Ep. 109 Today's Peep with Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees Pt. 1, We Discuss the TV Show, The Beatles, Memories of Jimi Hendrix, Circus Boy and more, Plus Upcoming Show Excitement and "Daydream Believer"

Curious about what it was like to hang out with The Beatles or jam with Jimi Hendrix? Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees spills all the details on this special episode of the Pat Walsh Show! Join us for a candid conversation that covers Mickey’s rollercoaster journey from his early days in "Circus Boy" to the iconic rise of the Monkees. With humor and heart, Mickey opens up about the surreal whirlwind of fame, sharing personal stories that have entertained generations, including his own children and grandchildren. As the last surviving member of the Monkees, Mickey’s reflections offer a unique and emotional look back at his legendary career.

But that’s not all! Listen in as Mickey recounts unforgettable moments with The Beatles at Abbey Road Studios and gives us a peek into his memorable live performances, filled with both storytelling and music. We also explore some of the Monkees' hidden gems, like “Going Down,” and learn about Mickey’s excitement for his upcoming show at Sacramento’s Crest Theater. Whether you’re a longtime fan or new to the Monkees’ magic, this episode promises an engaging blend of nostalgia, humor, and musical insight. Don’t miss out on this chance to hear from one of the most iconic figures in pop culture!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

hey, hey, now, welcome back. We're at now 109 episodes on the pat's peeps podcast. I'm pat walsh, I'm the host of the pat walsh Show, heard nationally, internationally, heard everywhere on your free iHeart app and, of course, the host of the Pat Walsh Show on KFPK Radio in Sacramento, also heard everywhere, today being the ninth day of July, and this is episode 109. And, quite frankly, to probably be 109 degrees today, and I'm looking out my studio window in the beautiful foothills of Northern California and I can tell you it's going to be another hot one.

Speaker 1: 0:48

But I'm going to get right to what we are going to do today, because I am very excited. In case you missed it, last night I mentioned on my radio show that today I was going to be honored to be speaking with an icon, someone who I have respected ever since I even knew what television was and what music was and you know me, if you listen to my show as a music guy in particular, more than TV or anything. So I'm going to get right to it. I am joined this morning by none other than, like I say, one of my all-time favorites, a true icon. I hope I'm not building this up too much, but he's Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees. Ladies and gentlemen, mickey Dolenz joining us. Mickey, truly my honor to have you with us on my podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:33

Wow, what an introduction. How much did my publicist pay you to say all that? Wow, that is very cool. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 1:44

Thank you for having me on the show I, you know, I, I will tell you this, um, I, I'm never starstruck. I've met so many people and I've had the opportunity, and I'm just so blessed, to meet people who are, you know, considered icons. Um, and, and I will tell you this just straight up, mickey, mic, mickey Dolenz, my friends, that you are to me one of my favorite people that I have ever seen on television. You've got what? Six decades of TV. And I'm going to tell you why right up front. Because I discovered the Monkees, and you've talked about this your whole life, I know that. But when I watched the Monkees as a kid, mickey, I could see four distinct personalities, even though you were doing this really fun thing, but you were all. You were also fun, but you would be playing your music and you'd be making little faces and stuff and you had this great. All of you had a great sense of humor. But I somehow related to your sense of humor.

Speaker 2: 2:36

I want to say, before we get into thank you, you know when you're in the midst of it like I was, like we were you're in the eye of the hurricane, you really don't get a sense of what's going on around you. You see it today in contemporary stars and acts and stuff. And it's even worse today, I'm sure, because of social media. But I look back at some of those shows and I'll be honest, I don't remember a thing. But I can say that also about Circus Boy, the series that I did in the 50s. I just don't remember firsthand, objectively, first person, what was going on. People have, for instance, asked me what was your favorite episode? I don't remember them as episodes. It was like one long episode that lasted two years, because we would start one on a Monday, finish it on a Wednesday and start the next one on a Thursday three-day shooting schedule and they just all run into each other and I look back at myself doing some of these things and saying some of this stuff and it actually entertains me.

Speaker 1: 4:13

I'm like, oh, that guy's kind of funny sometimes so you go back and watch it occasionally, mickey, and kind of remember some of the, some of the things, some of the antics you guys were doing.

