Micky Dolenz - Talks about the upcoming Monkees show in London

Hey! Hey!!: Here comes The Monkees!

The Monkees featuring Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork, will perform their first concert in the UK since their Sold Out!!! concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 2011. The concert will take place at the London Hammersmith Eventim Apollo on Friday 4th September 2015.

We had a chat with Micky Dolenz about the upcoming show amongst other things. A wonderful person to speak to who has great passion in what he does. If the full show is as captivating as fifteen minutes talking to him it is going to be great night in September. 

Music Trespass: What have you got planned for London in September?

Micky: Focus on the hits everybody wants to hear, we have some variation depending on where and which venue we play. The set will be totally mixed up with hit singles being next to album tracks. We have been playing a lot of songs from the Jack Nicholson movie ‘Head’, it had some wonderful songs by Carole King and Peter Tork. We’re also have a lot of video footage during the show, with footage from the TV show and other video archives. We were one of the first acts to bring film on the road in 1976 with a movie projector... we did this because we could. Most groups did not have a lot of footage, but we had loads and put them up on huge screens like a motion picture behind us, and the kids went nuts as they’d had never seen most of it before.

The Monkees: On why we love the UK…

Micky: While doing some deep album cuts for ‘Alternative Title' - 'Randy Scouse Git’ which was a too rude title for the record, so we had to change it. I had a great experience in the UK, I met Samantha Juste and we got married and had kids in London. We then moved to Nottingham, where I enjoyed directing shows and films. This was back in the 1980’s before I returned to the States, which was in the 1990’s. I’m a bit of an Anglophile.

Music Trespass: How does it feel to still be on the road nearly fifty years after the Monkees started?

Micky: It’s crazy, there’s no accounting for taste! It’s our 50th anniversary celebration of when we recorded the piolet next year. It was then seen and sold to the television network and went on air in September 1966, who’d have thought it would be so popular now. It has been one heck of a ride, I feel very grateful and blessed for having this in my life.

Music Trespass: What song do you most like performing ?

Micky: Really some of the Carole King and Gerry Goffin tracks, I did for a tribute album called ‘King for a Day’, it included ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’ and ‘Sometime in the Morning’ which are two beautiful songs that I still love to this day. I was blessed to have so many songwriters working with me, Boyce and Hart and Neil Diamond  who made everything easy because they don't write duff tunes.

Music Trespass: What are your career highlights?

Micky: I am really proud of my work directing and producing successfully. Shortly after the Monkees I was drifting about a bit being typecast after being so successful as a singer, actor, entertainer and drummer. It was tough to be taken seriously as an actor, so I jumped that the chance of directing.

Mickey: I get excited by the project whether it be acting, singing, directing or writing based on the material involved. I did a Summer stock play on the East Coast for a few weeks that was straight Comedy and not a Musical. But I do love Musical theatre too and hope to do more of it in the future. I really loved doing 'Hairspray' in the London, UK and on tour. I would love to do that again, just need to get them to cast me again.

Interview and Questions by Jon Cooper

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