The Undead Tour: How The Fake Zombies Fooled America

Summary

Chameleon — "The Undead Tour: How The Fake Zombies Fooled America"

Podcast: Chameleon
Host: Josh Dean (audiochuck | Campside Media)
Guest: Daniel Ralston
Date: November 27, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of Chameleon dives into the surreal, true story of the "Fake Zombies"—a group of Texan musicians in 1969 who toured America impersonating the British Invasion band, The Zombies, after the real group disbanded. Two of the impostors went on to become members of ZZ Top. Josh Dean and Daniel Ralston, who documented the story in print and podcast form, unravel how this audacious con was pulled off, why it worked, and its strange cultural afterlife. The story is not just about scams in rock history but also about what it means to "fake it till you make it" in an era before the internet or even a proper music press.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Real Zombies: Rise, Fall, and Unexpected Hit

• The British Invasion Era: The mid-1960s saw a flood of British bands—Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks—transforming American music. Among them was the moderately famous, "The Zombies."
  — "They had two huge hits in '64 and '65." (Daniel, 01:38)
• Career Troubles: Despite hits like "She's Not There" and "Tell Her No," by 1967, The Zombies were struggling financially and internally, even as psychedelic music evolved the scene.
• "Time of the Season": Their last-ditch single, released after they'd broken up, became a surprise monster hit in the U.S. in 1967.
  — "It becomes a monster hit in America and suddenly there's demand for the Zombies in America. But there’s no Zombies." (Daniel, 03:12)

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The Birth of The Fake Zombies

• The Opportunity: As the real band dissolved, a Michigan promoter, Bill Kehoe (Delta Promotions), seized an opportunity to send out "The Zombies"—but staffed by four Texan musicians with no relation to the original band.
  — "An evolution of the British Invasion... this, to a certain type of person, presents opportunity." (Josh, 02:32, 03:53)
  — "He sends the zombies out on the road without the real zombies existing." (Daniel, 04:00)
• The Fake Band: Of the four impostors, two would become legendary: Dusty Hill and Frank Beard of ZZ Top.

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Finding the Story: Daniel Ralston's Obsession

• Origins: Ralston first encountered the bizarre con while writing about music and became obsessed, uncovering that the story included future ZZ Top members.
  — "This fake zombie story is the first thing I ever wrote. When I was 36 years old..." (Daniel, 08:40)
• Research Challenges: The truth was buried: main perpetrators were dead, and only a few witnesses and roadies were still alive or willing to talk.
  — "There were details that were lost to time, there were people who had died, and one of the central figures, Frank Beard for ZZ Top, does not want to talk about it..." (Daniel, 09:21)

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The Music Industry of the 1960s: The Wild West

• Managerial Chaos: “Fake” acts were not uncommon before touring logistics and branding solidified post-Beatles.
  — "Even before rock, it was pretty common for R&B and soul groups... It was just a different time." (Daniel, 10:38)
• Scams Were Possible: Without photos on albums or widespread media coverage, even huge pop acts were indistinguishable to many American fans.

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Life as The Fake Zombies

• The Band: Seb Meador (lead guitarist), Mark Ramsey, Dusty Hill, and Frank Beard. Often, even their personal details or meeting stories are fuzzy.
• Performance: Despite some negative reviews, the fake Zombies toured 30+ cities, played major university festivals, and even crossed into Canada, enjoying the ride.
  — "We know they toured at least 30 cities... played to 10,000 people at one point..." (Daniel, 19:40)
  — "They were young dudes in a van. They were taking drugs, they were trying to get laid... but I don't think money was their biggest concern." (Daniel, 20:00)

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The Scam Unravels: Lawsuits and the Fall

• Pushing It Too Far: Kehoe launched a fake version of The Archies (a cartoon band)—this brought real legal heat, leading to the shutdown of the operation and Delta Promotions. — "Once the Fake Zombies manager started a fake version of the band, the Archies... suddenly there was intellectual property and a lawyer... all of it. Delta Promotions itself was finished." (Daniel/Josh, 20:35–20:47)
• Kehoe's Aftermath: Sued Grand Funk Railroad for $56 million (unsuccessfully), then left the music business and lived a regular life as an inventor and local businessman.

