Micky Dolenz On Keeping The Monkees Legacy Alive
Micky Dolenz has spoken to Rolling Stone about being the last remaining member of The Monkees and his late bandmate, Mike Nesmith.
Dolenz is about to head out on a 25-date North American tour, during which he’ll be performing The Monkees’ 1967 album Headquarters in full. “I insist on doing it,” he said. “All the band members I hire, I insist on doing those songs in their entirety with the same arrangement. That’s so important because people sing along. I do those big hits. I’ve found over the years that if the bulk of the audience knows I’m doing those big hits, then that’s the price of admission. I can then do kind of anything else I want
“We’ll open with some of the big hits, people love that, and then do Headquarters, and then end with some of the big hits.”
The singer-songwriter went on to discuss his role as the last remaining Monkee, “I’m not necessarily a spiritual person, but I am a philosophic person. It’s sort of a ‘Why me?’ to the universe… It’ll remain unanswered. But I am trying to uphold the legacy. It’s also my job. It is weird being the last man standing.”
Newsmith also spoke about missing his bandmate Nesmith – who died aged 78 in 2021, “I wish Nesmith would have been around long enough to [be on the new tour performing] this album, which he was so responsible for putting together.
“We were all obviously supporting him… It was so apparent he had health issues. He had them for a few years. We were getting more and more worried. He was not forced in any way, obviously. At times, I was like, ‘Nez, are you sure you want to do this? Let’s take some time off’. ‘No! I’m going to get through it’. Looking back, I think he saw the writing on the wall.
“He was a very private person. He didn’t talk about it. Every once in a while he made a joke about it to me, but I was about the only one he’d even talk to about this.”