The Peter Tork "Sex & Music" Interview

Last week I was working double days of Buddy Guy's "Damn Right Farewell" Tour. As I watched the legendary Blues performer, I suddenly thought "I wish Peter was here. He would have loved this."

In 2001 when The Monkees (sans Mike Nesmith, who had not appeared with them since 1997) were offered proper sums of money and succumbed to fan demand to tour again, I had an opportunity to interview Peter Tork,  the band’s multi-instrumentalist and generally cheery philosopher of the group. This interview was conducted many years before I represented him as his publicist or started The Peter Tork Hope On Project when he was fighting a rare form of cancer.

It was also long before I asked him, and he kindly agreed, to write an advice column called “Ask Peter Tork” for my online magazine, The Daily Panic.  He did a great job and that success prompted other publications, The Washingon Post among them, to ask him to write an op-ed here, an article or blog post there - something he proved very good at. 

However, in 2001 the advice column was six years away. We’d met only a few times previous to my interviewing him. This particular interview has appeared in whole and in part in some magazines in Europe/Asia and in various venues on the internet. Reading it now I have to laugh.

I do count this as one of the more interesting interviews I’ve ever done.

It’s not that often you find performers willing or even able to be as blunt as Peter can be on a regular basis. That can be a double-edged sword but it wasn’t a problem on this day.

Personally, I find a real conversation much more interesting than a carefully canned or rehearsed one.

Who would have thought the celestial Jimi Hendrix would succumb to the excesses of the times, yet the band he once opened for, The Monkees, would still be making the girls (and grandmothers) scream in the 21st century? In this interview from 2001, Peter Tork explains it all for you.

Peter Tork and Davy Jones, 2001. Photo: Therra C Gwyn

I have a memory that many people share. Before MTV and pay-per-view concerts, before Vegas specials and Behind The Music, I was staring at the television for a half-hour one night a week and could not be dragged away for love nor punishment. As a young child ( in my case, I’d been on the planet for almost seven years) I was fully enthralled with what was then the revolutionary freshness of none other than the Monkees.

Yes, those Monkees, as in the ” Hey, hey we are the…” variety. Remember? The 1960s TV show and the catchy hits written by Carole King and Neil Diamond? The mid-1980s MTV darlings doing packed stadium tours?

There’s an undeniable appeal there. Trust me on this if you are a non-believer.

At the very least, give a girl a chance to explain.