Tell us about Good Times, the first new Monkees album in 20 years since Justus. What was the mindset behind Good Times! as a collective whole?

Peter Tork: Get some guys that were doing pretty well for themselves and who admired The Monkees and get them to write songs for The Monkees. That was pretty much it.

With The Monkees it was timing that a lot of kids came up and they were the younger brothers and sisters of the kids who loved the Beatles and they wanted something of their own and along came The Monkees and they had something of their own, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

They were like, You can keep your damn Beatles, I’ve got The Monkees! A lot of kids grew up that way and some of them became musicians.

One of them was Andy Partridge, who made his name in a group called XTC. He was a huge fan of the group in the ‘60s and seems overjoyed to have penned a song, You Bring The Summer, which is included on Good Times.

Peter Tork: That’s great. It’s a treat to have these guys come along and say, “Listen, can we help you make a record?” And we’re like, “You bet, come along gentlemen!” (laughs) As it turns out, no ladies but we have a Carole King song on the record.

Speaking of Carole King, You sing lead on Wasn’t Born To Follow, a Carole King/Gerry Goffin song recorded previously by the Byrds. This was a pre-existing track cut in 1968. Whose idea was it to do this one?

Peter Tork: I started to sing it and felt, uh oh, this is a little out of my range. Can we bring the whole track down a whole tone? I think I can do it better that way. But they said, “Just give it a try”.

So I just gave it a try and the next thing I knew I was singing the whole thing over and over again without much strain, I mean a little here and there of course. It was higher than I thought I could keep singing but somehow it just came through. I’m kind of surprised as I listen to that and it sounds better than I do (laughs), if you know what I mean.

Micky has been quoted recently as saying it’s the band’s best album since Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. How do you assess it against other Monkees studio albums?

Peter Tork: Well, we ‘ve already talked about all the connecting influences and the connecting strains that tie this together with our previous work but I wouldn’t go so far to say it was the best album since that or better than this other thing.

I do have to say that it really stands as genuine record in the Monkees history. It’s not a joke and it’s not a novelty. It’s calculated in some ways — but then all records are to some extent. You’ve got to be able to say, “Well, I like this better than that.” But finally it’s the next record by The Monkees.

The fact that dozens of years have gone by in between doesn’t seem to change anything. It’s more ‘60s than what we did in the ‘80s and 90’s. We made three albums in the ‘80s and ‘90s. We did Pool It! and we did Justus and we did three new songs for Then & Now, an Arista Greatest Hits record. I enjoyed all of them.

I still think that Justus is a sterling album, I think some of Micky’s work in particular is really stellar. But Justus was not frothy bubblegum music. That’s what the Monkees were about on our first two plus albums. There’s a certain amount of levity in this album.

There’s a certain amount of, let’s keep it light and don’t make it too big of a deal kind of thinking, although Me & Magdalena is weighty and very strong and so is Wasn’t Born To Follow. Both of those are pretty strong. Incidentally, wait until you hear A Better World, which was written by my brother Nick Torkelson and I produced it.

That’s not on the CD but it’s gonna be available in one of the exclusive editions for a couple of retailers. (Note: The FYE exclusive compact disc contains 14 tracks, including A Better World while the Barnes & Noble exclusive vinyl includes bonus 7″ of Love’s What I Want b/w A Better World.) Andrew Sandoval put a string quartet on it for the color. I think it’s a very good song and it’s easy to listen to. It’s not turgid or thick but it’s very significant.

I think it talks to a very important world point. I’m just pleased as hell to even have had a chance for it to go on a limited edition thing. I would have liked for it to have been on the original album but it didn’t come to pass that way.

How much input did the band have in regards to the outside material selected for the record?

Peter Tork: Not much. John Hughes with Rhino made all the decisions.

Were you pleased ultimately with what was selected in terms of outside material?

Peter Tork: I sure would have liked to have had A Better World on the main CD but that didn’t happen. I’m thrilled to death that the song is on the vinyl single.

Tell us about your songwriting contribution to the record, Little Girl.

Peter Tork: I wrote that song a while ago. Actually, I had thought of it as the sequel to I Wanna Be Free for Davy. I had that song in mind for Davy to be singing it and in fact Davy liked it a lot. He thought it was a great song and we just never got around to putting that song down in the studio.

I don’t know why; just one thing got in the way of another. I’m a little lackadaisical about a lot of stuff but I’m glad we got it together at the end finally. For that song, I was in the band playing guitar with Adam on bass and his friends on guitar and drums. That was one of the ways where it was fully participatory along the lines of your previous question. But I actually had hopes of Davy singing it and of course sadly, that’s not going to happen.