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The Real Zombies React

• Discovering the Scam: The original Zombies learned of the fake band via a surreal conference call with Kehoe, who tried to claim Colin Blundstone had died in a car crash—while Blundstone was on the other line.
  — "He said… the singer of the Zombies, who tragically died in a car crash. And Colin was on the other end of the phone when this happened." (Daniel, 23:02)
• Aftermath and Legacy: The exposure ended the fake tour, and the real Zombies regrouped to finally enjoy their U.S. hit’s success.
  — "Their music and fortune wasn’t stolen. It was only hijacked briefly..." (Josh, 25:09)

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Personal Fallout, Apologies, and Cultural Legacy

• No Hard Feelings: The Zombies were gracious; no lawsuits, no bitterness.
  — "There is nothing but love from the Zombies end." (Daniel, 27:02)
• Dusty and Frank’s Response: Minimal comment; “It was the 60s man.” Frank Beard, sober and private, rarely addresses it.
  — "He emailed me and he said this was, it was the 60s man. That was basically his response." (Daniel, 27:33)
• Magic of 'Fake It Till You Make It': The narrative aligns with broader rock-and-roll mythmaking, encapsulating reinvention and “making it” through performance and image construction. — "We just rolled off the dust bowl from Texas. But it's like actually you faked a British accent for a year." (Daniel, 31:21)

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The Story’s Long Shadow

• Mark Ramsey’s Redemption: After Ramsey’s death, his son—unaware of his lineage—connected with ZZ Top’s members through the story.
  — "Mark's son has hung out with Frank and Dusty and talked about the fake Zombies. Mark Ramsey's one-year-old grandson has hung out with ZZ Top..." (Daniel, 30:17)
• Pop Culture Resurrection: Daniel's podcast was optioned for a movie. The Zombies were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2019; Dusty and Frank almost inducted them. — "They were going to try to get Dusty and Frank to do it, but it never happened." (Daniel, 26:54)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I think I caught the tail end of when you could still find a publication to pay you to go research a magazine story." — Daniel Ralston (06:36)
• "Half the band would later become 2/3 of ZZ Top, a wildly popular blues rock band... That's one hell of a forgotten first chapter." — Josh Dean (07:55)
• "They did the magic trick pretty well. And then ZZ Top disappeared into beards and sunglasses and became a whole different thing and never had to answer questions because they only do the press they want to do, and they create the image and they faked it until they made it." — Daniel Ralston (31:49)
• "The story's like Almost Famous meets Catch Me If You Can. And then they're the subject. It's hard not to be like, wow, this is fucking crazy. I can't believe somebody cared about us that much." — Daniel Ralston (27:02)

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Key Timestamps

• [00:52-03:12] — British Invasion context and The Zombies' meteoric, then declining career
• [04:00-04:47] — Formation of the Fake Zombies; setup for the episode
• [06:36-08:40] — Daniel describes finding and becoming obsessed with the story
• [09:47-10:38] — "Wild West" dynamics of the 1960s music business; prevalence of fake acts
• [14:45-17:08] — The Fake Zombies lineup; their stint as "Rose Garden;" life on tour
• [19:40-20:00] — Tour numbers, reception, and the carefree mindset of the impostors
• [20:35-20:47] — The scam collapses when Kehoe pushes it too far
• [22:35-24:20] — Real Zombies find out about the scam; Colin Blunstone’s double life
• [29:12-30:17] — Mark Ramsey’s blog and his son’s connection with ZZ Top through this strange legacy
• [31:21-33:40] — Reflections on mythmaking, authenticity, and the endurance of the story

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Episode Takeaways

• The "Fake Zombies" saga is a uniquely American tale of opportunism, music industry chaos, and accidental mythmaking, leading to some of the wildest true stories in rock history.
• The impostors—future rock legends themselves—were not driven by malice; rather, they were swept along by the time's lax rules and their own youthful ambitions.
• The story, once obscure and seemingly forgotten, now thrives as part of rock lore, celebrated by fans, the real Zombies, and ZZ Top aficionados alike.

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Chameleon is as much about cons and deception as it is about how stories—however unlikely—continue to shape the identity of the people and music we love.

Transcript

[Daniel Ralston]

What are you doing in a meeting?

[Josh Dean]

That could have been an email.

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[Josh Dean]

Hello.

[Daniel Ralston]

What is the. What do you want me to say? Chameleon Chameleon Chameleon Weekly.

[Josh Dean]

Back in the mid-1960s, a wave of floppy haired British music acts, crack, crashed onto our shores, soaking America with a whole new kind of pop and rock and roll. It became known as the British Invasion. And the leaders of this invading force were unquestionably the Beatles witnessed the excitement.

