Micky Dolenz has no plans to retire. The 76-year-old drummer is set to reunite with his The Monkees bandmate Mike Nesmith for the band’s farewell tour in September.
However, Dolenz has insisted that while it’s the “last hurrah” for him and the guitarist and keyboardist, he’s not going anywhere just yet.
He told Closer Weekly: “I tried it once, and I got bored, so it’s not in my plans right now,”
Although it is the end of the road for the chart-topping rock band – which was also made up of the late David Jones and Pete Tork – with the musician replying that “the short answer is yes” when quizzed on if the shows will be the last time to catch them live.
He continued: “I think this is the last time Mike and I will get together as The Monkees.
“We questioned whether we should have even called it The Monkees. It’s a different show because the other two main guys, David [Jones] and Peter [Tork] aren’t with us anymore. So, yes, I think this is probably the last hurrah.”
The group became a huge stars as The Monkees, which was initially created for a self-titled NBC show.
Although the programme was originally meant to be about an imaginary band, viewers fell in love with them and they went on to have a number of huge hits.
‘I’m A Believer’, ‘Last Train to Clarksville’ and ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’ were all big tunes for the group, while they also branched out into comic books.
The band’s final tour comes three years after Mike underwent quadruple bypass heart surgery.
The 78-year-old musician was taken to a medical facility after suffering from congestive heart failure.
He was forced to postpone the remaining four dates of ‘The Monkees Present: The Mike & Micky Show Tour’ due to his surgery and admitted he was only a few dates into the tour when he first started feeling unwell.
He said at the time “I was getting weaker and weaker and I couldn’t get my breath,” he says. “When we got to Lake Tahoe and then the high altitude of Denver, I couldn’t get out of bed and I couldn’t breathe. It was just the business of wanting to take a big, deep breath and not being able to do it.”
Although he tried to keep going, keeping an oxygen tank to the side of the stage and using it whenever his singing partner was taking lead vocals, he admitted that things soon got worse and he knew he would have to rest.
He said: “I didn’t collapse to the ground or anything like that. But I couldn’t breathe, so I sat down until I got my breath and then I knew the breath wasn’t gettable. That marked the end. People knew I couldn’t keep on like this. It was a road to hell.”
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