Davy is represented on the album with Love To Love, which is an older studio recording circa the mid ’60s. The recording really captures the spirit of Davy.

Peter Tork: It was great to have young Davy, early Davy on the record doing that song in his inimitable Broadway/Cabaret style and we got a chance to join him to the best of our ability and throw in a little bit. It’s great to have a work by Davy on this CD. There’s a saving grace to that. Wait, maybe not a saving grace as there’s nothing to be saved from but it’s a great addition. It adds wonderfully to the record. I’m pleased as heck about it.

Are there any tracks where you worked in the studio at the same time as Micky and Mike or was it a case of mainly working on your own adding overdubs.

Peter Tork: Micky and I were in the studio together a lot. Micky would have ideas and I’d be listening and throwing in my two bits worth. I’d have to say it was a mixed mode in the terms that you’re putting it.

Out of the Monkees studio album catalog you’ve always been partial to Headquarters, the first album to showcase the Monkees as sole creative forces. What are your most indelible memories of working on that album?

Peter Tork: Band 6. Band 6 as you may remember was the Warner Brothers cartoon theme. Michael was learning pedal steel and played a little bit on it and we did this thing where Mike and I went, “da, da dum…” and Micky’s going (makes crazy sounds) on the drums and it was absurd. Then Chip Douglas, who was our producer said, “I think you got it Micky” and we burst into all together at the same speed and at the same time and ripped through it to our amazed surprise and joy.

The fact that we were able to find a way to make that part of the record, that to me was the point of Headquarters. It was us wild guys, us crazy kids, doing the best we knew how with what we had. I listen to that album now and it’s tinny and a little bit like a teenage garage band and we weren’t teenagers any longer at that point but it had that teenage garage band vibe.

It wasn’t as slick as the first two albums. I think things like Band 6 and Zilch and the fact that we were making the arrangements of these songs ourselves as we went on through it. I particularly remember working out the piano introduction to Shades of Grey and doing some arrangement ideas on Mr. Webster. I remember all that stuff and that was the great joy of it for me. Making the record and just being part of the overall creative process from the ground up; that’s what I live for.

Share the back story behind perhaps your best-known Monkees song, For Pete’s Sake. You co-wrote that song with Joe Richards, who was he?

Peter Tork: Joey was a Village kid back in my Greenwich Village days. He was just hurting for a place to stay so I had him at my house hanging out. He was a good cook so that was a bonus. I found this chord on the guitar. It’s like if you take a C7 grip, just the inner four strings and take it up a whole two frets the top string becomes the ninth of the chord.

This guy taught me a grip on the chords that if you play it wrong you’ve created an add 4 to the seven chord. I know this sounds very technical. I came to a halt at the third line and Joey threw in a line. The lyrics to For Pete’s Sake are kind of teenage in its grasp of the issues shall we say, the depth of its grasp of the issues but it’s certainly a fun song.

And we do that song today. It’ll be a part of the Monkees set list for the new tour. Unlike the record where Micky sings it, I’ll be singing it in concert but not in the same key. (laughs)

The lyric carry a timeless message that still prevails.

Peter Tork: Well, we can hope for it. Check the lyric A Better World for a rather more sophisticated and for my money a more direct and useful approach to the issues at hand although it was wonderful to have the song selected as being the closing theme to the TV show from the second season through all of its reruns.

I think a lot more people that aren’t big Monkees fans know that song but as the title is not a part of the lyrics, might have a harder time of identifying it.

Peter Tork: Yeah, that’s right. Mike named the song. We didn’t have a name for the song so he named it. Mike’s proclivity was to write songs that had titles which didn’t have anything to do with the content of the song; that’s something Dylan did a lot.

Lastly, take us back to the Monkees first live public performance, what are your recollections of that show? Wasn’t that in Hawaii?

Peter Tork: No. In fact, the first time we ever played together was in the making of the pilot. We had just met and we were doing one of the scenes where the Monkees were supposed to be playing at a dance and during the shooting of that scene there was a lull in the production.

The producer and director were consulting over in the corner and the four of us were sitting on stage with nothing to do so we turned to the tech guys and went, “Are these amps real? Do they work? Can we turn them on or are they just dummies?” They said, “No, they’re working amps; you can turn them on.” So we turned them on and started playing Johnny B. Goode and I Got A Woman and began to yell the popular 12-bar blues chord rock songs of the day and all the extras got up and danced.