[Daniel Ralston]

Stirred by these youngsters from Liverpool who call themselves the Beatles. Now tonight you're going to twice be entertained by them right now. And again on the second half of our show. Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles.

[Josh Dean]

But this was just a tidal wave of talent. The Rolling Stones, the who, the Kinks, plus plenty of moderately to much less famous acts, including a five piece from the outskirts of London that called themselves the Zombies.

[Daniel Ralston]

They had two huge hits in 64 and 65.

[Josh Dean]

This is Daniel Ralston, a writer and bartender who lives in Los Angeles and who has become a sort of Zombies ologist the past half dozen years.

[Daniel Ralston]

She's not there. And tell her no. Songs you still hear on oldies stations. All these playlists. They were big in England, but they were much bigger in America. Even then, like the British Invasion thing hit hard here.

[Josh Dean]

Important point.

[Daniel Ralston]

So by 64, when the zombies came over here for the first time, they were headlining shows with Gladys Knight, all these incredible groups and then as psychedelic music starts to come in, this being.

[Josh Dean]

An evolution of the British Invasion with music that's heavily influenced by the arrival of psychedelic drugs on the scene.

[Daniel Ralston]

The Zombies changed their sound in 67 and make an album called Odyssey and Oracle that completely bombs in the uk. And then as a last ditch effort, their US label decides to release the song Time of the Season as a single in 1967.

[Josh Dean]

You definitely know this one. Time of the Season would become a massive single released basically as a last hurrah, almost a coda to a band that had basically had it with rock and roll.

[Daniel Ralston]

The band was in such bad shape that they had actually broken up, like they had no money. The only one who had any money was the guy who wrote the songs. The rest of them were riding bicycles to the studio to go record Odyssey and Oracle. So they released this last ditch third single in America, Time of the Season. It becomes a monster hit in America and suddenly there's demand for the Zombies in America. But there's no Zombies.

[Josh Dean]

This is literally true. The band's keyboardist and songwriter had gone on to start a new band. The lead singer, Colin Blundstone, took a job in an insurance office.

[Daniel Ralston]

They didn't even know who their US label was at that point, basically.

[Josh Dean]

And this, to a certain type of person, presents opportunity.

[Daniel Ralston]

The record's selling a ton, it's playing all over the radio, and this guy in Michigan who runs Delta Promotions gets an idea to send the zombies out on the road without the real zombies existing.

[Josh Dean]

This is Chameleon, the show about people who pretend to be something they aren't. And I'm Josh Dean. This week, the surprising tale of four handsome Texans who fooled America by pretending to be British rock stars, accents and all, back when such a thing was possible. The story of the fake Zombies, half of whom would become ZZ Top after the break.

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[Josh Dean]

This is Chameleon, the Weekly I came to this story through a friend of mine in the music industry. He also makes podcasts and he'd recently commissioned an eight parter called the True Story of the Fake Zombies. Written and hosted by a guy named Daniel Ralston. The podcast was actually a follow up to an article Daniel wrote in 2016 for Buzzfeed, also called the True Story of the Fake Zombies with the subtitle the Strangest Con in Rock History. Both tell the same incredible stranger than fiction story, one about four random dudes from Texas who for a brief time in 1969 toured America pretending to be a best selling rock band from England. A rock band known especially for that one gigantic song.

[Daniel Ralston]

I think I caught the tail end of when you could still find a publication to pay you to go research a magazine story.

[Josh Dean]

This is both a joke and not a joke. I can speak from experience of a gauzy now almost impossible to believe past when publishers paid decent money for writers to report and write quirky magazine stories. Those were good times.

[Daniel Ralston]

And I've continued my career past the article. But this fake zombie story. It's just a story in my life that has never gone away. And the podcast was a chance to dive really deep into it.

[Josh Dean]

Daniel's obsession began the way so many great stories do. With a little bit of luck, he just spotted something while reading there's two.

[Daniel Ralston]

References to the Fake Zombies that have existed previous to the article that I wrote. One is Aziz Top. Roie mentions it on page 200 of his biography the Band. And I read a biography, the British band the Zombies that had one sentence that said some guys in America pretended to be them. That's when the chase started for me, finding out that yes, there were fake zombies.

[Josh Dean]

A fun ass story on its own merits. But this is the real Cherry on Top.

