The interview came from the Sunday Nov 20th edition of the Dallas Morning
News.

A Monkee at heart

Nesmith has fond memories of band

By Al Brumley

Forget what you have heard about Michael Nesmith: He will not get mad if
you ask him about the Monkees.

Despite persistent rumors that he has done everything he can to distance
himself from that bubblegum haze, he actually seems to enjoy reminiscing
about his days with Peter, Micky and Davy.

"It's not a sore spot at all," says Mr. Nesmith.  "People have this odd
notion that I have disowned the Monkees.  I look back on it with great,
fond memories.  I liked the guys, I still like the guys, Micky's my
favorite, and yes, the Monkees were a make-believe band."

Mr. Nesmith's post-Monkees career has been well documented: several
critically acclaimed country-rock albums; pioneering work in video that
led to the creation of MTV; a successful run as a movie producer and
distributor; and dabblings in CD-ROM technology.

But he can't seem to shake his reputation as the "Angree Monkee".

"I have watched as I have done interviews over the years as journalists
tiptoe around the subject," says Mr. Nesmith, 51, his famous Texas drawl a
bit tempered by life in Los Angeles (he was born in Houston and raised in
Dallas).  "I still don't understand where these things start up."

He admits that he was, and has continued to be, critical of some of the
bands endeavors.  "But there's in there that says I don't like it," he
says.  "To be critical of something is to make it better and work at it."

In that light, it shouldn't be surprising that Mr. Nesmith has said he
would be willing to tour with his former bandmates to support the
re-release of all nine Monkees albums by Rhino records.

"They've already asked me if I would do it - if I would hold out August of
'95," he says.  "So I've got a big circle penciled around it.  But it just
depends on how interesting it would be artistically and creatively.  I
like a lot of that music, and so the idea of going out and playing it, I
think, would be a gas."

And even though the Monkees _did_ play their own instruments when they
toured long ago, Mr. Nesmith says he would want a good, solid band on any
upcoming tour so that he and the others could concentrate on the singing.

"It was a chore playing all those songs," he says.  "We went out behind
the television show, and we would stand up there and play 18 or 20 songs
in a row.  Then, each of us did a solo section with a backup band, and
that kind of rehearsal and that kind of focus took a lot of work that we
don't have time to do now.  If we were going out with a really good band,
I'd be on for that."

The deal is far from done, however, and it would take some heavy
scheduling gymnastics for Mr. Nesmith to be able to hit the road.

He is currently working on a film version of Douglas Adams' _Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy_, and he has written the screenplay for another movie,
_Time Rider_, that he hopes to direct.

He's also just released _The Garden_, the sequel to 1974's _The Prison_. 
Both works are books he wrote accompanied by music he wrote.  The idea is
to listen to the music while you read the books.

_The Prison_ was a critical and commercial bomb, and he doesn't expect
_The Garden_ to light up the cash registers, either.

Then again, he doesn't really care.

"I'm clearly not motivated by commercial success, and I'm not motivated by
critical success," he says.  "Opinions, conventions of the times, they
don't enter into the creative process.  By the same token, that doesn't
mean you don't have a hope that those things come to pass.

"I believe that really great art provides insight; it gives you an
extraordinary look at ordinary things.  So when I work, I'm not trying to
preach, teach or proselytize.  These are not, by and large, polemics. 
These are just efforts to express beauty and to hold things up to see in a
way that perhaps people haven't seen before."