Speaker 2: 4:26

Well, you know, occasionally I'll run across it because it does stream. You know different places. Or years ago, when my kids were growing up, I'd watch it and say that's daddy. And now I'm saying it to my grandkids that's Gramps.

Speaker 1: 4:43

Wow, that is just. They must be just so proud of you and amazed. You know, mickey Dolenz, you're the last surviving member of the Monkees. Before we even get into that, mickey, I really kind of wanted to highlight some things, because you're doing, listen, you've never slowed down. I mean you are go, go, go. You have a book out which I absolutely love the name of and it's and I'm going to reference that because of what you just said. You said you don't really have this. You know a lot of certain memories, um distinct memory, but but you have. So you have this book out called, I'm told I had a good time, so I'm. I imagine that comes from what you just said. Right, is that right or wrong?

Speaker 2: 5:25

Absolutely, and like I say that's a joke, it's actually an old joke, like if you remember the 60s, you weren't really there, sure, which is very funny, but not entirely true. Yeah, there was a lot going on socially and obviously politically and a lot of chemical stuff going on, but in my case and I can only speak for myself, pat, I can't, so I never did speak for David or Michael or Peter, only myself. So you know, as long as you understand that, Sure.

Speaker 2: 6:04

I am. You know, like I said, I went through it a little bit during Circus Boy when I was 10. You know the popularity, the, you know adulation. But even back then, because my parents were in the business too, even back then they brought me up and and I realized from right, from the get-go these people are not necessarily in love with me, or rather in love with me, they're in love with the character on the television show. And you see that happen all the time. Some people and I was guilty of it too at times confuse the two things the person and the persona. If you do that too much and you get too into your own fantasy, it can be very dangerous, as we see all the time, when people start really believing that they are the character. So I think that's one of the things that God Love, my Parents instilled in me from the get-go and, you know, it probably in some ways saved my life. I did have moments, everybody does. It's saved my life. I did have moments, everybody does.

Speaker 2: 7:26

But the main reason that I look back and say I just don't remember a lot of this stuff is simply because there was just too much going on and it's like your computer when the RAM gets full, it freezes, cannot remember anything else, and that's what happens and your eyes kind of glaze over.

Speaker 2: 7:54

And you see it in people today, especially young, up-and-coming kids. When I say kids, you know 20s or whatever, and there's just so much going on. And today, my God, with social media, we didn't have that. There was nothing. There was a couple of fan mags and some gossip columnists, but we did not have this 24-7, constant, constant attention and always having to be on. You know, at the end of the day, after shooting the show and recording in the studio, I would go home to my kid and my wife and my new kid and swim in the pool and go down into my shop and build a gyrocopter. But that's what happens is you're in the eye of the hurricane, all this stuff is going on around you and your brain gets full and just can't take in anymore.

Speaker 1: 8:58

How different were you, Mickey, from the character that you played in the monkeys?

Speaker 2: 9:04

Well, different? Yeah, absolutely, we all were. We were caricatures of our personalities, if you will, excapulations, and that was intentional. That's what the producers had in mind. But they did not want to just cast four actors and tell each one okay, you are going to be the zany wacky drummer. They cast me as the zany wacky drummer because I was and still am a bit zany and wacky. Mike again was an extrapolation of himself, but not that much different. Not that much different. Certainly not as much as, say, the Three Stooges or I don't know Marx Brothers or something.

Speaker 2: 10:07

But speaking of the Marx Brothers, if you want a reference of what the Monkees was, it was the Marx Brothers on television, not the Beatles. Not the Beatles. It was a television show about a group. It wasn't a group. It was a television show about a group, an imaginary group, that wanted to be the Beatles On the television show. We never made it.

Speaker 2: 10:35

It was that struggle for success that I think had a lot to do with why it was successful and is to this day. The struggle for success is always a great theme in anything movies, tv, books, whatever but we never made it on the television show. We had a poster of the Beatles that we would throw darts at. But it was that struggle. It was like Lucy always wanting to get in Desi's show Lucy, you cannot be in my show. It was that struggle, you know, every week that had an awful lot to do with it. But if you look at it like that, if you realize that's what it was.