[Daniel Ralston]

And two of the guys from ZZ Top were in the Fake Zombies as teenagers.

[Josh Dean]

Anyone over 40 or so, certainly anyone over 50, is probably wondering if they heard that correctly. The two of the four guys who pretended to be the British band the Zombies. So half the band would later become 2/3 of ZZ Top, a wildly popular blues rock band known for wearing sunglasses and having extremely long beards. A band that sold over its decades long career more than 50 million records. That's one hell of a forgotten first chapter. When Daniel stumbled on this dusty old tale, he had no idea what it would do to his life. He was a bartender who loved music and writing. But mostly he was a bartender.

[Daniel Ralston]

This fake zombie story is the first thing I ever wrote. When I was 36 years old, I didn't have a journalism career. I don't have a college degree. I found this story and the story got bigger than my career. I had no idea what to do. I didn't have any help. And you talk about people pretending to be something they're not. I found myself with like a manager, an agent and a lawyer. And I'd written one thing I'm not saying that's a brag. I by the way, I'll turn my camera, you can see the eggnog that I'm bottling Over here, listener.

[Josh Dean]

He did indeed have eggnog on his shelves. Jars and jars of it. We were talking just before Christmas and this is one of Daniel's side hustles.

[Daniel Ralston]

I have an eggnog business because writing doesn't always pay the bills. But it was a very strange experience to all of a sudden be in this world with a story that happened 55 years ago. There were details that were lost to time, there were people who had died, and one of the central figures, Frank Beard for ZZ Top, does not want to talk about it and never will talk about it.

[Josh Dean]

And yet Daniel was hooked. He got obsessed and has become, for better or worse, the preeminent scholar of the niche subject of the short lived Fake Zombies band from Texas by way of Michigan, which you can only really understand by first understanding the era in which it was born.

[Daniel Ralston]

When I started this story, I realized that the music industry didn't exist in the early 60s. It started basically with pop in 1964, like when the Beatles play at Sullivan. All of a sudden you have these big wig managers who are coming in.

[Josh Dean]

In the period right before that when these bands from England are just popping around playing this new music. It was basically a free for all. Smaller self proclaimed managers and promoters were just flying by the seats of their pants. And the idea that you might put on a concert featuring a band that wasn't actually that band. Daniel says this wasn't really a rare thing.

[Daniel Ralston]

Even before rock, it was pretty common for R and B and soul groups. You know, you go see Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers and there'd be no Frankie Lyman and one original teenager. And then they'd send another Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers off in the other direction in the country. Like it was just a different time. I think a lot of what these bands were doing would later be called a tribute act. But that concept didn't exist yet in 1969.

[Josh Dean]

That's also not exactly what Bill Kehoe, creator of the Fake Zombies, was doing either. He was promoting shows by a band called the Zombies without an asterisk. People who bought tickets went to these shows thinking they were seeing the real thing.

[Daniel Ralston]

They kept the waters very muddy. The managers, the company Delta Promotion said things like, we've acquired the US rights to the music.

[Josh Dean]

And there wasn't a lot of risk either because the real Zombies were basically gone. Here's how lead singer Colin Blundstone of the Actual Zombies explained it to Daniel on his podcast. When people talk in such hallowed terms about the Zombies now, but if they.

[Daniel Ralston]

Were there, then I can remember we lost our agent.

[Josh Dean]

I remember us going and seeing another agent.

[Daniel Ralston]

And he really wasn't interested. He really wasn't.

[Josh Dean]

There was just nothing happening.

[Daniel Ralston]

We were having trouble just eating, you know, existing. And Rod said, well, if Paul's leaving, I think the band should finish.

[Josh Dean]

And I remember, I wish I had.

[Daniel Ralston]

Said something, but I didn't say anything at all.

[Josh Dean]

So the Zombies broke up after one final gig in December of 1967. And, oh, the irony. The stated reason for hanging up the guitars, declining interest in their live shows. So not long after the real Zombies quit because they couldn't get enough fans to come to their shows, an opportunist in Michigan starts imagining a fake version to go on tour.

[Daniel Ralston]

There were all these people, like I say, the Wild west, back as the music industry was developing, these guys who touch into the fake zombie story. These guys built the industry as we know it now.

[Josh Dean]

Not literally. These guys, Daniel means these upstart managers who saw opportunity and seized it. Perhaps not always acting with the truest moral compass.

