Hey! Hey! It’s The Monkees’ Davy Jones

By Harmon Leon
Fancast.com

“Hey! Hey! It’s The Monkees-One again!” (That’s the biggest hack opening I could come up.) Any-who, tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT the Smithsonian Channel is presenting the documentary, Making the Monkees–the complete story of the rise and fall of everyone’s favorite TV super group, which includes recent interviews with all the players involved (except Michael Nesmith).

Here’s the scoop, in 1965 Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider tried to capitalize on the success of the Beatles by holding auditions for a group to fill their TV shoes. The ad read, “Must come down,” which meant those auditioning had to be off drugs (it was the `60’s after all). 437 potential Monkees entered the arena–only 4 left standing; the immortal Davy Jones, Peter Tork, Mike Nesmith, and Micky Dolenz. The Monkees became an overnight phenomenon, with their catchy pop tunes out-selling The Beatles and Elvis Presley combined in 1967. But after two seasons, the successful TV show and the Monkees were over.

I had a little chat with Davy Jones (as he cycled up the sunny Florida coast) about both the upcoming Smithsonian documentary and the whole Monkees phenomenon. My chance interview would have made a young Marsha Brady go speshit:

FANCAST: I loved the show because it was like a musical Marx Brothers as well as kinda’ trippy and surreal. What do you attribute to the success?
DAVY: Well we had two great writers in the very beginning, Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker. They were at the pulse then. They took A Hard Days Night and put it on television every week. That was something The Beatles couldn’t do because of their schedule. All we did was take the idea the Beatles done and put it on the 21 inch screen instead of the movie screen. It’s quite simple; it’s easy to see that, you know.

FANCAST: It seems like The Monkees were the first TV show to have a rock theme.
DAVY: It was nothing new. We were 4 longhaired kids, and we followed the formula that the Beatles came up with–and that was basically it. And the people involved, like Don Kirschner. He’d supply songs for TV shows for Screen Gems. Then the Monkees came along and we wanted him to supply songs. He didn’t discover the Monkees; the Monkees were a product of Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider who auditioned people and then choose the 4 of us guys to be the instruments of their idea.

FANCAST: Because of your Broadway experience, you were on the same Ed Sullivan show as the Beatles.
DAVY: When I did the Monkees I had to show my discipline I learned from my background on the stage. There was a difference in opinion between Nesmith and the organization, but that was not why we were hired. Mickey and I were professional actors, and the other guys were the professional musicians. And you put us all together and we ended up doing 200 concerts with just the 4 of us on the stage. We ended up touring all over the world. The show went to 36 countries around the world. I mean this is not a small project. And good things stand the test of time and the time has gone by and people are still enjoying it. I’m 63 years old I was 20 when I did it. That was 43 years ago.

GO TO DAVY JONES PHOTO GALLERY.

FANCAST: In the documentary you mentioned punch-ups. Were there literally punch-ups or metaphorically punch-ups?
DAVY: No, no. We had punch-ups. Peter and I had a few; Mickey and I had a punch up. Mike and I didn’t have a punch up. Because he’s too big. He’d kill me. But the other guys were a little mouthy sometimes and I gave them the old Manchester kiss-the full head on the nose. And there were blows between each other. I remember going to the hospital because Peter split my eye open. I had like 7 stitches on my eyebrow. But I deserved it and he got his come-up-ance. But that’s what boys do when you’re 21 years old. But these guys are my brothers and a band has those problems.

FANCAST: Did you feel like an actual band?
DAVY: As soon as the filming stopped, we would all plug in and start playing. We had more rehearsal time than any other band in the fricken world at that time. We were doing it 5 days a week-every opportunity we got. You just got to laugh and grin and bear it and come out of it how lucky we did and not have too many wounds, too many scars, too many bad moments. And if there were bad moments; they were overshadowed by the continued acceptance and loyalty and love of the fans. I could tell you about the moments where one or two or the other one didn’t want to do something and we all did and bad blood displayed but it’s just boyish tantrums.

FANCAST: Do you think the Monkees’ movie Head was the anti-thesis of the TV show? Was off screen of Head as psychedelic as onscreen?
DAVY: Not really. We tried to add a lot of stuff to it. It had that 60s trippy thing going on. But yes, yes yes. I read in Eric Clapton’s book, Lately, that the first time he took LSD was with the Monkees. I only saw Eric Clapton once and that was in Japan. I had a drink in the bar afterwards. I have no recollection of taking drugs or doing any of that type of stuff. But I’m one of the Monkees and Eric Clapton says right in his book he took acid with the Monkees, so people think I did it because I’m one of the Monkees.

FANCAST: Michael Nesmith wasn’t included in the documentary. How come?
DAVY: In regard to Nesmith’s input, I mean how many people can reminisce on something 40 years ago. I can’t even remember 40 minutes ago. Hopefully they got the documentary special right. And hopefully they wont depict the Monkees as being something of an argumentative unpleasant thing. Because we all made a good living out of it. We all got a lot of friendships on it. We all have beautiful children.

FANCAST: How would you sum up the whole experience?
DAVY: If John Lennon were alive he’d say, “I’m not dead at all yet.” He also said, “Love is all we need.” And hopefully The Monkees brought a lot of love into people’s lives. Hopefully a lot of people will see this special and enjoy it and much as we enjoyed the creation of the whole thing.

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