Speaker 2: 11:23

And then back to your question yeah, I was myself. They chose to use our real names, which you know. Who knows what would have happened if it would have said, and you know, joe Schmoe, played by Mickey Dolenz, who knows who knows? Now, peter, on the other hand, he was the one that did absolutely play a character totally wrong, 180 degrees from who he was. If you remember, he was kind of the Hunts Hall, kind of the Harpo Marx, kind of goofy, you know, saying goofy things, and that was entirely 180% opposed to who he was. He was one of the most highly educated, gifted, musically intelligent people that I ever knew in my life. So he was playing, he was really having to act. All the time. Mike and David and I were acting and we were playing these characters and David and I were acting and we were playing these characters and over the series, over the different episodes, they evolved and they became more or less what they were. But that's kind of it in a nutshell.

Speaker 1: 12:49

And Peter. I had the opportunity to meet Peter as well. Peter, as you mentioned, he was a very accomplished musician, mickey. And I'm just kind of wondering because I know, I mean at least I've heard in the past. Perhaps you can clarify this but I know that, peter being an accomplished musician, I don't think that he, or perhaps some of you I don't know how you feel about it or Davey or Mike, but you know the music was, it was sort of childlike, it was fresh and new. It fit the times. It was sort of childlike, it was fresh and new, it fit the times. It was bubblegum, you know. But you know what Progressive bubblegum, progressive bubblegum, but you guys had, unlike some other people.

Speaker 1: 13:27

I mean you had a string of hits as a TV made-up manufactured band. I'm wondering. I mean that's pretty remarkable.

Speaker 2: 13:36

Pat, hold it, pat. Sorry to interrupt, but I do take exception to that word manufactured. It's been used over and over again. It's a cliche and you know I laugh about it. It's no big thing, but it's just incorrect. We were cast as actor-singer-musicians in a television show where we played singer-musicians in a group called the Monkees Imaginary group didn't exist. We lived in this beach house in Malibu, which was a set, but we never got any work, which does beg the question of how we could afford a malibu beach house. But do you remember a show called glee? I do, yeah, the show. It was a show about a glee club in a high school, right, okay, uh, very talented, uh, kids singing and dancing, acting whatever, playing the characters. Would you have said that was a manufactured glee club? No, it wasn't. It was a television show about a glee club.

Speaker 1: 14:50

Correct.

Speaker 2: 14:52

And if you understand that about the monkeys, the whole thing makes so much more sense. It was musical theater, frankly, on television it was a half hour little like Marx Brothers musical thing with comedy and stick and running around in circles and and, uh, fight gags and and uh and it was John Lennon, as a matter of fact, was the first one, before I even thought about it. He said something to the effect of I like the Monkees, they're like the Marx Brothers, and if you understand that, you look at the whole Monkee thing with those goggles on. It all makes so much more sense.

Speaker 1: 15:41

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right, and no, you, that's. That's a great way to put it, and I understand, exactly understand what you're saying. We're talking to Mickey Dolan's. You you referenced John Lennon saying that. I've heard the stories that perhaps so I think was it Paul McCartney that that invited you to Abbey Road Studios and I think they might have been working on like Sgt Pepper's or something like that, and you go in there to watch the Beatles work. There really wasn't that much competition, I don't believe, between the Monkees and the Beatles. Maybe my timeline is wrong, but none at all like the Beatles were kind of a little bit older generation than where the Monke, because I remember going and seeing the monkeys as a kid I'd run to the neighbor's house we're going to watch the monkeys and the older sisters and older brothers were the ones that were into the Beatles.

Speaker 2: 16:25

Yeah, of course it was. You hit the nail on the head. It was our excuse me, I'm sorry. Our demographic was 10 to 12 year old, mostly little girls. It was a kid's show, frankly.