[Daniel Ralston]

And as the 60s became the 70s, it's like everybody was just trying to figure it out as they went.

[Josh Dean]

The mastermind of Delta Promotions was a guy named Bill Kehoe from Bay City, Michigan, a small city on the Saginaw river in central Michigan. If you're looking at the state's profile as a mitten, it would be smack in the middle of the crotch between the thumb and the fingers.

[Daniel Ralston]

Bill Kehoe, he was close to 40 years old when he was doing this scheme. And I think he saw himself as another Neil Bogart or another Alan Klein.

[Josh Dean]

Two of the first big music managers. Neil Bogart signed Kiss and was a big player on the rise of disco. Alan Klein famously managed the Beatles and the Stones. Bill Kehoe aspired to be in that tier.

[Daniel Ralston]

He's like, why can't I be a big music mogul impresario guy? I'm gonna be the fake band guy. And he tried it, and I think it worked for a little while, and then it very much didn't.

[Josh Dean]

The story seems wild in the 2025 context, but it's not actually that wild. If you're able to transport yourself to the late 1960s music world, obviously a million years before the Internet, but also before there was even a music press. The only way you'd ever know what a musician looked like would be to buy his album and hope it had a picture on it. The average consumer then probably wouldn't even know what a real zombie looked like. So this was not some incredible scam perpetrated on American Rubes. It was at the time quite an easy thing to pull off, even at live shows.

[Daniel Ralston]

People used to go to these things to dance, not just to see music. You would go to dance. So maybe you were a little less concerned with who was playing. As long as it sounded good. There's that aspect of it. And it must be said, the Fake Zombies were the Texas guys were insanely good looking. Their lead guitarist looks like Austin Butler.

[Josh Dean]

That would be Sebastian. Seb Meador, who recruited his pal Mark Ramsey to join him, and two guys named Dusty Hill and Frank Beard, who he'd played with in another Dallas area band, the Gentleman. Daniel says that some of the stories details remain fuzzy. Ramsey, for instance, couldn't remember how Seb, Dusty and Frank met Bill Kehoe, but by the time he was recruited, they were already preparing to go out on tour as Chameleons. First as a folk rock band called Rose garden that had one top 20 hit and, it should be noted, a female lead singer. But that was just practice. The four guys only did a brief tour of the south as Rose Garden before Keough brought them all to Michigan and told them it was time to hit the road as a new, much bigger act. The Zombies. Daniel found and still has a promo photo of the four of them. Seb and Mark signed their real names, Frank and Dusty, though they signed with stage names, so maybe they did know something was up. They're also wearing cowboy hats, which was a choice. Here's what actual Zombies, Hugh Grundy and Chris White told Daniel when he interviewed them for his podcast.

[Daniel Ralston]

I don't think we would have worn that. No, I don't think he would have done. No, that they pulled this off in a way where people were like, I didn't know the Zombies looked like that. I didn't know they sounded like that. But that was good. Or that was like hot shit I just heard. So maybe they didn't mind that much.

[Josh Dean]

Some questions will never be answered. Like Daniel was unable to speak with the perpetrator of this scam, Bill Kehoe. He died long before Daniel went looking for him. Medor was also dead. Daniel did manage to find and speak with Ramsey, but he's since died of cancer.

[Daniel Ralston]

The only people left are Frank Beard from ZZ Top and one of the roadies who went out on with the Fake Zombies.

[Josh Dean]

This roadie, Tom Hocott, Daniel spoke with extensively. He's a key source in the story and in the podcast.

[Daniel Ralston]

And then I found the opening act for the Texas Zombies. The guys who went on the road with them.

[Josh Dean]

Those dudes were able to supply some color. It sounds like a fun gig.

[Daniel Ralston]

They were, like riding around in limousines and getting paid 500 a night in 1969. Like, pretty good work. And so the opening band was a real band that Delta Promotions was trying to promote, one of their actual bands, and they sent them on the road as the opening act for the Fake Zombies.

[Josh Dean]

Not the worst plan, I have to say. Put your real band, the up and comers, on the bill with the Fake band people are willing to pay to see. These were young dudes having the times of their lives. They weren't sitting around wondering whether or not what they were doing was legit. That's what Hocott told him.

