Happy anniversary! 50 years of Monkees business

Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork will embark on a Monkees 50th Anniversary Tour with the second stop of the tour visiting the King Center in Melbourne on Thursday, May 19. The band, which featured Michael Nesmith, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork and the late Davy Jones rose to international stardom with "The Monkees" TV show, which ran from 1966-1968. With such hits as "Last Train to Clarksville," "I’m a Believer," "Daydream Believer," "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You," "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and many more, the band has made an indelible mark on the music scene still beloved this many years after its formation.

I spoke with Peter about their longevity, their TV show and their life in the spotlight, so let’s “Shake, Rattle & Know”: The Monkees

QUESTION: How are you doing these days after your battle with cancer many years ago?

ANSWER: I am all right and thank you for asking. I have high energy, no symptoms, and hope to live to be 103.

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Q: As one of the first bands to be branded through TV shows, merchandising and more, do you ever think of yourselves as the original “boy band”?

A: (laughing) I have been asked that before. It never really occurred to me spontaneously, but depending on how you define a boy band I guess so on some level. It sure was a phenomenon by most definitions. All those bands seem to have had a beginning and an end, and we are still here. I think we stand out because of the TV series. It started out as a project and then someone decided, “let’s see if these boys can play music,” and we had to become a real band. None of that would have happened had it not been for the TV show.

Q: Did it ever bother you that people gave the band so much flak saying you weren’t real musicians when, in fact, you played a variety of instruments?

A: Oh, yeah. I bought into what people were saying and somehow I believed we were less than we could be. One of our biggest problems was that we were condemned for not being the Beatles or the (Rolling) Stones. Like a lot of other groups, I was a huge Beatles fan and thought they were the greatest thing since sliced bread. Now I look back and see how naïve my way of thinking was. We had to figure out a way to make this work, because there could be no other way. We didn’t know anything about making a record. Davy and Micky came from a world where it was normal for an actor to make a record, but Michael and I weren’t from that realm. Mike and I saw the world as Beatles fans, and we wanted to write our own music and record it. The producers Bert (Schneider) and Bob (Rafelson) were huge Beatles fans, too. We had a formula for the TV show that worked and a lot of shows that followed tried to extrapolate that formula. The Partridge Family was an example of someone trying. We were the only situational comedy to have four young adults in charge of their own lives. The Monkees reflected an aspect of life at that time and the authority establishment was the last virtue. Our world was at war and our government sent us into Vietnam and Korea, and we are now in wars we can’t get out of. Don’t blame the authority establishment as much as I did back then. I think our show and our music provided relief to kids, and they saw young adults controlling their own destiny.

Q: At the height of your popularity, what is the craziest thing a fan ever did to try and meet you?

A: Oh my, you would get in trouble if you printed that. It isn’t suitable for print!

Q: What is the weirdest item you ever got as fan mail?

A: I don’t know if you would call it weird, but recently I had an artist from Brazil send me some artwork that was just incredible. I reached out to her and she spoke very broken English, but her artwork was extraordinary and original, and I was totally transfixed by it.

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Q: If you could go back in your career and do one thing over and do it differently, what would it be and why?

A: I don’t know if I can handle that question because I would have to use present day awareness to my past misfortunes. I know I wouldn’t drink as heavily as I did, that would have made a difference. There are a number of things I would do different. I had a lot of early adventures and sometimes I was just grasping at things out of fear. Sometimes not knowing what to do you run like hell to keep up, or at least you think that way. I think I would have taken my time and been a more faithful person.

Q: You are celebrating 50 years of the Monkees. What is your key to longevity?

A: Not dying! Well, that and the TV show. The TV show is one of the pillars of success. The show offered respite; it meant more to people and offered a half an hour of relief. The rest of the world had the tension of living at home with parents. In the 1950s you had World War II vets coming back with  (post traumatic stress disorder) and by the '60s the children of those soldiers had to deal with the tension of the parents suffering from that PTSD. The show allowed people to see young adults living with the authority figure and making it on their own. I think there was real value in that. The Beatles helped make us because they brought a market they couldn’t finish serving, and we were a secondary purveyor.

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Q: What is it about the music that still resonates with people this many years later?

A: I don’t really know; all I could do is guess. There were artists like Carole King and Neil Diamond working in New York at the Brill building who all turned us down for songwriting. A couple young songwriters named Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart had just moved out to L.A. and were writing a few songs and trying to make a name for themselves, so they asked if they could write a few songs for the band. They wrote some great music and were very adventurous songwriters. Soon after, Neil (Diamond) and Carole (King) all suddenly wanted to write for us. It was beautiful happenstance and we caught lightning in a bottle.

If you have an artist/band you’d like to recommend for review, contact Nunez at srkmusic@cfl.rr.com or follow Mike on Twitter: @srkmusicflorida.

The details

Who: The Monkees

When: 8 p.m. Thursday, May 19

Where: King Center, 3865 N. Wickham Road, Melbourne

Cost: Tickets are $35-$99.75.

Info: Call 321-242-2219 or visit kingcenter.com. For more on the Monkees, visit monkees.com.