have to go to Seattle.’ I said, ‘This is my steady income.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about it, that’ll all get worked out later.’ That night I left, and I can still remember people saying to me, ‘What about your pension?’ [I thought,] ‘I’m 21 years old, what about my pension!’ We got up to Seattle to play a gig, we were driving in the car and the song actually came on the radio, it sounded 10 times better on the radio than it did on my record player.”
ONTHEROAD
Following the unexpected success of ‘I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)’, The Electric Prunes found themselves catapulted into the upper echelons of the teen touring circuit. Having never been put through the rigmarole of club work, the boys hit the road for the first time, sharing the stage with acts such as The Beach Boys and The Turtles. However, it was not all success and glamour. Manager Lenny Poncher would foolishly insist that they wear purplish “Prune Suits”, appearing on such TV shows as Where The Action Is, The Mike Douglas Show and American Bandstand. With new demands and shifting sands, the structure and confidence of the band was beginning to fold inward. Their initial enthusiasm gave way to scepticism and isolation, as the pressures of a brutal touring schedule began to take their toll.
Preston: “It was very exciting because it was the first time we were out playing for people, because we didn’t play in clubs. There were no small gigs or private parties, that was the first time we did something besides rehearse.”
Mark: “People started screaming. We did interviews and everything. These are five guys who had just been in the garage, like three days before.”
Preston: “It was weird to finally be in the position to have all the screaming girls, and they’re tearing at you, pulling your clothes and hair. It was [so] shocking to me that in a couple of weeks I grew to hate that. It wasn’t fun at all. We were travelling by two station wagons, crammed in was the entire band, a road manager and a roadie… and all our equipment!”
Mark: “My dad rented one car and Weasel’s dad rented another car. We were pretty much on our own, we were driving so much and there was never any support from the people that you count on. At one point they wouldn’t take collect calls from us.”
Preston: “We lost one of the station wagons because it rolled over into the snow – we weren’t hurt – but we were on
our way to Cleveland. When we finally got to Cleveland, a rumour had gone out nationwide that the Prunes were in an auto accident and some of us were killed. So the parents of the band heard that on the radio, and some of them flew [there] to meet us, thinking that half of us were dead.”
James: “We certainly did it the hard way, the management made sure of that. They gave us these little suits to wear: purple pants and a purple shirt and a white vest. We wouldn’t wear it onstage; we’d wear what we wanted to wear. The road manager would call the manager and say, ‘They didn’t wear the ‘Prune Suits’ again tonight!’ We would go on TV with those clothes on, but I don’t think we ever played live with them on.”
Mark: “We got so many complaints from our manager that we went and burned them. We couldn’t be forced to wear them anymore.”
“The management gave us these little suits to wear: purple pants and a purple shirt. Wewouldn’t wear it onstage; we’d wearwhat we wanted to wear.”
James: “It’s real hard being on the road with guys. It’s like a marriage: you’re with these guys everyday.”
Preston: “It’s like a family on a motor home vacation. Little things turn into big things, to the point where you’re ready to kill each other: ‘Stop touching me! Don’t look at me! You’re on my side!’ Like little kids in the backseat on a long trip.”
Mark: “At that time I felt isolated in the band. When you’re on the road with five guys you have nothing in common with besides playing music. The only good times were the times onstage; the rest of it was really rough on me. We were a very serious band. We didn’t go out and party that much. Because we were travelling so much, there wasn’t much time to think about it. I know we were playing a lot of shows with a lot of people. I still felt like some kid living in the Valley, not some rock star.”
Preston: “I regret not socialising more
with the other bands. We were isolated to some degree. We did become friendly with Buffalo Springfield, and we became quite good friends with The Left Banke. We did hang out a lot with them.”
James: “After the show we would go back to the hotel room and break down what went wrong and what went right. You know, everyone else was out partying. So we probably seemed a little more focused on trying to do something that other guys were leaving to the wind.”
Mark: “The idea from the start was to be serious, not to be jovial. We would discuss dress, as to what we’d wear after the dreaded ‘Prune Suits’. We talked about presentation, about not smiling. Don’t have such a good time. We tried to be serious, a little distant, because it was much more serious music. We wanted to come off as a different band, who would do weird and different things. We didn’t want to fit in to that happy Beatle smile thing, and so that just went out as not talking to anybody.”
FIRSTALBUM
As the band entered the studio to record their debut album, the Prunes’ lack of band unity and control over their output would come to haunt them. Discouraged by their producer and manager from contributing songs to their first LP, The Electric Prunes found themselves (not for the last time) at the creative mercy of the forces that brought them into the limelight. The bulk of compositions would come from songwriters Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz, while their producer Dave Hassinger forced the band
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