[Daniel Ralston]

He's the one who first told me, like, look, These managers were 10 years older than us. We were kids and they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Zombie songs, we got them. This is all above board. Like, you don't have to worry about it. And to hear that perspective from somebody who was working with them and would have known even better than the bands, he was being told that, too. So this guy, Tom Hocott had his cousin fly up from Indiana to go be the guitarist in the first version of the Fake Zombies. Like he was bringing a family member into this. He didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

[Josh Dean]

So the Fake Zombies were off and running. But not for long. More after the break.

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[Josh Dean]

Welcome back to Chameleon. Daniel isn't sure when the Fake Zombies played their first gig, but it could have been a show in Saginaw on June 22, 1969, when the four Texans played on the same bill as another of Bill Kehoe's acts, Dick Rabbit, as well as the area's biggest band, Question Mark and the Mysterians, who'd had a number one single, 96 tears the local paper, the Saginaw News, was there that night and didn't have great things to say about the Zombies. The writer described the band as, quote, especially disappointing and said that, quote, the crowd began to leave during their fourth tune. Things improved as the band went out on tour, even crossing into Canada and appearing on TV.

[Daniel Ralston]

We know they toured at least 30 cities and we know they played to 10,000 people at one point as part of a festival at the University of Utah. A lot of people saw them. They might not know they saw them, but a lot of people did see the Fake Zombies when they toured.

[Josh Dean]

So glory to some extent, but not riches.

[Daniel Ralston]

They were young dudes in a van. They were taking drugs, they were trying to get laid. They were having a good time, but I don't think the money was their biggest concern at that point. They were living pretty hard. For sure, they were living pretty hard.

[Josh Dean]

And Bill Kehoe, the mastermind, he probably didn't make a fortune either, because old Bill pushed it a bit. He started another fake band, this time a version of the Archies, which was already sort of a fake band, considering they were from a cartoon.

[Daniel Ralston]

Once the Fake Zombies manager started a fake version of the band, the Archies, the cartoon band, suddenly there was intellectual property and a lawyer, and the entire business was immediately shut down.

[Josh Dean]

As in not just the Archies and a second version of the Fake Zombies, featuring four different guys, all of it. Delta Promotions itself was finished.

[Daniel Ralston]

As part of his settlement with Don Kirschner, the guy who owned the Archies, he had to publicly resign from the music business in an article in his local paper. So there's an article that says, music promoter quits Music Business. Blasts rock bands, DJs and mafia and then just as kind of a button on the story, one of the bands that Bill Kehoe managed at Delta Promotions was called Terry Knight in the Pack. And they would go on to become a Grand Funk railroad. They are also from Bay City area. And when Grand Funk made it big in 1973 with the number one song.

[Josh Dean]

We Are An American Band.

[Daniel Ralston]

Bill Kehoe claimed that he still had their management contract and he sued the band for $56 million in 1973. He did not win. So that's how he actually officially exited the music business. Was trying to latch on to Grand Funk because he managed their earlier band for a little while.

[Josh Dean]

So what did Bill Kehoe do with the rest of his life?

[Daniel Ralston]

He became an inventor. He founded Bay City St. Patrick's Day Parade. He was a local businessman. He was just a normal guy. This was his foray into music management.

[Josh Dean]

The biggest question I had when I first heard the story of the fake zombies was, did the real Zombies really have no idea this was going on?

[Daniel Ralston]

The band did catch wind of it eventually in kind of a funny way, which is Colin and the bass player, Chris White called their US Label Date Records in New York City. And New York City managed to get Delta Promotions on the phone at the same time with the two guys from the Zombies.

[Josh Dean]

The two guys who didn't go on to Forum. ZZ Top, I should say. Plus Bill Kehoe, who had some real Cracker Jack answers prepared for these questions.

[Daniel Ralston]

Bill Kehoe from Delta Promotions said, oh, yes, we started up the Zombies in a tribute to Colin Blundstone, the singer of the Zombies, who tragically died in a car crash. And Colin was on the other end of the phone when this happened.

[Josh Dean]

The lesson there, do your research, kids.

[Daniel Ralston]

I think the more indelible part of it is that Colin had had, at this point, two hit singles in the mid-60s. Everybody in England who knew who the Zombies were, they'd played on all the big TV shows in America. They played on the big shows in England. And when this whole fake zombies thing is happening, Colin is working in an insurance office, answering the phones. He has no idea how to do anything in the insurance company. He's basically just, like, making it up. And people in the office are saying to him, like, aren't you the singer of the Zombies? Why are you our telephone boy in this office? Meanwhile, the fake zombies were out making $500 a night, each in America at the same time, playing Time of the Season. So it's not so much when or like how the information was delivered. I think it's the circumstances that Colin was in just to find this out and to know that there's somebody else out there literally living your dream.