Speaker 2: 16:43

The Beatles were the older generation. We were playing to the younger brothers and sisters of the Beatle fans and so, no, there was absolutely no competition at all. We were playing to an entirely different demographic and the music was pop music. It was very similar to early, early Beatle music and that was the intention to capture that audience of young kids, 10 to 12 year old kids. And you know, I'd like to think that it also had legs in some other ways. There was, you know, that adults and I hear that you know adults would start watching it with their kids because we'd make references to, you know, like the Marx Brothers or something. But that's essentially what it was playing to an entirely different generation. Yep, I went to. He invited me to a session on Abbey Road. I tell the story in my show, but if you want to hear the story, you got to come to the show.

Speaker 1: 17:52

I would love to come to the show. By the way, I'm so glad you brought that up, because you're going to be coming to one of Sacramento's premier theaters, a theater that I've had the opportunity to. I'll get into these conversations with a, with someone who I admire as an artist, and by the time you know, they'll say well, why don't you come introduce me? So I've introduced a lot of bands there at the crest theater. Uh, mickey dolan's coming to therest Theater, which is a beautiful theater, and I know you've been there before. It's coming up on July 31st. Please go see Mickey, because the show is incredible. I love the way you weave stories into it and then you play some of the music. I just love the way you do that. I think it's a wonderful format for the fans well, yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2: 18:36

It just evolved over the years that fans would keep asking me questions like you, did you go to Abbey Road and watch the Beatles? Was Jimi Hendrix really your opening act? Did Stephen Stills really try out for the Monkees? All of those facts are true and I tell stories about all of it and then sing songs relevant to the moment. So, and it's evolved over the years, it's still a flat out rock and roll concert but by popular demand, the fans want to hear stories. I even ask at the beginning of the show do you mind if I tell a few stories? I always get a very, very positive feedback.

Speaker 1: 19:21

As a fan, I would love to hear the stories interspersed throughout the music, and that's what I'm going to see for sure. I'm absolutely. I cannot wait to do that. Like I say, I love the way that you share stories and talk about. You know just everything you've done. You know I'm a guy. I've got so many things to talk about. You know what I want to ask you about. Here's one thing I don't know, because you say people ask you about this and that all the time. I want to ask you about the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. And here you are, you're watching Ravi Shankar and you're just into it.

Speaker 2: 20:04

Do you have recollections of that show and what that was like at the time in the music scene? Not a lot. But listen, pat, I'm sorry. My publicist, off the record, told me that it would be a top-out at 20 minutes. I don't know what he told you, but I have another phoner coming in in about a minute, so I'm so sorry. But listen, I love, I love talking to you. It's so nice talking to people that, yeah, okay, and they're enthusiastic. But it's very clear that you know your stuff and you'd be surprised how many interviews I've done where they have no idea. So I really appreciate it. If you want to tape some more in a few days, I'd be very happy to do that. But I got this other phone or it's actually international coming in any second.

Speaker 1: 20:53

I would love to do part two, so I'll call you in a couple of days, Mickey Dolenz, thank you for your time and good luck on what you're doing, and we'll talk in a couple of days, okay.

Speaker 2: 21:03

Thank you so much for your interest, Pat.

Speaker 1: 21:06

All right, sir. Thank you very much. All right, there's Mickey Dolenz. Wow, mickey, I had so many more questions to ask him. So, again, that was very kind of him to you know to say if I want to talk again, it's a couple of days. I did not hear, by the way, 20 minutes. No one ever mentioned that to me. That I'm aware of. So that's okay, though I respect the man, what he does. I was going to ask him about this because we know all of the. You know the big hits by the monkeys. We know the big hits. But I wanted to ask him about the flip side of daydream believer, which is a song that sherry pointed out last night on my show, on the pat wall show, and I wanted to ask him. So I'll ask him about it in our next visit. But it's a song called Going Down. Rock it to me.

Speaker 2: 22:24

An interesting song for the.

Speaker 1: 22:28

Monkees, mickey on vocal. So I'll tell you what I had planned on much more of a podcast today, but all right, we'll make it a mini-pod, all right? Mini-pod with Mickey, mickey's mini pod.

Speaker 2: 22:39

Hip hip, hip hip, hey hey hey, Hip hip, Hip hip.

Speaker 1: 22:43

All right. All right, look for part two. All right, I'll let you know when it is. I hope you enjoyed part one. I barely even got into my topics. See you on the radio.

Speaker 2: 23:02

See you in the radio.