Getting Davy Jones-Part 5 (From Television Collector Magazine, Fall 1997)

Davy continues to open up about the difficult rollercoaster ride of a pop culture icon. He even discusses getting arrested for drunk driving.

Despite the successful Dolenz, Jones, Boyce and Hart 1976 tour, the mid to late 70's was not always an easy time for Davy, the fallen teen idol.

During the latter part of his Monkee career, Davy wrote a song called You and I, which seemed so prophetic of what was to follow in his own life. You and I appears to be about the rise and fall of a teen idol. ("In a year of two, there'll be someone new to take our place. Another song, another voice, another pretty face.")


One day it's Davy's face on the cover of Tiger Beat, then it's David Cassidy's, and after, it's on to the next heart-throb flavor of the month. "You and I was the insecurity of knowing what was going to happen. I heard horror stories of singers from the 60's going into bars and singing for a beer. There was a period in my life when I was divorced and I went out on the road with Micky, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. We did very well and sold out wherever we went. It was great.


"Then in the late 1970's, Micky and I went to England to do the Point, a Harry Nilsson show. After that, I started to date girl. I was 35. she was 45. She had a couple of kids. It was getting much into the same thing as being married. I saw the same thing happening. So I moved to the country. I started to write. I was probably doing a bottle of scotch a day. I was going to the pub and sitting in my little fifteenth century cottage alone, writing, riding across the forest every day, enjoying my sort of freedom.


"I wrote a song called Fallen Hero, which was much the same as You and I. I'm sitting there at six in the morning and the sun is coming up and there's only like another shot in the bottle. The last verse says, "The cattle awoke in the meadow. I behold the dewy dawn. I've rediscovered the many truths and pleasures I once knew with me were born. The light that once lit up my life has turned its back on me. My soul is like a garden. At long last, I am free.


"And so it was a very interesting period in my life." Davy says it wasn't until about 1985, by which time he had re-married and his third daughter, Jessica, was a toddler, that he snapped out of his so-called "self-persecution."


"I was offered a part as Jesus in Godspell. I toured with that for a year and ended up at the West End of London. Then the review came out and made me cry. The London Times said that Davy Jones molded this unruly cast and was a perfect example of the way (Jesus) should have been portrayed. When you get a 'yes' in a world of 'no',' it's great. The Monkees was the opposite. We always had "yeses.'



"We had one 'no' when they said the Monkees can't play and can't sing. It was such a load of bullshit. It was just that we didn't because we were hired to do a TV show about a group. It was different than the Partridge Family. It was not sort of like a bunch of kids halfway strumming and playing. Mike Nesmith's a good musician. He proved that by writing good stuff.

Unlike the Partridge Family, the Monkees were the real deal--writing, singing and playing their own instruments.

"Peter Tork can play any instrument. Micky Dolenz plays the drums and guitar. So can I. We became a group and went out and did 200 concerts with just the four of us playing. And, we're still together 30 years later. We haven't been on TV, but we have been touring and working together on a new album."

 Prince Charming and fallen hero aside, Micky Dolenz points out in his autobiography, I'm a Believer, that Davy is not immune to throwing a few profanity-ridden tirades and being extremely difficult to work with, especially during the 20th anniversary tour in 1986.


The two also had a major falling out during the London production of the Point and did not speak for several years following the incident. In They Made a Monkee Out of Me, Davy describes a few incidents that occurred after consuming too much alcohol. He seemingly light-heartedly sums up those drunken episodes by noting, "That is when I started drinking..."

"I would no sooner now get in a car and drive after having one beer than jump off the moon," Davy says today. "I did it. I got called in about two years ago. I was shopping Christmas time for my kids. We were going back to England the next day. I stopped at the local restaurant that I eat at every day. I had the same bucket of clams, the same onion soup, and the same two large glasses of beer.

"On the way home, I got stopped and arrested for drunk driving. At the time, my adrenaline was flowing. I was high on going home. I wasn't weaving all over the place and the Breathalyzer didn't say I was drunk. It was the officer's opinion. Had it been anyone else but davy Jones, it wouldn't have happened.

"That's why I must watch what I do because I'm a target in many ways. But (overall) I am a very privileged person." Incidentally, Davy says he now limits his alcohol intake to an occasional glass of wine with dinner.