[Josh Dean]

Shortly after that bizarre call, a writer named Ben Fong Torres at Rolling Stone wrote a story about the fake zombies. Things were unraveling with Keough, and once.

[Daniel Ralston]

The Rolling Stones story came out and the fake Archies got busted, the fake zombies went away. And that's kind of the end of the story.

[Josh Dean]

Sort of. What Daniel means is that this story has one final satisfying twist. The very much alive Colin Blundstone quit that insurance job, picked his guitar back up, and resumed his rightful place as the real lead singer of the actual zombies. Those zombies finally did capitalize on the massive success of Time of the Season, and Forgive Me rose from the dead. Their music and fortune wasn't stolen. It was Only hijacked briefly and they.

[Daniel Ralston]

Didn'T become the Beatles or the Stones. They're, you know, your favorite band's favorite band or they're your record collector friend's favorite band or whatever. And they've slowly been rediscovered. And obviously Time of the Season is. That's like a ubiquitous song at this point. If you need to show that it's 1969 in a movie, you just play Time of the Season.

[Josh Dean]

There's no bitterness. Daniel met both Rod, the keyboardist, and Colin. He spoke to Hugh and Chris too.

[Daniel Ralston]

Colin's the nicest man on the planet and his personality is sweeter than his voice. He's the sweetest person I've ever met. He's so generous with his time. You know, it was really special for me. And we talked a little bit about the financial aspects of creative struggle at the beginning of this. But to hear a guy who's like pushing 80 in the rock and Roll hall of Fame have somebody in that position say, you know what? I make art and money has never come very easy to me. You know that. They still tour until recently. The Zombies still tour like they're a band of 20 year olds. Like they play 100 shows a year. They're 80.

[Josh Dean]

They're also just very good dudes. Pardon blokes.

[Daniel Ralston]

They licensed us their music for the podcast. We're kind of, you know, we're not kind of friends. We're friends. The Zombies have been part of my life and I've incredibly gotten to be a tiny little piece of their lives too with this story because the story has taken on a life of its own for me and them.

[Josh Dean]

Daniel's podcast has been optioned a major screenwriter, someone you'd probably know is working on a script now that will hopefully become a movie. Stay tuned. In 2019, the zombies were inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. And real efforts were made for Dusty Hill and Frank Beard of ZZ Top to induct them.

[Daniel Ralston]

And it almost happened. It ended up being Susannah Hopps. But they were going to try to get Dusty and Frank to do it, but it never happened.

[Josh Dean]

It wasn't because of bad blood.

[Daniel Ralston]

There is nothing but love from the Zombies end. Like everybody has their own reason for doing things and being involved. And at this point, for the Zombies to have any resentment about it would be such a bad look. You know, the story's like Almost Famous meets Catch me if you can. And then they're the subject. It's hard not to be like, wow, this is fucking crazy. I can't believe somebody cared about us that much.

[Josh Dean]

Daniel did of course try hard to reach Frank and Dusty. And Dusty did, after a long wait, reply briefly.

[Daniel Ralston]

He emailed me and he said this was, it was the 60s man. That was basically his response. And Frank, he doesn't talk. He's been sober for 40 years. He's been a Buddhist for 40 years. He basically doesn't do interviews unless it's with like a drum magazine. And his manager said he hasn't returned an email from him in 12 years.

[Josh Dean]

Without comment from Frank or Dusty. You can only try and interpret the.

[Daniel Ralston]

Few clues that exist in the ZZ Top documentary. They show a picture of the Fake Zombies, but they call it another band name in the picture. So like they knew what they were doing. They've always known it is what it is to them. I don't think anybody's looking to recoup any money from ZZ Top. The Zombies are doing fine at this point. Everything's good and I think their non participation actually works better. Like for me it's always been a great mystery like why do I want to get under the sunglasses?

[Josh Dean]

Because when you think about it, the ZZ Top guys are kind of chameleons too. Those are real men playing real songs. But haven't they always sort of felt like characters?

[Daniel Ralston]

The ZZ Top guys are not trying to be found out. Like they don't want to be found out. They wear disguises.

[Josh Dean]

There's one other major outcome from Daniel's work, something he's quite touched by.

