“I didn’t have to learn every rhythm and tempo to be at the standard of a studio musician. I learnt what I had to learn and I think I did pretty well": The Monkees' drummer Micky Dolenz says he had the musical chops that his role required

Micky Dolenz - the last surviving Monkee - has been taking about the show and its legacy.

In an interview with the Radio Times, Dolenz compares the '60s show to a similar one from the 21st Century: "The auditions were extensive, We had to sing, play, do a little comedy and show we could act. I was a guitarist and for the audition I played Johnny B Goode by Chuck Berry. The Monkees did what Glee did - only 30 years earlier!"

The Monkees were arguably the first ‘manufactured’ band, the Prefab Four as they were sneeringly-known to some at the time. Of the four, only Mike Nesmith was an accomplished musician, though as Dolenz points out, he wasn’t a complete novice.

He had been told "You’re going to be the wacky drummer," he recalls. "(But) I could read music, played classical guitar and had been in covers bands. I’d sat behind the drums and played around, so I wasn’t starting from square one.

"But I didn’t have to learn every rhythm and tempo to be at the standard of a studio musician. I learnt what I had to learn and I think I did pretty well.”

Of course, the Monkees later became a ‘proper’ band. From their third album, Headquarters, onwards they played on their own records, and increasingly wrote their own material, of which Dolenz’s own Randy Scouse Git (retitled Alternate Title for single release) is a prime example. As we recently reported, they even helped to introduce the world to the synthesizer.

Later on came the Head movie, which saw them cutting the apron strings completely with teen pop. Though greeted with bafflement at the time, it’s since come to be regarded as a psychedelic cult classic. Watching it, even today, is a deeply strange experience.

Pete Tork and Nesmith left soon afterwards and the Monkees had ground to halt by 1970, leaving nothing but good memories for the kids who grew up watching the TV show.

In the UK that generation extended far beyond just baby boomers - the show was repeated by the BBC throughout the 1970s, right up to 1984.

There were various reunions down the years. Davy Jones died in 2012, followed by Peter Tork in 2019 and Mike Nesmith two years later. Now Dolenz is the last Monkee standing.

Any Dolenz’s favourite Monkees songs? “We did such a variety of material,” he considers. “I was more of a hardcore rock ’n’ roller, Mike was country rock, Peter was folk and David was Broadway… Of the ballads I sang, the one I liked best was Sometime in the Morning by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, and of course, in pop, I’m a Believer by Neil Diamond."