The kids got on this box car and we played a four or five song set for these kids and the train went all the way up to L.A. Then we dropped them off and the train went back down to San Diego and another bunch of kids got on and we played the same set for the kids going all the way to L.A. I think we did there of four legs of that and we played for those kids. (laughing) We were in a box car on a train moving.

That was absurd. So after all that, we went to Hawaii and then we did our first hour long show. We had seen the Beatles at Dodger Stadium before the Monkees broke. Nobody knew who we were so we could go watch the show and in those days the common show was you had five acts and each one of them did 20 minutes including the stars. The Beatles came out after five different acts and they did 20 minutes and we were so disappointed.

We said, “Let’s not do that!” So we created an hour long set and we had a group who played covers of the pop hits of the day and a girl singer and I think she had one hit song of her own—I can’t remember who it was and then we came out and did an hour.

We started off with just the four of us and then we broke down and solo turns with the backup band, the opening act band came out and backed us up for solo turns—and then they left and we finished the hour, just the four of us. We did an hour that way. It was nerve-wracking because we’d never played an hour in front of people before and we had a few ideas and we tried them and they didn’t work very well.

But it was an out-of-town tryout. We were in Hawaii (laughs) and word was not gonna get back if we were really, really terrible. (laughs)

A Staggeringly Good New Album from…The Monkees

JUN 03, 2016by SCOTT FREIMAN in HEAR

What is your thing with the Monkees?

Aren't they a fourth rate Beatles?

2freaky4church1 said:

Aren't they a fourth rate Beatles?

REMINDER: Be respectful of others' musical tastes - constructive criticism is okay, but not to the point of flaming another orger.

I like the Monkees.

2freaky4church1 said:

I like the Monkees.

That's the point.

2freaky4church1 said:

Aren't they a fourth rate Beatles?

The Monkees get animated in exclusive video for 'You Bring the Summer'

BY CLARK COLLIS • @CLARKCOLLIS

Posted June 21 2016 — 9:00 AM EDT

The recently-released Monkees album Good Times! features some sonically-refurbished tracks from the band’s vaults and a number of new tunes written by the likes of Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie, and XTC’s Andy Partridge, who penned the season-appropriate new single “You Bring the Summer.”

“I don’t listen to a lot of contemporary music,” Monkees drummer-singer Mi... interview. “But I’d heard of Weezer, and Death Cab for Cutie, and XTC, of course — Andy Partridge. It was like the perfect storm, it just all came together. Because this indie-rock world sounds just like old ’60s jangly pop guitar music. It’s uncanny. But I guess what’s old is new, what goes around, comes around.”

You can exclusively see the new video for “You Bring the Summer,” below.

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/06/21/monkees-you-bring-summer-video

^^Your link doesn't work. Here's a good one. The video is sort of like a cartoon version of The Beatles Free As A Bird video in that there's references to things if you know about The Monkees.

The Monkees to kick off brand new live concert series on AXS TV

The Monkees will be the first headliners on a new weekly series of TV concerts on AXS TV, the station announced June 29. The show, called “AXS TV Concerts Hosted by Mark Cuban,” will premiere with the Monkees at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT Aug. 11. The network said the series, which be hosted by AXS TV founder Cuban, will feature live performances by different acts during its limited five-week run. Each show will be filmed at the Bomb Factory in Dallas, Texas and run 90 minutes long. The shows will get a second airing each night at 11:30 pm ET./8:30 p.m. PT.

Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork of The Monkees perform live on stage at Town Hall on June 1, 2016 in New York City.

Photo by Matthew Eisman/Getty Images

View all10 photos

Photo by Matthew Eisman/Getty Images

The disco group Village People will star on the second show on Aug. 18. Bret Michaels will headline the show on Aug. 25, followed by KC and The Sunshine Band on Sept. 1 and rock group Bad Company on Sept. 8. "With this exclusive series, I wanted to craft a fun live concert event, giving viewers the best seat in the house to experience these legendary acts," Cuban said in a statement. “From disco and funk to classics and metal, there's truly something here for everyone to enjoy as we send summer out on a high note with some of the most beloved anthems of all-time.”

AXS TV was launched in July 2012 and has featured a variety of shows that include music programming, stand-up comedy, news interviews and mixed martial arts promotions. Some of the programming includes “The X Factor UK,” “Nashville,” “The Big Interview With Dan Rather,” “Rock & Roll Road Trip With Sammy Hagar,” “Inside MMA” and “The World's Greatest Tribute Bands.”