Hear the Zombies Tackle Mortality on Bluesy ‘Moving On’
The Zombies return October 9th with the release of their new LP Still Got That Hunger, and on Wednesday, singer Colin Blunstone, keyboardist Rod Argent and company have shared the album’s opening track “Moving On.” The bluesy, piano-driven rocker premiered at Wall Street Journal, who write that the song’s opening lyrics – “I’m moving on / Like a ship sailing windblown” – were penned by Argent in August 1977 following the death of Elvis Presley.
“I love the way it’s turned out all these years later,” Argent said of the track. “It’s no longer about Elvis, and the month in the song is now April [instead of August], but that was its genesis.” The song’s moody, foreboding lyric finds the band named after the undead wrestling with mortality – “What doesn’t kill me will fill me with life,” Blunstone sings on the chorus – but the dark subject matter is brightened by a vibrant piano interlude and guitar solo.
Still Got That Hunger features Argent and Blunstone alongside guitarist Tom Toomey and father-son rhythm section Jim and Steve Rodford. “We never thought, ‘Okay, what’s a hit at the moment? Let’s do our version of that,'” Argent told Rolling Stone. “Never. And we’ve always been an organic band in the sense that we rehearse, we get into the studio and we are ready to go. And that’s how we did the new one. A similar approach, really, to the one from way back in 1967 [with Odessey & Oracle].”
In addition to their new album, Argent and Blunstone will reunite with bassist Chris White and drummer Hugh Grundy this autumn when the classic Zombies lineup reform to perform Odessey & Oracle live for the first time. The band initially broke up in December 1967, four months before their 1968 masterpiece — Number 100 on Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time — was released. That tour, which kicks off September 30th in Dallas, Texas, will also feature the current Zombies lineup showcasing Still Got That Hunger tracks onstage.