‘It was not a boyband!’ Micky Dolenz on the madness of being in the Monkees

He was in one of the biggest groups in the world – all without playing a note. As the last surviving Monkee turns 80, he remembers 60s fame – and what happened when the band broke free

In 1965, Micky Dolenz was an architecture student and jobbing actor in Los Angeles, doing the rounds of auditions for TV pilots. As a 10-year-old he had played the lead in a TV series called Circus Boy, but the former child star began to notice something odd about the jobs his agent was now sending him to: every one was for a series “about kids in a band”. He says: “One was called The Happeners, about a little folk trio like Peter, Paul and Mary. One was about a surfing band like the Beach Boys. Another was about a big family folk ensemble. Something was in the air, obviously, because of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Four Seasons, Motown. Young people, who had disposable income, were being targeted.”

None of those shows got made but a fourth audition proved more fruitful: it called for “folk’n’roll musician/singers … four insane boys” who looked as if they might hang around a hip Sunset Strip coffee shop called Ben Frank’s. Dolenz got a leading role, happily acquiescing to learn to play drums. “It was kind of the same as when I was in Circus Boy and they told me I had to learn to ride an elephant – ‘Great! When do I start?’”