The Monkees Offer Advice To Bands Like One Direction, 5 Seconds Of Summer

Hey, hey, the Monkees are back! In fact, they never stopped monkeying around. One-half of the Monkees (Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork) stopped by the Good Morning America set on Tuesday, June 1.

It’s been 20 years since the Monkees released their last album. Last Friday, they dropped their new album in lieu of their 50th anniversary and supporting tour. The band performed live on the television show for the first time since Davy Jones’ death in 2012. In part of their 50th anniversary, Mickey Dolenz, Peter Tork, and Michael Nesmith have released Good Times, which all three worked on with various rock musicians and legendary songwriters.

Ever since they formed in 1967, the Monkees had four No. 1 albums along with a successful TV show that only lasted two seasons. The complete series will be released this month on Blu-ray, as previously reported via ABC News.

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The Monkees even sold more records than the Beatles and the Rolling Stones combined, according to Rolling Stone magazine. Now it looks like they’re topping the charts once again because they are still No. 1 on Amazon, according to Showbiz411.com. Their new album, Good Times, is still at No. 1 on the retail giant’s CD chart just six days after its release. It also sits at No. 22 on the iTunes chart.

In addition, the Monkees sold out at the Town Hall in Manhattan on Tuesday night, which attracted celebrity guests like Gene Cornish of the Rascals and Mike Love of the Beach Boys. The crowd included a mix of older and younger people. Mike Nesmith performed via Skype, which he may do on future dates.

WATCH: @TheMonkees‘ advice to bands like @OneDirection and @5SOS? Get a good lawyer!https://t.co/Pxg6qheUoc

— Good Morning America (@GMA) June 1, 2016

Even though they are still topping the charts, the Monkees have passed the torch to boybands like One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer who also struggle with creative differences. They even had some very good advice for these bands who have already achieved the same level of success.

“Get a good lawyer!” Dolenz and Tork said at the same time.

Tork stated in his previous interview with the Telegraph that the Monkees laid out the footprint for 5 Seconds of Summer, One Direction, Take That, and the other boybands of today who want to break away from pop’s puppet strings and make more serious music.

“I wonder if there is a mystic commonality to it? Maybe it is expressive of the stages of human growth.”

Tork struggled as a solo artist shortly after the Monkees ended. He even took on a job as a school teacher. When asked by the Telegraph what advice he would give today’s bands following in the footsteps of the Monkees, he laughed and said, “Take your cash onstage.”

But neither Tork nor Dolenz want to be known as musicians. They want their fans to refer them as entertainers, and the Monkees simply as a form of entertainment.

“This is not a band,” Tork said with a smile. “It’s an entertainment operation whose function is Monkee music. It took me a while to get to grips with that but what great music it turned out to be! And what a wild and wonderful trip it has taken us on!”

Dolenz shared the same sentiments in his interview with the Sydney Morning Herald. He insisted that everyone should stop thinking of the Monkees as a band and more as a television show. He doesn’t believe that the Monkees are in the same league as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones since they started out on a sound stage rather than as a garage band.

“If you can get your head around that idea everything else becomes much easier to get. Then, you’re talking about the cast of something like Star Trek, when you are tied to people not by choice.”

What are your thoughts on the Monkees? Do you consider them a band or as a source of entertainment? Sound off below in the comments section.

[Photo by Matthew Eisman/Getty Images]