[Daniel Ralston]

The long tale of the story is that one of the non famous members of the Texas Zombies, Mark Ramsey, who's kind of the central figure of the original article and one of the episodes of the podcast, he was 19 when he went on the tour. He became a teacher, went through a few rough years, had some drug issues.

[Josh Dean]

He's since passed away from cancer. But it turns out Mark wrote something about this experience a long time ago on a short lived blog that no one noticed. This was back in 2008 and the headline is I was a Teenage Fake Zombie. It helps explain how Mark and presumably the others saw it. The story Bill Kehoe sold them. Here's a passage of his post. If apologies are required, then let me offer them here at the beginning, the business arrangements for the band were not part of my job description. I was just out of high school and the chance to play music and get paid for it was exactly what I wanted to do at the time. When I found out that we were going to tour as the Zombies From England. I lifted an eyebrow. But I remember someone telling me the manager had the legal rights to form a band to tour off the Zombies great hit songs. As the original band had broken up. I never gave too much thought to the legal issues. But let me offer the original Zombies my first apology. Your songs were beautiful. And at the time I didn't know that several fake Zombies bands had been formed. Next, I offer an apology to anyone who paid money to come see us play, thinking that we were the great band from England.

[Daniel Ralston]

And after he died, I got a call from a guy who found out that Mark Ramsay was his father. He didn't find out until after Mark died. The only thing he knew about Mark was the fake Zombies. The only thing he knew about his dad. But through the story he was able to connect with Frank and Dusty Hill before Dusty died. So Mark's son has hung out with Frank and Dusty and talked about the fake Zombies. Mark Ramsey's one year old grandson has hung out with ZZ Top. I haven't, but I think that's a better, more fitting end to the story that this guy who was actually related to one of the fake zombies now gets to be part of the ZZ Top family. That's pretty cool. I wasn't a huge ZZ Top fan before I started this project. I love them now. But there is this idea that they have this image that we just. We just rolled off the dust bowl from Texas. But it's like actually you faked a British accent for a year. Not part of the story, but a pretty fucking cool part of the story, if you ever wanted to tell, is.

[Josh Dean]

Honestly a very cool piece of lore. It adds to ZZ Top's legend, in my opinion anyway, that two of the four guys did this wild thing first. They pretended to be stars, even did British accents before they actually became stars on their own merits. Daniel says that one big difference between 2016, when the article first appeared and today is that lots of people seem to feel this way now. The legend of ZZ Top is only stronger because of it.

[Daniel Ralston]

In 2016, for some reason, the band still viewed this like they had broken the law. We have to be very careful about what we say about now. I think it would have been approached for more of like a. I don't know, appreciated the fake aspect of it. One of the things I talked to about the writer who wants to write this fake Zombies movie that we talk about all the time, all the time is like the concept of fake it till you make it pretending to be something else until you are what you want to be. Everybody does it. But it's like a magic trick. If you tip your hand too much, people see through it. Or if your influences show too much, people see through it. And the reason the Fake Zombies didn't get caught for 55 years is because I think they did the magic trick pretty well. And then ZZ Top disappeared into beards and sunglasses and became a whole different thing and never had to answer questions because they only do the press they want to do do, and they create the image and they faked it until they made it. I think it's interesting, though, that the two guys who are the Fake Zombies, they're not the lead singer or the lead guitarist in ZZ Top. They're the rhythm section. Like they found their place. And maybe it wasn't out in front. Dusty was the singer of the Fake Zombies. You know, everybody finds their roles. Find out that maybe going out and doing some outrageous thing isn't the best thing. Maybe we should stay home and be a Texas blues band and develop our following here in Texas. And that's what they did until they were ready to go nationwide on mtv.

[Josh Dean]

Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audio Chuck. It's written and hosted by me, Josh Dean and produced by Joe Barrett. Our associate producer is Emma Siminoff. Sound design and mix by Blake Rook and Tiffany Dimmack. Theme music by Ewin Laitrimuin and Mark McAdam. Our production manager is Ashley Warren. Campside's executive producers are Vanessa Gregoriadis, Matt Scher and me, Josh Dean. And finally, if I can ask a few favors before sending you on your way today, please rate, follow and review Chameleon on your favorite podcast platforms to help spread the word. I know everyone says this, but it's true. Ratings and reviews really do help, and if you have any feedback, tips or story ideas, you can email [e-mail] or leave us a message at a special number we've set up. 201-743-8368, dial +1 from outside North America. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.

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