“When I was young. I had these three silly ambitions. I said I wanted to ride a camel, walk a tightrope and make a million dollars. Well I did all three of them,” laughs Davy Jones thinking about his past days as a Monkee. Today when he looks back as being the “cute Monkee” the 41 year old performer can almost think that he was another Davy Jones who made hit records and had been the object of affection of millions of teenage girls around the world. “I was so busy then doing what I was told to do,” he says in that ever familiar Manchester accent. “I worked five days a week filming the TV show, and doing concerts on the weekends.”
Following the Monkees break-up, the former jockey moved back to England where he performed concerts and worked the live theater circuit. Though Davy said he was “happy as a Monkee” in the ’60s, there were probably times when he wished he had been somebody else. However, today with a new revised success, Davy has a difference of opinion. Working as an entertainer there are many more years to come for Davy. He advises, “Grasp what you can has always been my motto. Now I know I can go on for another 200 years, or if I wanted to, I could work as a jockey.”
He’d also like to inform some Monkees fans that over the years his friendship with his fellow bandmates has changed too. “We have all gotten closer. We’re 20 years older now and have been through a lot. It’s like we’re all grown up now. We have all found each other, and for the first time we have so much in common. If anything we are more like brothers every day.” Following the Monkees recent successful reunion tour, Davy and Peter flew over to Australia to perform some shows. Micky didn’t go along due to other business obligations in the states. However, when the two returned, Mike Nesmith had wrapped up some of his business affairs so he can seriously consider producing the next Monkees movie.
Did Davy, a former teen heartthrob, think he’d ever be a Monkee again? “People identify us like the Marx Brothers. We work under the name of the Monkees,” he says. “The Monkees have grown up. I think we can go on forever. Our 20th anniversary has proved to critics we are not ‘manufactured’. If we really were manufactured, we wouldn’t have been together for so long now. What we needed was time to grow up and we have grown up. We really have fun together. We work hard and enjoy what we’re doing.”
Davy is looking forward to doing another Monkees concert tour, and working with his bandmates again. He is also aware that the group’s popularity can’t go on indefinitely, or can it? Sums up Jones: “Being a Monkee has been my biggest success so far.”
